Hard reading : learning from science fiction / Tom Shippey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shippey, T. A., author.

Series:

Liverpool science fiction texts and studies ; 53.

Liverpool science fiction texts and studies ; 53

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science fiction--History and criticism.

Science fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 334 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool Liverpool University Press 2016

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The fifteen essays collected in Hard Reading argue, first, that science fiction has its own internal rhetoric, relying on devices such as neologism, dialogism, semantic shifts, the use of unreliable narrators. It is a "high-information" genre which does not follow the Flaubertian ideal of le mot juste, "the right word", preferring le mot imprévisible, "the unpredictable word". Both ideals shun the facilior lectio, the "easy reading", but for different reasons and with different effects. The essays argue further that science fiction derives much of its energy from engagement with vital intellectual issues in the "soft sciences", especially history, anthropology, the study of different cultures, with a strong bearing on politics. Both the rhetoric and the issues deserve to be taken much more seriously than they have been in academia, and in the wider world. Each essay is further prefaced by an autobiographical introduction. These explain how the essays came to be written and in what ways they (often) proved controversial. They, and the autobiographical introduction to the whole book, create between them a memoir of what it was like to be a committed fan, from teenage years, and also an academic struggling to find a place, at a time when a declared interest in science fiction and fantasy was the kiss of death for a career in the humanities.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Figures

Note on References

A Personal Preface

What SF Is

1 Introduction Coming Out of the Science Fiction Closet

Learning to Read Science Fiction

2 Introduction Rejecting Gesture Politics

Literary Gatekeepers and the Fabril Tradition

3 Introduction Getting Away from the Facilior Lectio

Semiotic Ghosts and Ghostlinesses in the Work of Bruce Sterling

SF and Change

4 Introduction Getting Serious with the Fans

Science Fiction and the Idea of History

5 Introduction Getting to Grips with the Issue of Cultures

Cultural Engineering: A Theme in Science Fiction

6 Introduction And Not Fudging the Issue!

"People are Plastic": Jack Vance and the Dilemma of Cultural Relativism

7 Introduction SF Authors Really Mean what they Say

Alternate Historians: Newt, Kingers, Harry and Me

8 Introduction A Revealing Failure by the Critics

Kingsley Amis's Science Fiction and the Problems of Genre

9 Introduction A Glimpse of Structuralist Possibility

The Golden Bough and the Incorporations of Magic in Science Fiction

10 Introduction Serious Issues, Serious Traumas, Emotional Depth

The Magic Art and the Evolution of Words: Ursula Le Guin's "Earthsea" Trilogy

SF and Politics

11 Introduction A First Encounter with Politics

The Cold War in Science Fiction, 1940-1960

12 Introduction Language Corruption, and Rocking the Boat

Variations on Newspeak: The Open Question of Nineteen Eighty-Four

13 Introduction Just Before the Disaster

The Fall of America in Science Fiction

14 Introduction Why Politicians, and Producers, Should Read Science Fiction

The Critique of America in Contemporary Science Fiction

15 Introduction Saying (When Necessary) the Lamentable Word.

Starship Troopers, Galactic Heroes, Mercenary Princes: The Military and its Discontents in Science

References

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Aug 2017).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-319) and index.

CC BY-NC-ND

ISBN:

9781786945167

1786945169

9781781384398

1781384398

OCLC:

1138064726

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access