Twenty-First-Century Popular Fiction
Published on 16. January 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-4744-1485-2 (ISBN)
Description
Provides a unique snapshot of themes and trends within popular fiction in the twenty-first century
This groundbreaking collection captures the state of popular fiction in present day. It features twenty new essays on key authors associated with a wide range of genres and sub-genres, providing chapter-length discussions of major post-2000 works of contemporary popular fiction. The lively, accessible and academically rigorous essays presented here cover a wider range of established popular fiction genres such as fantasy, horror and the romance, as well as more niche areas such as Domestic Noir, Steampunk, the New Weird, Nordic Noir and Zombie Lit. The collection will primarily appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students but general readers may also find the focus on many of today's most prominent and influential authors to be of interest.
Key Features
Provides students with a timely and accessible overview of current trends within contemporary popular fictionIncludes timely reassessments of recent fiction by established figures such as Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Larry McMurtry, Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, Jodi Picoult, China Mieville, Grant Morrison, Terry Pratchett and Nora Roberts as well as consideration of authors who have emerged more recently, amongst them Stephenie Meyer, Gillian Flynn, E.L. James, Hugh Howey, Cherie Priest, and Max BrooksIncludes supplementary material such recommended further reading at the end of each chapter
This groundbreaking collection captures the state of popular fiction in present day. It features twenty new essays on key authors associated with a wide range of genres and sub-genres, providing chapter-length discussions of major post-2000 works of contemporary popular fiction. The lively, accessible and academically rigorous essays presented here cover a wider range of established popular fiction genres such as fantasy, horror and the romance, as well as more niche areas such as Domestic Noir, Steampunk, the New Weird, Nordic Noir and Zombie Lit. The collection will primarily appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students but general readers may also find the focus on many of today's most prominent and influential authors to be of interest.
Key Features
Provides students with a timely and accessible overview of current trends within contemporary popular fictionIncludes timely reassessments of recent fiction by established figures such as Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Larry McMurtry, Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, Jodi Picoult, China Mieville, Grant Morrison, Terry Pratchett and Nora Roberts as well as consideration of authors who have emerged more recently, amongst them Stephenie Meyer, Gillian Flynn, E.L. James, Hugh Howey, Cherie Priest, and Max BrooksIncludes supplementary material such recommended further reading at the end of each chapter
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
406 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-1485-2 (9781474414852)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Bernice M. Murphy is an Associate Professor and Lecturer in Popular Literature in the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin. She has published extensively on topics related to American Gothic and horror fiction and film and was recently academic consultant to The Letters of Shirley Jackson (2021, edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman). Bernice was made a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2017. Stephen Matterson is Professor of American Literature in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, and a Fellow of the College. He has published widely on US literature, with emphasis on 20th-century poetry and literature of the mid-19th century. In addition to a series of co-edited collections of essays, his book publications include American Literature: The Essential Glossary (Bloomsbury, 2003), and Melville: Fashioning in Modernity (Bloomsbury, 2015).
Content
Introduction. 'Changing the story': Popular Fiction today
Bernice M. Murphy and Stephen Matterson
1. Larry McMurtry's Vanishing Breeds
Stephen Matterson
2. 'Time to Open the Door': Stephen King's Legacy
Rebecca Janicker
3. Terry Pratchett: Mostly Human
Jim Shanahan
4. From Westeros to HBO: George R.R. Martin and the Mainstreaming of
Fantasy?
Gerard Hynes
5. Nora Roberts: The Power of Love
Jarlath Killeen
6. The King of Stories: Neil Gaiman's Twenty-first Century Fiction
Tara Prescott
7. Jo Nesbo: Murder in the Folkhemmet
Clare Clarke
8. 'It's a trap! Don't turn the page.' Metafiction and the Multiverse in the Comics
of Grant Morrison
Kate Roddy
9. Panoptic and Synoptic Surveillance in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games
Series
Keith O'Sullivan
10. E. L. James and the Fifty Shades of Grey Phenomenon
Dara Downey
11. Fact, Fiction, Fabrication: The Popular Appeal of Dan Brown's Global
Bestsellers
Ian Kinane
12. 'I Need to Disillusion You': J.K. Rowling and Twenty-First-Century Young
Adult Fantasy
Kate Harvey
13. Jodi Picoult: Good Grief
Clare Hayes-Brady
14. 'We Will Have a Happy Marriage If It Kills Him': Gillian Flynn and the Rise
of Domestic Noir
Bernice M. Murphy
15. 'The Bastard Zone': China Mieville, Perdido Street Station and the New
Weird
Kirsten Tranter
16. Sparkly Vampires and Shimmering Aliens: The Paranormal Romance of
Stephanie Meyer
Hannah Priest
17. 'We needed to get a lot of white collars dirty':? The Apocalypse as
Opportunity in Max Brooks' World War Z.
Bernice M. Murphy
18. Genre and Uncertainty in Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad Mysteries
Brian Cliff
?
19. 'You Get What You Ask For': Hugh Howey, SF, and Authorial Agency
Stephen Kenneally
20. Cherie Priest: At the Intersection of History and Technology
Catherine Siemann
Bernice M. Murphy and Stephen Matterson
1. Larry McMurtry's Vanishing Breeds
Stephen Matterson
2. 'Time to Open the Door': Stephen King's Legacy
Rebecca Janicker
3. Terry Pratchett: Mostly Human
Jim Shanahan
4. From Westeros to HBO: George R.R. Martin and the Mainstreaming of
Fantasy?
Gerard Hynes
5. Nora Roberts: The Power of Love
Jarlath Killeen
6. The King of Stories: Neil Gaiman's Twenty-first Century Fiction
Tara Prescott
7. Jo Nesbo: Murder in the Folkhemmet
Clare Clarke
8. 'It's a trap! Don't turn the page.' Metafiction and the Multiverse in the Comics
of Grant Morrison
Kate Roddy
9. Panoptic and Synoptic Surveillance in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games
Series
Keith O'Sullivan
10. E. L. James and the Fifty Shades of Grey Phenomenon
Dara Downey
11. Fact, Fiction, Fabrication: The Popular Appeal of Dan Brown's Global
Bestsellers
Ian Kinane
12. 'I Need to Disillusion You': J.K. Rowling and Twenty-First-Century Young
Adult Fantasy
Kate Harvey
13. Jodi Picoult: Good Grief
Clare Hayes-Brady
14. 'We Will Have a Happy Marriage If It Kills Him': Gillian Flynn and the Rise
of Domestic Noir
Bernice M. Murphy
15. 'The Bastard Zone': China Mieville, Perdido Street Station and the New
Weird
Kirsten Tranter
16. Sparkly Vampires and Shimmering Aliens: The Paranormal Romance of
Stephanie Meyer
Hannah Priest
17. 'We needed to get a lot of white collars dirty':? The Apocalypse as
Opportunity in Max Brooks' World War Z.
Bernice M. Murphy
18. Genre and Uncertainty in Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad Mysteries
Brian Cliff
?
19. 'You Get What You Ask For': Hugh Howey, SF, and Authorial Agency
Stephen Kenneally
20. Cherie Priest: At the Intersection of History and Technology
Catherine Siemann