Andrew M. Butler – författare

The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction provides an overview of the study of science fiction across multiple academic fields. It offers a new conceptualisation of the field today, marking the significant changes that have taken place in sf studies over the past 15 years.Building on the pioneering research in the first edition, the collection reorganises historical coverage of the genre to emphasise new geographical areas of cultural production and the growing importance of media beyond print. It also updates and expands the range of frameworks that are relevant to the study of science fiction. The periodisation has been reframed to include new chapters focusing on science fiction produced outside the Anglophone context, including South Asian, Latin American, Chinese and African diasporic science fiction. The contributors use both well- established critical and theoretical approaches and embrace a range of new ones, including biopolitics, climate crisis, critical ethnic studies, disability studies, energy humanities, game studies, medical humanities, new materialisms and sonic studies.This book is an invaluable resource for students and established scholars seeking to understand the vast range of engagements with science fiction in scholarship today.Chapter 39 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction provides an overview of the study of science fiction across multiple academic fields. It offers a new conceptualisation of the field today, marking the significant changes that have taken place in sf studies over the past 15 years.Building on the pioneering research in the first edition, the collection reorganises historical coverage of the genre to emphasise new geographical areas of cultural production and the growing importance of media beyond print. It also updates and expands the range of frameworks that are relevant to the study of science fiction. The periodisation has been reframed to include new chapters focusing on science fiction produced outside the Anglophone context, including South Asian, Latin American, Chinese and African diasporic science fiction. The contributors use both well- established critical and theoretical approaches and embrace a range of new ones, including biopolitics, climate crisis, critical ethnic studies, disability studies, energy humanities, game studies, medical humanities, new materialisms and sonic studies.This book is an invaluable resource for students and established scholars seeking to understand the vast range of engagements with science fiction in scholarship today.Chapter 39 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Science fiction produced in the 1970s has long been undervalued, dismissed by Bruce Sterling as “confused, self-involved, and stale.” The New Wave was all but over and Cyberpunk had yet to arrive. The decade polarised sf – on the one hand it aspired to be a serious form, addressing issues such as race, Vietnam, feminism, ecology and sexuality, on the other hand it broke box office records with Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien and Superman: The Movie. Across the political spectrum, writers perceived a series of invisible enemies: radicals addressed the ideological structures of racism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, pollution and capitalism and the possibility of new social structures, whereas conservatives feared the gains made by the civil rights movement, feminism, gay liberation, independence movements, ecology and Marxism and the perceived threats to the nuclear family. Sf would never be the same again. Beginning with chapters on the First sf and New Wave authors who published during the 1970s, Solar Flares examines the ways in which the genre confronted a new epoch and its own history, including the rise of fantasy, the sf blockbuster, children’s sf, pseudoscience and postmodernism. It explores significant figures such as Joanna Russ, Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler. From Larry Niven’s Ringworld to Thomas M. Disch’s On Wings of Song, from The Andromeda Strain to Flash Gordon and from Doctor Who to Buck Rogers, this book reclaims seventies sf writing, film and television – alongside music and architecture – as a crucial period in the history of science fiction.

In terms of worldwide sales (around 25 million copies to date, and no signs of stopping), Terry Pratchett is one of the leading writers in English. He is also a writer of complexity and allusiveness, whose rich work raises important issues about the real world within a fantasy/comic environment. This encyclopedia mixes shorter entries conveying specific information for foraging readers with longer, more discursive articles for readers wanting more reflective engagement with Pratchett's novels.Entries on novels and characters not only highlight Pratchett's celebrated inventiveness but also analyse the underlying meanings. Entries on 'Fantasy', 'Science Fiction', 'Fairy Tales' and related topics situate the novels within literary genres, and other articles discuss the scientific, social and philosophical idea underpinning Pratchett's playful but sophisticated narratives. Associates and collaborators, such as Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman and Ian Stewart, feature in articles discussing contemporary influences, and plentiful information about the fascinating peripheral detail of audio editions, radio broadcasts, TV adaptations and film scripts enhance the fun. A Companion to the Novels of Terry Pratchett is essential reading for fans who want to unpick the allusions and appreciate the rich complexity of one of the great bodies of contemporary popular literature.

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 developmenttheory – detailed accounts of major theoretical approaches including feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, postcolonialism, posthumanism and utopian studiesissues and challenges – anticipates future directions for study in areas as diverse as science studies, music, design, environmentalism, ethics and alteritysubgenres – 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.