Robert Heinlein

Classic Cult Fiction is a history, analysis, and reference guide to books that have become "bibles" to generations of Europeans and Americans over the past 200 years--books like The Catcher in the Rye. Fearlessly taking on "canon formation," Whissen identifies the top 50 classic cult books, first presenting an informed and witty interpretation of the phenomenon and its characteristics with examples from different cultures and periods. The individual works are each discussed relative to time and place, impact, and audience psychology and analyzed in terms of common cult attributes. A chronological listing of cult fiction adds a number of titles not chosen for the top 50.

Bartter surveys 250 American science-fiction stories, and American SF novels--with occasional overlaps of stories made into episodic novels--that have some relationship, often direct, sometimes marginal, to atomic weapons and their effects. . . . Highly recommended for popular literature collections." Choice

Unlike many classic works of fiction, literature of the fantastic enjoys mass popularity. Because the fantastic is so much a part of popular culture, fantasy literature can represent or address the racial attitudes of its audience. Representations of race in the fantastic provide a measure of the concern the culture has for racial matters. If a work is racist, whether consciously or not, it may perpetuate racist attitudes unless it is carefully examined. At the same time, literature of the fantastic is able to present possible worlds rather than real ones. It is thus a literature of possibility, in which racial matters may be addressed and exposed, so that readers may become more conscious of the evils of racist attitudes. This volume explores the significance of race and color in the works of a wide range of authors, including Octavia Butler, Robert Heinlein, Stephen King, and Robert Silverberg.

This book provides a detailed study of the relationship between science fiction and other genres. After discussing the problems inherent in classifying works according to genre, Pierce notes how science fiction sometimes incorporates plots from other literary forms. He then explores the relationship between science fiction and related genres, such as fantastic romances and techno-thrillers. The book next examines those science fiction writers who have successfully written in other literary forms, as well as authors active in other genres who have turned to science fiction to treat particular themes. Pierce also discusses the literary and stylistic aspects of science fiction. Throughout the book, Pierce's coverage is encyclopedic in nature. He provides examples from numerous works, and the volume closes with a detailed bibliography.

The first examples of travel to the past appear early in the 19th century, but it was not until the publication of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court that we see a hero taking advantage of a combination of hindsight and advances in technology to build an empire in the past. Concentrating on travel to the past, this study details, both in Twain's seminal work and in its science fiction successors, the various roles played by the traveller to the past--nostalgic, tourist, imperialist, Oedipal hero and existential isolate--and attempts to relate these roles both to the rest of Twain's work and to the world-view of contemporary America.

Science fiction has evolved and diverged in many ways and moods. When World Views Collide is the third and final volume in a history of the genre that began with Foundations of Science Fiction and continued in Great Themes of Science Fiction. The conflicts in science fiction are conflicts about world views, which Pierce defines as fundamental beliefs about the nature of man, the universe, and man's place in the universe. Pierce presents each world view in science fiction on its own terms, as expressed in the works of its partisans. This final volume of the trilogy thus examines science fiction as a way of defining and delimiting humanity and human values, which may well be the most important aspect of the genre today.

This wide-ranging volume explores the various dialogues that flourish between different aspects of science fiction: academics and fans, writers and readers; ideological stances and national styles; different interpretations of the genre; and how language and �1voices�2 are used in constructing SF. Introduced by the acclaimed novelist Brian W. Aldiss, the essays range from studies of writers such as Robert A. Heinlein, who are considered as the "heart" of the genre, to more contemporary writers such as Jack Womack and J. G. Ballard.

Science fiction is at the intersection of numerous fields. It is literature which draws on popular culture, and engages in speculation about science, history, and all varieties of social relations. This volume brings together essays by scholars and practitioners of science fiction, which look at the genre from different angles. It examines science fiction from Thomas More to the present day; and introduces important critical approaches (including Marxism, postmodernism, feminism and queer theory).