This book contains the thirty-eight bimonthly columns I wrote for the British science fiction magazine Interzone (one in collaboration with David Pringle), lightly revised to improve some phrasing and to include page numbers and sources for quotations; there is also one new column written especially for this volume. Here is a link to the publisher's information about the book, and its Table of Contents is below.

Introduction

1. Why the Stars Are Silent:
The Decline and Fall of the Science Fiction Monomyth (and, Incidentally, the Human Race)

2. Greyer Lensmen, Or Looking Backward in Anger

3. Cremators of Science Fiction, 1 and 2:
Brian Stableford and John Clute

4. Point and Cringe:
A Non-Innovative, Non-Interactive Column

5. The Sky Is Appalling, Or, Go to Bed, Jeremy, An Asteroid Isn't Going to Land on Our House Tonight

6. Did Alien Astronauts Make the Shroud of Turin?

7. Unlucky Starr and the Omission of Venus

8. Janeways and Thaneways:
The Better Half, and Worse Half, of Science Fiction Television

9. The Nine Billion Names of Fantasy ... and an Encyclopedia of Other Concerns

10. Pastwonder:
The Redemption of Orson Scott Card

11. "'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky":
An Open Letter to a Young Science Fiction Scholar

12. A Modem Utopia, Or, Why Allison's Boring Daddy Hopes the Machine Doesn't Stop

13. Big Dumb Opticals:
Film Considered as the Motion Pyramid

14. A Christmas Cavil, or, It's a Plunderful Life

15. The Sound of the City ... and the Call of the Cosmos

16. What Is a Science Fiction Magazine? (And Why on Earth Are They Still Around?)

17. Prehistory Lessons

18. The Anthology on the Edge of Forever

19. America's Dumbest Columnist, Or, The Remarking Moron

20. Robert A. Heinlein's 2001: A Space Odyssey

21. Talking to Aliens - and to Ourselves

22. The Three Most Important Reasons Why Gary Westfahl Doesn't Compile Science Fiction Lists

23. Martians Old and New, Still Standing Over Us

24. Going Where Lots of People Have Gone Before, or, The Novels Science Fiction Readers Don't See

25. Poul Anderson and the Human Crusade

26. Claremont, California:
Notes from the Home Front

27. Celebrating a Century of Science Fiction Columns with A Trip to the Moon

28. Sector General:
The Next Generation?

29. Why Science Fiction Fears the Future

30. The History of Heinlein's Future

31. The End of Science Fiction's Childhood

32. Rules for Robots:
Version 1.0

33. Who Didn't Kill Horror

34. In Search of Dismal Science Fiction

35. Why Science Fiction (Thank Goodness!) Still Doesn't Get Any Respect

36. Fellow Travelers:
Jules Verne and J. G. Ballard (with David Pringle)

37. The Odds Against Tomorrow, or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation

38. Surprising Sci-Fi Soul Brothers, Part Two:
Robert A. Heinlein and Philip K. Dick

39. Big Themes, Obscured by Small Screens, or, Space Opera Versus Soap Opera

Bibliography

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