This collection of fifteen original essays offers new perspectives on armed conflict as a central aspect of science fiction and fantasy writing. Looking past the superficial conventions associated with ray guns and aliens, swords and sorcerers, the contributors show how writers in the genre today are not so much imagining war more fully as they are completely re-imagining it. Science fiction and fantasy writing is no longer mired in epic or chivalric models but is responding to new and more complex ""real-world"" motivations for armed aggression: advances in weaponry, shifts in the theaters of war, and changes in battlefield conditions. Most of the papers were presented at the annual J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, the field's most prestigious international gathering. The trend throughout the book is away from critical interest in stories of spatial or territorial conquest and toward works that deal with topics related to wars of temporal logistics and the internationalization of the combat zone, including urban street violence, gender conflicts, and resistance to runaway technology. The essays range from studies of the semantics and linguistics of warfare in science fiction to a critique of Osip Senkovsky's Fantastic Journeys of Baron Brambeus; from writer Joe Haldeman's assessment of the impact of his Vietnam experiences on his fiction to inquiries into a shared author/reader agenda in novels concerning potential mass destruction, including Stephen King's Dead Zone and M. J. Engh's Arslan. The collection also charts new directions in writing, such as the anti-apocalyptic science fiction of Samuel R. Delany, and embraces new modes of presentation, particularly computer animation and the bande dessinee, or illustrated narrative, as exemplified by French novelist Phillippe Druillet's La Nuit. Musician Bob Marley, film actor/directors Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Lee, and the cyberpunk film classics Terminator and the Road Warrior series are among other topics discussed. Together, the essays reinforce the editors' contention that the true function of these fantasies and science fictions is neither nostalgia nor fancy, but analysis. The contributors treat the texts they examine as a means not of playing war games but of understanding the role of war in the present and the future.

An examination of Le Guin's career, from her obscure beginnings in the science fiction magazines to her rapid rise to the top in the 1970's.

Slusser examines Heinlein's classic years, from the publication of his first story, "Life-Line," in 1939, to "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."

George Edgar Slusser discusses author Samuel R. Delany's work, from his first paperbacks, to his latest success, "Triton."

Child characters are surprisingly common in horror, fantasy, and science fiction literature and films. Children represent innocence and virtue and symbolize the classic question of fantastic literature: What is the future of the human race, and how will science and society improve or impair that future? This collection of essays explores the roles of children in the literature and film of the fantastic. The works vary in critical approach from textual analyses to psychological, historical, and gender- and ethnicity-based interpretations and draw their subject matter from contemporary and classic literary and film pieces.

"The Triumph of Teen Prop: Terminator II and the End of History" is a playful discussion of teen propaganda movies and social issues. "E.T. as Fairy Tale" examines how Stephen Spielberg's combination of science fiction, fantasy, and fairy tale elements blends logic and childhood magic. Howard M. Lenhoff connects mythical creatures with biology in "A Real-World Source for the 'Little People': A Comparison of Fairies to Individuals with Williams Syndrome." The literary selection ranges from Alida Allison's study of childhood in Isaac Bashevis Singer's writings to Bud Foote's interpretation of childhood roles in the characters of selected Stephen King works. Other essays consider Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw," Anne Rice's "The Witching Hour," and the childhood classic "Peter Pan."

Will novels and stories be relevant in the next millenium, when the boundaries between illusion and reality, and observer and observed, may dissipate in a whirl of images, signals, and data? This essay collection divines the prospects of fiction in the information age by examining cyberpunk literature. A movement less than a decade old, cyberpunk is driven by deep concerns about society, ethics, and new technology and has been defined as the literature of the first generation of science-fiction writers actually to live in a science-fiction world. These essays were first presented at the 1989 annual J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. They address concerns common not only to cyberpunk and traditional science-fiction scholars, critics, and writers but to their counterparts outside the genre as well. Interdisciplinary in perspective, the essays consider the origins of cyberpunk, the appropriation of its conventions by the mass media, the literature's paradoxical retrogressive/iconoclastic nature, cyberpunk's affinities to and deviations from both traditional science fiction and postmodernist literature, the parameters and components of the cyberpunk canon, and the movement's future course. Some essays are theoretical, but all are grounded in works familiar to serious science-fiction readers: ""Neuromancer"", ""Frontera"", ""Deserted Cities of the Heart"", ""Islands in the Net"", ""Great Sky River"", the ""Mirrorshades"" anthology, and others; cyberpunk TV and cinema like the Max Headroom programmes, ""Blade Runner"", and ""Tron""; and precursory literature, including ""Frankenstein"", ""Le Roman de l'avenir"", ""Ralph 124C 41 +"" and ""A Clockwork Orange"".

A comprehensive survey of Clarke's science fiction.

Dr. Slusser charts the course of Heinlein's development as a writer, from his days as a pulp hack to his enshrinement as a hero of the counter-culture.

This collection of fifteen original essays offers new perspectives on armed conflict as a central aspect of science fiction and fantasy writing. Looking past the superficial conventions associated with ray guns and aliens, swords and sorcerers, the contributors show how writers in the genre today are not so much imagining war more fully as they are completely re-imagining it. Science fiction and fantasy writing is no longer mired in epic or chivalric models but is responding to new and more complex "real-world" motivations for armed aggression: advances in weaponry, shifts in the theaters of war, and changes in battlefield conditions.

Most of the papers were presented at the annual J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, the field's most prestigious international gathering. The trend throughout the book is away from critical interest in stories of spatial or territorial conquest and toward works that deal with topics related to wars of temporal logistics and the internationalization of the combat zone, including urban street violence, gender conflicts, and resistance to runaway technology. The essays range from studies of the semantics and linguistics of warfare in science fiction to a critique of Osip Senkovsky's "Fantastic Journeys of Baron Brambeus"; from writer Joe Haldeman's assessment of the impact of his Vietnam experiences on his fiction to inquiries into a shared author/reader agenda in novels concerning potential mass destruction, including Stephen King's "Dead Zone" and M. J. Engh's "Arslan." The collection also charts new directions in writing, such as the anti-apocalyptic science fiction of Samuel R. Delany, and embraces new modes of presentation, particularly computer animation and the bande dessinee, or illustrated narrative, as exemplified by French novelist Phillippe Druillet's "La Nuit." Musician Bob Marley, film actor/directors Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Lee, and the cyberpunk film classics "Terminator" and the "Road Warrior" series are among other topics discussed.

Together, the essays reinforce the editors' contention that the true function of these fantasies and science fictions is neither nostalgia nor fancy, but analysis. The contributors treat the texts they examine as a means not of playing war games but of understanding the role of war in the present and the future.