Barry N. Malzberg reflects back over four decades of writing science fiction, giving an insider's view of the field during that time which few can match, both for its authority and for the sharp and witty way he describes the highs and lows of one science fiction writer's career. He also writes vivid profiles of writers and editors, ranging from the titans who transformed the field, such as John W. Campbell, to once popular writers who are now all but forgotten, such as Hugo Award-winner Mark Clifton. "If there is any particular cachet to my perspective," he writes, "it comes because my career is, perhaps more than some, metaphoric." The original, shorter version of the book was widely praised, as by the San Francisco Chronicle: "Contains literary criticism ranging over the whole history of the field. . . . this is a mordant, brilliant book," and by The Washington Post Book World: "Malzberg makes persuasively clear that the best of science fiction should be valued as literature and nothing else." Breakfast in the Ruins is an indispensable book for every science fiction reader.

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