Hell's Cartographers

Hell's Cartographers

Author: Brian Aldiss

Publisher: Courier Dover Publications

Published: 2018-06-13

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 048683140X

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Six bestselling authors provide lively personal histories that provide fascinating insights into the creative process — and offer inspiration for aspiring wordsmiths. Includes essays by Robert Silverberg, Alfred Bester, Harry Harrison, Damon Knight, Frederik Pohl, and Brian W. Aldiss.


Evaporating Genres

Evaporating Genres

Author: Gary K. Wolfe

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

Published: 2012-01-01

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0819571040

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A series of provocative essays on how the fantastic genres evolve and grow In this wide-ranging series of essays, an award-winning science fiction critic explores how the related genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror evolve, merge, and finally "evaporate" into new and more dynamic forms. Beginning with a discussion of how literary readers "unlearned" how to read the fantastic during the heyday of realistic fiction, Gary K. Wolfe goes on to show how the fantastic reasserted itself in popular genre literature, and how these genres themselves grew increasingly unstable in terms of both narrative form and the worlds they portray. More detailed discussions of how specific contemporary writers have promoted this evolution are followed by a final essay examining how the competing discourses have led toward an emerging synthesis of critical approaches and vocabularies. The essays cover a vast range of authors and texts, and include substantial discussions of very current fiction published within the last few years.


Worlds Apart

Worlds Apart

Author: Carl Darryl Malmgren

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1991-07-22

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9780253336453

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"[Malmgren] succeeds in formulating a typology of science fiction that will become a standard reference for some years to come." —Choice " . . . the most intelligently organized and effectively argued general study of SF that I have ever read." —Rob Latham, SFRA Review " . . . required reading for its evenhanded overview of so much of the previous critical/theoretical material devoted to science fiction." —American Book Review Worlds Apart provides a comprehensive theoretical model for science fiction by examining the worlds of science fiction and the discourse which inscribes them. Malmgren identifies the basic science fiction types, including alien encounters, alternate societies and worlds, and fantasy, and examines the role of the reader in concretizing and interpreting these science fiction worlds.


Saving the World Through Science Fiction

Saving the World Through Science Fiction

Author: Michael R. Page

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2017-02-28

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 147662822X

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One of the major figures in science fiction for more than sixty years, James Gunn has been instrumental in making the genre one of the most vibrant and engaging areas of literary scholarship. His genre history Alternate Worlds and his The Road to Science Fiction anthologies introduced countless readers to science fiction. He founded the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction in 1982. But Gunn has also been one of the genre's leading writers. His classic novels Star Bridge (with Jack Williamson), The Joy Makers, The Immortals and The Listeners helped shape the field. Now in his nineties, he remains a prominent voice. His forthcoming novel is Transformation. Drawing on materials from Gunn's archives and personal interviews with him, this study is the first to examine the life, career and writing of this science fiction grandmaster.


Harry Harrison

Harry Harrison

Author: Paul Tomlinson

Publisher: Wildside Press LLC

Published: 2002-04-01

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1587154013

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The definitive Harry Harrison bibliography, with lengthy annotations and a special bonus--the Harrison story written for Harlan Ellison's unpublished "Last Dangerous Visions" anthology.


Brian Aldiss

Brian Aldiss

Author: Michael R. Collings

Publisher: Wildside Press LLC

Published: 1986-01-01

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 0893709557

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A guide to Aldiss's fictional output from the 50's to the 80's.


New Worlds: Before the New Wave, 1960-1964

New Worlds: Before the New Wave, 1960-1964

Author: John Boston

Publisher: Wildside Press LLC

Published: 2013-04-30

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1479409820

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In the mid-1960s, British science fiction and fantasy were convulsed by the "New Wave." This movement emerged from the SF magazines edited by John Carnell. Such brilliant NEW WORLDS and SCIENCE FANTASY writers as J. G. Ballard, Brian W. Aldiss, John Brunner, and Michael Moorcock heralded the rise of this new kind of fantastic fiction. John Boston and Damien Broderick's concluding volume of their critical trilogy examines the history and development of these important magazines--and the fiction that they championed. By the end of this period (1964), Carnell had set the stage for that major development in UK science fiction--the new wave adventures of the transformed NEW WORLDS, under the editorship of Moorcock--and had himself shifted gear into the next mode of SF publishing as editor of the paperback anthology series, New Writings in SF. Boston and Broderick's series will become the definitive critical histories of these important British magazines. Complete with indices of names and titles cited.


Brian W. Aldiss

Brian W. Aldiss

Author: Paul Kincaid

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2022-07-12

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0252053478

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Brian W. Aldiss wrote classic science fiction novels like Report on Probability A and Hothouse. Billion Year Spree, his groundbreaking study of the field, defined the very meaning of SF and delineated its history. Yet Aldiss’s discomfort with being a guiding spirit of the British New Wave and his pursuit of mainstream success characterized a lifelong ambivalence toward the genre. Paul Kincaid explores the many contradictions that underlay the distinctive qualities of Aldiss’s writing. Wartime experiences in Asia and the alienation that arose upon his return to the cold austerity of postwar Britain inspired themes and imagery that Aldiss drew upon throughout his career. He wrote of prolific nature overwhelming humanity, believed war was madness even though it provided him with the happiest period of his life, and found parallels in the static lives of Indian peasants and hidebound English society. As Kincaid shows, contradictions created tensions that fueled the metaphorical underpinnings of Aldiss's work and shaped not only his long career but the evolution of postwar British science fiction.


Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl

Author: Michael R Page

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2015-09-30

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0252097742

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One of science fiction's undisputed grandmasters, Frederik Pohl built an astonishing career that spanned more than seven decades. Along the way he won millions of readers and seemingly as many awards while producing novels, short stories, and essays that left a profound mark on the genre. In this first-of-its-kind study, Michael R. Page traces Pohl's journey as an author but also uncovers his role as a transformative figure who shaped the genre as a literary agent, book editor, and in Gardner Dozois' words, "quite probably the best SF magazine editor who ever lived."