The conscious use and exploration of well-defined ideas marks the fiction of Jack Williamson. Those guiding ideas—and his indebtedness to H. G. Wells—may be discerned in any discussion of his recent study, H. G. Wells: Critic of Progress. Although Wells may be the better artist, the complexity of Williamson's own fiction can go far beyond Wells's, and the experience he presents in "With Folded Hands," The Humanoids, and Bright New Universe is as large and satisfying in vision as anything Wells ever did.
Williamson goes beyond what he got from Wells, and the logical, organic progression of the core concepts of the Williamson canon (evolution and progress) reveals the beginnings of his own unique literary experience…. Progress seems to mean, for both Wells and the early Williamson, increasing technological complication, increased knowledge, increased control of man and nature, increased comfort, increased self-awareness of mankind for itself, increased individual freedom, and increasing enlightenment in the social structure. For Williamson, science fiction is by definition involved with the idea of progress because its "most exciting theme" is the projection of possible futures and their impact on mankind. Wonder and awe, the primary emotional effects of science fiction, initially arise on first view of a magnificent machine or of Cosmic grandeur…. Later, man's nature will be included among the objects of wonder.
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