| Science-Fiction Handbook | |
|---|---|
Dust-jacket for Science-Fiction Handbook |
|
| Author(s) | L. Sprague de Camp |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Writing |
| Publisher | Hermitage House |
| Publication date | 1953 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 328 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
Science-Fiction Handbook is a guide to writing and marketing science fiction and fantasy by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp. The original edition by L. Sprague de Camp alone, subtitled The Writing of Imaginative Fiction, was published in hardcover by Hermitage House in 1953. A revised and expanded edition by both authors, titled Science-Fiction Handbook, Revised, was published in hardcover by Owlswick Press in 1975 and as a trade paperback by McGraw-Hill in 1977.
The book comprises a comprehensive guide explaining how to write and market science fiction and fantasy. Peripheral subjects such as lecturing and bookkeeping are also discussed, and a short history of the field of imaginative fiction is included. The revised version excised outdated material, updated this historical section, and added more information on the business and records-keeping end of being a writer.
Alexei and Cory Panshin praised the original edition as "a marvelous and ungainly book . . . a stewpot of everything De Camp could imagine a writer of SF needing to know." However, reviewing the revised edition, they declared that "A venerable classic has been consistently simplified, softened and trivialized" and concluded that what remained "was not adequate to the problems of writing contemporary SF."[1]