Apocalyptic Fiction

by Andrew Tate, Katy Shaw (Editor)

Overview

Visions of post-apocalyptic worlds have proved to be irresistible for many 21st-century writers, from literary novelists to fantasy and young adult writers. Exploring a wide range of texts, from the works of Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, Tom Perrotta and Emily St. John Mandel to young adult novels such as Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games series, this is the first critical introduction to contemporary apocalyptic fiction.

Exploring the cultural and political contexts of these writings and their echoes in popular media, Apocalyptic Fiction also examines how contemporary apocalyptic texts looks back to earlier writings by the likes of Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells and J.G. Ballard. Apocalyptic Fiction includes an annotated guide to secondary readings, making this an essential guide for students of contemporary fiction at all levels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474233514
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/26/2017
Series:	21st Century Genre Fiction
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Andrew Tate is Professor in Literature, Religion and Aesthetics at Lancaster University, UK.

Katy Shaw is Principal Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her previous publications include David Peace: Texts and Contexts and Mining the Meaning: Cultural Representations of the 1984-5 UK Miners' Strike.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: Dreams of the 'Ruined' Future
2. 'God Rains Over Everything': Two Floods
3. 'Sudden Departure': Rapture Writing
4. 'In the Beginning, There Was Chaos': Atwood, Apocalypse, Art
5. Empty Roads: Walking After Catastrophe
6. Keep Watching: Spectacle, Rebellion and Apocalyptic Rites of Passage
Conclusion: Survival is Inefficient
Notes
Primary Bibliography
Annotated Secondary Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Tate traces a diverse array of tropes as they surface in this century's most indelible doomsday fantasies ... Fluent and perceptive.” —Times Literary Supplement

“This is a consistently suggestive, scholarly and readable study of the literature of apocalypse both inside and outside science fiction.” —Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction

“A stimulating, lucid and compact study and guide to further research on twenty-first century British, US, and Canadian writing about the end times.” —The Wellsian: The Journal of the H. G. Wells Society

From the Publisher