The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction

Grant Wythoff presents a wide array of texts by famed writer, publisher, and inventor Hugo Gernsback that were foundational both for science fiction and emerging media studies. Through painstaking research and extensive annotations and commentary, Wythoff aims to reverse the widespread misunderstanding of Gernsback within the history of science fiction criticism, reintroducing us to Gernsback and the origins of science fiction.

"A beautifully illustrated compendium and sourcebook." – New York Review of Books

"Grant Wythoff's splendid work of scholarship dispels the dank, historic mists of a literary subculture with starkly factual archival research. An amazing vista of electronic media struggle is revealed here, every bit as colorful and cranky as Hugo Gernsback's pulp magazines--even the illustrations and footnotes are fascinating. I'm truly grateful for this work and will never think of American science fiction in the same way again." – Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, and critic