title: Science Fiction: 101: Exploring the Craft of Science Fiction
author: Robert K. Silverberg
description: An excellent introduction to the most important roots of modern SF.<i>The Washington Post</i><br /><br />Its like sitting down with a good friend whose informal conversation sparkles, whose wisdom pierces you, whose intelligence makes you smarter just by listening.Orson Scott Card<br /><br />The stories alone are worth the price of admission, examples of the best that science fiction can be. But the whipped cream on top is Silverbergs essay on the craft of each story.<i>Wilmington Morning News</i><br />
zlib_text: Robert Silverberg
  STARS
  EIGHT STORIES OF SCIENCE FICTION
  James Blish
  Damon Knight 
  Robert Silverberg 
  James H. Schmitz 
  Arthur C. Clarke
  Phyllis Gotlieb 
  Roger Zelazny 
  Poul Anderson
  EDITED BY
  
  TO THE 
  STARS 
  EIGHT STORIES OF SCIENCE FICTION
  EDITED BY
  Robert Silverberg
  Science-fiction writers are becoming 
  used to being asked the same foolish 
  question again and again after each 
  achievement in space: What is there 
  left to write about now that science 
  fiction has become fact?
  Editor Robert Silverberg pro­
  vides the obvious answer in his Intro­
  duction: “Naturally, the story of the 
  launching of the first space satellite is 
  no longer one that a science-fiction 
  writer can tackle, nor can he sit down 
  any more to invent a tale of the first 
  manned flight to Luna. Those options 
  are gone (though I can think of a couple 
  of offbeat ways of handling even such 
  'obsolete’ themes as those). The rest of 
  the universe, though, remains as open 
  to the imagination of the science-fiction 
  speci