Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Science Fiction & Fantasy

From carefully measured views on J.R.R. Tolkien to Brin's infamous, outraged rant about the Star Wars saga, to unusual appraisals of familiar and unfamiliar works, you are guaranteed to come away with perspectives you never imagined...

Reading Science Fiction brings together world class scholars and fiction writers to introduce the history, concepts and contexts necessary to understanding this fascinating genre.

Comprehensive and engaging, Reading Science Fiction includes:

* Explores a wide range of theoretical approaches to studying science fiction, such as gender studies, post-colonial studies and structuralism

* Maps the definitions and history of science fiction, including its origin, influences and parallel development with modern society

* Introduces major science fiction writers...

For students, scholars, readers' advisors, and curious SF readers and fans, this guide provides an easy-to-use launch pad for researching and learning more about science fiction writers and their work.

Emphasizing the best popular and contemporary authors, this book covers 100 SF writers, providing for each:

a brief biographical sketch, including a quote from theauthor, awards, etc.

a list of the author's major works (including editions and other writings)

research sources-biographies, criticism, research guides, and web sites

In addition, you'll find read-alike lists for...

• This Companion conveys the scale and variety of science fiction.
  
• Shows how science fiction has been used as a means of debating cultural issues.
  
• Essays by an international range of scholars discuss the contexts, themes and methods used by science fiction writers.
  
• Addresses general topics, such as the history and origins of the genre, its...

In "Marvelous Geometry" Jessica Tiffin argues that within twentieth- and twenty-first-century Western literature there exists a diverse body of fairy-tale texts that display a common thread of metafictional self-awareness. The narrative pattern of these texts is self-conscious, overtly structured, variously fantastical, and, Tiffin argues, easily recognized and interpreted by modern audiences. In this broadly comparative study she explores contemporary fairy-tale fictions found in modern literature and live-action and animated film and television to explore fairy tale's ability to...

The why's and what-if's of scientific inquiry constitute the core of science fiction, the purpose of which is to further explore these questions from every imaginable angle. Gregory L. Zentz affirms this connection between science and fiction, showing how integral a grasp of the theoretical and practical sciences is to an understanding of science fiction. Zentz provides a holistic, rather than a literary or a sociological analysis, thereby focussing on the genre of science fiction as a reflection of scientific and philosophical paradigms, both past and present.

By outlining the history...

Taken to extremes, social organization--however necessary in itself--leads to the creation of what editors Erlich and Dunn label Clockwork Worlds. This anthology has been organized to define and expand that concept for the reader. Arthur O. Lewis provides a comprehensive overview of clockwork worlds and sets them in their political and literary contexts. Following Lewis' introduction are two series of essays which show how the theme of mechanized environments has been developed in classic works of dystopian fiction, and how it has been treated by some of the major contemporary science...

A Literary Symbiosis studies the merger of science fiction/fantasy and mystery fiction from historical and critical perspectives. Pierce examines the problems and expectations raised by the various literary labels, particularly as regards definition, theme, conventions, stock characters, and setting. While she admits the difficulties inherent in merging idea-oriented, speculative science fiction with the situation-specific and present-time oriented mystery story, she argues that the two genres have much in common. The book examines critically the elements of mystery fiction which have been...

Clareson reveals the interplay between literary expressionism and intellectual history and shows how science fiction was a popular response to world events during the period 1870-1930. He emphasizes that at least before World War II, the predominant tone of American science fiction was optimistic and that one way or another--through advanced technology or a return to primitiveness--the writers were going to produce "Some Kind of Paradise."