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A dream of a better world is a powerful human force that inspires activists, artists, and citizens alike. In this book Tom Moylan - one of the pioneering scholars of contemporary utopian studies - explores the utopian process in its individual and collective trajectory from dream to realization. Drawing on theorists such as Fredric Jameson, Donna Haraway and Alain Badiou and science fiction writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson and China Mieville, Becoming Utopian develops its argument for sociop...

This collection of original interviews, appropriate for libraries and fans alike, provides first-hand accounts from many of the entertainment industry's most influential writers, filmmakers, and entertainers. Interviewees include horror film icons Elvira and Herschell Gordon Lewis; world-renowned science fiction and fantasy authors, among them Ray Bradbury, Laurell K. Hamilton, and John Saul; and many others. The 26 alphabetized interviews are accompanied by a brief introduction, several quotes...

The subject of this timely book is that body of fiction which speculates in narrative form about the nature of wars likely to break out in the near or distant future. Although earlier instances occur, the origins of this mode lie primarily in the late nineteenth century but writing about future wars continues to this day with notable fiction on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ranging widely across periods and conflicts real and imagined, and boasting contributions from the late I. F. Cla...

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. This fifth volume contains the memoir of Eyre Crowe, who accompanied Thackeray on his tour of America. The account offers an outsider's glimpse into the professional and public world of William Thackeray whilst on his tour of the United States. It provides the itinerary of the trip, as well as images of the places and people met on the tour, which the reader could not obta...

"Get your "A" in gear! They're today's most popular study guides-with everything you need to succeed in school. Written by Harvard students for students, since its inception "SparkNotes(TM) has developed a loyal community of dedicated users and become a major education brand. Consumer demand has been so strong that the guides have expanded to over 150 titles. "SparkNotes'(TM) motto is "Smarter, Better, Faster because: - They feature the most current ideas and themes, written by experts.- They're...

For years, noted writer Laurence A. Rickels often found himself compared to novelist Philip K. Dick—though in fact Rickels had never read any of the science fiction writer’s work. When he finally read his first Philip K. Dick novel, while researching for his recent book The Devil Notebooks, it prompted a prolonged immersion in Dick’s writing as well as a recognition of Rickels’s own long-documented intellectual pursuits. The result of this engagement is I Think I Am: Philip K. Dick, a profound t...

Horror and Religion is an edited collection of essays offering structured discussions of spiritual and theological conflicts in Horror fiction from the late-sixteenth to the twenty-first century. Contributors explore the various ways that horror and religion have interacted over themes of race and sexuality; the texts under discussion chart the way in which the religious imagination has been deployed over the course of Horror fiction’s development, from a Gothic mode based in theological polemic...

The first comprehensive critical study of hard science fiction, this book reveals how the term hard science fiction originated, and how arguments about its range and nature have unfolded. Westfahl shows that hard science fiction is generally characterized by the author's extreme concern for scientific accuracy and logic. Identifying two characteristic forms of hard science fiction, Westfahl closely examines several representative works: Arthur C. Clarke's A Fall of Moondust, Hal Clement's Missio...

In recent decades, science fiction in both print and visual media has produced an outpouring of story lines that feature forms of simulated reality. These depictions appear with such frequency that fictional portrayals of simulated worlds have become a popular sci-fi trope-one that prompts timeless questions about the nature of reality while also tapping into contemporary debates about emerging technologies. In combination with tech-driven tensions, this study shows that our collective sense of...

Pardon This Intrusion gathers together 47 pieces by John Clute, some written as long ago as 1985, though most are recent. The addresses and essays in Part One, "Fantastika in the World Storm", all written in the twenty-first century, reflect upon the dynamic relationship between fantastika - an umbrella term Clute uses to describe science fiction, horror and fantasy - and the world we live in now. Of these pieces, "Next", a contemporary response to 9/11, has not been revised; everything else in...

This poignant, space-obsessed, memoir tells the story of the summer a 10 year old grew up too fast, left to be raised by the film E.T. In the summer of 1982, a ten-year-old Jason Heller was handed off to his grandparents on the Gulf Coast of Florida with little explanation as to why. He knows now that his mother had disappeared into a months long manic episode. But that summer--watching E.T. over 20 times in the two screen strip mall movie theater his grandmother managed--he felt like an alien...

How and when does there come to be an anthropology of the alien? This set of essays, written for the eighth J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Fantasy and Science Fiction, is concerned with the significance of that question. [Anthropology] is the science that must designate the alien if it is to redefine a place for itself in the universe, according to the Introduction.The idea of the alien is not new. In the Renaissance, Montaigne s purpose in describing an alien encounter was excorporationmankind wa...

A collections of anecdotes, reviews and essays, written with the humour and warmth one associates with Brian Aldiss. In this fascinating collection of essays, one of the world’s pre-eminent SF writers explores a wide range of SF and fantasy writers and writings. The contents include a letter to Salvador Dali, Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, the work of Philip K. Dick, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, James Blish, Culture: Is it worth losing your balls for?and the differences bet...

Tamora Pierce has a large following of teen and adult readers, who savor her fantasy novels with strong female characters. This volume provides her readers and fans with additional insights into her life and work. The first section provides a biographical chapter and literary heritage. The second and third sections analyze the Tales of Tortall and the Magic Circle Sagas as a whole, providing details into the characters and settings of each. The final section of the book, Perspectives, includes b...