Caitlin R. Kiernan (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy)
by James Goho
Caitlin R. Kiernan is at the forefront of contemporary gothic, weird and science fiction literature. She has written more than a dozen novels, over 250 short stories, many chapbooks, along with a large number of graphic works. For these Kiernan has won numerous awards. This first full-length look at Kiernan's body of work explores her fictional universe through critical literary lenses to show the depth of her contributions to modern genre literature. A prolific and creative writer, Kiernan's f...
The Archive Incarnate (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy)
by Joseph Hurtgen
We live in an information economy, a vast archive of data ever at our fingertips. In the pages of science fiction, powerful entities-governments and corporations-seek to use this archive to control society, enforcing conformity or turning citizens into passive consumers. Opposing them are protagonists fighting to liberate the collective mind from those who would enforce top-down control. Archival technology and its depictions in science fiction have developed dramatically since the 1950s. Ray B...
JRR Tolkien, creator of the fictional world of Middle Earth and one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, grew up and spent his formative years in the suburbs of Birmingham. This work provides an exploration of the real-life places, which inspired Tolkein's middle earth, illustrated with almost 200 images.
Seduced by Twilight: The Allure and Contradictory Messages of the Popular Saga
by Natalie Wilson
Immortality is a subject which has long been explored and imagined by science fiction writers. In his intriguing new study, Stephen R.L.Clark argues that the genre of science fiction writing allows investigation of philosophical questions about immortality without the constraints of academic philosophy. He reveals how fantasy accounts of issues such as resurrection, disembodied survival, reincarnation and devices or drugs for preserving life can be used as an important resource for philosophical...
Study Guide to Ivanhoe and Other Works by Sir Walter Scott (Bright Notes)
Harry Potter. The name conjures up J.K. Rowling's wondrous world of magic that has captured the imaginations of millions on both the printed page and the silver screen with bestselling novels and blockbuster films. The true magic found in this children's fantasy series lies not only in its appeal to people of all ages but in its connection to the greater world of classic literature. Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures explores the literary landscape of the...
H. G. Wells's Perennial Time Machine
Acclaimed as a work of genius when first published in 1895, The Time Machine represents a revolution in storytelling. H. G. Wells's first--and greatest--novel has been recognized worldwide as a founding text of the science fiction genre and one of the most seminal narratives of the last hundred years. This collection of essays offers a series of original, penetrating, and wide-ranging perspectives on Wells's masterpiece by an international group of major Wells and science fiction scholars. The...
In terms of worldwide sales (around 25 million copies to date, and no signs of stopping), Terry Pratchett is one of the leading writers in English. He is also a writer of complexity and allusiveness, whose rich work raises important issues about the real world within a fantasy/comic environment. This encyclopedia mixes shorter entries conveying specific information for foraging readers with longer, more discursive articles for readers wanting more reflective engagement with Pratchett's novels....
Wuthering Heights is the only published novel by Emily Bronte, written between October 1845 and June 1846[1] and published in July of the following year. It was not printed until December 1847, after the success of her sister Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre, under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. A posthumous second edition was edited by Charlotte. The title of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors of the story. The narrative centres on the all-encompassing, passionate, but ultimatel...
Beowulf (CRC Press International Series on Computational Intelligence, #1936) (Acs Symposium Series,, #1936)
by J. R. R. Tolkien
The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s; and from these lectures a substantial selection has been made, to form also a co...
The Italian Gothic and Fantastic (The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies)
This volume investigates modes of the reception, rewriting, and appropriation of the gothic and the fantastic in Italy in the late nineteenth century and the second half of the twentieth century. It articulates the ways in which Italian writers both undermined the narrative spaces created by realist narration and introduced agnoseological dimension centered on a disempowered and disjointed subjectivity. It argues that both in their breaking of nineteenth- and twentieth-century aesthetic and lite...
Steaming into a Victorian Future
A popular sub-genre of fantasy and science fiction, steampunk re-imagines the Victorian age in the future, and re-works its technology, fashion, and values with a dose of anti-modernism. While often considered solely through the lens of literature, steampunk is, in fact, a complex phenomenon that also affects, transforms, and unites a wide range of disciplines, such as art, music, film, television, fashion, new media, and material culture. In Steaming into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthol...
Our fascination with the vampire myth has scarcely diminished since Bram Stoker’s publication of the classic Dracula tale in 1897, but how much of the lore is based in fact and can science explain the origins of horror’s most famous fiend? Vampirology charts the murky waters of the vampire myth – from stories found in many cultures across the globe to our sympathetic pop-culture renditions today – to investigate how a scientific interpretation may shed light on the fears and phenomena of the vam...
Peoples of Middle Earth (The History of Middle-Earth, v. 12)
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Caesar's Column (Extra Series / Viking Society) (Dystopian Classics)
by Ignatius Donnelly
The book is a plea, and a striking one. Its plot is bold, its language is forceful, and the great uprising is given with terrible vividness.