Download or read book 14 Great Tales of ESP written by John Wood Campbell (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 14 Great Tales of ESP written by Idella Purnell Stone and published by Coronet. This book was released on 1969 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pseudoscience and Science Fiction written by Andrew May and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aliens, flying saucers, ESP, the Bermuda Triangle, antigravity ... are we talking about science fiction or pseudoscience? Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. Both pseudoscience and science fiction (SF) are creative endeavours that have little in common with academic science, beyond the superficial trappings of jargon and subject matter. The most obvious difference between the two is that pseudoscience is presented as fact, not fiction. Yet like SF, and unlike real science, pseudoscience is driven by a desire to please an audience – in this case, people who “want to believe”. This has led to significant cross-fertilization between the two disciplines. SF authors often draw on “real” pseudoscientific theories to add verisimilitude to their stories, while on other occasions pseudoscience takes its cue from SF – the symbiotic relationship between ufology and Hollywood being a prime example of this. This engagingly written, well researched and richly illustrated text explores a wide range of intriguing similarities and differences between pseudoscience and the fictional science found in SF. Andrew May has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a PhD in astrophysics from Manchester University. After many years in academia and the private sector, he now works as a freelance writer and scientific consultant. He has written pocket biographies of Newton and Einstein, as well as contributing to a number of popular science books. He has a lifelong interest in science fiction, and has had several articles published in Fortean Times magazine
Download or read book The Mechanics of Wonder written by Gary Westfahl and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a sustained argument about the idea of science fiction by a renowned critic. Overturning many received opinions, it is both controversial and stimulating Much of the controversy arises from Westfahl's resurrection of Hugo Gernsback - for decades a largely derided figure - as the true creator of science fiction. Following an initial demolition of earlier critics, Westfahl argues for Gernsback's importance. His argument is fully documented, showing a much greater familiarity with early American science fiction, particularly magazine fiction, than previous academic critics or historians. After his initial chapters on Gernsback, he examines the way in which the Gernsback tradition was adopted and modified by later magazine editors and early critics. This involves a re-evaluation of the importance of John W. Campbell to the history of science fiction as well as a very interesting critique of Robert Heinlein's Beyond the Horizon, one the seminal texts of American science fiction. In conclusion, Westfahl uses the theories of Gernsback and Campbell to develop a descriptive definition of science fiction and he explores the ramifications of that definition. The Mechanics of Wonder will arouse debate and force the questioning of presuppositions. No other book so closely examines the origins and development of the idea of science fiction, and it will stand among a small number of crucial texts with which every science fiction scholar or prospective science fiction scholar will have to read.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction written by Rob Latham and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2014 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction attempts to descry the historical and cultural contours of SF in the wake of technoculture studies. Rather than treating the genre as an isolated aesthetic formation, it examines SF's many lines of cross-pollination with technocultural realities since itsinception in the nineteenth century, showing how SF's unique history and subcultural identity has been constructed in ongoing dialogue with popular discourses of science and technology.The volume consists of four broadly themed sections, each divided into eleven chapters. Section I, "Science Fiction as Genre," considers the internal history of SF literature, examining its characteristic aesthetic and ideological modalities, its animating social and commercial institutions, and itsrelationship to other fantastic genres. Section II, "Science Fiction as Medium," presents a more diverse and ramified understanding of what constitutes the field as a mode of artistic and pop-cultural expression, canvassing extra-literary manifestations of SF ranging from film and television tovideogames and hypertext to music and theme parks. Section III, "Science Fiction as Culture," examines the genre in relation to cultural issues and contexts that have influenced it and been influenced by it in turn, the goal being to see how SF has helped to constitute and define important(sub)cultural groupings, social movements, and historical developments during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Finally, Section IV, "Science Fiction as Worldview," explores SF as a mode of thought and its intersection with other philosophies and large-scale perspectives on theworld, from the Enlightenment to the present day.
Download or read book Catalog of Copyright Entries Third Series written by Library of Congress. Copyright Office and published by Copyright Office, Library of Congress. This book was released on 1972 with total page 1830 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction written by Adam Roberts and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-03-30 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction is a comprehensive overview of the history and study of science fiction. It outlines major writers, movements, and texts in the genre, established critical approaches and areas for future study. Fifty-six entries by a team of renowned international contributors are divided into four parts which look, in turn, at: history – an integrated chronological narrative of the genre’s development theory – detailed accounts of major theoretical approaches including feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, postcolonialism, posthumanism and utopian studies issues and challenges – anticipates future directions for study in areas as diverse as science studies, music, design, environmentalism, ethics and alterity subgenres – a prismatic view of the genre, tracing themes and developments within specific subgenres. Bringing into dialogue the many perspectives on the genre The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and the future of science fiction and the way it is taught and studied.
Download or read book Mind Reading as a Cultural Practice written by Laurens Schlicht and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-04 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a genealogical perspective on various forms of mind reading in different settings. We understand mind reading in a broad sense as the twentieth-century attempt to generate knowledge of what people held in their minds – with a focus on scientifically-based governmental practices. This volume considers the techniques of mind reading within a wider perspective of discussions about technological innovation within neuroscience, the juridical system, “occult” practices and discourses within the wider field of parapsychology and magical beliefs. The authors address the practice of, and discourses on, mind reading as they form part of the consolidation of modern governmental techniques. The collected contributions explore the question of how these techniques have been epistemically formed, institutionalized, practiced, discussed, and how they have been used to shape forms of subjectivities – collectively through human consciousness or individually through the criminal, deviant, or spiritual subject. The first part of this book focuses on the technologies and media of mind reading, while the second part addresses practices of mind reading as they have been used within the juridical sphere. The volume is of interest to a broad scholarly readership dealing with topics in interdisciplinary fields such as the history of science, history of knowledge, cultural studies, and techniques of subjectivization.
Download or read book Rockets and Ray Guns The Sci Fi Science of the Cold War written by Andrew May and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-26 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cold War saw scientists in East and West racing to create amazing new technologies, the like of which the world had never seen. Yet not everyone was taken by surprise. From super-powerful atomic weapons to rockets and space travel, readers of science fiction (SF) had seen it all before. Sometimes reality lived up to the SF vision, at other times it didn’t. The hydrogen bomb was as terrifyingly destructive as anything in fiction, while real-world lasers didn't come close to the promise of the classic SF ray gun. Nevertheless, when the scientific Cold War culminated in the Strategic Defence Initiative of the 1980s, it was so science-fictional in its aspirations that the media dubbed it “Star Wars”. This entertaining account, offering a plethora of little known facts and insights from previously classified military projects, shows how the real-world science of the Cold War followed in the footsteps of SF – and how the two together changed our perception of both science and scientists, and paved the way to the world we live in today.
Download or read book E T Culture written by Debbora Battaglia and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-30 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropologists have long sought to engage and describe foreign or “alien” societies, yet few have considered the fluid communities centered around a shared belief in alien beings and UFO sightings and their effect on popular and expressive culture. Opening up a new frontier for anthropological study, the contributors to E.T. Culture take these communities seriously. They demonstrate that an E.T. orientation toward various forms of visitation—including alien beings, alien technologies, and uncanny visions—engages primary concepts underpinning anthropological research: host and visitor, home and away, subjectivity and objectivity. Taking the point of view of those who commit to sci-fi as sci-fact, contributors to this volume show how discussions and representations of otherworldly beings express concerns about racial and ethnic differences, the anxieties and fascination associated with modern technologies, and alienation from the inner workings of government. Drawing on social science, science studies, linguistics, popular and expressive culture, and social and intellectual history, the writers of E.T. Culture unsettle the boundaries of science, magic, and religion as well as those of technological and human agency. They consider the ways that sufferers of “unmarked” diseases such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome come to feel alien to both the “healthy” world and the medical community incapable of treating them; the development of alien languages like Klingon; attempts to formulate a communications technology—such as that created for the spaceship Voyager—that will reach alien beings; the pilgrimage spirit of UFO seekers; the out-of-time experiences of Nobel scientists; the embrace of the alien within Japanese animation and fan culture; and the physical spirituality of the Raëlian religious network. Contributors. Debbora Battaglia, Richard Doyle, Joseph Dumit, Mizuko Ito, Susan Lepselter, Christopher Roth, David Samuels
Download or read book Science Fiction A to Z written by Isaac Asimov and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fifty great works of science fiction"--Cover.
Download or read book Genreflecting written by Betty Rosenberg and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this updated selection guide, the popular fiction genres of westerns, science fiction, horror, fantasy, and romance are not just embraced, they are defined, analyzed, and organized, with lists of notable authors, titles, and anthologies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Indexes to the literature written by R. Reginald and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Books and Pamphlets Including Serials and Contributions to Periodicals written by Library of Congress. Copyright Office and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 822 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Foundation written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Benchmarks written by Algis Budrys and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the years since 1965, Algis Budrys has emerged as the leading critic of modern speculative fiction: insightful, eclectic, and notoriously uninhibited. Benchmarks collects the material that started it—all 54 Galaxy Bookshelf book-review columns Budrys created for the now-vanished Galaxy Magazine. Written for what was then the world’s leading SF periodical, these legendary summations and summary judgments coincided with the period when newsstand-borne science fiction and fantasy were evolving from pulp toward literature. Budrys’ Galaxy reviews trace an incisive, sometimes wickedly acerb path through that sparsely charted literary territory. Budrys defines his standards and his function in his own words: “A book should he good. A bird should fly. “Writers of imperfect, tousled books should be made aware that standards of breeding and grooming exist. I strive to fulfill that function.”
Download or read book The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales written by Charles Abraham Owen and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 1991 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Owen investigates what the manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales reveal about the way they came into being. [see revs] This study of the manuscripts of the Canterbury Talescalls into question previous efforts to explain the complexities, the different orderings of the tales and the extraordinary shifts in textual affiliations within the manuscripts. Owen sees the manuscripts that survive, most of them collections of all or almost all the tales, as derived from the large number of single tales and small collections that circulated after Chaucer's death. This theory takes issue with all modern editions of the Canterbury Tales, which in Owen's view reflect the effort of medieval scribes and supervisors to make a satisfactory book of the collection of fragments Chaucer left behind. It is this collection of fragments, the authentic Tales of Canterbury by Geoffrey Chaucer, which reflects the different stages of the plan that was still evolving at his death. CHARLES A. OWEN Jr is former Professor of English and Chairman of Medieval Studies at the University of Conneticut.
