Science Fiction and Market Realities

Science Fiction and Market Realities
Author: George Edgar Slusser
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1996
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780820317267

Through case studies, other contributors relate science fiction to other forms of "underground" literature, consider the continual cycle of illegitimate art replacing legitimate art, look at young readers of science fiction, chart the rising and falling "stock" of science fiction writers' reputations, and consider the influence of editors on a writer's work.

Styles of Creation

Styles of Creation
Author: George Edgar Slusser
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1992
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780820314556

The impetus behind this collection of original essays is the tension between the aesthetic emphasis on stylistics in science fiction and fantasy writing and the critical limitations imposed by prevailing literary theory. From a variety of perspectives, the contributors show how a new, or expanded, set of methods and models can enrich critical exchange within the genre and between it and other types of fiction. The focus of the book is not entirely on critical restraints but also on the genre's robustly subversive, creative drive--its unwillingness or inability to pause for critical validation. The essays examine the proliferation of stylistic acts and experiments in science fiction and fantasy writing as assess the genre's revolutionary qualities: its reordering of narrative priorities, inversion of consecrated categories, and elevation of "minor" devices.

Ten Billion Tomorrows

Ten Billion Tomorrows
Author: Brian Clegg
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2015-12-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 125005785X

An exciting new book about real-life technology derived from science fiction and its impact on the world.

Alternate Realities

Alternate Realities
Author: C. J. Cherryh
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Total Pages: 507
Release: 2000-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101495618

Port Eternity Their names were Lancelot, Elaine, Percivale, Gawain, Mordred, Lynette and Vivien, and they were made people, clone servants who worked aboard The Maid, an anachronistic fantasy of a spaceship. They had no idea of their origins, from those old storytapes of romance, chivalry, heroism and betrayal, until a ripple in the space-time continuum sucked The Maid and her crew into a no-man’s land from which there could be no return, and they were left alone to face a crisis which their ancient prototypes were never designed to master… Wave Without a Shore Freedom was an isolated planet, off the main spaceways and rarely visited by commercial spacers. It wasn’t that Freedom was inhospitable, the problem was that outsiders—tourists and traders—claimed that the streets were crowded with mysterious blue-robed aliens. Native-born humans, however, denied that these aliens existed—until a planetary crisis forced a confrontation between the question of reality and the reality of the question… Voyager in the Night Rafe Murray, his sister Jillian, and Jillian’s husband Paul Gaines, like many other out-of-luck spacers, had come to newly built Endeavor Station to find their future. Their tiny ship, Lindy, had been salvaged from the junk heap, and fitted to mine ore from the mineral-rich rings which circled Endeavor. But their future proved to be far stranger than any of them imagined, when a “collision” with a huge alien vessel provided them with the oddest first contact experience possible!

Foods of the Gods

Foods of the Gods
Author: Gary Westfahl
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1996
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780820317472

Gluttony and starvation, pleasure and pain, growth and decay. These and other extremes of our condition related to food, though all but banned from the "civilized" tables of mainstream fiction, are ideal topics for the "undomesticated," free-roaming modes of fantasy. As acts and ideas, food and eating are fundamental to all that makes us human and dominate our symbolic realms of art, literature, and cuisine. These essays show us the power of speculative modes of fiction to help us look anew at prehistorical and psychomythical attitudes toward food and eating; historical Western-cultural attitudes toward the material fact of food and the necessity of eating; and the relationship between attitudes toward food and how, how much, when, and where we eat. The contributors come from a variety of backgrounds, including anthropology, film, and French, Russian, English, and medieval literature. Ranging in their focus from shamans to cannibals, utopias to social Darwinism, muscle magazines to supermarket tabloids, the contributors discuss the theory and practice of science fictional eating; the dialectic, at the level of eating, between individual needs and collective norms; and the ways that eating habits and the availability and choice of food serve to contextualize and demarcate modern fictional genres. In addition to discussing such writers as C. S. Lewis, Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Jonathan Swift, and Anne Rice, the contributors also consider such films as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.

The Reality Dysfunction

The Reality Dysfunction
Author: Peter F. Hamilton
Publisher: Orbit
Total Pages: 1302
Release: 2008-10-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0316040401

The Reality Dysfunction is a modern classic of science fiction from Peter F. Hamilton, an extraordinary feat of storytelling on a truly epic scale. "A space opera that is big, boisterous, and has something for everyone." —Science Fiction Weekly Space is not the only void. . . In AD 2600 the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp. But on a primitive colony planet, a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of humanity’s fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it "The Reality Dysfunction." It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history. The Night’s Dawn Trilogy The Reality Dysfunction The Neutronium Alchemist The Naked Go

Infinite Detail

Infinite Detail
Author: Tim Maughan
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374718601

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL! The Guardian's Pick for Best Science Fiction Book of the Year! A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet BEFORE: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City—now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis? AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary—who has visions of people presumed dead—is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft’s black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure. The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.