Roots and Branches


Book Description

Professor Tom Shippey is best known for his books 'The Road to Middle-earth' and 'J.R.R. Tolkien. Author of the Century'. Yet they are not the only contributions of his to Tolkien studies. Over the years, he has written and lectured widely on Tolkien-related topics. Unfortunately, many of his essays, though still topical, are no longer available. The current volume unites for the first time a selection of his older essays together with some new, as yet unpublished articles.




So Far So Good


Book Description

"Ursula K. Le Guin, loved by millions for her fantasy and science-fiction novels, ponders life, death and the vast beyond in So Far So Good, an astute, charming collection finished weeks before her death in January, 2018. Fans will recognize some of the motifs here—cats, wind, strong women — as well as her exploration of the intersection between soul and body, the knowable and the unknown. The writing is clear, artful and reverent as Le Guin looks back at key memories and concerns and looks forward to what is next: 'Spirit, rehearse the journey of the body/ that are to come, the motions/ of the matter that held you.'"―Washington Post "Le Guin’s farewell poetry collection, contains all that created her reputation for fiction—sharp insight, restless imagination, humor that is both mordant and humane, and, above all else, that connection to all creation, that 'immense what is'."—New York Journal of Books “It’s hard to think of another living author who has written so well for so long in so many styles as Ursula K. Le Guin.” —Salon “She never loses touch with her reverence for the immense what is.” —Margaret Atwood “There is no writer with an imagination as forceful and delicate as Le Guin’s.” —Grace Paley Legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin was lauded by millions for her ground- breaking science fiction novels, but she began as a poet, and wrote across genres for her entire career. In this clarifying and sublime collection—completed shortly before her death in 2018—Le Guin is unflinching in the face of mor- tality, and full of wonder for the mysteries beyond. Redolent of the lush natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, with rich sounds playfully echoing myth and nursery rhyme, Le Guin bookends a long, daring, and prolific career. From “How it Seems to Me”: In the vast abyss before time, self is not, and soul commingles with mist, and rock, and light. In time, soul brings the misty self to be. Then slow time hardens self to stone while ever lightening the soul, till soul can loose its hold of self . . . Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of over sixty novels, short fiction works, translations, and volumes of poetry, including the acclaimed novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Her books continue to sell millions of copies worldwide. Le Guin died in 2018 in her home in Portland, Oregon.




Aliens and Others


Book Description




A Companion to Science Fiction


Book Description

A Companion to Science Fiction assembles essays by an international range of scholars which discuss the contexts, themes and methods used by science fiction writers. This Companion conveys the scale and variety of science fiction. Shows how science fiction has been used as a means of debating cultural issues. Essays by an international range of scholars discuss the contexts, themes and methods used by science fiction writers. Addresses general topics, such as the history and origins of the genre, its engagement with science and gender, and national variations of science fiction around the English-speaking world. Maps out connections between science fiction, television, the cinema, virtual reality technology, and other aspects of the culture. Includes a section focusing on major figures, such as H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula Le Guin. Offers close readings of particular novels, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.




Pulp


Book Description

Pulp brings together in one volume chapters on the best seller, detective fiction, popular romance, science fiction and horror. It combines a lucid and accessible account of the cultural theories that have informed the study of popular fiction with detailed readings of Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Colin Dexter, William Gibson, Stephen King, Iain Banks, Terry McMillan and Walter Mosley. Scott Mc Cracken argues that popular fiction serves a vital function: it provides us with the means to construct a workable sense of self in the face of the disorientating pressures of modernity.







The Science Fiction Mythmakers


Book Description

A literary genre that pervades 21st-century popular culture, science fiction creates mythologies that make statements about humanity's place in the universe and embody an intersection of science, religion and philosophy. This book considers the significance of this confluence through an examination of myths in the writings of H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert. Presenting fresh insights into their works, the author brings to light the tendency of science fiction narratives to reaffirm spiritual myths.




Imaginary Communities


Book Description

Drawing from literary history, social theory, and political critique, this far-reaching study explores the utopian narrative as a medium for understanding the social space of the modern nation-state. Considering the narrative utopia from its earliest manifestation in Thomas More's sixteenth-century work Utopia to some of the most influential utopias of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book is an astute study of a literary genre as well as a nuanced dialectical meditation on the history of utopian thinking as a quintessential history of modernity. As he unravels the dialectics at work in the utopian narrative, Wegner gives an ambitious synthetic discussion of theories of modernity, considering and evaluating the ideas of writers such as Ernst Bloch, Louis Marin, Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Henri Lefebvre, Paul de Man, Karl Mannheim, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jürgen Habermas, Slavoj Zizek, and Homi Bhabha.




Learning from Other Worlds


Book Description

A definite look at the state of science fiction studies today that surveys the field from Hugo Gernsbach to the present.