The History of Science Fiction [Paperback]

The History of Science Fiction traces the origin and development of science fiction from Ancient Greece up to the present day. The author is both an academic literary critic and acclaimed creative writer of the genre. Written in lively, accessible prose it is specifically designed to bridge the worlds of academic criticism and SF fandom.Preface Definitions Science Fiction and the Ancient Novel Interlude: AD400 - AD1600 Seventeenth-Century Science Fiction Eighteenth-Century Science Fiction Early Nineteenth-Century Science Fiction Science Fiction 1850 - 1900 Jules Verne and H.G. Wells The Early Twentieth-Century: High Modernist Science Fiction Golden Age Science Fiction: 1940-1960 The Impact of New Wave Science Fiction: 1960s - 1970s Science Fiction Screen Media 1960s - 2000: Hollywood Cinema and TV Prose Science Fiction: 1970s - 1990s Late Twentieth Century SF: Multimedia, Visual Science Fiction and Others Postscript: Twenty-First-Century Science Fiction Chronology of Key Titles in Science Fiction and Developments in Science Notes Further Reading Index

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 bl³(