Visions and Re-visions: (re)constructing Science FictionRenowned science fiction scholar Robert M. Philmus offers in Visions and Revisions a fresh and provocative literary analysis of science fiction writing. He critically examines the works of some of the most prominent writers to have written in the genre-including Evgeny Zamiatin, Karel Capek, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Stanislaw Lem, along with English-language authors from H.G. Wells to Ursula Le Guin-and reveals how their works illustrate the fundamental elements of science fiction writing. The former editor of Science Fiction Studies, Philmus casts his expert eye on a diverse range of short stories and novels by the premier arbiters of the craft, with close readings that draw upon the theories of New Criticism as well as post-Modern. Featuring essays such as Stanislaw Lem's Futurological Congress as a Metageneric Text, Kurt Vonnegut: Historiographer of the Absurd: The Sirens of Titan, Ursula K. Le Guin and Time's Dispossession, and Time Out of Joint: The World(s) of Philip K. Dic |
Contents
2 Generic Configurations of A Story of the Days to Come | 28 |
3 Revisions of The Time Machine | 49 |
4 Stanislaw Lems Futurological Congress as a Metageneric Text | 66 |
5 Karel Čapeks Cannon of Negation | 79 |
6 Olaf Stapledons TragiCosmic Vision | 114 |
9 Jorge Luis Borges and the Labyrinths of Time | 173 |
Italo Calvinos | 190 |
11 Ursula K Le Guin and Times Dispossession | 224 |
The Worlds of Philip K Dicks | 250 |
A Revisionary Construction of Genre with Particular | 284 |
Notes | 312 |
| 388 | |
| 401 | |
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Visions and Re-Visions: (Re)Constructing Science Fiction Robert M. Philmus No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
Abendsen Anarres Anarresti anti-utopia anti-utopian appears Blettsworthy book's Borges Borges's Borgesian Calvino Čapek Castle's chapter Ching comes conception connection consciousness construction cosmicomic Cosmicomiche dialectical Dick Dick's Dickian difference Dispossessed dream dystopian effect English epigraph especially essay fact fantasy fictifact fictive future Futurological Congress genre Grasshopper Guin Gulliver hence High Castle Houyhnhnms human idea imagination Inner Truth intent Krakatit Labyrinths language least Lem's literary logical Machine Makropulos matter meaning mind Mitosi moral narrative Newspeak Nineteen Eighty-Four Odd John Odonian Olaf Stapledon otherwise Oyarsa perhaps possibility pre-text principle Qfwfq re-vision readers reading reality reason reference regard revisionary Robots satiric science fiction science-fiction sense Shevek Silent Planet Sirens Sirius Sirius's Sleeper space Stapledon Star Maker story Tagomi takes temporal term-concept thereby thing thinking Tichy's Tlön Tralfamadore Tralfamadorian translation trilogy Ubik understanding Urras Utopia vision Vonnegut Wells's wherein words writing Zamyatin's