A. Roberts, The History of Science Fiction

ROBERTS, Adam, The History of Science Fiction, New York, Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave Histories of Literature), 2007, 368 p.
ISBN 0-230-54691-9


RÉSUMÉ

The first comprehensive critical history of SF for thirty years, this book traces the origin and development of science fiction from Ancient Greece, via its rebirth in the seventeenth century, up to the present day. Concentrating on literary SF and (in the later chapters) cinema and TV, it also discusses the myriad forms this genre takes in the contemporary world, including a chapter on graphic novels, SF pop music, visual art and ufology. The author is ideally placed to write it: both an academic literary critic and also an acclaimed creative writer of science fiction, with five novels and many short stories to his credit. Written in lively, accessible prose, this study is specifically designed to bridge the worlds of academic criticism and the SF fandom.

The History of Science Fiction argues that, even today, this flourishing cultural idiom is shaped by the forces that determined its rise to prominence in the 1600s: the dialogue between Protestant and Catholic worldviews, the emerging technologies of the industrial age, and the cultural anxieties and excitements of a rapidly changing world.


TABLE DES MATIÈRES

Introduction: Defining SF

* Origins

* The Seventeenth-Century

* The Eighteenth-Century

* Early Nineteenth-Century

* Late Nineteenth-Century

* Wells and Verne

* Early Twentieth-Century I: 'Pulp'

* Early Twentieth-Century II: 'High-brow'

* Golden Age SF. 1940-1960

* 1960s Counter-Culture

* 'New Wave' SF 1960s and 1970s

* Cyberpunk and the 1980s

* Visual SF 1967-2000

* Non Anglo-American SF

* SF in the 1990s

* Coda: the current state of the genre

* Index


BIOGRAPHIE

Adam Roberts is Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Royal Holloway, University of London.