The History of Science Fiction

by Adam Roberts

Overview

This book is the definitive critical history of science fiction. The 2006 first edition of this work traced the development of the genre from Ancient Greece and the European Reformation through to the end of the 20th century. This new 2nd edition has been revised thoroughly and very significantly expanded. An all-new final chapter discusses 21st-century science fiction, and there is new material in every chapter: a wealth of new readings and original research. The author’s groundbreaking thesis that science fiction is born out of the 17th-century Reformation is here bolstered with a wide range of new supporting material and many hundreds of 17th- and 18th-century science fiction texts, some of which have never been discussed before. The account of 19th-century science fiction has been expanded, and the various chapters tracing the twentieth-century bring in more writing by women, and science fiction in other media including cinema, TV, comics, fan-culture and other modes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137569592
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/12/2016
Series:	Palgrave Histories of Literature
Edition description:	2nd ed. 2016
Pages:	524
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Adam Roberts is Professor of Nineteenth-century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is also the author of more than a dozen science fiction novels: his most recent, Jack Glass (2012) won the BSFA and Campbell awards for the year's best science fiction novel. He has published a number of critical and academic works on science fiction, 19th-century and other topics.

Table of Contents

Preface to Second Edition.- Preface to First Edition (2006).- 1. Definitions.- 2. SF and the Ancient Novel.- 3. From Medieval Romance to Sixteenth-Century Utopia.- 4. 17th-Century SF.- 5. 18th-Century SF. Big, Little.- 6. Early 19th Century SF.- 7. SF 1850-1900: Mobility and Mobilisation.- 8. Verne and Wells.- 9. The Early Twentieth Century, 1: High Modernist SF.- 10. The Early Twentieth Century, 2: The Pulps.- 11. Golden Age SF: 1940-1960.- 12. The Impact of the New Wave: SF of the 1960s and 1970s.- 13. SF Screen Media, 1960-2000: Hollywood Cinema and TV.- 14. Prose SF of the 1980s and 1990s.- 15. Late 20th Century SF: Multimedia, Visual SF and Others.- 16. 21st Century Science Fiction.- Notes.- Bibliography.- Index.-

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This immensely readable critical survey combines a strong thesis with engaged, provocative and often highly original accounts of an astonishing range and variety of texts. Now thoroughly revised and updated, it makes an indispensable contribution to literary history.” (Patrick Parrinder, Emeritus Professor, University of Reading, UK)

“The revised edition of Professor Roberts's History of Science Fiction is a truly comprehensive history of European and American SF. The second edition preserves most of the major arguments and interpretations from the first, and adds a wealth of new material. This is likely to become the standard work in the field.” (Lewis W. Call, author of “BDSM in American Science Fiction and Fantasy”)

“Roberts’s deft anatomisation of the evolution of science fiction, from deep roots in Ancient Greek literature to its present preeminence in popular culture, is remarkably wide-ranging and marvellously detailed. A meticulous, entertaining, essential critical resource.” (Paul McAuley, author of “Fairyland, The Quiet War, and Into Everywhere”)

Editorial Reviews

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2006

'As a professor of 19th-century literature as well as a prolific science fiction writer, Roberts is eminently qualified to write a history of the genre. This impressive tome is ambitious in its scope, tracing SF's origins back to the fantastic voyages of the ancient Greek novel - the original Vernean voyages extraordinaires.' - The Guardian

'Adam Roberts' 'History' is the most significant history of the genre since The Trillion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove, published nearly two decades ago, and demonstrates the most original thinking about science fiction since Kingsley Amis's New Maps of Hell more than forty years ago. This isn't merely an excellent historical survey but a narrative, showing compellingly how modern science fiction has roots in the fantastic-voyage tales of antiquity, and has been shaped by a dialectic between magic and materialism that dates back to the Reformation...Adam Roberts is already a proven author of high-quality science fiction. With 'History' he establishes himself as the most important critical voice in modern science fiction studies.' - Stephen Baxter, Current Vice President, The British Science Fiction Association and Author of Timelike Infinity and Voyage

'[A] refreshingly irreverent attempt to look at science fiction without blinkers.' - Strange Horizons

'The History of Science Fiction is a necessary and important book. It will get people talking, discussing and - dare I say it? - arguing about all manner of things relevant to science fiction, its history and its future.' - Green Man Review

'...the lasting impressions left by this History of Science Fiction are of the author's eye for detail, his understanding of the pervasiveness of the science fiction in contemporary culture, and his astonishing critical energy.' - Patrick Parrinder, The British Society for Literature and Science

From the Publisher