Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science FictionReading by Starlight explores the characteristics in the writing, marketing and reception of science fiction which distinguish it as a genre. Damien Broderick explores the postmodern self-referentiality of the sci-fi narrative, its intricate coded language and discursive `encyclopaedia'. He shows how, for perfect understanding, sci-fi readers must learn the codes of these imaginary worlds and vocabularies, all the time picking up references to texts by other writers. Reading by Starlight includes close readings of paradigmatic cyberpunk texts and writings by SF novelists and theorists including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Aldiss, Patrick Parrinder, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Varley, Roger Zelazny, William Gibson, Fredric Jameson and Samuel R. Delaney. |
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Contents
GENERIC ENGINEERING | |
GENRE OR MODE? Genre regarded as a game of tennis | |
THE USES OF OTHERNESS | |
READING THE EPISTEME | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic alien allegory ALLOGRAPHY Asimov Brian Aldiss Brooke-Rose Chapter Cioffi Clute codes cognitive constituted constructed contemporary context conventions critical culture cyberpunk Damien Broderick Darko Suvin deconstruction Delany Delany's Dhalgren Disch discourse dreams Einstein Intersection episteme especially estrangement fantasy fictive figure Flight from Nevčr˙on foregrounding formula Fredric Fredric Jameson future genre Gibson Guin Heinlein's Helliconia human ibid icons ideological images imagination intertextual invented Jameson Joanna Russ kind Korga language literary literature Lobey mapping Marq mega-text metaphor metonymy mode modern modular calculus myth narrative Neuromancer Nevčr˙on novel object paradigm paraliterary paraliterature Parrinder perhaps play postmodern poststructural poststructuralist precisely reading reality satire schemata science fiction scientific semiotic sense sexual sf readers sf texts sf writers sf's signifiers Sobchack social space specific Stars story strategies structure subjunctivity Suvin Sygn syntagms textual theory Todorov traditional trilogy tropes universe Ursula Le Guin words writing
Bibliographic information
| Title | Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction Popular Fictions Series |
| Author | Damien Broderick |
| Publisher | Routledge, 2005 |
| ISBN | 1134860056, 9781134860050 |
| Length | 216 pages |
| Subjects | › Literary Criticism / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |