New Accents: Science Fiction

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
General Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
	The rise of science-fiction studies
	Genre criticism
1 WORKING DAYDREAMS, WORKSHOP DEFINITIONS
	The scientific romance
	Logical speculation: H.G. Wells
	The fiction of the magazines
	Extrapolation: Robert A. Heinlein
	The ‘New Wave’
	Definition by structure
	Generic hybrids
2 THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE GENRE
	SF as product
	SF as message: readership and ‘fandomSF as message: readership and ‘fandom’
	Modes of reading
	SF as document: the ‘thinking machine’
	Literature and paraliterature
3 SCIENCE FICTION AS ROMANCE
	Contemporary mythology and the ‘literature of wonder’
	Functions and formulas
	Domestication
	Self-conscious romance
4 SCIENCE FICTION AS FABLE
	Social criticism
	Cognitive estrangement
	Utopia and scientific materialism
	Galactic imperialism
	Liberation and power
5 SCIENCE FICTION AS EPIC
	SF and the historical novel
	Truncated epic
	Scientific anticipation
	The future histories
6 IMITATION AND NOVELTY: AN APPROACH THROUGH SF LANGUAGE
	Authenticity and the literary hoax
	The language of novelty
	The absent signified
	Intertextuality and parody
	Entropy and disintegration
	Romance, fable, epic and parody: Lem’s Solaris
7 THE SCIENCE–FICTION COURSE
	The ‘two cultures’ debate and the student revolution
	Consolidation and canon-formation
	The strange and the familiar
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index