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This book is a detailed examination of one of the most important
works of fantasy literature from the twentieth century. It goes
through Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock considering how it engages
with war on a personal and family level, how it plays with ideas of
time as something fluid and disturbing, and how it presents
mythology as something crude and dangerous. The book places Mythago
Wood in the context of Holdstock's other works, noting in part how
complex ideas of time have been a consistent element in his
fiction. The book also briefly examines how the themes laid out in
Mythago Wood are carried through into later books in the sequence
as well as the Merlin Codex
Brian W. Aldiss wrote classic science fiction novels like Report on
Probability A and Hothouse. Billion Year Spree, his groundbreaking
study of the field, defined the very meaning of SF and delineated
its history. Yet Aldiss's discomfort with being a guiding spirit of
the British New Wave and his pursuit of mainstream success
characterized a lifelong ambivalence toward the genre. Paul Kincaid
explores the many contradictions that underlay the distinctive
qualities of Aldiss's writing. Wartime experiences in Asia and the
alienation that arose upon his return to the cold austerity of
postwar Britain inspired themes and imagery that Aldiss drew upon
throughout his career. He wrote of prolific nature overwhelming
humanity, believed war was madness even though it provided him with
the happiest period of his life, and found parallels in the static
lives of Indian peasants and hidebound English society. As Kincaid
shows, contradictions created tensions that fueled the metaphorical
underpinnings of Aldiss's work and shaped not only his long career
but the evolution of postwar British science fiction.
Brian W. Aldiss wrote classic science fiction novels like Report on
Probability A and Hothouse. Billion Year Spree, his groundbreaking
study of the field, defined the very meaning of SF and delineated
its history. Yet Aldiss's discomfort with being a guiding spirit of
the British New Wave and his pursuit of mainstream success
characterized a lifelong ambivalence toward the genre. Paul Kincaid
explores the many contradictions that underlay the distinctive
qualities of Aldiss's writing. Wartime experiences in Asia and the
alienation that arose upon his return to the cold austerity of
postwar Britain inspired themes and imagery that Aldiss drew upon
throughout his career. He wrote of prolific nature overwhelming
humanity, believed war was madness even though it provided him with
the happiest period of his life, and found parallels in the static
lives of Indian peasants and hidebound English society. As Kincaid
shows, contradictions created tensions that fueled the metaphorical
underpinnings of Aldiss's work and shaped not only his long career
but the evolution of postwar British science fiction.
The 1987 publication of Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas helped
trigger the British renaissance of radical hard science fiction and
influenced a generation of New Space Opera masters. The thirteen SF
novels that followed inspired an avid fandom and intense
intellectual engagement while Banks's mainstream books vaulted him
to the top of the Scottish literary scene. Paul Kincaid has written
the first study of Iain M. Banks to explore the confluence of his
SF and literary techniques and sensibilities. As Kincaid shows, the
two powerful aspects of Banks's work flowed into each other,
blurring a line that critics too often treat as clear-cut. Banks's
gift for black humor and a honed skepticism regarding politics and
religion found expression even as he orchestrated the vast,
galaxy-spanning vistas in his novels of the Culture. In examining
Banks's entire SF oeuvre, Kincaid unlocks the set of ideas Banks
drew upon, ideas that spoke to an unusually varied readership that
praised him as a visionary and reveled in the distinctive character
of his works. Entertaining and broad in scope, Iain M. Banks offers
new insights on one of the most admired figures in contemporary
science fiction.
Science fiction is a field of literature that has great interest
and great controversy among its writers and critics. This book
examines the roots, history, development, current status, and
future directions of the field through articles contributed by
well-respected science fiction writers, teachers, and critics. The
articles 'speculate' on what is science fiction, is science fiction
serious literature, which writers are considered good science
fiction writers, and where the genre of science fiction is headed
with 21st-century writers. Contributors include Brian W. Aldiss,
Kathryn Cramer, Samuel R. Delany, David G. Hartwell, Ursula K. Le
Guin, Barry N. Malzberg, Darko Suvin, Michael Swanwick, and many
other outstanding authors. Examining all genres and subgenres of
science fiction writing, this book provides differing viewpoints on
science fiction, making it a great basis for dynamic classroom
discussions.
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