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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Page vii
... Cognitive and estranged New words , new sentences 3 GENRE OR MODE ? Genre regarded as a game of tennis The persuasions of rhetoric A trans - historical temptation Drawing from life A literature of metaphor x.x X xi 3 + 0000 22 4 6 8 10 ...
... Cognitive and estranged New words , new sentences 3 GENRE OR MODE ? Genre regarded as a game of tennis The persuasions of rhetoric A trans - historical temptation Drawing from life A literature of metaphor x.x X xi 3 + 0000 22 4 6 8 10 ...
Page xi
... cognitive change , driven principally by science and technology . The map of myth is lost to us . Notoriously , the core of twentiethcentury sensibility has been convulsed by a paradox of semiotics : an explicit and bitter conflict in ...
... cognitive change , driven principally by science and technology . The map of myth is lost to us . Notoriously , the core of twentiethcentury sensibility has been convulsed by a paradox of semiotics : an explicit and bitter conflict in ...
Page xii
... cognitive . Several of these unwieldy but useful terms find their major sf - theoretic locus in the pioneering ... cognition and estrangement ( Suvin , 1979 , p . viii ) , a provocative definition to which I shall return . Suvin ...
... cognitive . Several of these unwieldy but useful terms find their major sf - theoretic locus in the pioneering ... cognition and estrangement ( Suvin , 1979 , p . viii ) , a provocative definition to which I shall return . Suvin ...
Page 8
... cognitive excitement , wonder , awe , astonishment : states and emotions repressed in a workaday world . More , these sentiments are linked , in sf , to the century's motor : to knowledge sought and gained by science . The couple is not ...
... cognitive excitement , wonder , awe , astonishment : states and emotions repressed in a workaday world . More , these sentiments are linked , in sf , to the century's motor : to knowledge sought and gained by science . The couple is not ...
Page 31
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Contents
3 | |
GENERIC ENGINEERING | 21 |
GENRE OR MODE? | 38 |
THE USES OF OTHERNESS | 49 |
READING THE EPISTEME | 64 |
DREAMS OF REASON AND UNREASON | 75 |
THE STARS MY DISSERTATION | 89 |
MAKING UP WORLDS | 103 |
SF AS A MODULAR CALCULUS | 128 |
THE MULTIPLICITY OF WORLDS OF OTHERS | 137 |
THE AUTUMNAL CITY | 153 |
Notes | 159 |
Bibliography | 180 |
xi | 193 |
74 | 195 |
ALLOGRAPHY AND ALLEGORY | 117 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aldiss alien allegory attempts attention become called Chapter character cited close codes cognitive common constituted constructed course critical culture death definition Delany Delany's detail developed discourse discussion dream early effect episteme especially example experience fantasy figure force future genre given human ibid icons images imagination important interesting Intersection invention Jameson John kind language late later least less limits linguistic literary literature Lobey Marxism means mega-text metaphor mode move myth narrative never notes novel object offers once perhaps play position possible postmodern precisely question reader reading reality recent reference relation remains science fiction scientific seems semiotic sense sf's signifiers social space specific Stars story Strange structure tell textual theory things thinking tropes true turn universe volume writing