Science Fiction The Wonder Of Human Imagination

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SCIENCE FICTION THE WONDER OF HUMAN IMAGINATION

Author : Andreas Sofroniou
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 0244934096
Total Pages : 117 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (449 download)

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Book Synopsis SCIENCE FICTION THE WONDER OF HUMAN IMAGINATION by : Andreas Sofroniou

Download or read book SCIENCE FICTION THE WONDER OF HUMAN IMAGINATION written by Andreas Sofroniou and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Fiction explores the probable consequences of some improbable or impossible transformation of the basic conditions of human (or intelligent non-human) existence. This transformation need not be a technological invention, but may be some mutation of known biological or physical reality: artificial or extraterrestrial life-forms and travel through time are favourite subjects. Science Fiction stories may involve Utopian political speculation, or satire, but most rely on the marvellous appeal of fantasy. The term Science Fiction was first given general currency by Hugo Gernsback, editor of the popular Amazing Stories magazine from 1926. Once uniformly dismissed as pulp trash, SF gained greater respect from the 1950s, as writers like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and John Wyndham expanded its range; themes of alien invasion and brain-washing became especially popular at the height of the Cold War.

In Other Worlds

Author : Margaret Atwood
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385533977
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis In Other Worlds by : Margaret Atwood

Download or read book In Other Worlds written by Margaret Atwood and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale At a time when speculative fiction seems less and less far-fetched, Margaret Atwood lends her distinctive voice and singular point of view to the genre in a series of essays that brilliantly illuminates the essential truths about the modern world. This is an exploration of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as "science fiction,” a relationship that has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestor of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures from 2010: "Flying Rabbits," which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; "Burning Bushes," which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and "Dire Cartographies," which investigates Utopias and Dystopias. In Other Worlds also includes some of Atwood's key reviews and thoughts about the form. Among those writers discussed are Marge Piercy, Rider Haggard, Ursula Le Guin, Ishiguro, Bryher, Huxley, and Jonathan Swift. She elucidates the differences (as she sees them) between "science fiction" proper, and "speculative fiction," as well as between "sword and sorcery/fantasy" and "slipstream fiction." For all readers who have loved The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood, In Other Worlds is a must. Note: The electronic version of this title contains over thirty additional, illuminating eBook-exclusive illustrations by the author.

Astounding Wonder

Author : John Cheng
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812206673
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Astounding Wonder by : John Cheng

Download or read book Astounding Wonder written by John Cheng and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-03-19 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When physicist Robert Goddard, whose career was inspired by H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds, published "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes," the response was electric. Newspaper headlines across the country announced, "Modern Jules Verne Invents Rocket to Reach Moon," while people from around the world, including two World War I pilots, volunteered as pioneers in space exploration. Though premature (Goddard's rocket, alas, was only imagined), the episode demonstrated not only science's general popularity but also its intersection with interwar popular and commercial culture. In that intersection, the stories that inspired Goddard and others became a recognizable genre: science fiction. Astounding Wonder explores science fiction's emergence in the era's "pulps," colorful magazines that shouted from the newsstands, attracting an extraordinarily loyal and active audience. Pulps invited readers not only to read science fiction but also to participate in it, joining writers and editors in celebrating a collective wonder for and investment in the potential of science. But in conjuring fantastic machines, travel across time and space, unexplored worlds, and alien foes, science fiction offered more than rousing adventure and romance. It also assuaged contemporary concerns about nation, gender, race, authority, ability, and progress—about the place of ordinary individuals within modern science and society—in the process freeing readers to debate scientific theories and implications separate from such concerns. Readers similarly sought to establish their worth and place outside the pulps. Organizing clubs and conventions and producing their own magazines, some expanded science fiction's community and created a fan subculture separate from the professional pulp industry. Others formed societies to launch and experiment with rockets. From debating relativity and the use of slang in the future to printing purple fanzines and calculating the speed of spaceships, fans' enthusiastic industry revealed the tensions between popular science and modern science. Even as it inspired readers' imagination and activities, science fiction's participatory ethos sparked debates about amateurs and professionals that divided the worlds of science fiction in the 1930s and after.

The Mechanics of Wonder

Author : Gary Westfahl
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780853235637
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (356 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mechanics of Wonder by : Gary Westfahl

Download or read book The Mechanics of Wonder written by Gary Westfahl and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a sustained argument about the idea of science fiction by a renowned critic. Overturning many received opinions, it is both controversial and stimulating Much of the controversy arises from Westfahl's resurrection of Hugo Gernsback - for decades a largely derided figure - as the true creator of science fiction. Following an initial demolition of earlier critics, Westfahl argues for Gernsback's importance. His argument is fully documented, showing a much greater familiarity with early American science fiction, particularly magazine fiction, than previous academic critics or historians. After his initial chapters on Gernsback, he examines the way in which the Gernsback tradition was adopted and modified by later magazine editors and early critics. This involves a re-evaluation of the importance of John W. Campbell to the history of science fiction as well as a very interesting critique of Robert Heinlein's Beyond the Horizon, one the seminal texts of American science fiction. In conclusion, Westfahl uses the theories of Gernsback and Campbell to develop a descriptive definition of science fiction and he explores the ramifications of that definition. The Mechanics of Wonder will arouse debate and force the questioning of presuppositions. No other book so closely examines the origins and development of the idea of science fiction, and it will stand among a small number of crucial texts with which every science fiction scholar or prospective science fiction scholar will have to read.

Wonder and Science

Author : Mary Baine Campbell
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501705059
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Wonder and Science by : Mary Baine Campbell

Download or read book Wonder and Science written by Mary Baine Campbell and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2004-12-10 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the early modern period, western Europe was transformed by the proliferation of new worlds—geographic worlds found in the voyages of discovery and conceptual and celestial worlds opened by natural philosophy, or science. The response to incredible overseas encounters and to the profound technological, religious, economic, and intellectual changes occurring in Europe was one of nearly overwhelming wonder, expressed in a rich variety of texts. In the need to manage this wonder, to harness this imaginative overabundance, Mary Baine Campbell finds both the sensational beauty of early scientific works and the beginnings of the divergence of the sciences—particularly geography, astronomy, and anthropology—from the writing of fiction. Campbell's learned and brilliantly perceptive new book analyzes a cross section of texts in which worlds were made and unmade; these texts include cosmographies, colonial reports, works of natural philosophy and natural history, fantastic voyages, exotic fictions, and confessions. Among the authors she discusses are André Thevet, Thomas Hariot, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn. Campbell's emphasis is on developments in England and France, but she considers works in languages other than English or French which were well known in the polyglot book culture of the time. With over thirty well-chosen illustrations, Wonder and Science enhances our understanding of the culture of early modern Europe, the history of science, and the development of literary forms, including the novel and ethnography.

The Cambridge History of the American Novel

Author : Leonard Cassuto
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521899079
Total Pages : 1271 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (218 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge History of the American Novel by : Leonard Cassuto

Download or read book The Cambridge History of the American Novel written by Leonard Cassuto and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-24 with total page 1271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and lively account of the development of the genre, by leading experts in the field.

The Mammoth Book of Science Fiction

Author : Mike Ashley
Publisher : Mammoth
ISBN 13 : 1472114868
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (721 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mammoth Book of Science Fiction by : Mike Ashley

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Science Fiction written by Mike Ashley and published by Mammoth. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The art of writing great science fiction is that it challenges the imagination, pushing it to extreme limits and in this anthology, selecting some of the best modern science fiction from the last fifty years, twenty leading authors of the genre ask the question 'What if...?' and then give their own very personal views of the changes and surprises which may befall humanity in the centuries to come. In Ulla, Ulla Eric Brown recounts the first manned Martian expedition and discovers that H. G. Wells may have been right after all. In The Infinite Assassin Greg Egan polices the dimensions, seeking those who are taking over their alternate selves. Geoffrey A. Landis takes us into the depths of a black hole in Approaching Perimelasma. Is the ultimate Utopia heaven or hell? Robert Sheckley finds out in the classic A Ticket to Tranai. These and other stories by James White, Eric Frank Russell, Robert Reed, H. Beam Piper and H. Chandler Elliot make this one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking science fiction anthologies in lightyears.

The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells

Author : Michael R. Page
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131702527X
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells by : Michael R. Page

Download or read book The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells written by Michael R. Page and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the close of the eighteenth century, Erasmus Darwin declared that he would 'enlist the imagination under the banner of science,' beginning, Michael Page argues, a literary narrative on questions of evolution, ecology, and technological progress that would extend from the Romantic through the Victorian periods. Examining the interchange between emerging scientific ideas-specifically evolution and ecology-new technologies, and literature in nineteenth-century Britain, Page shows how British writers from Darwin to H.G. Wells confronted the burgeoning expansion of scientific knowledge that was radically redefining human understanding and experience of the natural world, of human species, and of the self. The wide range of authors covered in Page's ambitious study permits him to explore an impressive array of topics that include the role of the Romantic era in the molding of scientific and cultural perspectives; the engagement of William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley with questions raised by contemporary science; Mary Shelley's conflicted views on the unfolding prospects of modernity; and how Victorian writers like Charles Kingsley, Samuel Butler, and W.H. Hudson responded to the implications of evolutionary theory. Page concludes with the scientific romances of H.G. Wells, to demonstrate how evolutionary fantasies reached the pinnacle of synthesis between evolutionary science and the imagination at the close of the century.

In Other Worlds

Author : Margaret Atwood
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 0748126384
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis In Other Worlds by : Margaret Atwood

Download or read book In Other Worlds written by Margaret Atwood and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace * Rabbit superheroes. A theory of masks and capes. Victorian otherlands. From her 1940s childhood to her time at Harvard, Margaret Atwood has always been fascinated with SF. In 2010, she delivered a lecture series at Emory University called 'In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination.' This book is the result of those lectures. It includes essays on Ursula Le Guin and H G Wells, her interesting distinction between 'science fiction proper' and 'speculative fiction', and the letter which she wrote to the school which tried to ban The Handmaid's Tale. * 'Spooky . . . wild' - Telegraph 'Elegant and witty' - Guardian 'Eminently readable and accessible . . . The lectures are insightful and cogently argued with a neat comic turn of phrase . . . Her enthusiasm and level of intellectual engagement are second to none' - Financial Times

Age of Wonders

Author : David G. Hartwell
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 076539331X
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (653 download)

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Book Synopsis Age of Wonders by : David G. Hartwell

Download or read book Age of Wonders written by David G. Hartwell and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science Fiction gives an insider's view of the strange and wonderful world of science fiction, by one of the most respected editors in the field, David G. Hartwell (1941-2016). David G. Hartwell edited science fiction and fantasy for over twenty years. In that time, he worked with acclaimed and popular writers such as Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazny, Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe, Nancy Kress, L.E. Modesitt, Terry Bisson, Lisa Goldstein, and Philip Jose Farmer, and discovered hot new talents like Kathleen Ann Goonan and Patrick O'Leary. Now in Age of Wonder, Hartwell describes the field he loved, worked in, and shaped as editor, critic, and anthologist. Like those other American art forms, jazz, comics, and rock 'n' roll, science fiction is the product of a rich and fascinating subculture. Age of Wonder is a fascinating tour of the origins, history, and culture of the science fiction world, written with insight and genuine affection for this wonder-filled literature, and addressed to newcomers and longtime SF readers alike. Age of Wonder remains "the landmark work" Roger Zelazny called the first edition. The book contains sections that offer advice on teaching courses in science fiction, disquisitions on the controversial subgenre of hard SF, and practical explanations of the economics of publishing science fiction and fantasy. Age of Wonder still lives up to Hugo and Nebula Award winner Vonda McIntyre's description: "An entertaining and provocative book that will inspire discussion and argument for years to come."

Modern Science Fiction: A Critical Analysis

Author : James Gunn
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476632375
Total Pages : 213 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis Modern Science Fiction: A Critical Analysis by : James Gunn

Download or read book Modern Science Fiction: A Critical Analysis written by James Gunn and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-05-25 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Gunn—one of the founding figures of science fiction scholarship and teaching—wrote in 1951 what is likely the first master’s thesis on modern science fiction. Portions were in the short-lived pulp magazine Dynamic but it has otherwise remained unavailable. Here in its first full publication, the thesis explores many of the classic Golden Age stories of the 1940s and the critical perspective that informed Gunn’s essential genre history Alternate Worlds and his anthology series The Road to Science Fiction. The editor’s introduction and commentary show the historical significance of Gunn’s work and its relevance to today’s science fiction studies.

Science Fiction in Classic Rock

Author : Robert McParland
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476630305
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis Science Fiction in Classic Rock by : Robert McParland

Download or read book Science Fiction in Classic Rock written by Robert McParland and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As technology advances, society retains its mythical roots--a tendency evident in rock music and its enduring relationship with myth and science fiction. This study explores the mythical and fantastic themes of artists from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, including David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Blue Oyster Cult, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Drawing on insights from Joseph Campbell, J.G. Frazer, Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade, the author examines how performers have incorporated mythic archetypes and science fiction imagery into songs that illustrate societal concerns and futuristic fantasies.

Future Societies

Author : John Hamilton
Publisher : ABDO Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 1617843547
Total Pages : 34 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (178 download)

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Book Synopsis Future Societies by : John Hamilton

Download or read book Future Societies written by John Hamilton and published by ABDO Publishing Company. This book was released on 2006-08-15 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces young readers to the world of science fiction.

Imagining Urban Futures

Author : Carl Abbott
Publisher : Wesleyan University Press
ISBN 13 : 0819576727
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (195 download)

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Book Synopsis Imagining Urban Futures by : Carl Abbott

Download or read book Imagining Urban Futures written by Carl Abbott and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What science fiction can teach us about urban planning Carl Abbott, who has taught urban studies and urban planning in five decades, brings together urban studies and literary studies to examine how fictional cities in work by authors as different as E. M. Forster, Isaac Asimov, Kim Stanley Robinson, and China Miéville might help us to envision an urban future that is viable and resilient. Imagining Urban Futures is a remarkable treatise on what is best and strongest in urban theory and practice today, as refracted and intensely imagined in science fiction. As the human population grows, we can envision an increasingly urban society. Shifting weather patterns, rising sea levels, reduced access to resources, and a host of other issues will radically impact urban environments, while technology holds out the dream of cities beyond Earth. Abbott delivers a compelling critical discussion of science fiction cities found in literary works, television programs, and films of many eras from Metropolis to Blade Runner and Soylent Green to The Hunger Games, among many others.

Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred

Author : Richard Grigg
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350065641
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred by : Richard Grigg

Download or read book Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred written by Richard Grigg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines science fiction's relationship to religion and the sacred through the lens of significant books, films and television shows. It provides a clear account of the larger cultural and philosophical significance of science fiction, and explores its potential sacrality in today's secular world by analyzing material such as Ray Bradbury's classic novel The Martian Chronicles, films The Abyss and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also the Star Trek universe. Richard Grigg argues that science fiction is born of nostalgia for a truly 'Other' reality that is no longer available to us, and that the most accurate way to see the relationship between science fiction and traditional approaches to the sacred is as an imitation of true sacrality; this, he suggests, is the best option in a secular age. He demonstrates this by setting forth five definitions of the sacred and then, in consecutive chapters, investigating particular works of science fiction and showing just how they incarnate those definitions. Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred also considers the qualifiers that suggest that science fiction can only imitate the sacred, not genuinely replicate it, and assesses the implications of this investigation for our understanding of secularity and science fiction.

Uncanny Magazine Issue 15

Author : Beth Cato
Publisher : Uncanny Magazine
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Uncanny Magazine Issue 15 by : Beth Cato

Download or read book Uncanny Magazine Issue 15 written by Beth Cato and published by Uncanny Magazine. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

3 Science Fiction Stories

Author : Colour the Classics
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (693 download)

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Book Synopsis 3 Science Fiction Stories by : Colour the Classics

Download or read book 3 Science Fiction Stories written by Colour the Classics and published by . This book was released on 2024-04-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: �� Unleash Your Imagination with William Tenn's Sci-Fi Gems! �� Hey Sci-Fi Enthusiasts, Ready to dive into a world where the impossible becomes possible and the unimaginable takes shape? �� Introducing 3 Science Fiction Stories that will warp your mind and ignite your curiosity like never before! �� Why William Tenn? �� William Tenn, a master of the genre, weaves tales that challenge the status quo, question reality, and push the boundaries of human imagination. �� What to Expect? �� Mind-Bending Plots: Get ready for twists and turns that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew. Intriguing Characters: Meet beings from distant galaxies and future worlds who will stay with you long after you've turned the last page. Thought-Provoking Themes: Explore complex social issues, ethical dilemmas, and the essence of humanity through Tenn's unique storytelling lens. Ready to embark on a journey through the cosmos of William Tenn's mind? �� Get Your Copy of 3 Science Fiction Stories Now! Blast off into a world of wonder and discovery! Happy Reading, Your Sci-Fi Bookworm Crew ��