Considers the development of science fiction for children and teens between 1950 and 2010, exploring why it differs from science fiction aimed at adults. This book sheds light on changing attitudes toward children and teenagers, toward science education, and toward the authors' expectations and sociological views of their audience.

The first book-length treatment of Le Guin's feminism, this text offers a career-spanning look at her engagement with modern gender theory and practice. During the 1970s, Le Guin experienced a paradigm shift to feminism, a change which had profound effects on her work. This critical examination explores the masculinist nature of her early writing and how her work changed both thematically and aesthetically as a result of her newfound feminism. Of particular interest is her later phase, wherein Le Guin transitions to a more inclusive post-feminism, privileging unity and balance over...

A collection of essays which provide an interpretive framework for understanding the continually developing forms and genres of television drama.

This text argues that utopian stories should be treated as literary texts, not as blueprints for a human community. Thomas More's Utopia, H.G. Well's A Modern Utopia, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars are examined as texts representative of utopianism during specific historical periods--Provided by publisher.

Following the Second World War, the Fleuve Noir publishing house published popular American genre fiction in translation for a French audience. Anticipation was an imprint of Fleuve Noir, specializing in science fiction. This critical text examines in ideological terms eleven writers who published under the Anticipation imprint. Anticipation eschewed English-translation science fiction, preferring instead French work and thus making the imprint an important outlet for native French post-war ideas and aesthetics. Careful analysis reveals the way these writers criticized mid-century notions of...

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...

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

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,...

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...