Science Fiction and Market Realities

Science Fiction and Market Realities PDF

Author: George Edgar Slusser

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780820317267

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Through case studies, other contributors relate science fiction to other forms of "underground" literature, consider the continual cycle of illegitimate art replacing legitimate art, look at young readers of science fiction, chart the rising and falling "stock" of science fiction writers' reputations, and consider the influence of editors on a writer's work.

Reality Ahead of Schedule

Reality Ahead of Schedule PDF

Author: Joel Levy

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1588346706

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A rich visual history of science fiction's impact on real-world technologies, this book is perfect for lovers of H. G. Wells, Star Trek, Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Have you ever wished for a personal jet pack or a robot butler? Do you wonder how you would fare as an interplanetary traveler? Are you eagerly awaiting driverless cars? Reality Ahead of Schedule explores how what we imagine about the future has influenced our ability to make those ideas into reality. There are many vital technologies that science fiction not only predicted, but also helped bring into being. Through lively narration and lavish illustrations, the book presents technological developments in the military, consumer, space exploration, medical, and communications fields. It explores the writers, futurists, and far-sighted inventors whose visions became realities, from the direct influence of H. G. Wells on the atomic bomb and the tank, to the ambitious prototypes created by inventors ahead of their time, such as Nikola Tesla's remote-controlled drone ship. The history and development of each technology is related in context, exploring the road from prescient fictional representation to real-life technology. Reality Ahead of Schedule offers readers the chance to meet and understand the impact of some of the greatest names and works in sci-fi, from Jules Verne and Aldous Huxley to Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, Star Trek to the Bionic Man, alongside visionary inventors such as Tesla and Wernher von Braun.

Ten Billion Tomorrows

Ten Billion Tomorrows PDF

Author: Brian Clegg

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2015-12-08

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 125005785X

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An exciting new book about real-life technology derived from science fiction and its impact on the world.

Styles of Creation

Styles of Creation PDF

Author: George Edgar Slusser

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780820314556

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The impetus behind this collection of original essays is the tension between the aesthetic emphasis on stylistics in science fiction and fantasy writing and the critical limitations imposed by prevailing literary theory. From a variety of perspectives, the contributors show how a new, or expanded, set of methods and models can enrich critical exchange within the genre and between it and other types of fiction. The focus of the book is not entirely on critical restraints but also on the genre's robustly subversive, creative drive--its unwillingness or inability to pause for critical validation. The essays examine the proliferation of stylistic acts and experiments in science fiction and fantasy writing as assess the genre's revolutionary qualities: its reordering of narrative priorities, inversion of consecrated categories, and elevation of "minor" devices.

Foods of the Gods

Foods of the Gods PDF

Author: Gary Westfahl

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780820317472

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Gluttony and starvation, pleasure and pain, growth and decay. These and other extremes of our condition related to food, though all but banned from the "civilized" tables of mainstream fiction, are ideal topics for the "undomesticated," free-roaming modes of fantasy. As acts and ideas, food and eating are fundamental to all that makes us human and dominate our symbolic realms of art, literature, and cuisine. These essays show us the power of speculative modes of fiction to help us look anew at prehistorical and psychomythical attitudes toward food and eating; historical Western-cultural attitudes toward the material fact of food and the necessity of eating; and the relationship between attitudes toward food and how, how much, when, and where we eat. The contributors come from a variety of backgrounds, including anthropology, film, and French, Russian, English, and medieval literature. Ranging in their focus from shamans to cannibals, utopias to social Darwinism, muscle magazines to supermarket tabloids, the contributors discuss the theory and practice of science fictional eating; the dialectic, at the level of eating, between individual needs and collective norms; and the ways that eating habits and the availability and choice of food serve to contextualize and demarcate modern fictional genres. In addition to discussing such writers as C. S. Lewis, Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Jonathan Swift, and Anne Rice, the contributors also consider such films as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.

Infinite Detail

Infinite Detail PDF

Author: Tim Maughan

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0374718601

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A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL! The Guardian's Pick for Best Science Fiction Book of the Year! A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet BEFORE: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City—now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis? AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary—who has visions of people presumed dead—is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft’s black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure. The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.

Science Fiction, Disruption and Tourism

Science Fiction, Disruption and Tourism PDF

Author: Ian Yeoman

Publisher: Channel View Publications

Published: 2021-12-20

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 1845418697

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This book examines science fiction’s theoretical and ontological backgrounds and how science fiction applies to the future of tourism. It recreates and invents the future of tourism in a creative and disruptive manner, reconceptualising tourism through alternative and quantum leap thinking that go beyond the normative or accepted view of tourism. The chapters, focusing on areas such as disruption, sustainability and technology, draw readers into the unknown future of tourism – a future that may be disruptive, dystopian or utopian. The book brings a new theoretical paradigm to the study of tourism in a post COVID-19 world and can be used to explore, frame and even form the future of tourism. It will capture the imagination and inspire readers to address tourism’s challenges of tomorrow.