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
NEW WORLD NEW TEXTS | 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 |
23 | 125 |
SF AS A MODULAR CALCULUS | 128 |
THE MULTIPLICITY OF WORLDS OF OTHERS | 137 |
THE AUTUMNAL CITY | 153 |
Notes | 159 |
29 | 162 |
180 | |
193 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic algorithms alien allegory Asimov Brian Aldiss Brooke-Rose codes cognitive constituted constructed contemporary context critical culture cyberpunk decades deconstruction Delany Delany's Dhalgren Disch discourse dreams Einstein Intersection episteme especially estrangement fantasy feminist fictive figure Flight From Nevèrÿon foreground formula Fredric Jameson future genre Gibson's given Heinlein Heinlein's Helliconia human ibid icons ideological images imagination intertextual invented Jameson Joanna Russ kind Korga language literally literary literature Lobey mapping Marq Marq's memex metaphor metonymy mode modern modular calculus myth narrative Neuromancer Nevèrÿon notion novel object paradigm paraliterary paraliterature Parrinder perhaps play postmodern poststructural poststructuralist precisely reading reality Samuel schemata science fiction scientific semiotic sense sexual sf readers sf texts sf writers sf's signifiers Sobchack social space specific Spider Stanislaw Lem Stars story strategies structure subjunctivity Suvin Sygn syntagms textual Thants theory trilogy tropes universe Ursula Le Guin words writing