Fictional Space
Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction
Published on 31. January 1991
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-0-631-17762-3 (ISBN)
Description
Is there a "postmodern" science fiction?. What is "cyberpunk?". What is going to happen to fiction in the next millennium?. How has science fiction coped with the big letdowns of the 1970s and 1980s, from the energy crisis to the NASA failures? These questions, and others, are asked and answered in this collection of eight essays by British and American critics focusing on science fiction's recent past, its contemporary relevance, and its attitudes to the immediate future. The case is made throughout for the genre's distinctive and novel literary effects, ranging from a new rhetoric of words and figures to a new ideology of "disfigured" myths and images. The book marks a new initiative for this distinctively modern form of 20th century literature.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Weight
399 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-631-17762-3 (9780631177623)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Preface - learning to read science fiction, Tom Shippey (University of Leeds); science fiction and the postmodern - the recent fiction of William Gibson and John Crowley, John Christie (University of Leeds); newness, "Necromancer", and the end of narrative, John Huntington (University of Illinois); in the palace of green porcelain - artifacts from the museum of science fiction, Robert Crossley (University of Massachusetts); the fall of America in science fiction, Tom Shippey (University of Leeds); the art of future war - "Starship Troopers", "The Forever War" and Vietnam, Alasdair Spark (King Alfred's College, Winchester); origins of the underpeople - cats, Kuomintang and Cordwainer Smith, Alan C. Elms (University of California, Davis); the language and languages of science fiction, Walter E. Meyers (North Carolina State University).