The Science Fiction Handbook

by Booker, M. Keith; Thomas, Anne-Marie

• ISBN13: 9781405162050
• ISBN10: 1405162058
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

The Science Fiction Handbook offers a comprehensive and accessible survey of one of the literary world's most fascinating genres. Includes separate historical surveys of key subgenres including time-travel narratives, post-apocalyptic and post-disaster narratives and works of utopian and dystopian science fiction Each subgenre survey includes an extensive list of relevant critical readings, recommended novels in the subgenre, and recommended films relevant to the subgenre Features entries on a number of key science fiction authors and extensive discussion of major science fiction novels or sequences Writers and works include Isaac Asimov; Margaret Atwood; George Orwell; Ursula K. Le Guin; The War of the Worlds (1898); Starship Troopers (1959); Mars Trilogy (1993-6); and many more A 'Science Fiction Glossary' completes this indispensable Handbook

Author Biography

M. Keith Booker is the James E. and Ellen Wadley Roper Professor of English and Director of the Program in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Arkansas. He is the author of more than 30 books on literature, popular culture, and cultural theory.

Anne-Marie Thomas is Associate Professor of English at Austin Community College. She teaches literature and composition, including science fiction classes for the college’s Honors Program.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Science Fiction in Western Culture

Brief Historical Surveys of Science Fiction Subgenres

The Time-Travel Invasion

The Alien Invasion Narrative

The Space Opera

Apocalyptic and Post-Disaster Narratives

Dystopian Science Fiction

Utopian Fiction

Feminism, Science Fiction, and Gender

Science Fiction and Satire

Cyberpunk and Posthuman Science Fiction

Multicultural Science Fiction

Representative Science Fiction Authors

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

Margaret Atwood (1939-)

Octavia Butler (1947-2006)

Samuel R. Delany (1942-)

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)

William Gibson (1948-)

Nicola Griffith (1960-)

Joe Haldeman (1943-)

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

Nalo Hopkinson (1960-)

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-)

Ian McDonald (1960-)

China Mi_ville (1972-)

George Orwell (1903-1950)

Marge Piercy (1936-)

Frederik Pohl (1919-)

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952-)

Neal Stephenson (1959-)

H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

Discussions of Individual Texts

The Time Machine (1895)

The War of the Worlds (1898)

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Isaac Asimov, I, Robot (1950)

The Space Merchants (1952)

Starship Troopers (1959)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

The Dispossessed (1974)

The Forever War (1974)

Woman on the Edge of Time (1976)

Trouble on Triton (1976)

Neuromancer (1984)

The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

"Xenogenesis" trilogy (1987-1989)

Snow Crash (1992)

Ammonite (1994)

"Mars" trilogy (1992-1996)

Midnight Robber (2000)

Perdido Street Station (2000)

River of Gods (2005)

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.