Roanoke, Virginia, is one of America's great historic railroad centers. The Norfolk & Western Railway Company, now the Norfolk Southern Corporation, has been in Roanoke for over a century. Since the company has employed many of the city's African Americans, the two histories are intertwined. The lives of Roanoke's black railroad workers span the generations from Jim Crow segregation to the civil rights era to today's diverse corporate workforce. Older generations toiled through labor-intensive jobs such as janitors and track laborers, paving the way for younger African Americans to become engineers, conductors and executives. Join author Sheree Scarborough as she interviews Roanoke's African American railroad workers and chronicles stories that are a powerful testament of personal adversity, struggle and triumph on the rail.

While all fiction uses words to construct models of the world for readers, nowhere is this more obvious than in fantasy fiction. Epic fantasy novels create elaborate secondary worlds entirely out of language, yet the writing style used to construct those worlds has rarely been studied in depth. This book builds the foundations for a study of style in epic fantasy. Close readings of selected novels by such writers as Steven Erikson, Ursula Le Guin, N. K. Jemisin and Brandon Sanderson offer insights into the significant implications of fantasy's use of syntax, perspective, paratexts, frame narratives and more. Re-examining critical assumptions about the reading experience of epic fantasy, this work explores the genre's reputation for flowery, archaic language and its ability to create a sense of wonder. Ultimately, it argues that epic fantasy shapes the way people think, examining how literary representation and style influence perception.

Just over two hundred years ago on a stormy night, a young woman conceived of what would become one of the most iconic images of science gone wrong, the story of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. For a long period, Mary Shelley languished in the shadow of her luminary husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, but was rescued from obscurity by the feminist scholars of the 1970s and 1980s. This book offers a new perspective on Shelley and on science fiction, arguing that Shelley both established a new discursive space for moral thinking and laid the groundwork for the genre of science fiction. Adopting a contextual biographical approach to understand the factors that enabled Shelley to create Frankenstein, and undertaking a close reading of the 1818 and 1831 editions of the text, gives readers insight into how this famous story synthesizes many of the concerns about new science that were prevalent in Shelley's time. Using Michel Foucault's concept of discourse, this work argues that Shelley should be credited with not only the foundation of a genre but recognized as a figure who created a new cultural space for readers to explore their fears and negotiate the moral landscape of new science.

Charles Fort was an American researcher from the early twentieth century who cataloged reports of unexplained phenomena he found in newspapers and science journals. A minor bestseller with a cult appeal, Fort's work was posthumously republished in the pulp science fiction magazine Astounding Stories in 1934. His idiosyncratic books fascinated, scared, and entertained readers, many of them authors and editors of science fiction. Fort's work prophesied the paranormal mainstays of SF literature to come: UFOs, poltergeists, strange disappearances, cryptids, ancient mysteries, unexplained natural phenomena, and everything in between. Science fiction authors latched on to Fort's topics and hypotheses as perfect fodder for SF stories. Writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, H.P. Lovecraft, and others are examined in this exploration of Fortean science fiction-a genre that borrows from the reports and ideas of Fort and others who saw the possible science-fictional nature of our reality.

Caitlin R. Kiernan is at the forefront of contemporary gothic, weird and science fiction literature. She has written more than a dozen novels, over 250 short stories, many chapbooks, along with a large number of graphic works. For these Kiernan has won numerous awards. This first full-length look at Kiernan's body of work explores her fictional universe through critical literary lenses to show the depth of her contributions to modern genre literature. A prolific and creative writer, Kiernan's fictions bring to life our fears about the other, the unknown, and the future through stories that range widely across time and space. A sense of dark terror pervades her novels and stories. Yet Kiernan's fictional universe is not disengaged from reality. That is because she works within the long tradition of gothic fiction speaking to the gravest ethical, social and cultural issues. In her dark fiction, Kiernan illustrates the terror of the tyranny of the normal, the oppression of marginalized people, and the pervasive violence of our time. Her dystopian sf propels today's dangerous economic, social, political and environmental tendencies into the future. Kiernan's fiction portrays troubling truths about the current human condition.

One of the major figures in science fiction for over sixty years, James Gunn has been instrumental in the development of science fiction teaching and in making science fiction one of the most vibrant and engaging areas of scholarly study. His genre history Alternate Worlds and his monumental The Road to Science Fiction anthologies introduced countless readers to the genre. While a professor of English at the University of Kansas, Gunn founded the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction in 1982. But Gunn has also been one of the genre's leading writers, whose classic novels Star Bridge (with Jack Williamson), The Joy Makers, The Immortals, and The Listeners, helped shape the field. Now in his nineties, Gunn remains a major voice in science fiction. His latest novel, Transformation (the conclusion of the Transcendental trilogy), will be published in 2017. Michael Page's study is the first to examine the life, career, and writing of this science fiction grandmaster. Drawing on materials from Gunn's archives and from personal interviews with Gunn and providing detailed analysis and commentary on Gunn's fiction, in The Science Fiction, Scholarship, and Teaching of James Gunn Page provides a much-needed exploration of one of science fiction's important figures.

A prolific author, Isaac Asimov is most admired for his science fiction, including his collection of short stories I, Robot and his Robot, Empire and Foundation series novels. While each of these narratives takes place in a different fictional universe, Asimov asserted at the end of his career that he had, with his last Robot and Foundation novels, unified them into one coherent metaseries. The Encyclopedia Galactica, a compendium of all human knowledge, is prominent in the Foundation series as a key plot element but is also widely cited in the text itself. Palumbo and Sullivan's major new reference work book contains 1,000 selected excerpts from the Encyclopedia, identifying and describing all of the characters, locales, artifacts, concepts and institutions in Asimov's metaseries. The authors argue that Asimov successfully integrates the three series through the retroactive use of chaos theory, the underlying principle behind both psychohistory and Three Laws of Robotics-respectively the crucial concepts in the Foundation and Robot stories.

The purpose of this collection, which was first published in 1996, is to provide both an overview of the major critical approaches to the Four Branches of the Mabinogi and a selection of the best essays dealing with them. The essays examine the origins of the Mabinogion, comparative analyses, and structural and thematic interpretations. This book is ideal for students of literature and Medieval studies.

Prolific, popular and critically acclaimed, Michael Moorcock is the most important British fantasy author of his generation. His Elric of Melnibone is an iconic figure for millions of fans but Moorcock has also been a pioneer in science fiction and historical fiction. He was hailed as the central figure of the ""New Wave"" in science fiction, and has won numerous awards for his fantasy and science fiction, as well as his ""mainstream"" writing. This first full-length critical look at Moorcock's career, from the early 1960s to the present, explores the author's fictional multiverse: his fantasy tales of the ""Eternal Champion""; his experimental Jerry Cornelius novels; his hilarious science-fiction satire of his ""End of Time"" books; and his complex meditations on 20th-century history of Mother London and the Colonel Pyat tetralogy.

Speculative science fiction, with its underlying socio-political dialogue, represents an important intersection of popular culture and public discourse. As a pop culture text, the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars offers critical commentary on contemporary issues, marking a moment of interplay whereby author and audience come together in what Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin called collaborative meaning making. This book critically examines the series as a voice in the political dialogs concerning human cloning, torture, just war theory, peace and drone warfare.

This study provides a fascinating look at the various ways in which 20th-century fantasy writers have used Welsh Celtic mythology and folklore in their work. Following the theories formulated by such scholars as John Vickery and Joseph Campbell, the use of Celtic materials by each of the authors is discussed from a mythology-in-literature perspective. Sullivan presents an extensive accounting of the Celtic material used and explores the primary ways in which the authors incorporate it into their fiction, both structurally and thematically. Sullivan identifies and analyzes the nature and extent of Welsh Celtic influence on subsequent cultures and their literatures, and he considers some of the previous attempts to evaluate this influence. The appendixes provide valuable background materials, including critical commentary on the Welsh collection of myths, legends, folktales, and beliefs that are of major importance in the work of the six authors represented. Also included are extensive bibliographies of primary and secondary sources. Illuminating reading for students and scholars of mythology, modern fantasy, and children's literature, this book sheds new light on the Welsh influence in literature and opens paths for further research.

In this collection of essays, authorities on a wide range of topics related to science fiction discuss themes and particular works of special interest to young readers. The chapters cover the founding works of science fiction for young readers, specific authors and their works, and science fiction as a vehicle for exploring philosophical, religious, and social ideas. Essays discuss the literary and thematic elements of science fiction and shed light on the evolution of science fiction as a genre for young readers. The volume begins with a section of essays on the origins of science fiction as a genre for young readers. In this section are chapters on such topics as Victor Appleton's "Tom Swift" series, the contributions of Madeleine L'Engle, the impact and influence of Isaac Asimov, and the significance of Robert A. Heinlein. The second section contains chapters on particular themes, authors, and literary works. By approaching works and authors through particular themes, the chapters in this section offer a comprehensive view of the achievements of individual writers and demonstrate how certain themes bind together a particular author's works. The third section, on science fiction as a vehicle for ideas, steps away from the literary and stylistic devices of science fiction and looks beyond the genre to the larger ideas that science fiction conveys.

This book makes connections between mythopoeic fantasy - works which engage the numinous - and the critical apparatuses of ecocriticism and posthumanism. Drawing from the ideas of Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy, mythopoeic fantasy is a means of subverting normative modes of perception to both encounter the numinous and to challenge the perceptions of the natural world. Beginning with S.T. Coleridge’s theories of the imagination as embodied in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the book moves on to explore standard mythopoeic fantasists such as George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Taking a step outside these mythopoeic fantasists, who are particularly influenced by Christianity, the concluding chapters discuss Algernon Blackwood and Ursula Le Guin, two authors whose work evokes the numinous without a specifically Christian worldview.

The all-new essays in this book respond to the question, How do spaces in science fiction, both built and unbuilt, help shape the relationships among humans, other animals and their shared environments? Spaces, as well as a sense of place or belonging, play major roles in many science fiction works. This book focuses especially on science fiction that includes depictions of the future that include, but move beyond, dystopias and offer us ways to imagine reinventing ourselves and our perspectives; especially our links to and views of new environments. There are ecocritical texts that deal with space/place and science fiction criticism that deals with dystopias but there is no other collection that focuses on the intersection of the two. The essays in this volume treat Shelley's Frankenstein, Capek's War with the Newts, William Morris's News from Nowhere, Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Marge Piercy's He, She, It, Neal Stephenson's Anathem, Amitav Ghosh's Calcutta Chromosome and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Many believe that Robert A. Heinlein was the most important American science fiction writer of the 20th century. This is the first detailed critical examination of his entire career. It is not a biography that is being done in a two-volume work by William Patterson. Instead, this book looks at each piece of fiction (and a few pieces of sf-related nonfiction) that Heinlein wrote, chronologically by publication, in order to consider what each contributes to his overall accomplishment. The aim is to be fair, to look clearly at the strengths and weaknesses of the writings that have inspired generations of readers and writers.

This anthology of essays focuses on the darker side of the human condition as it appears in fantastic literature. The first section of the book, "The Dark Self," takes its direction from Colin Manlove's essay on Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a classic examination of the dark side of the self. Section two, "Mainstream Dark," examines mainstream authors who have used elements of the fantastic in their dark visions. "The Dark Arts," section three, examines the ways in which the fine arts deal with the darker elements of the real and the fantastic. The fourth section, "Humor in the Dark," looks at comedic elements in film and fiction. The final section features Kathryn Hume's essay "Postmodernism in Popular Literary Fantasy" and other essays that are a part of the continuing attempt to bring new critical approaches to fantastic literature.

Reversing a common science fiction cliche, Farscape follows the adventures of the human astronaut John Crichton after he is shot through a wormhole into another part of the universe. Here Crichton is the only human being, going from being a member of the most intelligent species on our planet to being frequently considered mentally deficient by the beings he encounters in his new environment. Crichton befriends a group of beings from various species attempting to escape from imprisonment aboard a living spaceship. The series, which broke many of the so-called ""rules"" of science fiction, follows Crichton's attempts to survive in worlds that are often hostile to him and his friends. Their adventures centre on each being's attempt to find a way home. The essays in this volume explore themes running throughout the series, such as good and evil, love and sex, and what it means to be a hero, as well as the various characters populating the series, including the villains and even the ship itself.

Lois McMaster Bujold has won a shelf full of awards--Hugos, Nebulas, and others--for both her science fiction and fantasy writing. She is one of the most respected names in the field, always delivering polished, thoughtful, and well-crafted writing. She consistently addresses great issues and problems on a human level, where they are faced by quirky, prickly, and very real characters, and her exploration of the theory of reader-response is an important critical contribution. Yet there has been a surprising dearth of serious critical writing about her output--in part because she resists neat and easy classification by genre, politics, or subject matter. This collection of fresh essays aims to correct that situation by presenting a variety of critical perspectives addressing many aspects of her writing. Attention is given to both her Miles Vorkosigan science fiction series and her Chalion and Sharing Knife fantasy series, as well as the books that fall outside these series.

This book is a collection of new essays, with the general objective of filling a gap in the literature about sex and science fiction. Although some work has been published, none of it is recent. The essays herein explore the myriad ways in which authors writing in the genre, regardless of format (e.g., print, film, television, etc.), envision very different beings expressing this most fundamental of human behaviors. ""Science fiction"" can be translated into ""real unreality."" More than a genre like fantasy, which creates entirely new realms of possibility, science fiction constructs its possibilities from what is real, from what is, indeed, possible, or conceivably so. This collection, then, looks to understand and explore the ""unreal reality,"" to note ways in which our culture's continually changing and evolving mores of sex and sexuality are reflected in, dissected by, and deconstructed through the genre of science fiction.

From Doctor Who in the 1960s, to the more recent Heroes and Lost a select group of television series with strong elements of fantasy has achieved cult status. Focusing on eight such series, this work analyzes what makes these programs unique, and what they have in common. Examination of the interaction between the series' creators, studios and fans provides further insight into the series' lasting impact. Included are assessments of the strategies used to promote the series' appeal; an explanation of "transmedia" storytelling and its influence on the television fantasy genre; evaluations of how viewers have shaped cult texts and how greater audience acceptance encouraged creators to develop challengingly complex long-form dramas; and descriptions of changes within broadcasting that have enabled "telefantasy" to transcend niche status and enjoy prominence and popularity.

Examining how we interpret Welshness today, this volume brings together fourteen essays that examine the range of representations of Welsh mythology, folklore, and ritual in popular culture. Topics covered include the twentieth-century fantasy fiction of Evangeline Walton, the Welsh presence in the films of Walt Disney, Welshness in folk music, non-animated film and postmodern literature. Together, these interdisciplinary essays explore the ways that Welsh motifs have proliferated in this age of cultural cross-pollination, spreading worldwide the myths of one small British nation.

While Kim Stanley Robinson is perhaps best known for his hard science fiction works ""Red Mars"", ""Green Mars"" and ""Blue Mars"", the epic trilogy exploring ecological and sociological themes involved in human settlement of the Red Planet, his contributions to utopian and science fiction are diverse and numerous. Along with aspects of sociology and ecology in the Mars trilogy and other topics, these essays examine Robinson's use of alternate history and politics, both in his many novels and in his short stories. While Robinson has long been a subject of literary criticism, this collection, which includes five new essays and is drawn from writers on four continents, broadens the interpretive debate surrounding Robinson's science fiction and argues for consideration of the author as an intellectual figure of the first rank.

As a member of the Pulitzer Prize jury, the late Frank McConnell helped science fiction gain standing as serious literature, evolving his presentation of the field over the course of his career. The 16 essays reveal that evolution as presented in papers at the prestigious Eaton Conferences. At first emphasizing that science fiction is primarily one of many forms of storytelling, McConnell gradually recognized science fiction as a modern expression of Gnosticism, rejecting bodily concerns for an exclusive emphasis on spirituality. McConnell's essays cover such topics as H.G. Wells, science fiction in academia, and the role of genre in storytelling. A foreword by award-winning fantasy author Neil Gaiman and tributes by noted writers such as Gregory Benford, Harold Bloom, Howard V. Hendrix, and George Slusser are also included.

This work presents the genre of mythopoeic fantasy from a holistic perspective, arguing that this subgenre of fantasy literature is largely misunderstood as a result of decades of incomplete and reductionist literary studies. The author asserts that mythopoeic fantasy is not only the most complete literary expression of a worldview based on the existence of supernatural or spiritual powers but that the genre is in a unique position to transform social consciousness with a renewed emphasis on anticipating the future. The author lays out theoretical foundations for his argument in the first four chapters and then demonstrates how the works of fantasy authors Ursula K. LeGuin, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle, and Orson Scott Card exemplify his argument in the remaining four chapters.

When the first season of ""Star Trek"" opened to American television viewers in 1966, the thematically insightful sci-fi story line presented audiences with the exciting vision of a bold voyage into the final frontiers of space and strange, new galactic worlds. Perpetuating this enchanting vision, the story has become one of the longest running and most multifaceted franchises in television history. Moreover, it has presented an inspiring message for the future, addressing everything from social, political, philosophical, and ethical issues to progressive and humanist representations of race, gender, and class. This book contends that ""Star Trek"" is not just a set of television series, but has become a pervasive part of the identity of the millions of people who watch, read and consume the films, television episodes, network specials, novelizations, and fan stories. Examining ""Star Trek"" from various critical angles, the essays in this collection provide vital new insights into the myriad ways that the franchise has affected the culture it represents, the people who watch the series, and the industry that created it.