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Author of more than forty novels and myriad short stories over a
three-decade literary career, Philip K. Dick (1928a1982)
single-handedly reshaped twentieth-century science fiction. His
influence has only increased since his death with the release of
numerous feature films based on his work, including Blade Runner
(based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall
(based on aWe Can Remember It for You Wholesalea), Minority Report
(based on aThe Minority Reporta), and Next (based on aThe Golden
Mana). In Understanding Philip K. Dick, Eric Carl Link introduces
readers to the life, career, and work of this groundbreaking,
prolific, and immeasurably influential force in American
literature, media culture, and contemporary science fiction.
Dick was at times a postmodernist, a mainstream writer, a pulp
fiction writer, and often all three simultaneously, but as Link
illustrates, he was more than anything else a novelist of ideas.
From this vantage point, Link surveys Dickas own tragicomic
biography, his craft and career, and the recurrent ideas and themes
that give shape and significance to his fiction. Link addresses
Dickas efforts to break into the mainstream in the 1950s, his
return to science fiction in the 1960s, and his move toward more
theologically oriented work in his final two decades. Link finds
across Dickas writing career an intellectual curiosity that
transformed his science fiction novels from bizarre pulp
extravaganzas into philosophically challenging explorations of the
very nature of reality, and it is this depth of vision that
continues to garner new audiences and fresh approaches to Dickas
genre-defining tales.
The first science fiction course in the American academy was held
in the early 1950s. In the sixty years since, science fiction has
become a recognized and established literary genre with a
significant and growing body of scholarship. The Cambridge History
of Science Fiction is a landmark volume as the first authoritative
history of the genre. Over forty contributors with diverse and
complementary specialties present a history of science fiction
across national and genre boundaries, and trace its intellectual
and creative roots in the philosophical and fantastic narratives of
the ancient past. Science fiction as a literary genre is the
central focus of the volume, but fundamental to its story is its
non-literary cultural manifestations and influence. Coverage thus
includes transmedia manifestations as an integral part of the
genre's history, including not only short stories and novels, but
also film, art, architecture, music, comics, and interactive media.
A broad treatment of the cultural, social, political, and literary
under-pinnings of an entire period and movement in American
letters. The Vast and Terrible Drama is a critical study of the
context in which authors such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Stephen
Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London created
their most significant work. In 1896 Frank Norris wrote: "Terrible
things must happen to the characters of the naturalistic tale. They
must be twisted from the ordinary . . . and flung into the throes
of a vast and terrible drama." There could be "no teacup tragedies
here." This volume broadens our understanding of literary
naturalism as a response to these and other aesthetic concerns of
the 19th century.Themes addressed include the traditionally close
connection between French naturalism and American literary
naturalism; relationships between the movement and the romance
tradition in American literature, as well as with utopian fictions
of the 19th century; narrative strategies employed by the key
writers; the dominant naturalist theme of determinism; and textual
readings that provide broad examples of the role of the reader. By
examining these and other aspects of American literary naturalism,
Link counters a century of criticism that has perhaps viewed
literary naturalism too narrowly, as a subset of realism, bound by
the conventions of realistic narration.
The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction explores the
relationship between the ideas and themes of American science
fiction and their roots in the American cultural experience.
Science fiction in America has long served to reflect the country's
hopes, desires, ambitions, and fears. The ideas and conventions
associated with science fiction are pervasive throughout American
film and television, comics and visual arts, games and gaming, and
fandom, as well as across the culture writ large. Through essays
that address not only the history of science fiction in America but
also the influence and significance of American science fiction
throughout media and fan culture, this companion serves as a key
resource for scholars, teachers, students, and fans of science
fiction.
The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction explores the
relationship between the ideas and themes of American science
fiction and their roots in the American cultural experience.
Science fiction in America has long served to reflect the country's
hopes, desires, ambitions, and fears. The ideas and conventions
associated with science fiction are pervasive throughout American
film and television, comics and visual arts, games and gaming, and
fandom, as well as across the culture writ large. Through essays
that address not only the history of science fiction in America but
also the influence and significance of American science fiction
throughout media and fan culture, this companion serves as a key
resource for scholars, teachers, students, and fans of science
fiction.
A guide to the fantastic world of a science fiction legendAuthor of
more than forty novels and myriad short stories over a three-decade
literary career, Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) single-handedly
reshaped twentieth-century science fiction. His influence has only
increased since his death with the release of numerous feature
films and television series based on his work, including Blade
Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The
Man in the High Castle. In Understanding Philip K. Dick, Eric Carl
Link introduces readers to the life, career, and work of this
groundbreaking, prolific, and immeasurably influential force in
American literature, media culture, and contemporary science
fiction. Dick was at times a postmodernist, a mainstream writer, a
pulp fiction writer, and often all three simultaneously, but as
Link illustrates, he was more than anything else a novelist of
ideas. From this vantage point, Link surveys Dick's tragicomic
biography, his craft and career, and the recurrent ideas and themes
that give shape and significance to his fiction. Link finds across
Dick's writing career an intellectual curiosity that transformed
his science fiction novels from bizarre pulp extravaganzas into
philosophically challenging explorations of the nature of reality,
and it is this depth of vision that continues to garner new
audiences and fresh approaches to Dick's genre-defining tales.
The Red Badge of Courage was a sensation when it was first
published in 1894. More vivid, unflinching, and artistically and
philosophically complex than any prior war novel, it made its
author, Stephen Crane, an overnight international celebrity.
Readers were gripped by Crane's lucid descriptions of warfare and
of the vacillating mind of his young, untested soldier, Henry
Fleming, and many assumed that he must have been a veteran of the
Civil War. Some actual veterans went so far as to claim that they
had fought alongside Crane in the war. Astonishing as the novel
itself is the fact that Crane was only twenty-three when he wrote
it and had never even lived through a war, let alone fought in one.
Even today, more than one hundred years after its publication and
after generations of readers and decades of commentary, this most
famous of Crane's works continues to astonish, amaze, and puzzle.
As Eric Carl Link, Professor of American Literature at the
University of Memphis, writes in his introduction to this volume in
the Critical Insights series, Red Badge is much more than a war
novel-it is a drama of the human psyche, a pinnacle of American
naturalism and impressionism, a precursor to modernism, and a
brilliant comment on the relations between human beings and our
universe. As the essays collected here can attest, the novel is
rich in interpretive possibilities. For readers studying Red Badge
for the first time, a quartet of introductory essays provide
valuable background. Matthew J. Bolton examines how the culture of
the 1890's-with its clashes over immigration, industrialization,
poverty, and military policy-influenced Crane and, in another
essay, how Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism can improve our
understanding of the novel. Patrick K. Dooley offers a
comprehensive survey of the veritable ocean of Red Badge criticism,
and Stanley B. Greenfield draws on two of Crane's short stories to
resolve some of the some of the critical issues that have long
plagued scholars of Red Badge. Continuing the discussion are a
variety of classic and contemporary essays on the novel. Author and
poet James M. Cox provides a comprehensive overview of the novel
and praises it as "one of the great war novels of world
literature." Harold R. Hungerford turns to Civil War history to
establish the battle Crane on which modeled the action of his
story. Robert C. Albrecht analyzes Crane's use of narrative point
of view to show how it supports Crane's concept of reality. Thomas
L. Kent takes up Crane's stance of epistemological uncertainty, and
Eric Carl Link likewise examines his subjectivism. Ben Satterfield
argues that, despite some critics' qualms, the novel is a unified,
coherent work of art that projects a humanistic vision, and Donald
Pizer, in the course of an examination of the textual controversies
surrounding the novel, agrees with Satterfield that it is a unified
and coherent work. Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin examines the use of
humor and fallacious reasoning in the novel. James W. Tuttleton and
James Trammell Cox analyze Crane's imagery, and William B.
Dillingham pieces together Crane's concept of courage and heroism.
Robert M. Rechnitz and Harold Kaplan then weigh in on two perennial
questions-whether Henry Fleming matures over the course of the
novel and the meaning of the novel's ending-and Verner D. Mitchell
offers a highly innovative reading of race and gender in the work.
Also included in this volume are a brief biography of Crane's life,
a celebration of Crane's achievement by Paris Review contributor
Barry Harbaugh, a chronology of Crane's life, and a detailed
bibliography for readers wishing to study this classic American
novel in greater depth.
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