“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
--Arthur C. Clarke, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination”, Profiles of the Future (revised 1973)

“Ninety percent of science fiction is crud. But then ninety percent of everything is crud, and it's the ten percent that isn't crud that is important. and the ten percent of science fiction that isn't crud is as good as or better than anything being written anywhere.”
--Theodore Sturgeon, as quoted by James Gunn in “The New York Review of Science Fiction” #85, September 1995

For the purposes of this website, we have grouped our Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror collections under a single catalogue of “Science Fiction and The Fantastic”. There are several reasons for this: genre boundaries tend to be very fluid; few writers confine themselves exclusively to a single genre, and the readerships for these genres are often mixed. We are aware of the controversies that can arise around generic labelling and have decided to ignore them. Why?

Because we love all three of these genres ourselves; including all attendant sub-genres and most all of the red-headed stepchildren of literature.

Genre labels like “Science Fiction” have, unfortunately, become literary ghettos for their adherents. There are many readers who would dismiss a “genre” work entirely. In fact, this is often happens regardless of the genre in question—Western, Romance, Young Adult, etcetera.

At Cornellbooksellers.com, the literature of “The Fantastic” holds a place of pride in our collections. The conventions of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror can provide a platform of willing suspension of disbelief from which an author can explore some of the most challenging issues facing humankind. Works of The Fantastic, routinely delve into the darkest corners of the human psyche, as well as into the darkest corners of the cosmos.

From Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking Frankenstein, through the lost worlds of the Victorians, the hard science of the 1940s and 1950s, the “New Wave” of the 1960s and 1970s, the dark dystopias and cyberpunks of the 1980s and 1990s, through to the revisionist space operas of the turn of the 21st Century; Science Fiction has sought to both reconcile and critique humankinds’ relationship with technology.

While, at the same time, Fantasy literature, which owes its origins to the mythmaking of prehistory and can trace a lineage that includes Gilgamesh, the Norse Eddas, Beowulf, King Arthur, William Morris, Lord Dunsany, C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. le Guin, Neil Gaiman andBrowse our Science Fiction and The Fantastic Catalogue. even J. K. Rowling; has tried to bridge the gap between humankind and the natural world and reconcile our relationship to the mystic.

Horror weaves its way through all of these works and is the dark side of these explorations. E. A. Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Stephen King—all horror writers—usually start with either elements of science or fantasy and then begin spelunking into the depths of our souls.

Science Fiction and The Fantastic is a catalogue of all the best and worst in humanity, as revealed through our collective imagination.

We hope you enjoy exploring our Science Fiction and The Fantastic collections at Cornellbooksellers.com. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or are trying to acquire a particular item in the areas of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.