Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda-setting in American and British Speculative Fiction

Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 9
Introduction: Assessing Rumors—of War and Infernal Machines......Page 10
1 Armageddon by Gaslight: Victorian Visions of Apocalypse......Page 17
2 Opportunistic Anticipations and Accidental Insights: William Le Queux’s Exploitation of Edwardian Invasion Anxieties......Page 41
3 Promoters of the Probable, Prophets of the Possible: Technological Innovation and Edwardian Near-Future War Fiction......Page 71
4 H. G. Wells: The Far-Future War Prophet of Edwardian England......Page 100
5 Hard Numbers, Hard Cases, Hard Decisions: Politics and Future-War Fiction in America......Page 121
6 An Imperfect Future Tense(d): Anticipations of Atomic Annihilation in Post-War American Science Fiction......Page 137
7 Nuclear Fiction and Silo Psychosis: Narratives of Life in the Shadow of a Mushroom Cloud......Page 155
8 Radio Waves, Death Rays, and Transgressive (Sub)Texts: Future-War Fiction in the Wide Black Yonder......Page 182
9 Making Man-Machines of Mass Destruction: Future-War Authors as Seers in an Age of Cyborg Soldiers......Page 217
10 Cultural Casualties as Collateral Damage: The Fragment-ing/-ation Effects of Future-War Fantasies vs. Fictions......Page 248
Afterword: On Conducting a Literary Reconnaissance in Force-and in Earnest......Page 265
Notes......Page 268
Selected Bibliography......Page 296
Index......Page 301