Science fiction is a literary genre based on scientific speculation. Works of science fiction use the ideas and the vocabulary of all sciences to create valid narratives that explore the future effects of science on events and human beings. Science Fact and Science Fiction examines in one volume how science has propelled science-fiction and, to a lesser extent, how science fiction has influenced the sciences. Although coverage will discuss the science behind the fiction from the Classical Age to the present, focus is naturally on the 19th century to the present, when the Industrial...

This new collection of critical essays on science fiction and fantasy literature and media features the following pieces: "The Last Chocolate Bar and the Majesty of Truth: Reflections on the Concept of 'Hardness' in Science Fiction," "How Should a Science Fiction Story End?," "The Third Generation of Genre Science Fiction," "Deus ex Machina; or, How to Achieve a Perfect Science-Fictional Climax," "Biotechnology and Utopia," "Far Futures," "How Should a Science Fiction Story Begin?," and "The Discovery of Secondary Worlds: Notes on the Aesthetics and Methodology of Heterocosmic Creativity."...

This new collection of critical essays on science fiction and fantasy literature and media features the following pieces: "The Last Chocolate Bar and the Majesty of Truth: Reflections on the Concept of 'Hardness' in Science Fiction," "How Should a Science Fiction Story End?," "The Third Generation of Genre Science Fiction," "Deus ex Machina; or, How to Achieve a Perfect Science-Fictional Climax," "Biotechnology and Utopia," "Far Futures," "How Should a Science Fiction Story Begin?," and "The Discovery of Secondary Worlds: Notes on the Aesthetics and Methodology of Heterocosmic Creativity."...

Kit is a twenty-five-year-old Yorkshire bus driver who isn't quite like the rest of us, as the old story goes. One day she hears a passenger playing a song-the Electric Hellfire Club's "Kiss the Goat"-a song she never knew existed outside the ghostly manifestations that have been haunting her lonely nights, complete with sounds, smell and sight. Enter, then, the ghost of Rose Selavy . . . a devil-worshipping prostitute with more on her mind than just bodily possession . . . A romp through satanic disco music, ethereal auto-erotica and apparitions with agendas, this modern ghost story is Brain...

Kit is a twenty-five-year-old Yorkshire bus driver who isn't quite like the rest of us, as the old story goes. One day she hears a passenger playing a song-the Electric Hellfire Club's "Kiss the Goat"-a song she never knew existed outside the ghostly manifestations that have been haunting her lonely nights, complete with sounds, smell and sight. Enter, then, the ghost of Rose Selavy . . . a devil-worshipping prostitute with more on her mind than just bodily possession . . . A romp through satanic disco music, ethereal auto-erotica and apparitions with agendas, this modern ghost story is Brain...

For quick reference to the significant authors, publications, awards, and events in the field of speculative fiction turn to this handy A to Z guide.

First published in 1927, Deluge is one of the most famous of the English catastrophe novels. Beautifully written and action packed--RKO Radio Pictures even filmed this story--the novel depicts a flood so severe that it destroys modern civilization, leaving the few survivors to adapt to the rigors of the natural world. Like other English writers responding to the trauma of World War I, Sydney Fowler Wright expresses a loathing of the worst aspects of industrialization. The flood, in his view, becomes an opportunity for the remaking of society. The protagonists soon realize that civilization...

In the middle of the Great Hungarian Plain, there are two graves. Each is covered by a black stone, which carry inscriptions in French. On the larger one: Jean T?n?bre, Chevalier; on the smaller: Ange T?n?bre, Priest. They are the T?n?bre brothers... On many occasions, during the last four hundred years, those graves have opened, to the terror and the horror of the surrounding country... "The brothers T?n?bre are the Eternal Adversaries against which Eternal Champions and Thousand-Faced Heroes are pitched."-Brian Stableford. Paul F?val (1816-1887) was the author of numerous popular...

Some tell of a great city of black jasper which has streets and buildings like any other city but is eternally in mourning, enveloped by perpetual gloom. Some call it Selene, some Vampire City, but the vampires refer to it among themselves by the name of the Sepulchre... To destroy the dreaded vampire lord Otto Goetzi, writer Ann Radcliffe, Merry Bones the Irishman, and Grey Jack her faithful servant, launch an all-out attack on Selene... "We can easily see in Vampire City the ultimate literary ancestor of Buffy the Vampire-Slayer."-Brian Stableford. Paul F?val (1816-1887) was the author of...