If you like science fiction in general and these three authors specifically, this is a great book! It gives an interesting insight to what these authors were like in their spare time and how they interacted with each other.

In The Mechanics Of Wonder: The Creation Of The Idea Of Science Fiction, Gary Westfahl presents a sustained and documented argument for the importance of magazine editor Hugo Gernsback as being the true creator of what has become known as the science fiction genre. After initial chapters on Gernsback, Westfahl goes on to examine the way in which the Gernsback tradition was adopted and modified by later magazine editors and early critics., including a re-evaluation of the importance of John W. Campbell to the history of science fiction. The Mechanics Of Wonder will prove of immense interest to scholars of science fiction literary history and scifi enthusiasts with an appreciation of how a literary subgenre came to be a commonly accepted category of American literature and popular culture.

John Campbell is without a doubt the most important science fiction editor of the twentieth century. Under his aegis, science fiction was completely recast from space opera into serious philosophical and scientific extrapolation; his stable of writers, led by Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, created the Golden Age of Science Fiction. This collection of letters shows the man at his most private, his most cantankerous, and his most intellectually stimulating. Anybody interested in science fiction will enjoy these letters. I have but two complaints. One, the collection would have been served even better had the letters TO Campbell been included as well, since quite often he is responding to specific questions and arguments. That's a minor complaint, given that the length of the book would have been exorbitant had they done so (although the editors seem to have believed this would be just the first volume in a series, making length less of an issue). A larger complaint is the scarcity of letters in the thirties and forties, when Campbell's influence was at its height. By the time the editors start putting in large collections of letters, Campbell's influence was secondary at best, as most of his original stable had moved on to novels and other editors, and his own interests expanded into little short of crusades: dianetics, psionics, anti-gravity, to name a few, as he began challenging the framework of accepted science and philosophy. Some of those interests remain fascinating, especially his examination of how we think and feel, but others have been cast onto the ashpile of ideas, such as the belief in psionics as the inevitable next stage in human development. With those two caveats in mind, these letters need to be read, and the editors need to put together their long-promised second volume, with a renewed emphasis on the thirties and forties.

againandagainandagain. it gets almost interesting. lovecraft's scientific story ending up with nothing much of a climax, Poe drowning in nautical technical information and fragmentary style. taine's is the most interesting one. first too little happens, then too much. could have been good, but is first too boring then too much in the overwhelming action-genre. glasby has good descriptions, but his story doesn't go anywhere. some of the other stories could have been good too. but always, something destroys. too boring, not going anywhere, lacks suspence. truly sad since many of the stories shows potential.

An excellent collection of short to medium length stories, all dealing with Antarctic expeditions and what the adventurers found (but wish they hadn't).

I only gave this book three stars because of the horrible proof-reading. It appeared as if the original documents had been scanned in and run through OCR software without a human bothering to check the results. Some examples: in one story, Tekeli-li is printed T>k>li-li; in one story all instances of "he" are printed as "be".

Other than that, I would recommend this collection to anyone interested in weird fiction set in Antarctica.

From the ends of the Earth come stories of adventure and really BAD things. Start off with a sonnet by Lovecraft himself, called, 'Antarktos', then on to the first course with 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket' by Edgar Allan Poe, with a follw-up of excerpts by Jules Vern's called 'The Sphinx of the Ice Fields'. This is followed by the not-so-well-known 'The Greatest Adventure' by John Taine. 'At The Mountains of Maddness' by H.P. Lovecraft is served next, the main course, followed by 'The Tomb of the Old Ones' by Colin Wilson. Arthur C. Clarke cooks up a fine story in 'At the Mountains of Murkiness' and what meal would be complete without 'The Thing From Another World' by John W. Campbell Jr.? We finish off our fine dining with 'The Brooding City' by John S. Glasby and 'The Dreaming City' by Roger Johnson. Full yet?