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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 39
Page xii
... important ? The most ambitious answer is this : because its paraliterary texts , produced and read via their distinctive narrative strategies and tactics , constitute a singular window on our vexed episteme . What's more , its current ...
... important ? The most ambitious answer is this : because its paraliterary texts , produced and read via their distinctive narrative strategies and tactics , constitute a singular window on our vexed episteme . What's more , its current ...
Page xiii
... important ( so that Paul Theroux's O - Zone , say , reads to the knowing eye more as a clumsy parody of an unfamiliar genre than an example of it ) .4 What's more , a lively interest in diverse kinds of information seems to feed heavily ...
... important ( so that Paul Theroux's O - Zone , say , reads to the knowing eye more as a clumsy parody of an unfamiliar genre than an example of it ) .4 What's more , a lively interest in diverse kinds of information seems to feed heavily ...
Page xv
... important ways from previously canonised approaches . Hardly monolithic , or orchestrated around a ' transcendental signified ' , it is neither relativist or pluralist13 but perspectivist : ' acknowledg [ ing ] other points of view but ...
... important ways from previously canonised approaches . Hardly monolithic , or orchestrated around a ' transcendental signified ' , it is neither relativist or pluralist13 but perspectivist : ' acknowledg [ ing ] other points of view but ...
Page xvii
... important moments in Delany's fiction are given close analytical readings . The first is The Einstein Intersection , a complex modernist novel marking the high - point of his early work in 1967. Chapter 9 shows that this novel is itself ...
... important moments in Delany's fiction are given close analytical readings . The first is The Einstein Intersection , a complex modernist novel marking the high - point of his early work in 1967. Chapter 9 shows that this novel is itself ...
Page
... important shared characteristic of the 'scientific romances' and 'extraordinary voyages' of Wells and Verne was their work's accessibility to a wide general readership. Sf had not yet become stigmatised as a genre for undersexed male ...
... important shared characteristic of the 'scientific romances' and 'extraordinary voyages' of Wells and Verne was their work's accessibility to a wide general readership. Sf had not yet become stigmatised as a genre for undersexed male ...
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 |
Other editions - View all
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