Download or read book Classic and Iconoclastic Alternate History Science Fiction written by Edgar L. Chapman and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume analyse the important sub-genre of science fiction called alternate history - stories set in worlds that have been fictionalized by altering some key event in real history. It examines some of the fanous themes of this literature: the American South winning the Civil War, and the Nazis winning World War II, as well as analysing some fascinating experiments with the form, such as those by Robert Silverberg and Robert Coover. Essays are by scholars including Thomas Shippey, Steven Kagle, Robert Geary, Martha Bartter and Joe Sanders. The book moves from the origins of alternate history to discussions of early examples, and unusual experiments within it, and deals not only with printed literature but with film and graphic novels as well.
Download or read book Alternate History written by Kathleen Singles and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While, strictly speaking, Alternate Histories are not Future Narratives, their analysis can shed a clear light on why Future Narratives are so different from past narratives. Trying to have it both ways, most Alternate Histories subscribe to a conflicting set of beliefs concerning determinism and freedom of choice, contingency and necessity. For the very first time, Alternate Histories are here discussed against the backdrop of their Other, Future Narratives. The volume contains in-depth analyses of the classics of the genre,such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Philip Roth's The Plot against America, as well as less widely-discussed manifestations of the genre, such as Dieter Kühn's N, Christian Kracht's Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten, and Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds.
Download or read book The Fiction Writer s Guide to Alternate History written by Jack Dann and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-13 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to the speculative sub-genre of alternate history fiction, this book maps the unique terrain of this vibrant mode of storytelling and then explains how to write it. First giving a concise conceptual overview and the critical tools to differentiate the different forms of counterfactual fiction, Jack Dann lays out the 'tricks of the trade' such 'Heinleining', how to create recognizable 'divergent points' and how to employ paratextual elements and 'layering' to overcome readers' unfamiliarity with invented counterfactual events and cultures. Alongside this, Dann takes you step-by-step through a complete short story to demonstrate, line-by-line, how alternative history fiction works. As well as Dann's exacting methodology for writing professional quality alternate history stories, this book also features a live-on-the-page Q&A with some of the most esteemed alternate history writers working today, including Kim Stanley Robinson, John Birmingham and Lisa Goldstein among many others, who will detail their own particular hacks, theories, processes, methods and strategies. Combining extensive and deep knowledge of the field with accessible writing advice, this is the ultimate guidebook to the broad and complex sub-genre of counterfactual and alterative history fiction.
Download or read book Science Fiction Literature through History 2 volumes written by Gary Westfahl and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-07-19 with total page 814 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides students and other interested readers with a comprehensive survey of science fiction history and numerous essays addressing major science fiction topics, authors, works, and subgenres written by a distinguished scholar. This encyclopedia deals with written science fiction in all of its forms, not only novels and short stories but also mediums often ignored in other reference books, such as plays, poems, comic books, and graphic novels. Some science fiction films, television programs, and video games are also mentioned, particularly when they are relevant to written texts. Its focus is on science fiction in the English language, though due attention is given to international authors whose works have been frequently translated into English. Since science fiction became a recognized genre and greatly expanded in the 20th century, works published in the 20th and 21st centuries are most frequently discussed, though important earlier works are not neglected. The texts are designed to be helpful to numerous readers, ranging from students first encountering science fiction to experienced scholars in the field.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature written by Brian M. Stableford and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reference tracks the development of speculative fiction influenced by the advancement of science and the idea of progress from the eighteenth century to the present day. The major authors and publications of the genre and significant subgenres are covered. Additionally there are entries on fields of science and technology which have been particularly prolific in provoking such speculation. The list of acronyms and abbreviations, the chronology covering the literature from the 1700s through the present, the introductory essay, and the dictionary entries provide science fiction novices and enthusiasts as well as serious writers and critics with a wonderful foundation for understanding the realm of science fiction literature. The extensive bibliography that includes books, journals, fanzines, and websites demonstrates that science fiction literature commands a massive following.
Download or read book Science Fiction Imperialism and the Third World written by Ericka Hoagland and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though science fiction is often thought of as a Western phenomenon, the genre has long had a foothold in countries as diverse as India and Mexico. These fourteen critical essays examine both the role of science fiction in the third world and the role of the third world in science fiction. Topics covered include science fiction in Bengal, the genre's portrayal of Native Americans, Mexican cyberpunk fiction, and the undercurrents of colonialism and Empire in traditional science fiction. The intersections of science fiction theory and postcolonial theory are explored, as well as science fiction's contesting of imperialism and how the third world uses the genre to recreate itself. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Download or read book Cryptohistories written by Alicja Bemben and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-27 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cryptohistories is a collection of essays which provides a meeting ground for historians and cultural scholars analysing discussions of cryptic discourses in history and in historical narratives with roots in the mysterious. The focus here is on history as a subjective narrative, as a conscious construct and as manipulation. Equally important for all the contributors brought together in this book is the mechanics of the rise, popularity and apparent necessity of such narrative strategies. The essays address a variety of issues revolving around the study of cryptic aspects of discourses, ranging from theoretical approaches to secretive narratives of history, cultural encoding and decoding of cryptohistories, microhistories focusing on historical mysteries, and mythicised pasts and processes of mythicization of the past, as well as histories and theories of chance and manipulation. Among its specific subjects Crytpohistories features discussions on the reasons why certain quasi-historical narratives do not reach the status of history; on conspiracy theories analysed from the perspective of contemporary video-games; on the paradoxes of truth and falsehood in history; on parasitology as a cryptohistorical discourse; on the codes of Victorian floriography; on cases of cross-dressing and sartorial camouflage; on the Vietnam War MIAs; on manipulations lying at the core of contemporary Bulgarian identity; on the search for a racial utopia in the American South; and on the fiction of Beryl Bainbridge as a form of cryptohistorical literature.
Download or read book Sideways in Time written by Glyn Morgan and published by Liverpool Science Fiction Text. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alternate history is a genre of fiction that, although connected to science fiction, has its own rich history and lineage. With its roots in the writings of ancient Rome, alternate history matured into something close to its current form in the essays and novels of the nineteenth century. In more recent years a number of highly acclaimed novels have been published as alternate histories, by authors ranging from bestselling science fiction writers to Pulitzer prize-winning literary icons. The popularity of the genre is reflected in its success on television, where original concepts have been developed alongside adaptations of classic texts such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. This collection of essays, by both leading scholars in the field and rising stars, seeks to redress an imbalance between the importance and quality of alternate history texts and the available critical scholarship on the genre. The essays acknowledge the long and distinctive history of alternate history whilst also revelling in its vitality, adaptability, and contemporary relevance.
Download or read book Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction written by Darren Harris-Fain and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Age of Maturity, 1970-2000 explores the major trends and developments during three decades that witnessed science fiction's most dramatic progression from subliterary escapist entertainment to a more sophisticated literature of ideas. Darren Harris-Fain suggests that to understand American science fiction fully, it is essential to realize that the current field with all its variety results from the proceeding decades of writings. In addition, he contends that although much science fiction of merit was written in America prior to 1970, the latter decades of the twentieth century witnessed a dramatic improvement in quality, even as the field fragmented into a variety of subgenres and as writers sought to transcend earlier critical dismissals. Harris-Fain discusses significant and representative works, most of which mainstream literary scholars and critics ignore, as he charts the historical and literary development of contemporary American science fiction. the internal divisions along both literary and political lines experienced during the Vietnam era; the influence of the feminist movement and other contemporary concerns; the increasing contributions of female, African American, and gay and lesbian writers; and the emergence of such significant trends as hard science fiction, cyberpunk, alternate history, and shared-world stories. Harris-Fain also considers literary science fiction's relationship to the mass media, the effects the popularity of fantasy has on the field, and academia's continued misprizing of the genre.
Download or read book Possible Worlds Theory and Counterfactual Historical Fiction written by Riyukta Raghunath and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive Possible Worlds framework with which to analyse counterfactual historical fiction. Counterfactual historical fiction is a literary genre that comprises narratives set in worlds whose histories run contrary to the history of our world, usually speculating on what would have happened had a significant historical event (such as a war) turned out differently. The author develops a systematic critical approach based on a customised model of Possible Worlds Theory supplemented by cognitive concepts that account for the different processes that readers go through when they read counterfactual historical fiction, a genre which relies heavily on pre-existing knowledge about history and culture. This book will be of interest to anyone working with Possible Worlds, including within the fields of philosophy, literary studies, stylistics, cognitive poetics, and narratology.
Download or read book Imagining the Unimaginable written by Glyn Morgan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining the Unimaginable examines popular fiction's treatment of the Holocaust in the dystopian and alternate history genres of speculative fiction, analyzing the effectiveness of the genre's major works as a lens through which to view the most prominent historical trauma of the 20th century. It surveys a range of British and American authors, from science fiction pulp to Pulitzer Prize winners, building on scholarship across disciplines, including Holocaust studies, trauma studies, and science fiction studies. The conventional discourse around the Holocaust is one of the unapproachable, unknowable, and the unimaginable. The Holocaust has been compared to an earthquake, another planet, another universe, a void. It has been said to be beyond language, or else have its own incomprehensible language, beyond art, and beyond thought. The 'othering' of the event has spurred the phenomenon of non-realist Holocaust literature, engaging with speculative fiction and its history of the uncanny, the grotesque, and the inhuman. This book examines the most common forms of nonmimetic Holocaust fiction, the dystopia and the alternate history, while firmly positioning these forms within a broader pattern of non-realist engagements with the Holocaust.
Download or read book Science Fiction Authors written by Maura Heaphy and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-11-30 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For students, scholars, readers' advisors, and curious SF readers and fans, this guide provides an easy-to-use launch pad for researching and learning more about science fiction writers and their work. Emphasizing the best popular and contemporary authors, this book covers 100 SF writers, providing for each: • a brief biographical sketch, including a quote from theauthor, awards, etc. • a list of the author's major works (including editions and other writings) • research sources-biographies, criticism, research guides, and web sites • In addition, you'll find read-alike lists for selected authors. For anyone wanting to find information on popular SF authors, this should be the first stop.
Download or read book Parabolas of Science Fiction written by Brian Atterby and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays about the inherently collaborative nature of science fiction As a geometric term, parabola suggests a narrative trajectory or story arc. In science fiction, parabolas take us from the known to the unknown. More concrete than themes, more complex than motifs, parabolas are combinations of meaningful setting, character, and action that lend themselves to endless redefinition and jazzlike improvisation. The fourteen original essays in this collection explore how the field of science fiction has developed as a complex of repetitions, influences, arguments, and broad conversations. This particular feature of the genre has been the source of much critical commentary, most notably through growing interest in the "sf megatext," a continually expanding archive of shared images, situations, plots, characters, settings, and themes found in science fiction across media. Contributors include Jane Donawerth, Terry Dowling, L. Timmel Duchamp, Rachel Haywood Ferreira, Pawel Frelik, David M. Higgins, Amy J. Ransom, John Rieder, Nicholas Ruddick, Graham Sleight, Gary K. Wolfe, and Lisa Yaszek.
Download or read book Literature History Choice written by Hillel Weiss and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting with a discussion on the elements of the genre of alternative (counterfactual) history and on its place between the poles of historical determinism and relativism, this book develops a literary theory of the historical alternativeness principle and applies it to the reading of The City with All That is Therein (Ir u-mloa) – one of the most important and less-studied books of the greatest Israeli writer, Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon (1887-1970). The investigation reveals that this principle is by no means inherent solely in modernism and postmodernism, but lies at the very basis of the reading process, particularly at the levels of plot and character origination, and historical and historiographical conceptions that underlie the author’s imagination. The book is intended for all who are interested in modern literature and theory.
Download or read book Bring the Jubilee written by Ward Moore and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if the South Had Won the Civil War?The landmark alternate history novel by “one of the best American writers” (Ray Bradbury). In the world of this novel, said to be an inspiration for Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, the Confederacy has triumphed and become an imperialist nation. What is left of the United States has been drained of its resources and is trapped in a depression. Hodge, a young man living in a village in rural New York with his parents, decides to head to the city to escape his otherwise inevitable future of poverty and indentured servitude. But the specter of war between the Confederacy and the other great global power, the German Union, haunts the entire region, and a nationalist terrorist group has other plans for Hodge. Before long, he is swept up in the politics of the day and becomes involved with a beautiful physicist who is working on a machine intended to change his fate—and the fate of the world. Long before Harry Turtledove’s The Guns of the South, Bring the Jubilee was the first novel to pose the question “What if the South had won the Civil War?” A counterfactual classic, it was included in renowned science fiction editor David Pringle’s list of the 100 Best Science Fiction Novels. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Ward Moore including rare images from the author’s estate.
Download or read book Vintage Visions written by Arthur B. Evans and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vintage Visions is a seminal collection of scholarly essays on early works of science fiction and its antecedents. From Cyrano de Bergerac in 1657 to Olaf Stapledon in 1937, this anthology focuses on an unusually broad range of authors and works in the genre as it emerged across the globe, including the United States, Russia, Europe, and Latin America. The book includes material that will be of interest to both scholars and fans, including an extensive bibliography of criticism on early science fiction—the first of its kind—and a chronological listing of 150 key early works. Before Dr. Strangelove, future-war fiction was hugely popular in nineteenth-century Great Britain. Before Terminator, a French author depicted Thomas Edison as the creator of the perfect female android. These works and others are featured in this critical anthology. Contributors include Paul K. Alkon, Andrea Bell, Josh Bernatchez, I. F. Clarke, William J. Fanning Jr., William B. Fischer, Allison de Fren, Susan Gubar, Rachel Haywood Ferreira, Kamila Kinyon, Stanislaw Lem, Patrick A. McCarthy, Sylvie Romanowski, Nicholas Ruddick, and Gary Westfahl.
Download or read book The A to Z of Science Fiction Literature written by Brian M. Stableford and published by A to Z Guide Series. This book was released on 2005 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Fiction literature, also known as sci fi and sf, is one of the more recent genres, and also one of the more popular. It only truly emerged during the 20th century, and has not stopped growing in terms of authors, titles and readers. It has also evolved into a variety of subgenres, ranging from hard sf to soft sf, from Utopias to dystopias, with more than a smattering of horror, detective, war and feminist titles. Stableford covers all these aspects and more, taking a close look at what has become a booming industry, with its specialized writers, publishers, and fan magazines. The compendium includes not only sf from the United States and United Kingdom, but also France, Russia, and many others. While the chronology charts the genre's dazzling growth, and the dictionary section looks at writers, books, themes, and other specifics, the introduction provides exceptional insight into what Science Fiction Literature is all about.
