"[An] inside look at this wonderfully strange universe."--

"[An] inside look at this wonderfully strange universe."--

In a century that has taken us from the horse and buggy to the world wide web, science fiction has established itself as the literature to explore the ways in which technology transforms society while its counterpart, genre fantasy, insistently reminds us of the magical transformations of the individual in response to the demands of the social. So it should come as no surprise that the fans and producers of these genres come together to create the culture of the future around the ideal that tales of wonder about the future and the imaginary past can be shared as both symbolic communication and social capital. In Science Fiction Culture, Camille Bacon-Smith explores the science fiction community and its relationships with the industries that sustain it, including the publishing, computer, and hotel/convention industries, and explores the issue of power in those relationships: Who seems to have it? Who does have it? How do they use it? What are the results of that use? In the process, Bacon-Smith rejects the two major theoretical perspectives on mass culture reception. Consumers are not passive receivers of popular culture produced by the hegemonic ideology machine that is the mass media industry, nor are they rebels valiantly resisting that machine by reading against the grain of the interpretation designed into the products they consume. Bacon-Smith argues that the relationship between consumers of science fiction and producers is much more complex than either of these theories suggests. Using a wide range of theoretical perspectives, she shows that this relationship is based on a series of continuing negotiations across a broad spectrum of cultural interests.

When the first season of Star Trek opened to American television viewers in 1966, the thematically insightful sci-fi story line presented audiences with the exciting vision of a bold voyage into the final frontiers of space and strange, new galactic worlds. Perpetuating this enchanting vision, the story has become one of the longest running and most multifaceted franchises in television history. Moreover, it has presented an inspiring message for the future, addressing everything from social, political, philosophical, and ethical issues to progressive and humanist representations of race, gender, and class. This book contends that Star Trek is not just a set of television series, but has become a pervasive part of the identity of the millions of people who watch, read and consume the films, television episodes, network specials, novelizations, and fan stories. Examining Star Trek from various critical angles, the essays in this collection provide vital new insights into the myriad ways that the franchise has affected the culture it represents, the people who watch the series, and the industry that created it.

“A richly detailed and critically penetrating overview . . . from the plucky adventures of Captain Video to the postmodern paradoxes of The X-Files and Lost.” —Rob Latham, coeditor of Science Fiction Studies Exploring such hits as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost, among others, The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader illuminates the history, narrative approaches, and themes of the genre. The book discusses science fiction television from its early years, when shows attempted to recreate the allure of science fiction cinema, to its current status as a sophisticated genre with a popularity all its own. J. P. Telotte has assembled a wide-ranging volume rich in theoretical scholarship yet fully accessible to science fiction fans. The book supplies readers with valuable historical context, analyses of essential science fiction series, and an understanding of the key issues in science fiction television.

A fresh approach to the history and shape of science fiction In Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System, John Rieder asks literary scholars to consider what shape literary history takes when based on a historical, rather than formalist, genre theory. Rieder starts from the premise that science fiction and the other genres usually associated with so-called genre fiction comprise a system of genres entirely distinct from the pre-existing classical and academic genre system that includes the epic, tragedy, comedy, satire, romance, the lyric, and so on. He proposes that the field of literary production and the project of literary studies cannot be adequately conceptualized without taking into account the tensions between these two genre systems that arise from their different modes of production, distribution, and reception. Although the careful reading of individual texts forms an important part of this study, the systemic approach offered by Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System provides a fundamental challenge to literary methodologies that foreground individual innovation.

Eight hundred years after the most horrific battle of the Idiran war, light from its world-destroying detonations is about to reach the Masaq Orbital, home to the Culture. Major Quilan has supposedly come to take the exiled Composer Ziller back to their war-ravaged home world, Chel. But despite the major's civilized veneer, his true mission may be the death and destruction of an entire civilization.