William Golding is an unusually controversial writer of the fantastic. First of all, his stature as a writer has been questioned despite--or possibly because of--the popular acceptance of his work. Secondly, critics have had difficulty agreeing exactly which of his works are fantastic. Golding's relation to science fiction was generally uncertain even at the beginning of his career. Kingsley Amis's New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction (1960) mentions him in passing as one "who comes nearer than anybody so far to being a serious writer working within science fiction," yet faults him for letting his literary ambitions interfere with the "coherence and concision" of his writing. In reply, while reviewing Amis's book in "Androids All" (1961), Golding includes himself among "addicts and writers of S.F.," though he calls such people "strange creatures" because of their concentration on ideas at the expense of characterization, sex, humor, and...