Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Unimaginable

Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Unimaginable PDF Author: William J. Burling
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
"These essays examine Robinson's use of alternate history and politics, both in his many novels and in his short stories. This collection, drawn from writers on four continents, includes five new essays and broadens the interpretive debate surrounding Robinson's science fiction and argues for consideration of the author as an intellectual figure of the first rank"--Provided by publisher.

Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Unimaginable

Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Unimaginable PDF Author: William J. Burling
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
"These essays examine Robinson's use of alternate history and politics, both in his many novels and in his short stories. This collection, drawn from writers on four continents, includes five new essays and broadens the interpretive debate surrounding Robinson's science fiction and argues for consideration of the author as an intellectual figure of the first rank"--Provided by publisher.

Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson PDF Author: Robert Markley
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252051610
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Award-winning epics like the Mars Trilogy and groundbreaking alternative histories like The Days of Rice and Salt have brought Kim Stanley Robinson to the forefront of contemporary science fiction. Mixing subject matter from a dizzying number of fields with his own complex ecological and philosophical concerns, Robinson explores how humanity might pursue utopian social action as a strategy for its own survival. Robert Markley examines the works of an author engaged with the fundamental question of how we—as individuals, as a civilization, and as a species—might go forward. By building stories on huge time scales, Robinson lays out the scientific and human processes that fuel humanity's struggle toward a more just and environmentally stable world or system of worlds. His works invite readers to contemplate how to achieve, and live in, these numerous possible futures. They also challenge us to see that SF's literary, cultural, and philosophical significance have made it the preeminent literary genre for examining where we stand today in human and planetary history.

Fantasy and Myth in the Anthropocene

Fantasy and Myth in the Anthropocene PDF Author: Marek Oziewicz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135020336X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
The first study to look at the intersection of the discourse of the Anthropocene within the two highly influential storytelling modes of fantasy and myth, this book shows the need for stories that articulate visions of a biocentric, ecological civilization. Fantasy and myth have long been humanity's most advanced technologies for collective dreaming. Today they are helping us adopt a biocentric lens, re-kin us with other forms of life, and assist us in the transition to an ecological civilization. Deliberately moving away from dystopian narratives toward anticipatory imaginations of sustainable futures, this volume blends chapters by top scholars in the fields of fantasy, myth, and Young Adult literature with personal reflections by award-winning authors and illustrators of books for young audiences, including Shaun Tan, Jane Yolen, Katherine Applegate and Joseph Bruchac. Chapters cover the works of major fantasy authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Prachett, J. K. Rowling, China Miéville, Barbara Henderson, Jeanette Winterson, John Crowley, Richard Powers, George R. R. Martin and Kim Stanley Robinson. They range through narratives set in the UK, USA, Nigeria, Ghana, Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Australia. Across the chapters, fantasy and myth are framed as spaces where visions of sustainable futures can be designed with most detail and nuance. Rather than merely criticizing the ecocidal status quo, the book asks how mythic narratives and fantastic stories can mobilize resistance around ideas necessary for the emergence of an ecological civilization.

Stephen R. Donaldson and the Modern Epic Vision

Stephen R. Donaldson and the Modern Epic Vision PDF Author: Christine Barkley
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786453230
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This critical study analyzes Stephen R. Donaldson's role as a modern writer who uses the fantasy genre to discuss situations and predicaments germane to the modern world. Donaldson reclaims an epic vision in his Thomas Covenant novels that is lacking in most modern literature. Chapters demonstrate how this use of epic heroism helps solve seemingly insurmountable problems and provides more meaning and purpose for individuals. As Donaldson's characters learn to transcend their world, the reader is engaged in a serious, enlightened discussion about the need for imagination, responsibility and acceptance to resolve such problems as alienation, pollution, disease and despair.

Gender and the Quest in British Science Fiction Television

Gender and the Quest in British Science Fiction Television PDF Author: Tom Powers
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476626936
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
The subjects of this book constitute a significant cross section of BBC science fiction television. With such characters as the Doctor (an enigmatic time-traveling alien), Kerr Avon (a problematic rebel leader), Dave Lister (a slovenly last surviving human) and Captain Jack Harkness (a complex omnisexual immortal), these shows have both challenged and reinforced viewer expectations about the small-screen masculine hero. This book explores the construction of gendered heroic identity in the series from both production and fan perspectives. The paradoxical relationships between the producers, writers and fans of the four series are discussed. Fan fiction, criticism and videos are examined that both celebrate and criticize BBC science fiction heroes and villains.

Discworld and the Disciplines

Discworld and the Disciplines PDF Author: Anne Hiebert Alton
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786474645
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This collection of new essays applies a wide range of critical frameworks to the analysis of prolific fantasy author Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Essays focus on topics such as Pratchett's treatment of noise and silence and their political implications; art as an anodyne for racial conflict; humor and cognitive debugging; visual semiotics; linguistic stylistics and readers' perspectives of word choice; and Derrida and the "monstrous Regiment of Women." The volume also includes an annotated bibliography of critical sources. The essays provide fresh perspectives on Pratchett's work, which has stealthily redefined both fantasy and humor for modern audiences.

The Heritage of Heinlein

The Heritage of Heinlein PDF Author: Thomas D. Clareson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476613109
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Robert A. Heinlein is generally recognized as the most important American science fiction writer of the 20th century. This is the first detailed critical examination of his entire career. It is not a biography--that is being done in a two-volume work by William Patterson. Instead, this book looks at each piece of fiction (and a few pieces of sf-related nonfiction) that Heinlein wrote, chronologically by date of publication, in order to consider what each contributes to his overall accomplishment. The aim is to be fair, to look clearly at the strengths and weaknesses of the writings that have inspired generations of readers and writers.

Doctor Who in Time and Space

Doctor Who in Time and Space PDF Author: Gillian I. Leitch
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786465492
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This collection of fresh essays addresses a broad range of topics in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, both old (1963-1989) and new (2005-present). The book begins with the fan: There are essays on how the show is viewed and identified with, fan interactions with each other, reactions to changes, the wilderness years when it wasn't in production. Essays then look at the ways in which the stories are told (e.g., their timeliness, their use of time travel as a device, etc.). After discussing the stories and devices and themes, the essays turn to looking at the Doctor's female companions and how they evolve, are used, and changed by their journey with the Doctor.

The Past That Might Have Been, the Future That May Come

The Past That Might Have Been, the Future That May Come PDF Author: Lauren J. Lacey
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786478268
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This book explores how contemporary fantastic fiction by women writers responds to the past and imagines the future. The first two chapters look at revisionist rewritings of fairy tales and historical texts; the third and fourth focus on future-oriented narratives including dystopias and space fiction. Writers considered include Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, Angela Carter, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing, and Jeanette Winterson, among others. The author argues that an analysis of how past and future are understood in women's fantastic fictions brings to light an "ethics of becoming" in the texts--a way of interrupting, revising and remaking problematic power structures that are tied to identity markers like class, gender and race. The book reveals how fantastic fiction can be read as narratives of disruption that enable the creation of an ethics of becoming.

The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction

The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction PDF Author: Bradford Lyau
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786462175
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Following World War II, the Fleuve Noir publishing house published popular American genre fiction in translation for a French audience. Their imprint Anticipation specialized in science fiction, but mostly eschewed translations from English, preferring instead French work, thus making the imprint an important outlet for native French postwar ideas and aesthetics. This critical text examines in ideological terms eleven writers who published under the Anticipation imprint, revealing the way these writers criticized midcentury notions of progress while adapting and reworking American genre formats.