Emerson, Jim
Entry updated 14 July 2023. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of Croatian-born psychologist, librarian, editor and author James Mladenovic (1960- ), in US from 1963. He is of sf interest primarily for an ambitious attempt to recount the History of SF from the beginnings of American Genre SF, the first iteration of this project bein a Semiprozine, Futures Past (1992-1994) (which see for details), each annual issue covering a single year, beginning in 1926 and ending, four issues later, with 1929.
Reconfigured into book form, the Futures Past sequence, beginning with Futures Past: 1926: The Birth of Modern Science Fiction (anth 2020 chap), provides a competent and engagingly detailed overview of each year so far covered. The volume for 1926 contains checklists and essays by Mike Ashley and Bud Webster, as well as Emerson's own copy. The much larger volume for 1927, Futures Past: 1927: Dawn of the SF Blockbuster (coll 2020), by Emerson alone, includes a thirty-five page analysis of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), and a checklist of 175 lost sf films between 1897 and 1925. Futures Past: 1928: Space Opera (coll 2023), larger again, follows the same pattern, and includes expansive studies of Edmond Hamilton, Frank R Paul, E E Smith and Jack Williamson. [JC]
James Mladenovic
born Rijeka, Yugoslavia [now Croatia]: 15 September 1960
works
nonfiction
series
Futures Past
- Futures Past: 1926: The Birth of Modern Science Fiction (Indianapolis, Indiana: www.sfhistory.net/The Write Answer, 2020) [nonfiction: anth: chap: Futures Past: illus/pb/Jim Emerson]
- Futures Past: 1927: Dawn of the SF Blockbuster (Indianapolis, Indiana: www.sfhistory.net/The Write Answer, 2021) [nonfiction: coll: Futures Past: illus/pb/Jim Emerson]
- Futures Past: 1928: Space Opera (Indianapolis, Indiana: www.sfhistory.net/The Write Answer, 2023) [nonfiction: coll: Futures Past: illus/pb/Jim Emerson]
links
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