Australia has been a frequent choice as the location for narratives about the end of the world in science fiction and speculative works, ranging from pre-colonial apocalyptic maps to key literary works from the last fifty years. This critical volume explores the role of Australia in both apocalyptic literature and film. Topics covered include On the Beach and Mad Max, as well as children's literature, Indigenous writing, and cyberpunk. The text explores how apocalypse is used to undermine complacency, foretell environmental disasters, critique colonization, and act as a protest for minority...

Written by international experts from a range of disciplines, these essays examine the uniquely British contribution to science fiction film and television. Viewing British SF as a cultural phenomenon that challenges straightforward definitions of genre, nationhood, authorship and media, the editors provide a conceptual introduction placing the essays within their critical context. Essay topics include Hammer science fiction films, the various incarnations of Doctor Who, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, and such 21st-century productions as 28 Days Later and Torchwood.

Focusing on eight TV series, this work analyses what makes these programs unique, and what they have in common.

Robert A. Heinlein was one of the most revered science fiction writers in America during the twentieth century. He published his early, juvenile science fiction novels between 1947 and 1958, just as America was emerging from World War II and entering the space age. This comprehensive work explores Heinlein's juvenile novels, providing pertinent definitions and explanations to aid the reader.

This collection of fresh essays on Suzanne Collins's epic trilogy spans multiple disciplines. The contributors probe the trilogy's meaning using theories grounded in historicism, feminism, humanism, queer theory, as well as cultural, political, and media studies. The essayists demonstrate diverse perspectives regarding Collins's novels but their works have three elements in common: an appreciation of the trilogy as literature, a belief in its permanent value, and a need to share both appreciation and belief with fellow readers. The 21 essays that follow the context-setting introduction are...

This book is a collection of new essays, with the general objective of filling a gap in the literature about sex and science fiction. Although some work has been published, none of it is recent. The essays herein explore the myriad ways in which authors writing in the genre, regardless of format (e.g., print, film, television, etc.), envision very different beings expressing this most fundamental of human behaviors.

Lois McMaster Bujold has won a shelf full of awards--Hugos, Nebulas, and others--for both her science fiction and fantasy writing. She is one of the most respected names in the field, always delivering polished, thoughtful, and well-crafted writing. She consistently addresses great issues and problems on a human level, where they are faced by quirky, prickly, and very real characters, and her exploration of the theory of reader-response is an important critical contribution. Yet there has been a surprising dearth of serious critical writing about her output--in part because she resists neat...

This essay collection explores the life and work of sf doyen Ray Bradbury from a variety of perspectives. Noting the impact of the Southwest on Bradbury, some of the essays analyze Bradbury's southwest metaphors: colonial pollution of a pristine ecology, the impacts of a colonial invasion upon an indigenous population, the meeting of cultures with different values and physical aspects. Other essays view Bradbury via the lens of post-colonialism, drawing parallels between such works as The Martian Chronicles and real-life colonialism and its effects. Others view Bradbury sociologically,...

Many believe that Robert A. Heinlein was the most important American science fiction writer of the 20th century. This is the first detailed critical examination of his entire career. It is not a biography that is being done in a two-volume work by William Patterson. Instead, this book looks at each piece of fiction (and a few pieces of sf-related nonfiction) that Heinlein wrote, chronologically by publication, in order to consider what each contributes to his overall accomplishment. The aim is to be fair, to look clearly at the strengths and weaknesses of the writings that have inspired...

This book explores how contemporary fantastic fiction by women writers responds to the past and imagines the future. The first two chapters look at revisionist rewritings of fairy tales and historical texts; the third and fourth focus on future-oriented narratives including dystopias and space fiction. Writers considered include Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, Angela Carter, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing, and Jeanette Winterson, among others. The author argues that an analysis of how past and future are understood in women's fantastic fictions brings to light an "ethics of becoming" in...