Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Science Fiction & Fantasy

Conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin assembles interviews with the renowned science-fiction and fantasy author of The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven, and the Earthsea sequence of novels and stories. For nearly five decades, Le Guin (b. 1929) has enjoyed immense success--both critical and popular--in science fiction and fantasy. But she has also published well-received works in such genres as realistic fiction, poetry, children's literature, criticism, and translation. In the pieces collected here, Le Guin takes every...

• Raises questions and examines timely themes concerning the nature of the mind, time travel, artificial intelligence, neural enhancement, free will, the nature of persons, transhumanism, virtual reality, and neuroethics
• Draws on a broad range of books, films and television series, including The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Frankenstein, Brave New World, The Time Machine, and...

Kucukalic looks beyond the received criticism and stereotypes attached to Philip K. Dick and his work and shows, using a wealth of primary documents including previously unpublished letters and interviews, that Philip K. Dick is a serious and relevant philosophical and cultural thinker whose writing offer us important insights into contemporary digital culture. Evaluating five novels that span Dick's career--from Martian Time Slip (1964) to Valis (1981)--Kucukalic explores the the intersections of identity, narrative, and technology in order to ask two central, but...

A very thorough guide to the fantasies and fantasists selected, this is unlike any other guide to the genre. . . . Only English and Amerian authors of full-length fantasies are included, just 36, with entries for titles, characters, places, and magical objects, and of course the authors. Authors' entries describe major themes of all their full-length works, following biographical notes. Book-title entries give plot synopses and information about the first editions of the books. . . . People who remember something of a fantasy sequence and want to find it again will find this the most...

A groundbreaking contribution to the critical literature, this volume represents the most extensive study of the fantastic in poetry published to date. Designed to serve both as an introduction to and a historical overview of fantastic poetry in the Anglo-American tradition, the authors closely analyze specific periods and poems in order to illuminate more clearly the relationships among fantasty, the fantastic, science fiction, and poetry. The scope of the study is unusually broad and encompasses material from Spenser through the work of a wide range of contemporary American and British...

Themes from science fiction, fantasy, and horror have been an intimate part of contemporary poetry in the United States and abroad. The publishing of poetry by those American writers who view themselves as primarily science fiction/fantasy/horror writers has been less common and generally relegated to infrequent appearances in genre publications; this has changed dramatically since the early 1970s. In "Contemporary Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry," Green provides evidence that there are, in fact, many opportunities for publishing such genre poetry in both commercial and small...

This volume provides an annotated list of works related to the interaction of humans and machines in SF, a field which includes science fiction, some fantasy and horror, and related types of speculative works. Though the book focuses on works produced in English between 1895 and 1990, foreign language material and works produced before 1895 and after 1990 are included as well. The reference contains works in a range of media, with entries grouped in chapters on literature, literary criticism, drama and dramatic criticism, graphic and plastic arts, music, and background. Each entry includes...

This chronology outlines British science fiction from 1479-1990, highlighting the important biographical and publishing events in the field of science fiction literature and fandom, as well as in other media. The chronology includes biographical information on more than 700 authors, listings of more than 2,000 works, including anthologies, criticism and essays, publishing and fandom milestones, first publications, and awards. The works are fully cross-referenced and indexed, with introductory definitions of the field and descriptive headnotes for five periods: The Descent of Scientific...

The writers of Gothic literature reflect in their works the concerns and fears of the times in which they were created. These fears, in turn, destabilize the reader; that is, they create within the reader a sense of uneasiness characteristic of the Gothic genre, an uneasiness that comes from the challenging of social and cultural conventions or cherished beliefs. In doing so, these works are also cultural artifacts, for they reflect issues central to society at a given point in time. This book examines the process of destabilization in the modern American Gothic.

The volume focuses on...

The Oxford group of writers known as the Inklings met and thrived during the 1930s and 1940s. Three of the members, C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams, became known as authors and cultural figures, recognized for interweaving Christian themes into fantasy fiction. Other members of the group doubtlessly influenced these works through their comments and discussion, and the published ideas of Williams, Lewis, and Tolkien were probably first discussed within this circle. Every member of the Inklings was male, the group consciously excluded women, and it was formed to promote...

Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures explores the literary landscape of themes and genres J.K. Rowling artfully wove throughout her novels-and the influential...