Decoding Gender in Science Fiction

by Attebery,Brian

• ISBN13: 9780415939508
• ISBN10: 041593950X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2002-09-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

FromFrankensteinto futuristic feminist utopias,Decoding Gender in Science Fictionexamines the ways science fiction writers have incorporated, explored, and revised conventional notions of sexual difference. Attebery traces a fascinating history of men's and women's writing that covertly or overtly investigates conceptions of gender, suggesting new perspectives on the genre. "Brian Attebery is wonderfully fitted by nature, training, and experience to take on the complex subject of this book. Fair-minded and vastly tolerant, knowledgeable in every field of science fiction and fantasy, writing with vitality, clarity, and humor--he has given us a work that will engage and reward both the scholar and the interested lay reader." --Ursula K. Le Guin

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Secret Decoder Ring	1	(16)
From Neat Idea to Trope	17	(22)
Animating the Inert: Gender and Science in the Pulps	39	(23)
Super Men	62	(20)
Wonder Women	82	(24)
Women Alone, Men Alone	106	(23)
Androgyny as Difference	129	(22)
``But Aren't Those Just . . . You Know, Metaphors?''	151	(19)
Who Farms the Future?	170	(23)
Works Cited	193	(12)
Index	205