About a month ago I asked for advice on learning more about literary criticism, especially as pertains to science fiction. I promised I’d summarize the results.
Jess left a very good comment, discussing different forms of criticism and a few resources. She also pointed out the essay collection Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life, edited by Charles Baxter and Peter Turchi. I haven’t tracked it down yet, but it does look interesting.
I also asked an expert. Elizabeth Bear suggested John Clute and Joanna Russ as exemplars of the kind of SF criticism I was asking about. Another commenter on her blog reminded me of Jo Walton’s contributions to Tor.com. I read those regularly, but didn’t think to mention them. As a bonus, Jo and I seem to share similar taste in reading material, so I’ve already read many of the works discussed.
In the intervening time, I read The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas Disch. Part history, part criticism, part anecdote; I enjoyed it, and learned some things about trends within the field that I’d dimly perceived but hadn’t understood. I didn’t realize until just now, getting the GoodReads link, that it had won a Hugo in 1999 — but I’m not surprised.
If you run across other interesting sources, please let me know.