Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Science Fiction & Fantasy

Many prominent science fiction writers, artists, and editors began as s.f. fans. This is the first book to survey fandom's history, manifestations, and accomplishments, including clubs, fanzines, and conventions. The 24 essays are divided into sections that consider the following: the types of people who become fans and the satisfactions they receive; the development of fandom in America; fandom in Europe and the Orient; social interactions in the form of local clubs or wider-drawing conventions; and long-term results in the form of beginning professional careers in writing or publishing,...

The authors believe transitional science fiction writer and critic Brian Aldiss represents the evolutionary leap from the older pulp/adventure science fiction to the post new wave genre. They compare his work to that of the early mainstream literary modernists. While science fiction revives the modernist spirit and possesses its ranges, the authors maintain only Aldiss has taken advantage of that potential. His works embody both the potential and contradictions in new wave science fiction. Griffin and Wingrove emphasize the remarkable continuity of Aldiss's work. Neither rebel against the...

This interesting and unusual collection of essays explores the post-holocaust theme as it has been treated in science fiction and fantasy literature. Seen in a positive mode, this theme offers a powerful metaphor for exploring man's relationship to his social structure. The post-holocaust motif, the editor contends, literally permits the exploration of many sub-topics, such as rebirth, social patterns, evolution, devolution, entropy, history, ecology, ethics, medicine, personal values, and so on.

This anthology of twenty-five essays on fantasy in literature and film gives a striking view of the decline of realism and the penetration of the fantastic mode into the mainstream of fiction. Introduced by William Coyle's illuminating discussion of the nature of fantasy, the essays offer a wide range of perspectives. They include discussions of the creators of fantasy, fantastic creatures, fantasy and the media, the relationship of fantasy to literary tradition, and the relevance of fantasy to contemporary concerns. Among the literary subjects considered are Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein,"...

This new essay collection, edited by Jan Hokenson and Howard Pearce, explores the surprising variety of guises the impulse toward the fantastic has taken throughout history. Incorporating wide-ranging perspectives, the twenty-six essays in the volume include studies of the fantastic in literature, art, philosophy, film, psychology, drama, history, and aesthetics. Among the subjects and forms examined are allegories, animal fables, horror stories and films, and monsters and fabulous beasts. Examples are drawn from Elizabethan drama, German Romantic music, French Expressionist painting,...

The most comprehensive work of its kind, "Great Themes of Science Fiction" looks at the most important elements of the genre and shows how each has evolved over time. Among the topics examined are aliens and alien worlds, supermen and adapted men, immortality and paranormal powers, robots and computers, space civilizations and colonies, wars on earth and in space, worldwide disasters, time travel, and parallel worlds. Selected examples of each theme are discussed together with changes that have become apparent with shifts in popular attitudes and the increasing sophistication of readers....

The twenty-four essays in this collection represent the best contributions to the Sixth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. All the essays are comparative or interdisciplinary in nature. Their foci range from the psychological aspects of art and literature, to the political implications of fiction and drama, the philosophic and linguistic dimensions of poetry, and the use of landscape in science fiction and fantasy illustration. The contributors also explore the connections between the fantastic and subjects such as religion, myth, the grotesque, the occult, Gothicism,...

"The Celebration of the Fantastic" reaffirms the wide range and validity of the subject, treatment, and approach that the fantastic demands. Twenty-five essays, selected from among the more than 230 presented at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the IAFA, consider writers as diverse as Stephen King, Doris Lessing, Rudyard Kipling, Loren Eiseley, Mary Stewart, Bernard Malamud, Orson Scott Card, Toni Morrison, Henry James, and Ray Bradbury as well as television personalities, film directors, and German and Hungarian visual artists. Also included are essays on science fiction writers Robert...

An unusual grouping of mainly British writers, this insightful study includes some, like Henry James, who are indisputably leaders of the canon regardless of genre, and others, like Algernon Blackwood, who wrote almost exclusively in the supernatural; all, however, were clearly masters of this genre. The author, Edward Wagenknecht, writes from a long lifetime of scholarly study and publishing, thoroughly internalized familiarity with all of the exemplary works chosen for examination, and personal friendship fostered by extensive epistolary intercourse with two of the subjects, Walter de la...

The essays in this volume examine elements of the fantastic in a variety of media. From the fiction of Toni Morrison, Stephen King, and Chinua Achebe, to the rock songs of David Bowie, the fantastic is seen as adaptable to any art form. In an accessible manner, the contributors present fresh approaches to examining the elements of the fantastic in literature, film, music, and popular culture. The collection features an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin.

This exciting collection of essays explores the fantastic in world literature, art, theater, film, and popular culture. Highlights include artwork by Edward Carlos and the essay Staging the Phantasmagorical: The Theatrical Challenges and Rewards of William Butler Yeats by internationally acclaimed Yeats scholar James W. Flannery. Readers will be delighted by the wit of British author Brian Aldiss in his essay If Hamlet's Uncle Had Been a Nicer Guy. From new insights into the connections between Dracula and Frankenstein to a discussion of the Internet, the lively volume offers...