Introduction

When Neuromancer by William Gibson was first published it created a sensation. Or perhaps it would be more precise to say that it was used to create a sensation, for Bruce Sterling and other Gibson associates declared that a new kind of science fiction had appeared which rendered merely ordinary SF obsolete. Informed by the amoral urban rage of the punk subculture and depicting the developing human-machine interface created by the widespread use of computers and computer networks, set in the near future in decayed city landscapes like those portrayed in the filmBlade Runner it claimed to be the voice of a new generation. (Interestingly, Gibson himself has said he had finished much of what was to be his body of early cyberpunk fiction before ever seeing Blade Runner.) Eventually it was seized on by hip “postmodern” academics looking to ride the wave of the latest trend. Dubbed “cyberpunk,” the stuff was being talked about everywhere in SF. Of course by the time symposia were being held on the subject, writers declared cyberpunk dead, yet the stuff kept being published and it continues to be published today by writers like K. W. Jeter and Rudy Rucker Perhaps the best and most representative anthology of cyberpunk writers is Mirrorshades., edited by Sterling, the genre’s most outspoken advocate.

But cyberpunk’s status as the revolutionary vanguard was almost immediately challenged. Its narrative techniques, many critics pointed out, were positively reactionary compared to the experimentalism of mid-60s “new wave” SF. One of the main sources of its vision was William S. Burroughs’ quasi-SF novels like Nova Express, (1964), and the voice of Gibson’s narrator sounded oddly like a slightly updated version of old Raymond Chandler novels like The Big Sleep, (1939). Others pointed out that almost all of cyberpunk’s characteristics could be found in the works of older writers such as J. G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, or Samuel R. Delany. Most damning of all, it didn’t seem to have been claimed by the generation it claimed to represent. Real punks did little reading, and the vast majority of young SF readers preferred to stick with traditional storytellers such as Larry Niven, Anne McCaffrey and even Robert Heinlein. Gibson’s prose was too dense and tangled for casual readers, so it is not surprising that he gained more of a following among academics than among the sort of people it depicted. Heavy Metalcomics and Max Headroom brought more of the cyberpunk vision to a young audience than did the fiction

Yet Neuromancer is historically significant. Most critics agree that it was not only the first cyberpunk novel, it was and remains the best. Gibson’s rich stew of allusion to contemporary technology set a new standard for SF prose. If his plots and characters are shallow and trite, that mattered little, for it is not the tale but the manner of its telling that stands out. His terminology continues to pop up here and there. Whereas an earlier generation borrowed names from its favorite author, J. R. R. Tolkien, like “Shadowfax” (a new-age music group), “Gandalf” (a brand of computer data switch), and “Moria” (an early fantasy computer game), there has been a proliferation of references to Neuromancer: there was a computer virus called ” Screaming Fist,” the Internet is commonly referred to as “Cyberspace” or–occasionally–“the Matrix,” and there are several World Wide Web sites are named “Wintermute.” (The rock group named “The Meat Puppets” existed before Gibson borrowed the term.) Gibson produced his vision in a time when many people were becoming haunted by the idea of urban decay, crime rampant, corruption everywhere. Just as readers of the 50s looked obsessively for signs that Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four was coming true, some readers keep an eye out for the emergence of cyberpunk’s nightmare world in contemporary reality. The fiction may not be widely read, but through movies and comics it has created one of the defining mythologies of our time.

The vision of Neuromancer was too confining for a writer of Gibson’s originality, and after a couple of sequels–(Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive )–he turned to other experiments, such as his “steampunk” collaboration with Bruce Sterling: The Difference Engine, depicting an alternative Victorian Age in which huge, steam-driven computers were developed. In 1994 he returned to Cyberpunk with Virtual Light and in 1995 published another novel set in Japan, Idoru.

Note that Gibson’s related story Johnny Mnemonic Official site of the forthcoming Neuromancer film.

In classic SF, a strongly independent individual often overcomes huge obstacles to solve problems affecting vast masses of people. In what ways does Neuromancer depart from this pattern?

Part One: Chiba City Blues

Chapter 1

In the eighties, the American image of Japan underwent a profound transformation. For generations it had been on the margins of our imagination: as the exotic land of cherry blossoms and geishas, later as the war machine sending out kamikaze bomber pilots in World War II, and later still as the source of every sort of cheap, shoddy, imitative gadget. All of these were shallow images, of course. Japan industrialized not long after northern Europe, and Western influences had been strong for centuries. But the success of brands like Sony and Toyota changed everything. Japan suddenly became perceived as the cutting edge of modernity. Whereas the rest of the world had looked toward the U.S. for innovation in the past, young Americans began to think of Japan as the future, and it became a frequent setting for science fiction. Not that the new image was any more profound or less stereotyped, but it was certainly different. Chiba City in this novel has developed into a small section of the megapolis. “The Zone” is the decayed inner core of Chiba City. Today Japan has half the population of the U.S. crowded in the area of California. Urban sprawl is a reality.

The opening image of the book, comparing nature to technology, sets the tone of the narrative. “Case,” the name of the protagonist, could suggest detective fiction, or it could suggest technology. His body–which he treats as almost an alien entity with which he is not friendly terms–is a kind of case for his mind and for the cyberspace with which it fuses, no more significant in itself than the case of a computer CPU. The persistent cyberpunk obsession with the mixture of flesh (called “meat” in the novel) and machinery is introduced through Ratz’s stainless steel teeth–unnatural looking but commonplace in Communist Eastern Europe. Why is it significant that Ratz is ugly? Ratz’ reaction to the unexpected moment of silence is an old cliché, but startlingly incongruous in this setting. Case’s addiction to cyberspace is certainly prophetic; someone half-jokingly set up a Usenet support group for victims of cyberspace addiction: (alt.usenet.recovery). A “coffin hotel” is a building which rents out cheap sleeping space not much larger than a coffin. How is a cyberspace cowboy similar to a traditional cowboy? Different? Case is a classic illegal hacker; but his present dilemma is caused by a classic crime-novel situation, a crook attempting to skim the proceeds from organized crime. Presumably the Russians developed the mycotoxin (fungal poison) as a chemical warfare weapon. It has blocked his ability to experience cyberspace. Why has he come to Japan? What evidence of pollution is contained in the paragraph beginning “Now he slept”? “Arcologies” are huge, self-contained cities enclosed in a single building, imagined by Paolo Soleri. “Dex” is dexedrine, a popular form of amphetimine. What characteristics make Case an anti-hero? What does he do for a living? The possibility of an underground market for body parts has been around since organ transplants became commonplace and has often been treated in SF.

“Miss Linda Lee” may be an allusion to the Velvet Underground song “Cool It Down,” which contains the lines “But now me l”m out on the corner/ You know I’m lookin’ for Miss Linda Lee/Because she’s got the power to love me by the hour.” Where had Case first met Linda Lee? Repeated references to war in Europe suggest it has been devastated in the recent past, probably by nuclear weapons. “Pachinko” is a very popular kind of Japanese gambling machine vaguely like vertically-oriented pinball. “French orbital fatigues” would be the uniform worn by French astronauts in orbit.” “Yakitori” is Japanese barbecued chicken, a common street snack always cooked on skewers. “Sarariman” is the Japanese word for a businessman employed by a large corporation, formed on the English words “salary” and “man.” Compare with English slang: “suit.” What does it tell us that the Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi seems to have absorbed the U.S. genetic engineering firm Genentech? Although the computer images in the novel have had more impact, the biological ones are almost as important. Why is the “sarariman” in danger in Night City? “Gaijin” is a Japanese term for Westerners. The Yakuza is the biggest Japanese organized crime syndicate, their Mafia. A VTR is a “videotape recorder,” a “simstim” deck is a kind of virtual reality machine to simulate stimuli, Manriki chains and shuriken (sharp-pointed steel stars) are both familiar weapons from ninja movies. Hong Kong is famous for its tailors who can cut and deliver a custom-made suit in hours. Can you guess why the wearing of glasses would be an affectation rather than something normal in this society? The pioneering Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky specialized in shapeless blobs, lines, and smears in bright colors. More Kandinsky.Salvador Dali frequently depicted “melted” watches and clocks (for example, “The Persistence of Memory, ” 1931). Julius Deane uses expressions (“boyo,” “old son”) which indicate a British background. In the paragraph beginning”The cultivation of a certain tame paranoia” he sees in a display window an elaborate alternative to a pocket watch. What is it? A taser stuns its victims with an electrical shock, but is not meant to be lethal. In Japan gasps of pure oxygen could at one time be had from streetside vending machines. What is Case trying to sell now? Why can Ratz crush a shatterproof plastic ashtray to shards in his hand? “Wig”=”crazy;” after old hipster jazz, “flipped his wig,” “wigged out.” Flechettes” are darts (flèche is French for “arrow”). Molly is an extrapolation of the “tough dame” of Chandler-style mean-streets crime fiction. Suchfemme fatale assassins are a mainstay of modern futuristic fiction. Do they represent women’s liberation? What is her characteristic implant?

Chapter 2

A “fletcher” shoots “flechettes” (see above). In the operation called “Screaming Fist” (a typical karate film title, though Gibson probably got it from the title of a 1977 song by the Vancouver punk band The Viletones) a team had been hired to destroy a Russian computer network (“nexus”) in Kirensk with a virus, but Armitage failed and was caught. What does “ICE” stand for? What is an “icebreaker?” Note how computers have altered the economy. Molly tells Case that his surgery is being paid for in software. Samurai originated as the faithful defenders of feudal lords during the Kamakura period, but as Japan fell into disorder, many of them roamed the country as “hired swords” and as such are one of the most popular subjects for Japanese fiction, drama, and film. “Ninjas” are a related group who tend to have a worse reputation, though they could be just as honorable as samurai. “Working girl,” is slang for prostitute, though when Molly uses the term it is at first ambiguous, suggesting that she may be willing to work as a street samurai for anyone. Later we learn the horrifying truth. Note the mechanical crab in the courtyard. Endorphins are natural chemicals which provide pleasurable feelings and suppress pain. If Case has been injected with “endorphin inhibitors,” clearly his tormentors have been trying to make him feel as much pain as possible. Note that his surgery was carried out mostly without incisions. To what is the sex Case experiences with Molly compared? Note how Molly is presented as dominant, highly competent, and–most important–better informed than Case. Such women are very common in contemporary action fiction. Why do you think they are so popular with male readers? What is her job?

What is Case trying to find out from Deane? Note how “Watergated” has become a verb, evidently meaning that the “Screaming Fist” conspiracy proliferated in many directions. “Emp” stands for “EMP”=”Electromagnetic Pulse” weapons. Nuclear bombs detonated at certain altitudes with certain characteristics can destroy electrical circuits, effectively destroying the enemy’s defenses. Arpanet, the ancestor of the Internet was first constructed in an attempt to work around this problem. Here “emps” would seem to be a lower-level weapon aimed at penetrations like “Screaming Fist.” In a turkey shoot the birds are released to be shot at, therefore a turkey shoot is a very easy form of killing. Screaming Fist was a turkey shoot because the Soviet military had been informed in advance that it was coming. “Ivan” is the Russian government. Zaibatsus are the giant Japanese corporations which traditionally employ their male workers for life. What is the entertainment like at Sammi’s arena? Why was killed? (Her name is probably derived from that of a woman mentioned in the lyrics of the Velvet Underground Song “Cool It Down.”) Note the recurring question: “Who is behind all this?” This question characterizes this sort of paranoid conspiratorial fiction.

Part Two: The Shopping Expedition

Chapter 3

The New-York to Washington D. C. corridor is often discussed as an evolving megapolis. Here the process has gone much further, to develop into “the Sprawl.” Note that the map described on the first page of this chapter depicts not population density, but the frequency of the exchange of data: the new definition of civilization. When a star “goes nova” it explodes. Narita Tokyo airport, Schipol [or more correctly Schiphol] is in Amsterdam, Orly is in Paris. The silent train they rode on is a maglev (magnetic levitation) vehicle of the kind which has been tested in various places. A powerful electrical charge turns the rails into electromagnets which actually lift the train above them a fraction of an inch, reducing friction essentially to zero and allowing for great speed at a low expenditure of energy. “The heat” is old gangster slang for “the cops:” here, any form of law enforcement officer. How has Armitage tried to guarantee that Case will not betray his employers? Krill is the tiny shrimp on which baleen whales live. The Japanese process it into various fish and meat imitations. It has been proposed as a source of protein for an over-populated world. New York is enclosed by a dome, but typically Gibson introduces this fact by observing its malfunctioning: a freak wind blowing a piece of newspaper along the street.

The cerebral cortex is the most complex and vital part of the brain. A “cortex bomb” would obviously be very ominous. The team is being slowly assembled. “Dixie Flatline’s construct” is an electronic recording of the mind of a dead “cowboy” (free-lance hacker specializing in penetrating computer security systems) whose actual name was McCoy Pauley. His nickname suggests death (alluding to a flat line on an intensive-care room monitor) because he experienced brain death three times. We will learn more about the monstrous Peter Riviera later.

One of SF’s narrative difficulties is explaining future technology to the reader in a setting in which such explanations should not be necessary. How does Gibson justify providing his “info-dump” explaining the origin of the matrix? “Dermatrodes” would be electrodes which attach to the epidermis, or skin. A mandala is a complex Buddhist symbol, often in circular form. “Spiral arms” alludes the arms of distant galaxies, unreachable by any current technology. Here they are a metaphor for unreachable distant centers of power on Earth. The idea of a computer or network in which one can experience virtual reality has been around in fiction for a long time, but was first popularized in the movie Tron /CITE> (1982).

The stolen module the Finn has brought will enable Case to experience the world from inside Molly’s body without leaving cyberspace–telepathy made technological.

Chapter 4

What distinguishes simstim addicts from cyberspace explorers like Case? Tally Isham is a simstim star. What does Case experience about Molly’s effect on other people? Note the ironic use of the name “Memory Lane.” The sockets implanted in people’s heads were to become a standard feature of cyberpunk. “Softs”=software; the word is an abbreviation for “microsoft,” an obvious allusion to the giant software corporation. The Hosaka computer can function somewhat like the computer on the Starship Enterprise: query it vocally and it will tell you what it knows. The answer is given in multimedia form. Many Japanese women undergo surgery to remove the epicanthic fold in the eyelid, giving them “Western” eyes. What does it mean that people are now having epicanthic folds surgically created? Dr. Rambali alludes to the fact that terrorists depend on the news media to publicize their causes, but the media concentrate so exclusively on their acts of terror that the message they are trying to convey is usually suppressed. How have the Panther Moderns short-circuited this process? “Panther” is usually short for the Black Panther movement of the sixties and early seventies which advocated violent resistance to racism, but in this group is named after the San Francisco rock band “The Panther Moderns” led by Gibson’s friend and fellow cyberpunk author John Shirley. “Big Science” is a term for large, expensive research projects such as the Human Genome Project or the recently-cancelled Superconducting Supercollider; but the name here probably alludes to the title of a Laurie Anderson CD. Anderson’s fusion of live theater and technology is very suggestive of the kind of environment in which Neuromancer is set.

Molly is trying to penetrate the Sense/Net headquarters in Atlanta to steal the Dixie Flatline construct, assisted remotely by Case interfering with Sense/Net’s security software, the two of them linked by the broadcast network created and run by the Panther Moderns. Case’s mind is using Molly’s body. Why do you think Gibson chose Atlanta as media headquarters? A “blackbox” is any kind of illicit electronic device which can bypass normal circuits: the original permitted its users to make long-distance phone calls without paying for them. Strobe lights are known to induce seizures in certain people when pulsed at precisely the right frequency. How do the Panther Moderns terrorize the people in the Sense/Net building? Computer viruses are written mostly to do simple kinds of mischief today; but in the novel viruses are tools which can penetrate secure computers, retrieve information, and cover their traces. Case’s code name is “Cutter.” Molly is “Cat Mother.” “Brood” is the Panthers. How did Molly break her leg? How does Case fool the security system into letting Molly take the construct?

“Lupus” means “wolf” in Latin, although it’s also the name of a disfiguring skin disease. Describe Lupus Yonderboy’s appearance. “Mr. Who” is an allusion to the long-running British SF TV series, Dr. Who, featuring an unnamed hero usually alluded to only as “The Doctor.” Note that although this transaction is taking place in BAMA, the currency is new yen. The “Doppler” effect makes sounds seem to rise in pitch as the sound source approaches the hearer, fall as the recede. Note how Linda Lee continues to haunt him. Here we are first given the name “Wintermute.”

Chapter 5

Why is Molly able to dissect her crab “with alarming ease?” What is “jive” and what is its function in this environment? Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) is a much-discussed concept which would involve the creation of a complex computer system which would replicate the functions of a human brain. Debates rage about whether such a construct would possess consciousness, but research goes on toward developing AI. Molly and Case are both bent on learning who Armitage is working for. The tip that Wintermute is involved leads them to its parent corporation: Tessier-Ashpool S. A. “The gravity well” is a concept describing the difficulty of getting objects and people off the earth’s surface into orbit, where space colonies have been built. Cyberpunk seldom depicts travel to other worlds, but takes high-orbit space colonies for granted. An archipelago is usually a group of islands. What is the meaning of the term here? “Spook” is slang for ” spy.” Freeside is an orbiting space colony shaped like a spindle (or cigar). Explain why it is “hard to keep track of what generation, or combination of generations” is running Tesssier-Ashpool at any time? What does the slogan “Travel was a meat thing” mean? What does a “joeboy” seem to be?

Chapter 6

In this chapter we learn that “Armitage” is really Willis Corto, one of the agents who tried to carry out “Screaming Fist.” What does “Watergating” seem to mean in this context? How was he used by the military? How is Armitage another variation on the machine/human interface theme? How does the pattern of Armitage’s record suggest that he, like Case, is just a hireling and not an integral part of whatever force is behind this mission?

Chapter 7

Why does the Mercedes talk to its passengers as it takes them into Istanbul What is the significance of the existence of letter-writers? How many different kinds of mutual distrust can you find in this chapter among the various characters? Riviera has had an implant which allows him to project onto the retinas of his victims whatever he chooses–far-fetched, but not so unscientific as mental telepathy. What is significant about the horse that they see? How does Riviera deceive Case while Terzibashjian captures him? A seraglio is a harem. According to Case and Molly, who is probably responsible for rebuilding “Armitage” and sending him on this mission? Alan Turing<, a pioneer theoretician of machine intelligence, suggested that a computer might be made indistinguishable from a human being. The “Turing heat” would therefore be police assigned the task of preventing computers from reaching improper levels of intelligence and power. “Shopping politicals”=betraying dissidents. How do we learn that Germany was hit with at least one nuclear weapon during the war? What does the last line of this chapter signify?

Part Three: Midnight in the Rue Jules Verne

Chapter 8

The scene now shifts from Istanbul to Paris. Freeside is called “an orbital Geneva” in relation to that city’s emphasis on offering secret bank accounts which are very attractive to those involved in illegal transactions. What subliminal image does Riviera project to Case to symbolize his opinion of Molly? Since they are taking a Japan Air Lines shuttle from Paris to the orbital station called “Freeside” it is natural that koto music is playing the background. Rastafarianism is a movement that originated in the 1930s in Jamaica, which involves the hairstyle called “dreadlocks,” the hope for blacks to return to Ethiopia (identified with the Biblical Zion), reggae music, and the smoking of ganja (marijuana). It was inspired in part by the movement founded during the early 1920s by Marcus Garvey, who advocated a return of blacks to Africa. He created a fleet of ships called “The Black Star Line,” though it was never used for emigration purposes. Rastas refer to White civilization, and the U. S. in particular as “Babylon,” the demonic city of Christian apocalyptic writing. God is called “Jah,” short for “Jahweh,” which scholars think was the original pronunciation of the Hebrew name for God (though in the scholarship the “J” is pronounced as in German, as a “Y” sound). The rasta dialect is used by the characters in this chapter. Without rotation, an orbiting space station is in free-fall, and this creates an apparently weightless environment familiar from televised orbital missions. However, if such a station is spun around a central axis, centrifugal force pushes everything toward the rim. The closer to the rim one is, the stronger the apparent gravity is; whereas at the center of rotation, freefall weightlessness prevails. Note the various visual games Riviera continues to play. What reveals that Dixie Flatline is in fact bothered by knowing that he is dead? “Rue [Street] Jules Verne ” is of course a tribute to the French grandfather of science fiction. “Stepping Razor” is a 1977 song by Reggae great Peter Tosh (from his album Equal Rights). The lyrics of the opening verse and refrain indicate why Molly’s razor implants would remind the rastas of the song:

If you wanna live
Treat me good
If you wanna live, live
I beg you treat me goodI’m like a stepping razor
Don’t you watch my sides
I’m dangerous, said I’m dangerous
I’m like a stepping razor
Don’t you watch my sides
I’m dangerous, dangerous

Complete lyrics.

(Thanks to Thom Cosgrove for this note.)

Names spelled “Aerol” and “Maelcum” are approximations of the rasta pronunciations of “Errol” and “Malcolm.” Dub is a form of Jamaican rap music, popular throughout the Caribbean. Who has persuaded the rastas to cooperate with the team, and how?

Chapter 9

A “g-web” would be a retaining net able to absorb the impact of acceleration and deceleration as the tug maneuvers. Such impact is measured in “g’s” or Earth gravity equivalents. To experience 2 gs, for instance, is to be feel a force equal to two times Earth’s gravity. Rastas avoid saying “we,” using “I and I” instead. A “frog” company would be French. Gibson has no hesitation about using rather dated slang in his narrative mixed with futuristic locutions. When Case’s attempt to penetrate Wintermute is repelled, where and when does his mind seem to take him? Where is he really? What does Wintermute reveal to Case about its true nature?

Chapter 10

The description of the plants tumbling over the balconies of Freeside strongly suggests traditional images of the Hanging Garden of Babylon. The blue sky overhead is artificial, a recording made in the French sea resort of Cannes. Why does the pseudo-death of Deane haunt Case so much? How does Case react to trees and grass? What bizarre style does he encounter worn by three Japanese wives? Why is Case so puzzled about being sent the Kuang Grade Mark Eleven icebreaker virus? What is Dixie Flatline’s theory?

Chapter 11

“Vingtième Siècle” is French for “Twentieth Century,” now a “period.” Here we first encounter Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool. Why does Peter Riviera’s show upset Case so much? Of the expensive shops, Gucci is Italian, Tsuyako is Japanese, Hermès is French, and Liberty is English. What does Case learn about Linda from Wintermute in this chapter? Wintermute seems to be behaving like an old-fashioned melodrama villain: manipulating the protagonist by endangering the woman he cares about. The girl in Case’s cubicle is a “meat puppet,” a prostitute who has had her conscious mind artificially disconnected from her body by a “neural cutout” so that she can carry out her duties on “automatic pilot.” Why was Molly so furious at Riviera’s sadistic fantasy performance? “Snuff” refers to film or performances involving the killing of women for the sexual pleasure of sadists. Snuff films have a long-standing status as an urban legend–nobody has ever found an authentic commercial example–but they are commonly cited as the quintessence of pornography. So Molly’s boss was planning to have her killed. Why did she kill the Senator? This story makes clear what Molly has to gain by remaining an outlaw. What is Molly’s theory about how Wintermute is manipulating her?

Chapter 12

Why has Gibson invented the term “nighted”? “Le Monde” is French for “The World.” “Old money” means wealth combined with social status in old families such as the Rockefellers. “Old credit” would be mean the same in a culture where physical money no longer has a function. Remember that Case is using the name “Lupus” now. Origami (traditional Japanese paper-folding) cranes have come to be symbols of peace because of their association with the anti-nuclear bomb campaigns in Japan. What do you think is the significance of Cathy’s crane? Examine the metaphors in the paragraph describe the Case’s sensations when the drug hits; can you see any pattern in them? What do they have in common? Why is the zodiac on Freeside referred to as a “loser’s” zodiac? Cath had hoped to seduce Case with this drug. What goes wrong with her plan? What is Case’s attitude toward his anger the next morning? “Turing”=”Turing police,” defined above.

Part Four: The Straylight Run

Chapter 13

Case learns for the first time what his real mission is, from the police. What is it? “Good cop/bad cop” is a familiar routine in which one interrogator is angry and threatening while the other feigns sympathy. The suspect is meant to shrink from the first into the “protective” arms of the other and reveal his or her guilt. The “Recording Angel” is a mythical being who records all deeds good and bad to decide who makes it into heaven. Case’s surgical implant procedure, evidently designed by Wintermute, was so innovative it enabled the illegal clinic in Chiba City to capitalize on the knowledge involved to get rich. How has this fact led to Case’s arrest? Why does Michèle say that Case has no “care” for his species? Why will it be difficult for Sense/Net to protest the destruction of the Dixie Flatline construct? Since both the pilot of the biplane and the gardening robot have struck, to whom is Case speaking in the last lines of this chapter?

Chapter 14

When Case loads the Chinese icebreaker software, Dixie Flatline observes from outside it that it appears invisible–reassuring for the team. Dixie’s description of the way the virus works is a well-written example of SF pseudo-science talk: a set of metaphors that make a kind of sense without any real technical explanation. When Case finds himself facing what appears to be the Finn back in Metro Holografix, who is he really talking to? For the reference to the burning bush, see Exodus 3:2-6. An old philosophical puzzle asks, “If a tree falls in the forest where there’s no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” How is Wintermute able to recreate people and places Case knows? In what sense is the imaginary vacuum tube part of Wintermute’s DNA? What threat does Wintermute claim to want to protect humanity from? A “folly” is the sort of fantastic architectural construction built in late 18th-century England to suggest medieval or classical ruins. The explanation given by the jeweled head of the Villa Starlight is another example of an “info-dump.” What is the source of this one? “Semiotics” here refers to the meaning of the patterns of the Villa. Why does Wintermute need the team to penetrate past the head? Wintermute’s last speech is highly ambiguous. Can you puzzle a meaning out of it? In Exodus Chapter 3, God speaks to Moses from within a burning bush.

Chapter 15

The meeting with Wintermute this time “killed” Case temporarily. When he reestablishes simstim contact with Molly, Wintermute informs her of the connection on her implanted ocular display which normally acts as a digital clock. This trick is what she reacts to when she says “Cute.” The words in ALL CAPS in the rest of this chapter are similar displays. Molly uses her tongue to flip a control in her mouth that switches her vision from perceiving normal light to some kind of substitute which works in the dark. What is a “stash ” as Molly defines it? Molly’s story about Johnny reveals that she and Case have something important in common. What is it? Why do you think the ordinarily very private Molly is telling him this story? “Fancy dress” is British for costumes of the sort one would wear to a costume party. Note how compact discs, invented shortly before this novel was written, are treated here as antique technology. The combination of hypodermic and spoon indicates heroin use. The heroin is melted over heat in the spoon, then injected via the hypodermic needle. What is the symbolism involved in the rerouting of Molly’s tearducts? The Egyptian Pharaohs had their servants killed and buried with them. Ashpool has been in a sort of suspended animation for the last thirty years, forever on the brink of death but never dying, an idea that was earlier explored in Philip K. Dick’s brilliant novel Ubik. What does Case see in the face of the dead 3Jane? (It turns out later that this is not the real 3Jane, by the way.) What is suggested by the fact that a fiberoptic cable is connected to her neck? The theme of a rich, self-indulgent family, fallen into decadent madness, is a cliché of popular fiction, and can be found in Gibson’s model, Raymond Chandler.

Chapter 16

What does Molly like about her relationship with Case? His computer completes the search Case had directed it to make for the name “General Girling” and the result is displayed by Dixie Flatline on Molly’s optic implant since Case is jacked into her brain at present. Since the display is not very wide, only a few letters can be shown at a time. The crazed Armitage is trying to order the Rastas around, but they refuse because this is a “Babylon war”–a struggle involving outsiders, not really their concern. “Rude boy” is rasta slang for a tough gang member. Maelcom boasts that he is tough enough to defy the Zionite leaders and stay with Case. “Rocksteady” is one variety of Jamaican pop music, a predecessor to reggae. We learn why Riviera was important, to seduce 3Jane into giving up some of the secrets of how to penetrate Straylight to Armitage/Corto. When the latter next shows up, he has flipped back into the past, into the ill-fated “Screaming Fist” run. Why is Case so upset about Armitage falling apart? The maddened Armitage/Corto has not only killed a man in order to destroy one of the computers being used on the run, but he has set the escape pod that he is in to separate from the ship without closing its seals; he imagines he is escaping Russia for Finland, but in fact he is hurled into the vacuum of space.

Chapter 17

What makes the Tessier-Ashpool corporation more vulnerable than the zaibatsus? Who is ultimately behind the deaths of Armitage and Ashpool? What motivates Dixie Flatline to work for Wintermute? The way the books in the Straylight library are described suggests that books are antique rarities. The Dada artist Marcel Duchamp created a large sculpture out of glass and paint depicting some chocolate-grinding machinery and molds and gave it the characteristically surrealistic title “La mariée mis à nu par ses célibataires, même” — The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. The object was badly cracked when it was being moved early in its history, and the lines of the shards have become a familiar part of the work of art. Knowing how Molly hates Riviera, her message to him to be delivered by Case is ominous. Why would spacial disorientation hold a peculiar horror for cowboys?

Chapter 18

Run Run Shaw owned one of the busiest film studios in the world in Hong Kong, churning out hundreds of martial arts films for distribution throughout Asia. Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood are pioneering “bad-ass heroes” of action movies East and West, respectively. Riviera encases Molly’s hands in a variation of old paper “Chinese handcuffs”: the more you struggle, the tighter you’re trapped. As in classic hardboiled detective fiction (like The Maltese Falcon) , the lines of alliance are constantly shifting, and you never know whom you can trust. Cray manufactures the world’s most popular supercomputers. Using their brand name for a little commonplace monitor raises the ante on the technology. Molly reveals that she had her own agenda when she killed Hideo and tried to kill Riviera. Why has Riviera decided to ally himself with 3Jane against the team? Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s most famous saying was “Power comes out of the barrel of a gun.” How did Riviera prevent Molly from really killing the two men at the pool?

Chapter 19

With Molly crippled, Case and Maelcum have to penetrate Villa Straylight themselves to complete the mission, and to rescue her. How do the life-support systems of the Villa Straylight symbolize the role of the corporation itself? What does “decanted” usually mean? (Look it up.) What does it mean when 3Jane says “I was decanted?” Why does she use the present tense when she says “He strangles her in bed?” 3Jane’s mother’s idea of blending the family with artificial intelligences to achieve a sort of immortality is an old SF theme. 3Jane reveals an important fact about the AIs, which holds the key to the novel: Wintermute is only one of two AIs. When Molly abruptly sees her mutilated face, it is of course Peter taunting her again.

Chapter 20

When Case next jacks in, he is sent by Neuromancer back to Lady Marie-France Tessier’s recorded memory of a summer in Morocco, where she isolated herself in the bunker that Case moves into with the simulacrum of Linda Lee. Japanese Zen gardens consist of a few well-placed rocks and sand raked in elaborate patterns. Case discovers that the AI manipulating him at the moment is not Wintermute; it is the other one. What is the point of Case’s complaint about the food? The tan Case has acquired on Freeside is an expensive luxury. What is Linda’s reaction to it? When Case feels himself drawn down to the “meat” level by the projection of Linda Lee, he defines the latter in terms of information: spiral DNA molecules and pheromones, molecules which convey messages through smell. His seduction from the world of the Net down into the flesh is highly ironic, of course. Why?

Chapter 21

“Event horizon” refers to the border of a black hole and is used here to refer to the limit of the illusion the AI has constructed. It was widely believed in ancient times that you could only summon up and control a spirit whose secret name you had learned. There is a famous scene in Goethe’s Faust in which the protagonist tries and fails to identify the demon Mephistopheles. The name “Neuromancer” is a variation on “necromancer,” a magician dealing in evil spirits and death (“neuro”=nerves, artificial intelligence, “mancer”=magician). “Romancer” is yet another pun.

Chapter 22

The Coriolis force, which causes movement to deviate slightly from a straight line on rotating bodies (like the Earth) is perhaps exaggerated in the rapidly spinning spindle; but in fact it would be very small. Case thinks 3Jane may spare Molly because he has experienced the latter’s attraction to her through the simstim rig. A ROM construct would be fixed, whereas RAM is indefinitely expandable. Why does Riviera’s blinding of Hideo fail to defeat him? How has Molly gotten her revenge on Riviera? In an electronic world, old-fashioned mechanical locks are unexpected obstacles.

Chapter 23

In what ways is Neuromancer different from Wintermute? How are the dwarfs’ quarters in the palace of the Duke of Mantua like the Villa Straylight for the Tessier-Ashpools? Case needs to energize himself with hate to succeed in breaking through the final barriers. Whom does he hate? Again the Jamaican “dub” music welcomes him back to Freelight.

Coda (Chapter 24)

Why does Molly leave Case? The shuriken, so prominent throughout the novel, was never used. What does Case think it symbolizes? Why did Wintermute want to fuse with Neuromancer? What does this metaphor represent: “a series of warm blinks strung along a chain of winter”? Alpha Centauri is the nearest star to Earth. So what does it mean that Wintermute/Neuromancer has found recorded evidence of another AI there? Michael or Mikal is not a really rare name for a woman; so it’s difficult to know if we are supposed to read anything into the name. Constructs of Case, Riviera and Linda will exist forever in the AI’s mind. Why do you think male authors so frequently imagine highly desirable but dangerous women like Molly who get devastatingly involved with their protagonists and then leave?

Recommended reading:

Nicola Nixon: “Cyberpunk: Preparing the Ground for Revolution or Keeping the Boys Satisfied?” Science-Fiction Studies, vol. 19 (July 1992): 219-235.
Lance Olsen: William Gibson. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1992.

More Science Fiction Study Guides

• H. G. Wells: War of the Worlds
• Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles
• Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and the Dystopian Tradition
• Walter M. Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Stanislaw Lem: Solaris
• Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed
• Philip K. Dick: Blade Runner
• Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale
• Selected Stories from The Norton Book of Science Fiction

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Notes by Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University, Pullman 99164-5020.

First mounted May 1994.
Version of July 16, 2013.

Thanks to Tom Mathews for catching the “Miss Linda Lee” reference.

Some of the following notes require looking up passages in the Bible.

Cordwainer Smith: “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” p. 49

This story is one of a series with a similar setting and linked characters, the most famous of which is “The Ballad of Lost C’mell.” What changes have recently been introduced into this society? How are people reacting? Paul et Virginie (1788) was an enormously popular romantic novel by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre dealing with interracial love. Why is the allusion to it here appropriate? What are homunculi? “Abba” is Hebrew for “Father” whereas a dingo is a sort of wild Australian dog-like creature (See dingoes here) What does the name “Abba-dingo” suggest to you? “Macht” is German for “might” or “power.” What are the different kinds and functions of freedom treated in this story? How has Paul changed at the end of the story?

Theodore Sturgeon: “Tandy’s Story” p. 74

Sturgeon often deals with childhood in his stories. It is fairly common for small children to have imaginary companions. Is the point of view of this story adult or childish? What effect does that fact have on the story? What qualities make this a sort of ironic horror story?

David R. Bunch: “2064, or Thereabouts” p. 93

Bunch wrote a number of short sketches, mostly published in little literary magazines rather than commercial SF magazines (later collected in a volume titled Moderan ). For that reason, his work has not become widely known, but he brought a special intensity to this series, all set in the same post-holocaust world dominated by automated war machines. Who is the narrator? What would you say is the principal theme of this story? Is this a humorous story? A horror story? Or something else?

Clifford D. Simak: “Over the River and Through the Woods” p. 125

This story is set in 1896. What makes it a science fiction story? What has caused the sudden appearance of these children? Do you know of any parallels in actual modern history? What doesn’t Mrs. Forbes understand about the future? The title is taken from the first line of a familiar song; what is its second line?

James Blish: “How Beautiful with Banners” p. 132

This story features an encounter between a futuristic bit of technology the film wrap and an alien creature which is drawn to it, with the human caught in the middle. In trying to escape the situation she gets trapped in, to what degree is she successful, to what degree a failure? “Basta, per carita!” is roughly the Italian for “Enough, for goodness sake!” The myth of Nessus, the centaur, says that he took vengeance on Hercules for killing him (he had kidnapped Hercules’ wife Deianeira), by advising his wife to soak a shirt in his blood and give it to Hercules, telling her that it would cause him to love her forever. It turned out instead to be fatally poisonous, killing Hercules. In what way does this story reflect this myth? “Nun denn, allein!” is German for “Now then, alone!” A “sabbat” is a witch’s sabbath.The myth of Psyche and Cupid says that during this young woman’s affair with the love-god, she was forbidden to look upon him, making love with him only in the dark. When she lit a lamp in the bedchamber, he left her. In what way is Ulla like that lamp?

R. A. Lafferty: “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” p. 142

There are many stories about the quest for immortality; most of them offering the sour-grapes consolation that eternal life would be hellish, and death desirable. This one evades that simple-minded approach without offering the conventional consolation of religious or scientific optimism. It can be seen as more about communication than life and death. What does this story have to say about the typical SF notion that we can learn the secrets of the universe from wise alien races?

Sonya Dorman Hess: “When I Was Miss Dow” p. 151

This story can be seen as a variation on one of those typical 50s alien-takeover films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or I Married a Monster from Outer Space (don’t laugh, it’s not all that bad a movie). But the situation here is more complex. In what ways does the narrator’s relationship with the Doctor reflect certain patterns of human relationships?

Frederik Pohl: “Day Million” p. 166

Some SF writers like Isaac Asimov assume that “human nature” stays essentially the same. Pohl here makes an assault on that assumption by describing a future humanity that is almost incredible. What are the main features of the unusual narrative technique used here? What has not changed? What do you think Pohl’s purpose was in writing this story? “Callipygean” comes from a classical Greek word meaning ” beautiful-hipped.” “Meet cute” is an expression used in film criticism to describe a charming but artificial way of having two characters meet who are destined to fall in love. Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) composed several popular orchestral works. Thelonius Sphere Monk was a brilliantly original jazz pianist. A “sponson” is an air-filled capsule projecting from a ship. Tiglath-Pileser and Attila the Hun were ferocious conquerors.

Samuel R. Delany: “High Weir” p. 183

Delany (be careful about spelling his name; it is often misspelled “Delaney,” even in print) is the most distinguished black SF author. In some ways this is a traditional puzzle story with a technical solution. It is not obviously about racism, but can you see any reflections of Delany’s African-American heritage in it? Can you compare it to any story in Bradbury‘s The Martian Chronicles? Most people know about the Parthenon, the famous Temple in Athens dedicated to Athena; but Delany also refers to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, now in ruins, but at one time a very impressive building. The “Venus of Willendorf” is a prehistoric fertility sculpture with bulging thighs, belly, and breasts. The German quotation is the last sentence from German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Philosophicus. The complete sentence is “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darumber muss man schweigen”: “Whatever we cannot speak about we must remain silent about.” Wittgenstein argued not only that language is our only vehicle of knowledge, but that we are trapped within it, unable to reach absolute truth. “Phobos” means “fear,” “Demos” means “terror.” These names were chosen for the Martian moons because they are natural accompaniments of war, the Roman god of which is Mars. Note Hodges’ casual use of the old racist term “jungle bunnies.” Why do you think Delany, as a Black writer, has her use it? Slivowitz (more often spelled “slivovitz” is a dry Alsatian plum brandy.

Suzette Haden Elgin: “For the Sake of Grace” p. 211

What effect does it have on this story that it is set in such an extremely sexist future? Are the lessons conveyed by this story applicable in any way to our own culture, which is much less sexist? What ancient culture historically valued people primarily on the basis of their knowledge of poetry?

Zenna Henderson: “As Simple As That” p. 231

Henderson was a life-long schoolteacher, and the narrators of many of her stories are teachers too. Many of them concern The People, a supernormal alien race which tries to blend in with humans in Appalachia. This story is not a part of that series however. What effect does it have on our experience of the effects of the Torn Time to view it through the eyes of children? Do you find this an optimistic or pessimistic story? Explain.

Robert Silverberg: “Good News from the Vatican” p. 242

Silverberg likes to play with the topic of religion, often in highly irreligious ways. This story would seem to have been inspired by the “ecumenical movement,” a drive to reunite various Christian churches. This story illustrates well a common genre in SF which might be called after a famous Heinlein title “If this goes on. . . .” A current trend is extrapolated to absurd lengths for satirical purposes. That this is a satire is announced early on in the names of the Italian cardinals: Asciuga (“towel”) and Carciofi (“artichoke”), and made clear later by the silly name of the new pope. What has brought about the proposal to elect a robot pope? The Osservatore Romano is the official newspaper of the Vatican, and reflects official Church views. A “bar mitzvah” is the ceremony of manhood through which Jewish boys go. The International Herald Tribune [now the International New York Times] is an international English-language newspaper published jointly by the New York Times and the Washington Post which is sold all over the world. The Liebestod (love-death) scene from Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde contains famously aching harmonies. Hieronymous Bosch’sTemptation of Saint Anthony, based on the bizarre visions of an early Christian hermit, contains many strange creatures, including the frog referred to here. There have been popes named Sixtus (“six”) in fact, but it is especially appropriate for a robot to have a purely numerical title.

James Tiptree, Jr.: “The Women Men Don’t See” p. 255

James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon, who disguised her sex for several years while becoming one of the most distinguished short- story writers in SF. Does it change how you read this story to know that it was written by a woman? Characterize the narrator: what sort of person is he? What sort of thoughts does he concentrate on in regards to the women? Compare his attitude toward the Mayas with Mrs. Parson’s. What is his reaction to her feminism? What does Mrs. Parson’s last speech mean? Noli me tangere is a quotation from John 20:17, in which the newly-resurrected Jesus tells Mary Magdalene “Touch me not.” The phrase has often been sarcastically used of women who are not interested in sex (at least not in sex with the speaker). “Quién estás? A socorro!” is Spanish for “Who are you? Help!” “Chingarse” is Spanish for “F*** you!”

Vonda N. McIntyre: “The Mountains of Sunset: The Mountains of Dawn” p. 287

This is an unusual story in that it contains no human beings. The early part of the story uses the concept of artificial gravity induced through centrifugal force created by rotating a space vehicle. You can experience this phenomenon yourself by swinging a bucket full of water around your head on a rope, noting that the centrifugal force presses the water against the bottom of the bucket and prevents it from spilling. However, if one imagines a large space vehicle in rotation, there would be no “gravity” at the hub and the highest “gravity” at the rim. Therefore in the “higher,” more central portions of the vehicle, flying would be considerably easier. What is the nature of the relationship depicted in this story? Why is it important that the young man participates in the old woman’s death ritual?

Joe Haldeman: “The Private War of Private Jacob ” p. 300

Haldeman is a Vietnam veteran, and many of his stories reflect his war experiences. In what ways might this story be read as a metaphor for the Vietnam War?

Ursula K. Le Guin: “The New Atlantis” p. 317

The title echoes the title of a utopian work by Francis Bacon. Why is it ironic here? What was the fate of the original mythical Atlantis? What has happened to the environment? What effects have this events had on social organization? Why are such drastic efforts being made to reduce the population? The passages in small type portray poetically the thoughts of the original Atlanteans, now reclaiming the world after centuries of being drowned beneath the sea. How do they interact with the main narrative? Can you tell who has written them? (Hint: look for the manuscript to be deposited safely on a mountain top at the end of the story.) Alfred Nobel hoped that his invention of dynamite would terrify the world into peace, and used some of his wealth to set up the Nobel Peace Prize. Many “ultimate weapons” have been proposed since with the same goal. “Sammy’s Dot” is a phonetic spelling of the Russian term Samizdat (“for the drawer”), used to designate works written illegally, outside the regular state publishing system during the Soviet era. On p. 332 there are a number of historical allusions. “Mr. Watson, will you come here a minute,” was the first message delivered over the experimental telephone of Alexander Graham Bell. Wilbur Wright was one of the two brothers who built the first successful airplane. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in bread mold. The pre-Mousterian era is when our ancestors discovered the use of fire. What do all these references have in common? “Brighter than a thousand suns” and “The physicists have known sin” are both famous quotations from Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the project to develop the atomic bomb during World War II. What two very different technical approaches are being taken to dealing with the crisis in this story?

Joanna Russ: “A Few Things I Know About Whileaway” p. 337

When Seattle author Russ’ The Female Man, which incorporates this story, was published, it was fiercely attacked as the product of a radical feminist lesbian separatist–all of which was true, but neglected the fact that it was also brilliantly written and a wonderfully satirical. Since an all-female society is not probable in the near future, what functions can this sort of story serve? Compare Whileaway as a utopia with Anarres. Why does JE say that the women of Whileaway hack off their hair with clam shells? “Nicht wahr?” is German for “Right?” What messages does the bear myth (deliberately different from ” Goldilocks and the Three Bears”) convey? In some forms of Zen Buddhism the master tries to shock the novice into enlightenment by striking him abruptly. What criticisms of traditional romance/fairy tale values does section 13 make? Who are the gnats that block the way to Whileaway?

John Varley: “Lollipop and the Tar Baby” p. 357

Varley is well known for his interest in women and in challenging sexual taboos. Could this story pass for the product of a woman? Is this a feminist story? Compare it with James Tiptree, Jr.’s story in its values, point of view, and main concerns.

Philip K. Dick: “Frozen Journey” p. 386

What kind of mind does Kemmings have? What is the end result of exploring his memories nonstop for ten years? Note how Dick has found here yet another way to explore his favorite theme of interpenetrating realities. Dick was closely associated for a time with psychedelic hippie subculture. This story contains an affectionate tribute to the brilliant comic art of Gilbert Shelton, one of the most important contributors to the classic underground comics of the sixties and early seventies. His main characters were the “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers,” a sort of stoned Marx Brothers. Fat Freddy was the least intelligent and most lovable of the three. A collection of the Freak Brothers comics is in the underground and alternative comics collection in Holland Library’s Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections room (PN6728.45.R5F74x). What do you think the ending of the story is intended to convey?

Phyllis Gotlieb: “Tauf Aleph” p. 427

Many SF writers are Jews, but few of them are religious, or depict Jews in their works. Gotlieb’s affectionate portrait of the last living Jew is an exception. How does this story treat religion differently from the Silverberg story? Compare it to A Canticle for Leibowitz. If tauf is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and “aleph” is the first, what does the title of the story mean? The title may also involve a pun on the name of the planet where Begelman lives: Tau Ceti IV (the fourth planet of the prominent star called “Tau Ceti”). “Sol” means “sun,” so “Solthree” is the third planet from the sun: Earth. The Talmud is a vast, many-volumed commentary on the Jewish scriptures. How long does O/G5/842 study Judaism, and why is this significant? O/G discovers that illegal drugs are being smuggled out in the guise of powdered drink mix. “Pardes” means “orchard,” but also “paradise.” It is often used to refer to the Garden of Eden in the Bible. To some extent naming this forlorn place “Pardes” was a cynical promotional gesture, like the naming of a frozen island “Greenland;” but what other significance might the name have in this story? The Zohar is a Medieval mystical Jewish work, part of the Kabbalah. “Shalom” is “peace,” often used as a greeting in Hebrew. The medieval legend of the golem tells how a brilliant rabbi created this monster to take vengeance on the Christians for the sufferings they had caused the Jews. It ran amuck, however, and had to be destroyed by its creator, like Frankenstein’ s monster. Compare the Golem in this story to the legendary one. Kaddish is the ritual prayer said for the dead. Baal was a Middle Eastern god, according to the Bible, to whom were sometimes offered children as ritual sacrifices. This practice is identified as among the worst of all sins in some passages. “Clean” foods allowed to Jews are kosher, “unclean,” forbidden foods are tref. A tallith katan is a fringed prayer shawl. A convert can be called “ben Avraham” (“son of Abraham”) or “bat Avraham” (“daughter of Abraham”) to indicate adoption as a child of Abraham, the ultimate father of all Jews. Begelman uses the neuter “b’nei” instead. The reference to the victory over Og uses Hebrew spellings; non-Jewish Bibles spell “Moshe” as “Moses” and “Kana’an” as “Canaan.” In what way is Zohar like Moses? Look at the psalm that Og recites as Zohar is dying. In what ways are its images appropriate to a story of interplanetary travel and of renewal? The Shema is the central statement of the Jewish faith. It occurs at Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and begins, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” Mishna is commentary on the Jewish law. In what respect do the Cnidori replicate the experience of Earth’s Jews at the end of the story?

William Gibson: “The Gernsback Continuum” p. 457

Gibson originated cyberpunk in Neuromancer, but he cannot be pigeonholed in any one genre. However, this story displays one fairly constant aspect of his style: a dense allusiveness which demands a good deal of general knowledge, particularly of popular culture. Hugo Gernsback was the founder of the first science fiction magazines and in some ways the inventor of the modern concept of SF. The annual award for the year’s best writing is called the “Hugo” in his honor. His main era of activity was the 20s and 30s, and this story is an affectionate look at the “alternate future” described in the pages of and depicted on the covers of his magazines. A common concept in SF is the notion of parallel worlds. For various reasons it is argued that an infinite number of variations on our universe may exist side by side, so that every sort of world that could exist, does exist. None of the scientific speculations about this theory involve being able to pass from one parallel universe to another, but that is of course the main point of interest in SF treatments of the theme. Gibson takes for granted that his audience is familiar with the concept, and then begins to play with it. The version of the world dominated by ” American Streamlined Moderne” will be more entertaining if you are familiar with the style, which was especially prominent in the thirties and forties, promoted as futuristic, but now looking hopelessly though charmingly dated. If you’ ve ever seen the old black and white movie serials of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon you’ll have some idea, but better sources are the two films mentioned in the story: Fritz Lang’s silent Metropolis and Things to Come, based on a book and introduced by H. G. Wells. Ming the Merciless was, of course, the cruel ruler of the Planet Mongo and Flash Gordon’s greatest enemy. How have modern times prevented the young girl from Virginia from being identified as a witch? What does the narrator’s last speech mean?

Carol Emshwiller: “The Start of the End of the World” p. 466

In the 50s there were many stories published that depicted sweet little old ladies, hopelessly naive and uninformed, encountering invading aliens, and usually saving the Earth. This is a witty variation on that theme. “Woman of a certain age” is the translation of a French euphemism for a middle-aged woman. Compare this story with War of the Worlds. How is this invasion different? Since this story makes fun of an old woman, is it anti-feminist; or can you detect feminist themes in it?

Octavia Butler: “Speech Sounds” p. 513

After Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler is the other most distinguished African-American SF author. Like him, she does not usually concentrate on racial issues; she is particularly interested in the healing of damaged societies. What have been the main effects of the loss of language on society? What hope for the future is presented at the end?

Kim Stanley Robinson: “The Lucky Strike” p. 538

The title is a pun alluding to the name of the most popular brand of cigarettes during World War II. What is its literal meaning in this story? This is an alternate-history story, somewhat related to the parallel world story. The author takes a well-known period of history and imagines how things might have gone differently. This is a detailed, well-researched variation on the events surrounding the first use of the atomic bomb. Nuclear scientist Leo Szilard, the physicist who had first conceived of the bomb and urged Roosevelt (through Einstein) to build it proposed to demonstrate the bomb to the Japa nese leaders at sea or on an uninhabited island to convince them to surrender. He was joined by many of the other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project under him in Chicago. Debate continues on whether this would have worked. The actual names of the bombs used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “Fat Man” and “Little Boy.” What does January’s dream suggest? What leads January to believe that there will be more wars? How did January’s act alter history? Why is he so interested in the fact that one of the guns aimed at him will be unloaded? The novel referred to toward the end of the story is a minor work by William Faulkner: The Wild Palms.

Lewis Shiner: “The War at Home” p. 577

A popular slogan among the more radical Vietnam War protesters was “Bring the War Home.” In what way is this slogan ironically realized in this story? No scientific rationale is offered for this transformation, so the story is more strictly speaking fantasy than SF. A Huey is an Army combat helicopter of the kind that was used extensively in Vietnam. Clare’s costume is an imitation of traditional Vietnamese peasant wear. “Fragging” was the deliberate assassination of commanding officers by their troops, using fragmentation grenades. Does this story have a message? What is it?

Karen Joy Fowler: “The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things” p. 580

How has the Vietnam War affected the people in this story? How does cable television function differently in this time than in ours? How is this a particularly woman’s experience of the war? What is resolved at the end of the story? What is left unresolved?

James Patrick Kelly: “Rat” p. 654

In this cyberpunk story the protagonist is literally a rat, though clearly not an ordinary one. What affect does it have on the story to make this drug dealer not only figuratively but literally a rat? To “nova” is to become suddenly much brighter, like an exploding star, called a nova because ancient astronomers considered them “new” stars when they suddenly appeared. The Checker Cab Company built taxis for many years. The French on the first page means “Don’t pretend to study, my little one. What are you doing?” What is a Bahamian laundry loop? Why does the cabbie dare to defy Rat? Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is an epic celebration of American life. Why is its use significant here? What rat-like use does he make of the profits from his drug dealings? Where has Rat hidden the drugs, and what happens to him at the end of the story?

Eileen Gunn: “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” p. 705

This story is a variation on the famous Franz Kafka story “The Metamorphosis,” in which a meek bank clerk named Gregor Samsa is transformed overnight into a giant insect, usually presumed to be a cockroach. Samsa is rendered unable to continue his ordinary occupation as a bank clerk as he takes on more and more of the characteristics of an insect, and deteriorates slowly to a wretched end. How does Gunn reverse this pattern? What are the targets of her satire? What insects is the protagonist transformed into during the course of the day? How does her character change? What qualities make her good executive material?

Margaret Atwood: “Homelanding” p. 794

Canadian writer Margaret Atwood sometimes uses SF language in her philosophical sketches like this one. What effect does it have on how we view ourselves to be granted the perspective of an outsider? What is her attitude toward death?

More Science Fiction Study Guides

• H. G. Wells: War of the Worlds
• Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles
• Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and the Dystopian Tradition
• Walter M. Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Stanislaw Lem: Solaris
• Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed
• Philip K. Dick: Blade Runner
• Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale
• William Gibson: Neuromancer

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Notes by Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University, Pullman 99164-5020. Copyright Paul Brians 1995

Version of August 25, 2005

If you are doing research on science fiction, this bibliography is a good place to start. It is not a complete bibliography of SF research, only of that in the WSU library; and the call numbers may not match those in other libraries. It does not include works of science fiction as such.

Paul Brians is now retired, and this bibliography is no longer be updated, so it is bound to be incomplete; but it may still be useful.

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REFERENCE WORKS:

Look for reference works and indexes first in the Reference Room, not in the regular stacks.

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Encyclopedias and general checklists:

*Barron, Neil: Anatomy of Wonder 4: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction. (fourth edition) PN3433.8 .A63x 1995
This is among the most important standard reference works in the field, summarizing hundreds of pieces of fiction. It is especially strong on foreign SF, though this coverage was reduced in the fourth edition. Recommended especially for small libraries. The still-useful second (PN3433.5 .A6x) and third editions (HolRef PN3433.8 .A63x 1987) are also in the collection.

Bleiler, Everett F.: The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction. HolRef PN 3435 B55 1978 (replaces The Checklist of Fantastic Literature, 808.3 ZB616c)

Bleiler, Everett F. & Richard J. Bleiler. Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years: A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines “Amazing,” “Astounding,” “Wonder,” and Others from 1926 through 1936. HolRef PS648.S3 B57 1998
Also available as an electronic resource for WSU users through Griffin.

Bloch, Robert N.: Bibliographie der utopischen und phantastischen literatur, 1750-1950. PT 148 1185 B5x 1984

Clarke, Ignatius Frederick: Tale of the Future: From the Beginning to the Present Day. (British) 3rd ed., PN 3448 S45c 56x (replaces 2nd edition, Z6207 P7 C48 1972)
The strong point of this survey is its coverage of early works, especially British fiction.

*Clute, John & Peter Nicholls, eds.: Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. HolRef PN3433.4 .E53 1993b
Generally considered the best of the encyclopedias. Articles on movements, themes, genres, as well as authors, etc.

Fletcher, Marilyn P. Reader’s Guide to Twentieth-Century Science Fiction. HolRef PN3433.8 R44 1989

*Gunn, James, ed. The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. PN 3433.4 N48 1988
Good as a supplement to Clute & Nicholls, above.

James, Edward & Farah Mendelsohn, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. PN3377.5.S3 C36 2003

*Magill, Frank: Survey of Science Fiction Literature: Five Hundred 2,000-Word Essay-Reviews of World-Famous Science Fiction Novels with 2,500 Bibliographical References. HolRef PN3448 S45 S88
Summaries, brief discussions, and selected bibliographies make this an excellent place to begin researching a particular work. Be sure to check the supplement listed below as well.

*Magill, Frank: Survey of Science Fiction Literature: Bibliographical Supplement. HolRef PN 3448 S45 S88 Suppl

Newman, John: Future War Novels: An Annotated Bibliography of Works in English Published Since 1946. HolRef R888.W37 N43x 1984

Nicholls, Peter, ed. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia. PN3448.S45 S29 Ê
Earlier, still useful, but now somewhat dated edition of Clute and Nicholls, above. Can be checked out.

Pringle, David. The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction: An A-Z of Science-Fiction Books by Title. HolRef PN3448.S45 P75 1995

Reginald, Robert, ed.: Contemporary Science Fiction Authors. HolRef PS 374 S35 R44
Useful background information on major authors.

Reginald, Robert, ed.: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, A Checklist from Earlier Times to 1974. Hol Ref PS374.S35 R442x

Reginald, R. Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, 1975-1991: A Bibliography of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Fiction Books and Nonfiction Monographs. HolRef PN3448.S45 R44x 1992

Searles, Baird: A Reader’s Guide to Fantasy. PS374.F27 S43x 1982

Tuck, Donald H.: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. HolRef Z5917 S36 T83
Replaced by more recent encyclopedias, but still contains some useful details about editions of early works for advanced researchers.

University of California at Riverside: Dictionary Catalog of the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. HolRef PN 3448 S45 U59x v-13

Yntema, Sharon. More than 100 Women Science Fiction Writers. PN 3433.6 Y57x 1988

*Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase http://www.isfdb.org/

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Now the standard source for identifying SF stories and novels.

Indexes to short stories:

Bowman, Ray: Bowman’s Index to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. AP2 M2345x 1949/1983

Cole, Walter R.: A Checklist of Science Fiction Anthologies. Z5917 S36 C6 1975

Contento, William: Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections. (2 vols) HolRef PS 374 S35 C6x
Great for locating in which magazines and anthologies a story has appeared. The excellent Contento indexes have now been subsumed into the online Locus Index to Science Fiction, which should be used instead whenever possible.

Durie, A. J. L.: An Index to the British Editions of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction with Cross-Reference to the Original American Edition. HolRef Z5917 S36 H35

Fletcher, Marilyn P.: Science Fiction Story Index. 2nd ed., 1950-1979, PN 3448 S45 F55x
Replaced by Contento, above; but circulates.

Halpern, Frank N.: International Classified Directory of Dealers in Science Fiction and Fantasy Books and Related Materials. Z286 F3 H34 1975
Now very dated.

NESFA: Index to the Science Fiction Magazines 1926-50. HolRef PN 3448 S45 I53x
All the NESFA indexes are now obsolete. Use Contento instead.

Parnell, Frank H. & Mike Ashley: Monthly Terrors: An Index to the Weird Fantasy Magazines Published in the United States and Great Britain. HolRef PS374.F27 P37 1985

Siemon, Frederick: Science Fiction Story Index 1950-1968. Z5917 S36 S5
Replaced by Contento, above.

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Indexes to criticism and reviews:

Clareson, Thomas: Science Fiction Criticism: An Annotated Checklist. HolRef Z5917 S36 C55
This pioneering work is now outdated. Use Hall, below.

Hall, Halbert W.: Science Fiction Book Review Index 1923-1973. HolRef Z5917 S36 H35

*Hall, Halbert W.: Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1878-1985: An International Author and Subject Index to History and Criticism PN3433.5.S35x 1987
This invaluable source, plus its supplements–listed below–is now available in an updated online version at as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database.

Hall, H. W.: Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1985-1991: An International Author and Subject Index to History and Criticism HolRef PN3433.5 S35x 1987 v.1, v.2

Hall, H. W.: Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1992-1995: An International Subject and Author Index to History and Criticism. HolRef PN3433.4 S34x 1997

Tymn, Marshall B.: Research Guide to Science Fiction. HolRef PN 3448 S45 T93 1977x

Tymn, Marshall B.: The Year’s Scholarship in Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1976-79. PN 3433.8 T95x 1982
The Tymn and Schlobin indexes are replaced by Hall, above.

Tymn, Marshall B. & Roger C. Schlobin: The Year’s Scholarship in Science Fiction and Fantasy 1972-1975. PN 3448 S45 T94K (supplement to Clareson, above)

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Film, illustrations, sound recordings, miscellaneous:

Burgess Meredith Reads Ray Bradbury. Record 287

Adler, Alan: Science Fiction and Horror Movie Posters in Full Color. PN 1995.9 P5 A

Baxter,John: Science Fiction in the Cinema. PN 1995.9 S26 B43

Beer, Gilian: Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter. PR468.S34 B44 1999
This interesting study of the rhetoric of science largely ignores SF, except for touching on books by Lem and Wells.

Bova, Ben: Vision of the Future: The Art of Robert McCall. ND237 M4116 B6 1982

Broderick, Mick. Nuclear Movies: A Filmography. PN1995.9.N9B76 1988
Replaced by the second edition, below.

Broderick, Mick. Nuclear Movies: A Critical Analysis and Filmography of International Feature Length Films Dealing with Experimentation, Aliens, Terrorism, Holocaust, and Other Disaster Scenarios, 1914-1990 [2nd ed.]. PN1995.9.N9B76 1991.
The most comprehensive guide to this subject.

Brosnan, John: Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction. PN 1995.9 S26 B7

Bukatman, Scott: Blade Runner. PN1997.B596 B85 1997

Felshin, Nina: Disarming images: Art for Nuclear Disarmament. N 6512 D584 1984

Frank, Alan: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Handbook. PN 1995.9 S26 F73 1982

Freas, Frank Kelly: The Art of Science Fiction. NC 975.5 F74 A45

Gifford, Denis: Science Fiction Film. PN 1995.9 S26 C5

Greene, Eric: Planet of the Apes as American Myth: Race and Politics in the Film and Television Series. PN1995.9.P495 G74 1996

Hardy, Phil. Science Fiction: The Arum Film Encyclopedia PN1995.9.S26S345x 1991

Hendershot, Cynthia. Paranoia, the Bomb, and 1950s Science Fiction Films. PN1995.9.S26 H37 1999

Johnson, William: Focus on the Science Fiction Film. PN 1995.9 S26 J6

Kapell, Matthew & William G. Doty, eds.: Jacking in to the Matrix Franchise: Cultural Reception and Interpretation. Vancouver PN1997.M395 J33 2004

Kaveny, Roz. From Alien to The Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film. PN1995.9.S26 K38 2005

Kevorkian, Martin. Color Monitors: The Black Face of Technology in America P94.5.A372 U558 2006

Kuhn, Annette, ed. Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. PN 1995.9 S26 A818 1990

Kuhn, Annette, ed.: Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science-Fiction Cinema. PN1995.9.S26 A8184 1999

Lee, Walt & Bill Warren: Reference Guide to Fantastic Films: Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror PN1995.9.F36L4

Lentz, Harris M., ed. Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy Film and Television Credits Supplement: Through 1987. PN 1995.9 S26 L46

Lucanio, Patrick: Them or Us: Archetypal Interpretations of Fifties Alien Invasion Films. PN 1995.9 S26 L8 1987

Menville, Douglas: Things to Come (An Illustrated History of the Science Fiction Film). PN 1995.9 S

Napier, Susan Jolliffe: Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. NC1766 .J3 N37 2001 Ê

National Library Service for the Blind and Handicapped: Science Fiction: A Selected List of Books that have Appeared in Talking Book Topics and Braille Book Review. Holland Documents (on the 3rd floor), Stack 65,

LC 19.11

Nicholls, Peter: The World of Fantastic Films: An Illustrated Survey. PN 1995.9 F36 N53 1984

O’Neill, James: Sci-Fi on Tape: A Complete Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy on Video. PN1995.9.S26 O53 1997

Parish, James Robert: The Great Science Fiction Pictures. PN 1995.9 S26 P37

Pickard, Roy: Science Fiction in the Movies, An A-Z. PN 1995.9 S26 P5 1978

Pohl, Frederik: The New Visions: A Collection of Modern Science Fiction Art. NC 1882.7 S35 N4 1982

Randall, David Anton: Science Fiction and Fantasy: An Exhibition. Z6676 15 no 21

Resnick, Michael: The Official Price Guide to Comic and Science Fiction Books. PN6725 .O33x 1983
Now very dated.

Sadoul, Jacques: 2000 AD: Illustrations from the Golden Age of Science Fiction Pulps. NC 986 S2213

Sammon, Paul M.: Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. PN1997.B596 S26 1996
Filled with fascinating inside information about the making of this seminal film.

Shapiro, Jerome F. Atomic Bomb Cinema: The Apocalyptic Imagination on Film. PN1995.9.W3 S52 2002

Shay, Don and Jody Duncan. The Making of T2: Terminator 2: Judgment Day PN1997.T397M35 1991, compact storage no. A5416

Skal, David. J.: Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture. PN1995.9.H6 S58 1998

Slusser, George & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Shadows of the Magic Lamp: Fantasy and Science Fiction in Film. PN 1995.9 F36 S5 1985

Sobchak, Vivian Carol: Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. PN 1995.9 S26 S57 1987

Sobchak, Vivian Carol: The Limits of Infinity: The American Science Fiction Film 1950-1975. PN 1995.9 S26 S57 1980

Taylor, Al: Making a Monster: The Creation of Screen Characters by the Great Makeup Artists. PN 2068 T3

Telotte, J. P. A Distant Technology: Science Fiction Film and the Machine Age. PN1995.9.S26 T45 1999

Warren, Bill: Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties. PN 1995.9 S26 W37 1982

Weaver, Tom: Attack of the Monster Movie Makers: Double Feature Creature Attack: A Monster Merger of Two More Volumes of Classic Interviews. PN1995.9.S26 W43 2003

Willis, Donald C.: Horror and Science Fiction Films II. Ref. PN1995.9 H6 W53

Willis, Donald D.: Horror and Science Fiction Films: A Checklist. PN 1995.9 H6 W5

Willis, Donald: Variety’s Complete Science Fiction Reviews. HolRef PN 1995.9 S26 V37 1985

Wingrove, David, ed.: Science Fiction File Source Book. PN 1995.9 S26 S34x 1985

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HISTORIES AND CRITICISM:

Aikon, Paul E.: Origins of Futuristic Fiction. PN 3433.8 A44 1987

Aldiss, Brian. The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy PR830.S35 A39 1995b

Aldiss, Brian: Billion Year Spree. PR 830 S35 A38 (superseded by Trillion Year Spree, below)

Aldiss, Brian: Hell’s Cartographers: Some Personal Histories of Science Fiction Writers. PS 129 H4 1975

Aldiss, Brian: The Pale Shadow of Science. PR 6051 L3 Z476 1985
Most of the content of this collection of essays is duplicated in other books by Aldiss, but it contains a handy defense of his choice of Mary Shelley as the founder of SF, plus useful essays on Stapledon, Philip K. Dick, and his own Helliconia trilogy.

Adliss, Brian: The Shape of Further Things. PR 6051 L3 Z5 1971

Aldiss, Brian: This World and Nearer Ones: Essays Exploring the Familiar. PR 6051 L3 T47 1981.
Miscellaneous prefaces and other brief articles, including ones on Dick, Vonnegut, and Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

Aldiss, Brian: Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction PR 830 S35 A38 1986b (replaces Billion Year Spree, above)

Amis, Kingsley: New Maps of Hell. 823.09 Am57n

Andriano, Joseph: Immortal Monster: The Mythological Evolution of the Fantastic Beast in Modern Fiction and Film. PS374.M544 A53 1999

Antczak, J.: Science Fiction: The Mythos of a New Romance. Educ PS 374 S35 A58 1985

Apter, T. E.: Fantasy Literature: An Approach to Reality. PN 3435 A65 1982

Armitt, Lucie: Contemporary Women’s Fiction and the Fantastic. PN3435 .A76 2000

Armytage, W. H.: Yesterday’s Tomorrows. CB 151 A77

Asimov, Isaac: Asimov’s Galaxy: Reflections on Science Fiction PS3551 S5 Z463 1989

Asimov, Isaac: Asimov on Science Fiction. PN 3433.5 A8

Asimov, Isaac & Martin H. Greenberg: Cosmic Critiques: How & Why Ten Science Fiction Stories Work. PN3377.5.S3C6 1990

Attebery, Brian: The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature from Irving to LeGuin. PS 374 F27 A8b

Attebery, Brian: Decoding Gender in Science Fiction. PS374.S35 A84 2002

Bailey, James O.: Pilgrims Through Space and Time: Trends and Patterns in Scientific and Utopian Fiction. PN 3448 S45 B47

Bainbridge, William Sims: Dimensions of Science Fiction. PN 3433.5 B35 1986

Bainbridge, William Sims: The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study. Science TL 788.5 B34

Barr, Marleen S. Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory [Part 1: Community Immortal Feminist Communities: A Recent Idea In Speculative Fiction “The Females do the Fathering!”: Reading, Resisting, and James Tiptree Jr. Eclipsing the Connecticut Yankee: Female Time Travelers Part 2: Heroism New Incarnations of Psyche: World-Changing Womanists Heroic Fantastic Femininity: Woman Warriors Part 3: Sexuality and Reproduction “Biological Wishful Thinking”: Strange Bedfellows and Phallic Fallacies Reproducing Reproduction, Manipulating Motherhood: Pregnancy and Power]. PN3433.6 .B37 1987

Barr, Marlene S. Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction. PN3401.B38 1992

Barr, Marleen S.: Future Females: A Critical Anthology. PN 6071 S33 F84x

Barr, Marleen S.: Future Females, The Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism. PS374.S35 F88 2000

Barr, Marleen S.: Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies PS374.P64 B37 2000

Barr, Marleen S. Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond PS374.S35B33 1993

Barr, Marleen S., Ruth Salvaggio & Richard Law: Suzy McKee Charnas/Octavia Butler/Joan D. Vinge. PS 374 S35 B34 1986

Ben-Tov, Sharona: The Artificial Paradise: Science Fiction and American Reality. PS374.S35 B38 1995

Berger, Harold L.: Science Fiction and the New Dark Age. PN 3448 S45 B43

Bennett, Betty T. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: An Introduction. PR5398 .B46 1998

Biermann, Lillian: Images in a Crystal Ball: World Future in Novels for Young People. PN 3433.4 W4

Bleiler, E. F. Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years: A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines from 1926 through 1936. PS648.S3 B57 1998

Bleiler, E. F.: Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day. PS 374 B35 S36 1982

Blish, James: More Issues at Hand. PN 3448 S45 B47

Booker, M. Keith: Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide PN56.D94 B66 1994

Booker, M. Keith: Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964. PS374.S35 B66 2001

Bova, Ben: Notes to a Science Fiction Writer. PZ4 B782 Nox

Bova, Benjamin W.: Notes to a Science Fiction Writer. PN 3377.5 S3 B6 1982

Bretnor, Reginald: The Craft of Science Fiction: A Symposium on Writing Science Fiction and Science Fantasy. PN 3377.5 S3 C7

Bretnor, Reginald: Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future. 809.3 B756m

Bretnor, Reginald: Science Fiction, Today and Tomorrow. PN 3448 S5 B7

Brians, Paul: Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction 1895-1984. PN 352 N83 B753x 1987

Bridenne, Jean Jacques: La litterature francaise d’imagination scientifique. 843.09 B763L

Brigg, Peter. The Span of Mainstream and Science Ficction: A Critical Study of a New Literary Genre PR888.S34 B75 2002

Broderick, Damien: The Architecture of Babel: Discourses of Literature and Science. PN55 .B74 1994

Broderick, Damien: Transrealist Fiction: Writing in the Slipstream of Science PN3433.5 .B76 2000

Bukatman, Scott: Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction. PS374.S35 B84 1993

Buker, Derek M.: Science Fiction and Fantasy Readers’ Advisory: The Librarian’s Guide to Cyborgs, Aliens, and Sorcerers. Z688.S32 B85 2002

Calkins, Elizabeth: Teaching Tomorrow: A Handbook of Science Fiction for Teachers. Educ LB 1631 C29

Campbell, John W., et al.: Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future. 809.3 B7566m

Canaday, John. The Nucler Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs. QC791.96 .C36 2000

Card, Orson Scott. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. PN3377.5.S3C37 1990

Carter, Paul Allen: The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Fiction. PN 3448 S45 C36

Chapman, Edgar L. & Carl B. Yoke, eds. Classic and Iconoclastic History Science Fiction. PS374.S35 C58 2003

Chernaik, Laura: Social and Virtual Sace: Science Fiction, Transnationalism, and the American New Right HN90.M6 C43 2005

Cioffi, Frank: Formula Fiction? An Anatomy of American Science Fiction 1930-1940. PS 374 S35 C5 1982

Clareson, Thomas P.: Many Futures, Many Worlds: Theme and Form in Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 M3

Clareson, Thomas P.: Science Fiction: The Other Side of Realism. PN 3448 S45 C5

Clareson, Thomas P.: Some Kind of Paradise: The Emergence of American Science Fiction PS 374 S35 C56 1985

Clareson, Thomas P.: A Spectrum of Worlds. PZ1 3542 Sp

Clareson, Thomas P.: Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers. PN 3448 S45 V6

Clarke, Ignatius Frederick: Voices Prophesying War. D445 C6

Colloque international de science-fiction: Actes du premier colloque international de science-fiction de Nice: Images de l ailleurs Espace interieur, ed. Jean Emelina & Denise Terrel. PN 3448 S45 C64x 1983

Conte, Joseph Mark: Design and Debris: A Chaotics of Postmodern American Fiction. PS374.C4 C66 2002

Cowart, David & Thomas L. Wymer: Twentieth-Century American Science Fiction Writers. PS 243 A45 v.8

Crosby, Janice. C. Cauldron of Changes: Feminist Spirituality in Fantastic Fiction. PS374.F27 C76 2000

Davin, Eric Leif: Pioneers of Wonder; Conversations with the Founders of Science Fiction. PS374.S35 D36 1999

Davies, Philip John, ed. Science Fiction, Social Conflict, and War. PN3433.5.S35 1990

de Camp, L. Sprague: Science Fiction Handbook. PN 3377.5 S3 D4 1975

de Camp, L. Sprague: Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy. PR830 F3 D4

Delany, Samuel R.: The Jewel-Hinged Jaw. PN 3448 S45 D4x

Delany, Samuel R.: The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965, PS 3554 E437 Z475 1988

Delany, Samuel R.: Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary. PS3554.E437 Z4756 1999

Delany, Samuel R.: Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics: A Collection of Written Interviews PS3554.E437 Z476 1994

Delany, Samuel R.: Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction. PN 3433.5 D45x 1984

Del Rey, Lester: The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976: The History of a Subculture. PS374 S35 D4

Dery, Mark. The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink. NX180.S6 D48 1999

Dewey, Joseph: In a Dark Time: The Apocalyptic Temper in the American Novel of the Nuclear Age PS 374 A 65 D4 1990

Disch, Thomas M. The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. PN3433.5 D57 1998

Donawerth, Jane: Frankenstein’s Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction PS374.S35 D66 1997

Dozois, Gardner, ed.: Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. PN337.5.S3W75

Dunn, Thomas P.: The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction. PN3433.6 M4

Du Pont, Denise, ed.: Women of Vision. PS 374 S35 W64 1988

Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: Bridge to Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 E2 1979

Ellison, Harlan: Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed. PS 3555 L62 S65 1984

Erlich, Richard D., and Dunn, Thomas P., eds.: Clockwork Worlds: Mechanized Enrivonments in Science Fiction. PN 3433.6C56 1983

Eshbach, Lloyd, ed.: Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing. PN 3448 S45 E7

Evans, Hilary and Dik: Beyond the Gaslight: Science in Popular Fiction 1885-1905. PR 1309 S45 B4

Fernbach, Amanda: Fantasies of Fetishism: From Decadence to the Post-Human.

Ferns, C. S. Narrating Utopia: Ideology, Gender, Form in Utopian Litrature. PN3448.U7 F47 1999

Ferreira, Maria Aline Seabra: I Am the Other: Literary Negotiations of Human Cloning. PS374.H83 F47 2005

Ferrerar, Juan: La Novela de Ciencia Ficcion. PN 3448 S45 F38

Fischer, William B.: The Empire Strikes Out: Kurd Lasswitz, Hans Dominik, and the Development of German Science Fiction. PT 747 S34 F57 1984

Flanagan, Mary & Austin Booth: Reload: rethinking women + cyberculture PS151 .R45 2002 Ê

Franklin, Howard Bruce: Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century. PN 3448 S45 F7

Fredericks, Casey: The Future of Eternity: Mythologies of Science Fiction and Fantasy. PN 3433.6 F7 1982

Freedman, Carl. Critical Theory and Science Fiction. PN3433.5 .F74 2000

Garber, Eric: Uranian Worlds: A Reader’s Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction. PN 56 H57 G37x 1983. See newer edition, below.

Garber, Eric and Lyn Paleo: Uranian Worlds: A Reader’s Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. PN56.H57G37x 1990

Ginn, Sherry. Our Space, Our Place: Women in the Worlds of Science Fiction Television. PN1992.8.W65 G56 2005

Glut, Donald F. The Frankenstein Archive: Essays on the Monster, the Myth, the Movies, and More. PN1995.9.F8 G59 2002 Ê

Goswami, Amit: The Cosmic Dancers: Exploring the Physics of Science Fiction. Sci. Q162 G7 1983

Goulart, Ron: Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines. PS 379 G6

Gove, Philip Babcock: The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction: A History of its Criticism and a Guide for its Study, with an Annotated Check Lis of 215 Imaginary Voyages from 1700 to 1800.PN 3432 G69 1961

Greenberg, Martin H.: Fantastic Lives: Autobiographical Essays by Notable Science Fiction Writers. PS 129 F3

Green, Roger Lancelyn: Into Other Worlds. 809 G825i

Greenland, Colin: The Entropy Exhibition: Michael Moorcock and the British “New Wave” in Science Fiction. PR 830 S35 G73 1983

Griffiths, John: Three Tomorrows: American, British, and Soviet Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 G75x

Gunn, James: Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 G8

Gunn, James: The Discovery of the Future: The Ways Science Fiction Developed. PN 3448 S45 G81x

Haraway, Donna: The Haraway Reader HQ1190 .H364 2004

Harris-Fain, Darren: British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers, 1918-1960. Holref. PN451 .D52x v.255 Ê

Harris-Fain, Darren:British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers Since 1960. Holref. PN451 .D52x v. 261

Harris-Fain, Darren: Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Age of Maturity, 1970-2000. PS374.S35 H37 2005

Hartwell, David G.: Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science Fiction. PN 3433.8 H36 1984

Hartwell, David G. & Kathryn Cramer, eds.: The Space Opera Renaissance PS648.S3 S55 2006

Hassler, Donald M.: Comic Tones in Science Fiction: The Art of Compromise with Nature. PN 3433.8 H37 1982
Contains surprisingly little about SF, less about comedy. Examples discussed from Asimov, Clement, LeGuin, Pohl, Sturgeon

Hay, George, ed.: The Edward De Bono Science Fiction Collection. Z695.1 E4 N37

Hayles, N. Katherine: How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Q335 .H394 1999 (Owen Library)

Healy, Janet K. Miller: Simulated Realities: Contemporary Science Fiction, Golding and Robbe-Grillet. (Thesis) WSU L5 1980 H4

Heard, Alex: Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End-Time America. BR526 .H335 1999

Hellekson, Karen. The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time. PS374.H5 H44 2001

Hogeland, Lisa Maria. Feminism and Its Fictions: The Consciousness-Raising Novel and the Women’s Liberation Movement. PS374.F45 H64 1998

Hollinger, Veronica and Joan Gordon, eds.: Edging into the Future: Science Fiction and Contemporary Cultural Transformation. PS374 .S35 E37 2002 Ê

Hornum, Barbara G.: American Values and World View as Reflected in Science Fiction. Microfilm PN 3448 S45 H67x

Huntington, John: Rationalizing Genius: Ideological Strategies in the Classic American Science Fiction Short Story. PS 374 S35 H86 1989

Innes, Sherrie A. Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture. P94.5.W65 I56 1999

International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film: Aspects of Fantasy: Selected essays from the Second International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film, ed. by William Coyle PZ3435 I57 1981

International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film: Contours of the Fantastic, Selected Essays from the Eighth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, ed. Michele K. Langford. PN 56 F34 I58 1990

International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film: The Scope of the Fantastic: Theory, Technique, Major Authors. PN 56 F34 I 57 1980 or PN 56 F34 I 57 1980a

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts: Spectrum of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Sixth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, ed. Donald Palumbo NX 650 F36 I59 1985

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts: Reflections on the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Fourth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, ed. by Michael R. Collings PN 56 F34 I58 1983

Isaacs, Leonard: Darwin to Double Helix: The Biological Theme in Science Fiction. PR 830 S35

Ivison, Douglas, ed.: Canadian Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers. PN451 .D52x v. 251 Ê

Jameson, Fredric: Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. PS648.S3 J36 2005

Jarvis, Brian.: Postmodern Cartographies: The Geographical Imagination in Contemporary American Culture. GF91.U6 J37 1998b

Jarvis, Sharon: Inside Outer Space: Science Fiction Professionals Look at Their Craft PN 3433.5 I57 1985

Johnston, John. Information Multiplicity: American Fiction in the Age of Media Saturation. PS374.M43 J64 1998

Jones, A.: Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality. PN3433.8 .J66x 1999

Kasack, Wolfgang: Science-Fiction Osteuropa: Beitrage zur russischen, polnischen und tschechischen phantastischen Literatur. PG 512 S35 1984

Keim, Heinrich: New Wave: die Avantgarde der modernen anglo-amerikanischen Science Fiction. PR 888 S35 K44 1983

Kerman, Judith B., ed. Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? PN1997.B283R4 1991

Ketterer, David: New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction and American Literature. PS 374 S35 R4

Ketterer, David: Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy. PR9192 S34 K48 1992

De Witt Douglas Kilgore: Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space. PS374.S35 K43 2003 Ê

King, Betty: Women of the Future: The Female Character in Science Fiction. PS 374 S35 K44

Kitchin, Rob & James Kneale: Lost in Space: Geographies of Science Fiction. PN3433.6 .L67 2002

Knight, Damon: In Search of Wonder. 813.09 K743i

Knight, Damon: Turning Points: Essays on the Art of Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45t

Knight, Diana: Barthes and Utopia: Space, Travel, Writing PN75.B29 K55 1997

Kreuziger, Frederick A.: The Religion of Science Fiction PN 3433.6 K74 1986

Kumar, Krishan: Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. HX806 K86 1987

Landon, Brooks: Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars. PN3433.8 .L36 1997

Larbalestier, Justine. The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction. PS374.S35 L29 2002

Lederer, Susan E.: Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature. PR5397.F73 F75 2002 Ê

Lefanu, Sarah. In the Chinks of the World Machine: Feminism and Science Fiction. PN 3433.6 L43x 1988

LeGuin, Ursula K.: Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places. PS 3562 E42 D36 1989

LeGuin, Ursula K.: The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. PN 3435 L4

LeGuin, Ursula K.: The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, rev. ed. PN3435.L4 1992

Le Guin, Ursula K.: The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagintion. PS3562.E42 W38 2004

Lem, Stanislaw: Microworlds: Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy. PN 500 B25A5

Lenz, Millicent. Nuclear Age Literature for Youth: The Quest for a Life-Affirming Ethic. PN1009.A1L47 1990

Lerner, Frederick Andrew: Modern Science Fiction and the American Literary Community. PS 374 S35 L4 1985

Lewis, C. S.: Of Other Worlds. PR 6023 E926 O3 1967

Lofficier, Jean-Marc & Randy: French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction: A Guide to Cinema, Television, Radio, Animation, Comic Books and Litrature from the Middle Ages to the Present. PQ637.F3 L64 2000

MaGuire, Patrick L.: Red Stars: Political Aspects of Soviet Science Fiction. PG 3098 S5 M38 1985

Malik, Rex, ed.: Future Imperfect: Science Fact and Science Fiction. PN 3433.2 F8

Malzberg, Barry N.: The Engines of the Night: Science Fiction in the Eighties. PN 3433.8 M34

Malmgren, Carl Carryl. Worlds Apart: Narratology of Science Fiction. PN3433.5.M35 1991

Manlove, C.: Science Fiction: Ten Explorations PS 374 S35 M36 1986

Mannix, Patrick. The Rhetoric of Antinuclear Fiction: Persuasive Strategies in Novels and Films. PS374.N82M36 1992

Matthew, Robert. Japanese Science Fiction: A View of a Changing Society. New York: Routledge, 1989. PL 747.57 S3 M37 1989

McCaffery, Larry: Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Writers (Benford, Burroughs, Butler, Delany, Disch, Gibson, le Guin, Russ, Sterling, Wolfe) PS 374 S35 M39 1990

McCaffery, Larry: Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction. PS374.S35S76 1991

McKnight, Stephen A., ed. Science, Pseudo-Science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought. Q125.S43463 1992

McNelly, Willis: Science Fiction: The Academic Awakening. PN 3448 S45 S3

Melzer, Patricia: Alien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought. PS374 S35 M45 2006

Meyers, Walter E.: Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 N46

Merrick, Helen & Tess Williams, ed.: Women of Other Worlds: Excursions Through Science Fiction & Feminism. PN98.W64 W66x 1999

Michael, Magali Cornier: Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction. PR888.I45 M53 1996

Millies, Suzanne: Science Fiction Primer for Teachers. PN 3448 S45 M5

Moskowitz, Samuel: Explorers of the Infinite. PN 3448 S45 M65

Moskowitz, Samuel: Seekers of Tomorrow. PN 3448 S45 M66

Moskowitz, Samuel: Strange Horizons: The Spectrum of Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 M665

Moylan, Tom: Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. PS 374 U8 M69 1986

Moylan, Tom: Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. PN3433.6 .M69 2000

Myers, Robert E., ed.: The Intersection of Science Fiction and Philosophy: Critical Studies. PN 3433.6 I 57 1983

Nadeau, Robert: Readings from the New Book on Nature: Physics and Metaphysics in the Modern Novel. PS374 P45 N3

Nahin, Paul J. Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction. PS374.S35N34 1993

Nicholls, Peter, ed.: Science Fiction at Large: A Collection of Essays by Various Hands about the Interface Between Science Fiction and Reality. PN 3448 S45 S28

Nicholls, Peter, ed.: The Science in Science Fiction. SCI Q 162 S4127 1982

Nye, David E.: Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture. E169.1 .N816 1997

O Leary, Stephen D.: Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric. BL501.O44 1994

Olsen, Lance: Ellipse of Uncertainty: An Introduction to Postmodern Fantasy. PN 56 F34 O47 1987

Panshin, Alexei: Science Fiction in Dimension: A Book of Explorations. PN 3448 S45p

Panshin, Alexei and Cory: The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence. PN 3433.5 P26 1989

Parker, Helen N.: Biological Themes in Modern Science Fiction. PN 3433.6 P37 1984

Parrinder, Patrick: Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching. PN3448 S45 P37x

Pawling, Christopher, ed.: Popular Fiction and Social Change. PN 3344 P66 1984b

Perkins, Michael: The Secret Record. PN 56 E7 P4

Pettman, Dominic: After the Orgy: Toward a Politics of Exhaustion. BL503.2 .P47 2002

Philmus, Robert M.: Into the Unknown: The Evolution of Science Fiction from Francis Godwin to H. G. Wells. PR 830 S35 P5

Philmus, Robert M.: Visions and Re-visions: (re)Constructing Science Fiction. PR830.S35 P57 2005

Pierce, Hazel: A Literary Symbiosis: Science Fiction/Fantasy Mystery. PN 3433.6 P54 1983

Pierce, John J.: Foundations of Science Fiction: A Study in Imagination and Evolution. PN3433.8 P54 1987
Vol. 1 of a useful three-volume history of SF treated by theme.

Pierce, John J.: Great Themes of Science Fiction: A Study in Imagination and Evolution. PN 3433.8 P544 1987
Vol. 2 of the series. (Vol. 3 has not yet appeared.)

Plattel, Martin G.: Utopian and Critical Thinking. HX 806 P5513

Platt, Charles: Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction. PN 165 P56x

Pohl, Frederik: The Way the Future Was: A Memoir. PS3566 036 Z47

Porter, Jennifer E. & Darcee L. McLaren, eds.: Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion, and American Culture. PN1995.9.S694 S72 1999

Pournelle, Jerry & Jim Baen, eds.: The Science Fiction Yearbook. PZ 1 S45x 1985

Rabkin, Eric S.: The Fantastic in Literature. PN 56 P34 R3

Rabkin, Eric S.: No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. PR 830 U7 N6 1983

Rabkin, Eric S., Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander: The End of the World. PN 3433.6 E6 1983

Randall, David: Science Fiction and Fantasy: An Exhibition Jan-April 1975. Z6676 I5 no. 21

Reilly, Robert, ed.: The Transcendent Adventure: Studies of Religion in Science Fiction. PR 830 S35 T73 1985

Ridgway, Jim and Michele Benjamin: PsiFi: Psychological Theories and Science Fictions. PN 56 P93 R53x 1987

Riley, Dick: Critical Encounters: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction. PS 374 S35 C74

Roemer, Kenneth M., ed.: America as Utopia. PS 374 U8 A47

Rogow, Roberta: Futurespeak: A Fan’s Guide to the Language of Science Fiction. PN3433.4.R64 1991

Rose, Lois: The Shattered Ring: Science Fiction and the Quest for Meaning PN 3448 S45 R6

Rose, Mark: Alien Encounters: Anatomy of Science Fiction . PN 3433.8 R6

Rose, Mark: Science Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays. PN 3448 S45 S27

Rosenberg, Daniel & Susan Harding, eds.: Histories of the Future. PS374.F73 H57 2000

Rottensteiner, Franz: The Science Fiction Book: An Illustrated History. PN 3448 S45 R65

Rotschild, Joan, ed.: Machina ex Dea: Feminist Perspectives on Technology. T14.5 M3 1983

Ruddick, Nicholas. Ultimate Island: On the Nature of British Science Fiction. PR830.S35.R845 1993

Russ, Joanna: The Image of Women in Science Fiction in Images of Women in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives, ed. Susan Koppelman Cornillon. PN3411.C6 1973

Russ, Joanna: To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction. PS147 R87 1995.

Russell, Miles, ed. Digging Holes in Popular Culture: Archaeology and Science Fiction. PN3433.6 .D54 2002

Sabella, Robert. Who Shaped Science Fiction? PS374.S35 S18 2000

Saciuk, Olena H., ed. The Shape of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Seventh International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. PN 56 F34 I58 1986

Sadler, Frank: The Unified Ring: Narrative Art and the Science-Fiction Novel. PN 3377.5 S3 S2 1984

Sammons, Martha C.: A Better Country: The World of Religious Fantasy and Science Fiction. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Sandison, Alan & Robert Dingley, eds.: Histories of the Future: Studies in Fact, Fantasy and Science Fiction. PS374.F73 H57 2000

Samuelson, David: Visions of Tomorrow: Six Journeys from Outer to Inner Space. PS 374

Sargent, Lyman Tower: British and American Utopian Literature. 1516-1975. PR 149 U8 S3x & PR149.U8S3x 1988

Sawyer, Andy & David Seed, eds.: Speaking Science Fiction: Dialogues and Interpretations. PN3433.2 .S67 2000

Sayer, Karen & John Moore, ed.: Science Fiction: Critical Frontiers. PS374.S35 S333 2000

Schafer, Martin: Science Fiction als Ideologiekritik?. PS 374 S35 S28 1977

Schaffner, Val: Lost in Cyberspace: Essays and Far-Fetched Tales. PS3569.C46L6 1993

Schlobin, Roger C.: Urania’s Daughters: A Checklist of Women Science Fiction Writers, 1692-1982.

Scholes, Robert E.: Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision. PN 3448 S45

Scholes, Robert E.: Structural Fabulation: An Essay on Fiction of the Future. PR 830 S35 S3

Schulz, Hans-Joachim: Science Fiction. PN 3433.6 S34x 1986

Schwenger, Peter: Letter Bomb: Nuclear Holocaust and the Exploding Word. PN98.D43S39 1992

Science Fiction Writers of America: Writing and Selling Science Fiction. PN 337.5 S3 S3 1982

Scott, Melissa: Conceiving the Heavens: Creating the Science Fiction Novel. PN 3377.5 .S3 s37 1997

Seed, David: Anticipations: Esays on Early Science Fiction and Its Precursors. PR830.S35 A58 1995

Shinn, Thelma J.: Worlds Within Women: Myth and Mythmaking in Fantastic Literature by Women. PS 374 F27 S45 1986

Slusser, George E. & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction. PN 3433.6 A44 1987

Slusser, George E. & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Hard Science Fiction. PN 343.2 H37 1986

Slusser, George E., Eric S. Rabkin & Robert Scholes, eds.: Bridges to Fantasy. PN 56 F34 B7 1982

Slusser, George E., Eric S. Rabkin & Robert Scholes, eds.: Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy. PN 3433.2 C66 1983

Slusser, George E. & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Fights of Fancy: Armed Conflict in Science Fiction and Fantasy PN3433.6 F54 1993

Slusser, George E. & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Intersections: Fantasy and Science Fiction. PN 3433.2 I58 1987

Slusser, George E. & Eric S. Rabkins, eds.: Mindscapes: The Geographies of Imagined Worlds. PN 3435 M55 1989

Slusser, George E. & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Storm Warnings: Science Fiction Confronts the Future. PS 374 F86 S86 1987

Slusser, George & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Styles of Creation: Aesthetic Technique and the Creation of Fictional Worlds. PN3433.5.S894 1992
Interesting essays on various aspects of style in SF.

Slusser, George E. & Tom Shippey, eds. Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative. PN3433.6F53 1992

Slusser, George E., Gary Westfahl, & Eric S. Rabkin, eds.: Immortal Engines: Life Extension and Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy. PN3433.2 I56 1996

Smith, Curtis C., ed.: Twentieth-Century Science Fiction Writers. PS 374 S35 T89

Smith, Nicholas D.: Philosophers Look at Science Fiction. PS 374 S35 P4 1982

Spaulding, A. Timothy: Re-Forming the Past: History, the Fantastic, and the Postmodern Slave Narrative. PS374.S58 S66 2005

Spinrad, Norman: Science Fiction in the Real World. PN3433.5.S65 1990

Spittel, Olaf R. Science-Fiction: Essays. PN 3433.5 S34x 1987

Stableford, Brian W.: Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950. PR 888 S35 S73 1985b

Staicar, Tom: Critical Encounters II: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction. PN3433.8 C73 1982

Staicar, Tom: The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the Women Who Write It. PS 374 S35 F45 1982

Stocker, Jack H., ed.: Chemistry and Science Fiction. PS374.S35 C48 1998

Stockwell, Peter. The Poetics of Science Fiction. PN3433.6 S76 2000
Interesting explorations of stylistic patterns in SF.

Suvin, Darko: Victorian Science Fiction in the UK: The Discourses of Knowledge and Power. PR878 S35 S8 1983

Suvin, Darko: Metamorphosis of Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 S897

Suvin, Darko: Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction. PN 3433.8 S88 1988

Swanson, Roy A.: Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers. PN 3448 S45 V6

Swinfen, Ann : In Defence of Fantasy: A Study of the Genre in English and American Literature since 1945. PR 888F3 S94 1984

Tatsumi, Takayuki: Full Metal Apache: Transactions Between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America. PL747.55.T37

Tymn, Marshall B.: Science Fiction: A Teacher’s Guide and Resource Book. PN 3433.7 S35 1988

Tymn, Marshall B.: Science Fiction: Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines PN 3433 T9 1985

Wagar, W. Warren: Terminal Visions: The Literature of Last Things. PN 56 E63 W33 1982

Waller, John: Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery. Q125 .W266 2002

Walsh, Chad: From Utopia to Nightmare. HX 806 W2 1972

Warner, Marina. Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of Telling the Self ÊPN56.M53 W37 2002 (missing)

Warrick, Patricia S.: The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction. PN 3448 S45 W34

Weaver, John A., Karen Anijar & Toby Daspit, eds. Science Fiction Curriculum, Cyborg

Weber, Ronald: Seeing Earth: Literary Responses to Space Exploration. PS 228 O 96 W43 1985

Weintraub, Pamela: The Omni Interviews. Sci QH 311 046 1984

Westfahl, Gary: The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction. PS3513.E8668 Z95 1998
A defensive of the importance of formative role of editor Hugo Gernsback over John Campbell in the creation of modern SF.

Westfahl, Gary: Science Fiction, Children’s Literature, and Popular Culture: Coming of Age in Fantasyland PS374.S35 W44 2000

Westfahl, Gary, ed.: Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction. PS374.S35 S63 2000

Westfahl, Gary & George Slusser, eds. Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. PN56.5 .C48 N87 1999

Wolfe, Gary K.: Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Glossary and Guide to Scholarship. PN 3435 W64 1966

Wolfe, Gary K.: The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction. PS 374 S35 W34

Wollheim, Donald A.: The Universe Makers: Science Fiction Today. PN 3448 S45 W57 1971

Wolmark, Jenny: Aliens and Others: Science Fiction, Feminism and Postmodernism PN3433.6.W65 1994

Wolmark, Jenny, ed.: Cybersexualities: A Reader on Feminist Theory Cyborgs and Cyberspace. PN3433.6 .C83 1999

Wu, Dingbo and Patrick D. Murphy, eds. Science Fiction from China. PL 2658 E8 S36 1989

Yoke, Carl B. Phoenix from the Ashes: The Literature of the Remade World. PS 374 R39 P48 1987

Yoke, Carl B. and Donald M. Hassler, eds.: Death and the Serpent: Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy. PN 3433.6 D4 1985

Yuen, Wong Kin, Gary Westfahl & Amy Kit-sze Chan: World Weavers: Globalization, Science Fiction, and the Cybernetic Revolution. PN3433.5 .W67 2005

---

Studies of individual authors:

Various:

Arbur, Rosemarie: Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Ann McCaffrey: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography. PS 374 S35 A73x

Keulen, Margarete. Radical Imagination: Feminist conceptions of the Future in Ursula Le Guin, Marge Piercy, and Sally Miller Gearhart. PS374.F86K48 1991

Zahorski, Kenneth J.: Lloyd Alexander, Evangeline Walton Ensley, Kenneth Morris: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography. PS 228 F35 Z35x

Aldiss:

Aldiss, Brian. The Twinkling of an Eye. PR6951 L3 Z478 1998
Aldiss’ autobiography is best on his youth; has little to say about his fiction except for Greybeard, Barefoot in the Head, and the Helliconia trilogy.

Collings, Michael R.: Brian Aldiss. PR 6051 L3 Z6 1986

Griffin, Brian: Apertures: A Study of the Writings of Brian W. Aldiss. PR 6051 L3 268 1984

Henighan, Tom. Brian Aldiss. PR6051.L3 Z69 1999

Anthony:

Collings, Michael R.: Piers Anthony. PS 3551 N73 Z6 1983

Asimov:

Asimov, Isaac: In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954-1978. PS3551 S5 Z515

Asimov, Isaac: In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954. PS3551 S5 Z517

Asimov, Isaac: It’s Been a Good Life PS3551.S5 Z473 2002

Freedman, Carl: Conversations with Isaac Asimov. PS3551.S5 Z465 2005

Gunn, James E. Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction PS3551.S5 Z62 1996

Ballard, J. G.:

Brigg, Peter. J. G. Ballard. PR6052.A46 Z59 1985

Delville, Michel. J. G. Ballard. In process.

Stephenson, Gregory. Out of the Night and Into the Dream: A Thematic Study of the Fiction of J. G. Ballard PR6052.A46Z88 1991

Blish:

Ketterer, David: Imprisoned in a Tesseract: The Life and Work of James Blish. PS 3503 L64 Z74 1987

Bradbury:

Greenberg, Martin Harry & Joseph D. Olander, eds.: Ray Bradbury. PS 3503 R167 Z85

Reid, Robin Anne. Ray Bradbury: A Critical Companion. PS3503 .R167 Z86 2000

Touponce, William F.: Ray Bradbury and the Poetics of Reverie. PS 3503 R167 Z88 1984

Weist, Jerry: Bradbury: An Illustrated Life: A Journey to Far Metaphor.” PS3503.R167 Z93 2002 Campbell

Berger, Albert I. Magic that Works: John W. Campbell And the American Response to Technology. PS3553 A47 Z59 1993
A brilliantly researched study of SF’s most influential editor.

Clarke:

Hollow, John: Against the Night, the Stars: The Science Fiction of Arthur C. Clarke. PR6005 L36 Z69 1983

Olander, Joseph D.: Arthur C. Clarke. PR 6005 L36 Z56

Delany:

Delany, Samuel R. Correspondence. PS3554.E437 Z48 2000

McEvoy, Seth: Samuel R. Delany. PS 3554 E437 Z78 1985

Peplow, Michael W. & Robert S. Bravard: Samuel R. Delany: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, 1962-1972. Z8223.2 P46

Reid, Robin Anne: Arthur C. Clarke: A Critical Companion. PR6005 L36 Z57 1997

Russell, Miles, ed. Digging Holes in Popular Culture: Archaeology and Science Fiction. PN3433.6 D54 2002

Sallis, James, ed. Ash of Stars: On the Writing of Samuel R. Delany. PS3554.E437 Z55 1996

Weedman, Jane Branham: Samuel R. Delany. PS3554 E437 Z75

Dick:

Carrère: I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick. PS3554.I3 Z63 2004

Greenberg, Martin Harry. ed.: Philip K. Dick. PS 3554 I3 1983

Mackey, Douglas A.: Philip K. Dick. PS 3554 I3 Z75 1988

Robinson, Kim Stanley: The Novels of Philip K. Dick. PS 3554 I3 286 1984
Consists mostly of summaries of Dick’s novels, published and unpublished. Useful selected bibliography.

Sutin, Lawrence. Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick PS 3554 I3 Z89 1989

Umland, Samuel J., ed. Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations. PS3554.I3 Z795 1995
The best of the various volumes of collected essays on Dick.

Warrick, Patricia S.: Wind in Motion: The Fiction of Philip K. Dick PS 3554 I3 Z92 1987

Williams, Paul: Only Apparently Real. PS 3554 I3 Z93 1986

Dickson:

Thompson, Raymond H.: Gordon R. Dickson: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography. Z82308 T47 1983

Ellison:

Weil, Ellen and Gary K. Wolfe: Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever. PS3555.L62 Z95 2002

Gibson:

Cavallaro, Dani: Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and The Work of William Gibson. PS3557.I2264 Z64 2000

Olsen, Lance: William Gibson. PS3557.I2264Z76x 1992

Ellison:

Weil, Ellen & Gary K. Wolfe: Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever. PS3555.L62 Z95 2002

Gilman:

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins: A Journey from Within: The Love Letters of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1897-1900. PS 1744 G57 Z48 1995

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins: A Nonfiction Reader, ed. Larry Ceplair. HQ1413.G54 A3 1991

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins: The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography. PS1744 G57 Z5 1972

Gough, Val & Jill Rudd, ed.: A Very Different Story: Studies on the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. PS1744.G57 Z89 1998

Hill, Mary A.: Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Making of a Radical Feminist. HQ1413.G54 H54

Kessler, Carol Farley: Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Her Progress Toward Utopia, With Selected Writings. PS1744.G57 Z73 1995

Knight, Denise D.: Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Study of the Short Fiction. PS1744.G57 Z734 1997

Meyering, Sheryl L. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Woman and Her Work. PS1744.G57 Z63 1989

Scharnhorst, Gary: Charlotte Perkins Gilman. PS1744.G57 Z85 1985

Scharnhorst, Gary: Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Bibliography. Z8342.415 .S32 1985

Heinlein:

Blish, James. Heinlein in Dimension: A Critical Analysis. PS3515.E288 Z8 Ê

Franklin, H. Bruce: Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction. PS3515.E288 Z67 Ê

Heinlein, Robert A.: Grumbles from the Grave. PS 3515 E288 G7 1990

Olander, Joseph D.: Robert A. Heinlein. PS 3515 E288 Z84

Stover, Leon E.: Robert A. Heinlein PS 3515 E288 Z98 1987

Herbert:

Herbert, Brian. Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert. PS3558.E63 Z68 2003

Levack, Daniel J. H.: Dune Master: A Frank Herbert Bibliography. PS 3558 E63 Z65 1988

Hubbard:

Widder, William J.: The Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard: A Comprehensive Bibliography & Reference Guide to Published and Selected Unpublished Works. Z8420.665.W53 1994

Lee

Haut, Mavis: The Hidden Library of Tanith Lee: Themes and Subtexts from Dionysos to the Immortal Gene. PR6062.E4163 Z69 2001

LeGuin:

Bittner, James W.: Approaches to the Fiction of Ursula K. LeGuin. PS 3562 E42 Z56 1984

Bloom, Harold: Ursula K. LeGuin. PS 3562 S42 Z952 1986

Bucknall, Barbara J.: Ursula K. LeGuin. PS 3562 E42 Z58

Cogell, Elizabeth Cummins: Ursula K. LeGuin: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography. Z8495.88 .C63 1983

Davies, Laurence & Peter Stillman: The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. PS3562.E42 D576 2005

De Bolt, Joe, ed.: Ursula K. Le Guin, Voyager to Inner Lands and to Outer Space. PS 3562 B42 Z96

Selinger, Bernard.: LeGuin and Identity in Contemporary Fiction. PS 3562 E42 Z88 1988

Slusser, George E.: Farthest Shores of Ursula K. LeGuin. PS 3562 E42 Z9

Spivack, Charlotte: Ursula K. LeGuin. PS 3562 E42 Z92 1984

White, Donna R.: Dancing With Dragons: Ursula K. LeGuin and the Critics. PS3562.E42 Z985 1999

Leiber:

Byfield, Bruce: Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber PS3523.E4583Z54x 1991

Staicar, Tom: Fritz Leiber. PS 3523 E4583 Z86

Lem:

Ziegfeld, Richard E.: Stanislaw Lem. PG 7158 L392 Z53 1985

Swirski, Peter: Between Literature and Science: Poe, Lem, and Explorations in Aesthetics, Cognitive Science, and Literary Knowledge. PS2642.S3 S95x 2000

Lindsay:

Wolfe, Gary K.: David Lindsay. PR 6023 I58115 Z96 1982b

Lovecraft:

Derleth, August: Some Notes on Lovecraft. PS 3523 O833 D4 1971

Joshi, S. T.: H. P. Lovecraft. PS 3523 O 833 Z7 1982

Joshi, S. T., ed.: H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism. PS 3523 O833 Z66

Joshi, S. T., ed.: H. P. Lovecraft and Lovecraft Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography. Z8520.9 J67 1981

Lovecraft, H. P. Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters. PS3523.O833 Z48 2000

Lovecraft, H. P. & Willis Conover: Lovecraft at Last. PS 3523 O833 Z526

Owings, Mark with Jack L. Chalker: The Revised H. P. Lovecraft Bibliography. Z8520.9 O93

Shreffler, Philip A.: The H. P. Lovecraft Companion. PS 3523 O833 Z86

Miller, Walter M. Jr.:

Listening: : A Canticle for Lebowitz at 40. AP2 .L5515

Roberson, William H.: Walter M. Miller, Jr.: A Bio-Bibliography. Z8575.56 1992

Moorcock, Michael:

Greenland, Colin: Michael Moorcock: Death is no Obstacle. PR6063.O59Z534x 1992

Priest, Christopher:

Butler, Andrew M.: Christopher Priest: The Interaction. PR6066.R55 Z65 2005

Orwell:

Stansky, Peter, ed.: On Nineteen Eighty-Four PR 6029R8 N644 1983 [See also many other studies of Orwell which contain discussions of Nineteen Eighty-Four.]

Russ

Cortiel, Jeanne. Demand My Writing: Joanna Russ/Feminism/Science Fiction. PS3568.U763 Z56x 1999

Shaw:

Wolf, Milton T., ed.: Shaw and Science Fiction. PR5366 .A15 v. 17

Shelley:

Making Monstrous: Frankenstein, Criticism, Theory. PR5397.F73B68 1991

Silverberg:

Chapman, Edgar L. Road to Castle Mount, The: The Science Fiction of Robert Silverberg. PS3569.I472 Z57 1999

Elkins, Charles L. & Martin Harry Greenberg, eds. Robert Silverberg’s Many Trapdoors: Critical Essays on His Science Fiction. PS3569.I472

Smith:

Sanders, Joe: E. E. Doc Smith. PS 3537 M349 Z87 1986

Stapledon:

Fiedler, Leslie A.: Olaf Stapledon: A Man Divided. PR 6037 T18 Z66 1983

McCarthy, Patrick A.: Olaf Stapledon. PR 6037 T18 Z77 1982

Strugatsky:

Potts, Stephen W. The Second Marxian Invasion: The Fiction of the Strugatsky Brothers. San Bernardino, Calif: Borgo Press, 1991.

Sturgeon:

Menger, Lucy: Theodore Sturgeon. PS 3569 T875 Z78

Tiptree:

Tiptree, James. Meet Me at Infinity. PS3570.I66 A6 2000

Verne:

Costello, Peter: Jules Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction. PQ 2469 Z5 C66

Smyth, Edmund J., ed. Jules Verne: Narratives of Modernity PQ2469.Z5 J833 2000

Vinge:

Frenkel, James, ed. True Names by Vernor Vinge and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier. PS3572.I534 T78 2001

Vonnegut:

Boon, Kevin Alexander, ed.: At Millennium’s End: New Essays on the Work of Kurt Vonnegut. PS3572 .O5 Z535 2001

Merrill, Robert. Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut. PS3572.O5Z62 1990

Morse, Donald E. Kurt Vonnegut. PS3572.O5Z78x 1992

Morse, Donald E. The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut: Imagining Being an American. PS3572.O5 Z786 2003

Wells:

Bergonzi, Bernard: The Early H. G. Wells: A Study of the Scientific Romances. 823 W462z6

Bergonzi, Bernard: H. G. Wells: A Collection of Critical Essays. PR 5777 H2 1976

Geduld, Harry M., ed. The Definitive Time Machine: A Critical Edition of H. G. Wells s Scientific Romance.

H. G. Wells Society: H.G. Wells: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Z8964.8 H2

Haining, Peter: The H. G. Wells Scrapbook. PR 5776 H16

Hammond, J. R.: H. G. Wells: Interviews and Recollections. PR 5776 H12x

Haynes, Roslynn D.: H. G. Wells: Discoverer of the Future. PR 5776 S35 H28

Hillegas, Mark Robert: The Future as Nightmare: H. G. Wells and the Antiutopians. PR 5777 H5

Huntington, John: The Logic of Fantasy. PR 5778 S35 H8 1982

Kargarlitskii, Iulii: The Life and Thought of H. G. Wells. PR 5776 K313 1966a

Ketterer, David, ed.: Flashes of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the War of the Worlds Centennial: Nineteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. PN56.F34 I58 1998

MacKenzie, Norman & Jeanne: H. G.Wells: A Biography. PR 5776 M3 1973b

MacKenzie, Norman & Jeanne: The Time Traveller: The Life of H. G. Wells. PR 5776 M3

Marvin, Thomas E.: Kurt Vonnegut: A Critical Companion. PS3572.O5 Z766 2002

McConnell, Frank: The Science Fiction of H. G. Wells. PR 577 M3 1981

Raknem, Ingvald: H. G. Wells and His Critics. PR 5777 R3

Scheick, William J. and J. Randolph Cox: H. G. Wells: A Reference Guide. Z 8964.8 S34 1988

Smith, David C.: H. G. Wells: Desperately Mortal: A Biography. PR 3774 S54 1986

Stover, Leon E.: The Prophetic Soul: A Reading of H.G. Wells’s Things to Come, Together with His Film Treatment, Whither Mankind? and the Postproduction Script (Never Before Published). PN1997 T42863 S78 1987

Wagar, W. Warren: H. G. Wells: Traversing Time. PR5777 .W37 2004

Williamson, Jack: H. G. Wells: Critic of Progress. PR 5777 W5

Williamson:

Williamson, Jack: Wonder’s Child: My Life in Science Fiction. PS 3545 I557 Z477

Zelazny:

Krulik, Theodore: Roger Zelazny PS 3576 E43 Z75 1985

PERIODICALS:

Note: this is a list only of periodicals containing criticism and reviews. It is not a list of all the science fiction magazines in the library.

Analog. PZ1 A1 A48

Astounding. Microfilm PZ1 A1 A48 (first issue reprinted in PZ1 A77x)

Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy. AP M2344 The full text of issues from 1997 to the present is available online through ProQuest Direct to subscribers. Password required.

Fantasy Newsletter. AP 2 F35x

Foundation. (subscription cancelled 1995) PS 374 S35 F68

Galileo. PS 648 S3 G34

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. AP2 M2344 (older issues on microfilm)

New Venture. PN 3448 S45 N4

Omni. AP2 O45x

Science Fiction Horizons. PN 3448 S45 S2

Science Fiction Studies. PN 3448 S45 S34

---

Originally mounted April 20, 1996.

Last revised April 25, 2008.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most famous and popular novels ever written belonging to the literary genre known as “dystopias.” This term is derived from “Utopia,” the word that Thomas More used for the title of his sixteenth-century novel depicting an ideal society; but the earliest work of its type is generally considered to be the 4^th-century BC Plato’s Republic, which has in common with the government of Bradbury’s novel a deep suspicion of literature as disturbing and subversive. Plato suggests that if the great epic poet Homer were to arrive in his ideal city, he should crown him with laurels, congratulate him on his achievements, and send him on his way—much less harsh than burning him to death, but depicting a similar determination to control the thoughts of citizens and ban the free play of the imagination.

Thus we see that one person’s idea of an ideal existence is another’s nightmare. Utopias proliferated in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and it is not surprising that dystopias began to appear then as well, including the earliest well-known example, Evgeny Zamiatin’s We, published in 1927 as a scathing attack on the increasingly repressive Soviet state.

The same year the German silent film Metropolis appeared, depicting a mechanized, rigid society with a mindless, self-indulgent upper class benefiting from the brutal exploitation of the working-class masses. This is one of the great films of all times, though it was subsequently edited almost to incomprehensibility. A relatively complete beautifully restored version was released in 2010. Ironically, the screenwriter of this hymn to equality and love, Thea von Harbou, went on to work with the Nazis as they implemented their own real-life dystopia, while her Jewish husband, director Fritz Lang, fled to the West.

The first dystopian novel commonly encountered by American readers today is Aldous Huxley’s 1932 Brave New World.  It depicts a society in which human beings are treated like different model cars trundling off the Ford assembly line, bred in bottles for designated roles in society comparable to those depicted in Metropolis, as drudges or as self-indulgent but loveless upper-class mindless twits hooked on orgies and drugs. (It is often noted, however, that Huxley himself was ultimately to embrace psychedelic drugs and took LSD while he was dying.)  Societal control is enforced by among other  means the suppression of literary classics. In this society Shakespeare’s plays are a revolutionary force. In its opposition to modern technology and science,Brave New World is a deeply conservative reaction against the innovations of the first two decades of the 20^th century.

By far the best-known dystopia is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, written in 1948 and published in June of 1949, in the early days of the Cold War. Although revisionist literary critics have tried for decades to portray the book as being as much a critique of the West as of the East, it is difficult to ignore the many obvious images reflecting aspects of Stalinist Russian society, including censorship involving the rewriting of history, the near-deification of the dictator, and the encouragement of children to spy on and betray their parents. Whereas Huxley’s citizens were amused into mindlessness, Orwell’s are treated much more brutally, with torture and murder of dissidents being commonplace. In this novel, unlike Huxley’s, loveless sex is a means of protest; and endless, inescapable television propaganda broadcasts have replaced reading. Although television had been developed in a crude form as early as the mid-1920’s, its commercial spread was delayed by World War II, and it had really erupted into public consciousness only in 1948, the year in which Orwell was writing his novel.

In his culture television is a two-way tool which watches the citizens even more intently than the citizens watch it. Orwell never really explains how everyone can be spied on so intently without at least one half of the population watching the other half. The improbability of this arrangement is typical of dystopias, which seldom strive to create plausible portraits of a degraded future culture, but instead exaggerate certain tendencies in order to isolate and highlight them.

In science fiction, the dystopia became immensely popular during the 1950’s as writers protested against what they saw as the overwhelming tide of conformity and cultural emptiness typified by mass-market television and other powerful forces in the postwar world. Many of them could be called stories on the theme “If This Goes On—” which was the title of a  1940 story by Robert A. Heinlein—not in itself a dystopian tale, but the phrase sums up the technique used by numerous authors: take a social tendency, extrapolate it to an extreme degree, and describe the consequences. Clifford D. Simak extrapolated the post-war flight of people from the cities to the suburbs in his moving but wildly improbable series of stories assembled into City (1952). Individuals not only isolate themselves on remote country estates in a rapidly depopulating world, but eventually abandon their human forms and leave Earth altogether.

In the next decade, authors would more plausibly imagine an overpopulated future in such works as Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison—later drastically reworked as a film titled Soylent Green—and Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. Even with increased attention paid to believability, such works tend to strike contemporary readers as exaggerated because they ignore natural brakes on population which have led in our own time to a leveling off in the birth rate in most regions of the world.

Such catastrophic futures have since been commonplace in popular culture, especially in films like Mad Max and Escape from New York. This sort of dystopia is often no longer an anti-utopia—but simply a failed society in full collapse. It often ceases to function as what is called an “awful warning” (the formal literary term is “cautionary tale”) because the reader is encouraged to identify with the violent adventurers who enjoy the anarchy created by the fall of civilization. Macho thrillers set in post-holocaust radioactive wastelands became very popular in the 1980s, and decayed urban dystopias are common in contemporary video games.

In contrast to these macho fantasies, women authors began increasingly to write feminist dystopias in the 1970’s. Especially notable is the sharply satirical and hard-hitting The Female Man by Joanna Russ, and the fiercely misogynist culture depicted in Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas. But most interesting of all is Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which like Bradbury’s deals with the repression of literacy. Fundamentalist pro-life militants have taken over society and severely repressed women, using a peculiar interpretation of the Bible to justify their actions. Women are forbidden to read, presumably to prevent their developing their own interpretations and ideas. In the novel the desperate but witty narrator makes a major breakthrough into literacy, introduced at first as  an illicit thrill by her master, who like Beatty in Fahrenheit 451, enjoys tasting forbidden fruit while still upholding the values of the repressive dominant order.

In  1955, Frederik Pohl wrote a seminal story titled “Tunnel Under the World,” which depicted a nightmare experiment where a miniaturized city lived through the same day over and over again to test the effectiveness of various advertising campaigns. It was turned into a radio drama broadcast the next  year. The same sort of artificial reality was depicted in the 1960 Philip K. Dick novel Time Out of Joint, and the even more closely related 1963 novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye (though the theme was only briefly alluded to in the 1999 film version, The Thirteenth Floor). This sort of fiction in which the audience of mass media winds up inhabiting it is of course best known from The Matrix and its sequels. Although the modern versions employ computer technology rather than video, the tradition has its roots over anxiety about the mesmerizing power of television to manipulate and transform its audience.

1950 was the year that television became a truly mass-culture phenomenon in the United States. People would visit friends simply to sit—or stand, if there weren’t enough chairs to go around—and stare mesmerized at the glowing little box for hours. To some people it seemed to portend the death of civilized discourse, literacy, and individualism. Among these was Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury had begun his career writing mostly stories in the “weird tales” tradition, spooky horror stories of supernatural and uncanny events, often with shocking endings. The best of these are collected in The October Country, and many were adapted for television in The Twilight Zone and other venues. But gradually he became more and more a science fiction writer, finally becoming famous for his best-selling 1950 story collection, The Martian Chronicles. Many of the stories included had been published in the 1940’s, and one can see in this work a complex and sometimes contradictory mixture of horror, science-fictional wonder, and sentimental nostalgia which was to become characteristic of his mature writing.

1950 also marked the beginning of the “Red Scare” period most memorably exemplified by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vicious, irresponsible crusade against supposed communists and communist sympathizers which included attempts to remove suspect books from public libraries. This was also the period of the Hollywood blacklist, with many actors, directors, and screenwriters being banned from working on Hollywood films or television. Although Bradbury has said that the book-burnings in Fahrenheit 451 were inspired by the 1933 Nazi book-burnings, he was much more likely inspired by the censorship that accompanied the Red Scare of his own era.

He experimented with the theme of censorship in the story “Usher II,” which appeared somewhat awkwardly in The Martian Chronicles, where it seemed arbitrarily put into a Martian context. Fantastic fiction has been banned, and is burned wherever it may be discovered. A fanatical admirer of the works of Edgar Allan Poe invites the censors to his monstrous castle, to be murdered one after the other in imitation of grisly deaths depicted in Poe’s writings. The hero argues eloquently for the importance of the imagination, revealing among other things that Bradbury was an ardent fan of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books; but his bloody-minded behavior would seem to lend credibility to the censors’ fears of fantastic fiction rather than plausibly advancing the cause of the freedom to read.

But “Usher II” is also dark comedy, and one of his most memorable stories on that account. Dystopias have often been most successful as literature when they have incorporated humor. One of the most effective modern works of dystopian satire is Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which incorporates themes and images from Nineteen Eighty-Four, but is all the more frightening for its fierce comic touches. Today it seems much less dated than Orwell’s novel or either of the movies based on it.

At the end of The Martian Chronicles the kindly father-hero of “The Million-Year Picnic” protects the next generation from repeating the mistakes of a violent Earth civilization by ceremoniously burning books from the past. This marks only one of the many inconsistencies that run through this loosely linked collection of stories. However, it is notable that the works destroyed in this story are nonfiction volumes relating to politics and that the works eulogized in “Usher II” are fantasy and gothic horror.

Bradbury seems to have had second thoughts about the wisdom of erasing past knowledge by fire when in 1950 he wrote “The Fireman,” the story which became the kernel of Fahrenheit 451. In this story and the ensuing novel he imagined a nightmare society in which reading has become all but banned: pornography, comic books, and television scripts seem to be the only print material allowed. A secondary target was the popular Reader’s Digest condensed books, which boiled down bestsellers for impatient readers, and which Bradbury portrays as a transitional stage to the annihilation of books altogether.

Caches of books, when discovered, are burned by “firemen” whose job is eradicating print. Socialization has been reduced to group television viewings, and creativity narrowed into brief moments in shows when the audience is prompted to respond to the virtual events they are witnessing, and which absorb them far more than the real world around them.

The novel was an immediate success, and has been widely read ever since, being made into a memorable film in 1966 by the famed French New Wave director François Truffaut.

It is a peculiar work in Bradbury’s oeuvre. He is best known as a short story writer, and his most characteristic books, such as The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine, are really compilations of stories. Fahrenheit 451 is his only fully successful novel. In addition, much of his popularity can be attributed to the perfumed sensuousness of his imagery, the often extravagant sights, sounds, and smells he deploys to engage the reader. Fahrenheit 451 lacks the evocative descriptions that characterize his other works, being set in a sterile, artificial world. Even when Clarisse speaks of her enjoyment of nature at night the language is abstract and general.

Once again the books most treasured by the literate characters are fiction, though religious and philosophical works appear as well. Works of science are entirely unmentioned. Bradbury is famously a science-fiction writer not particularly fond of science. One wonders how the technocrats who create the wallscreens and originate the broadcasts gain the knowledge they need to do their jobs if they too are illiterate. Orwell had depicted a civilization in decline, unable to innovate anything but new tortures; but Bradbury seems to imagine that technological advances can be carried out in the absence of knowledge gained from print.

It is easy to see why the book was warmly received when it was published in 1953. The prosperity of post-war America created a mass culture of vast complacency which valued conformity and blandness. The edginess which Bradbury’s beloved science fiction, horror, and fantasy featured was suspect. There were plenty of voices raised in protest, celebrating nonconformity, individualism, and creativity; and a large number of these voices belonged to science fiction writers.

The book probably continued to appeal to readers for the same reason that a great deal of science fiction has always appealed to certain readers. It portrays as heroes those who disdain sports, who like to read— in short, unathletic nerds like Bradbury—like me and my friends—who were swallowing science fiction in huge gulps in the 1950s. The masses are stupid, brutish, uncaring. Anybody who loves books is likely to be cheered by a tale in which depicts writers not only as the “unacknowledged legislators of the world,” as Shelley had called them, but as the keepers of the flame of civilization itself. Most people enjoy a story in which the underdog comes out on top. Imagine: Napoleon Dynamite saves the world!

One of the most striking characteristics of the novel to be frequently overlooked is its setting in an era of recurrent atomic war. In 1950, when Bradbury was writing, the Russians had just the previous year exploded their first atomic bomb, making real the nuclear arms race that had only been fantasized before. The first thermonuclear weapon was not to be tested for another year, though Bradbury depicts a society which has already weathered two atomic wars. As in Orwell’s novel, there are suggestions that this state of war is designed to preserve the supremacy of the tyrannical regime which governs this dystopia. A final apocalyptic nuclear exchange at the end of the novel marks its fall, but it is so briefly and distantly described that most readers entirely forget about it, as they forget about the much more vividly depicted annihilation of Earth by nuclear war in The Martian Chronicles.

Both of these are instances of what I like to call “muscular  disarmament,” in which one final cataclysmic war is depicted as preparing the way for an era of peace and enlightenment. One of the earliest examples was H. G. Wells’ 1914 novel The World Set Free in which—as the title suggests—atomic weapons clear the ground for the emergence of a utopia. Bradbury doesn’t go that far, but clearly the holocaust at the end of the novel is meant to be more cheering than horrifying. We are also expected to sympathize with Montag’s murder of Beatty with the flamethrower, just as we had been encouraged to be amused by  the grisly deaths of the censors in “Usher II.” Stories like these are the intellectual’s equivalent of gory computer games in which players can take out their frustrations on imaginary foes by blasting them to bits. When we think about the essential image of Bradbury we remember the scenes he evokes of sitting on the porch sipping lemonade and listening to the hum of cicadas and forget the fictional mayhem he sometimes inflicts on the people he disdains.

It is also easy to see why Fahrenheit 451 would seem especially timely today. Thanks to the Patriot Act, government agents secretly track the reading habits of citizens based on the books they borrow from libraries. Web technology makes it possible to go even further, and determine what sites people are browsing. It is not uncommon to hear of the electronic trails left by Web browsers being introduced as evidence in trials.

We have robot dogs and execution by lethal injection, though we have not yet combined the two. But we identify criminals by their unique DNA signatures much as the Hound of the novel identifies them by their unique smell.

Reading, particularly of fiction, has continued to decline in popularity. In Bradbury’s day there were dozens of popular general-audience magazines read by a broad public, and most of them published fiction. Bradbury himself published stories in Collier’s, The Nation, Maclean’s, Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, and The Saturday Evening Post. Now fiction is rare in mass magazines, and there is little of it.

Despite the vast success of isolated titles like the The Da Vinci Code and the Harry Potter books, Americans read very few books once they leave college, and those are largely confined to sensational memoirs, diet books, and books about business and religion.  The “reality” shows which draw a mass audience today are the equivalent of the mesmerizing serials in the novel.

Of course the notion that before the age of television people sat around chatting and enjoying each other’s company is a fantasy. I grew up in the waning days of radio’s “golden age,” when families sat in their living rooms transfixed by the same sorts of tales of horror and crime and family situation comedies that would later be televised. And before that most of what people read was junk. The culling process that operates over time glamorizes the writing of the past, isolating the few authors we can still enjoy.

Modern anti-depressants are often more effective than the tranquilizers taken by Montag’s wife, but her zombie-like state is all too familiar. Depression is so common and widely discussed today that she no longer seems as bizarre as Bradbury probably intended her to be.

American popular culture has always been profoundly anti-elitist and anti-intellectual, and that has not changed. A president who tells us students must be held to higher standards himself makes no effort to exemplify intellectual curiosity or profundity. Rather a folksy, unthreatening populism is celebrated by almost all modern politicians. John Kennedy could never be elected today—he’d be viewed as an intellectual snob. The slogan is “no child left behind”—not “encourage exceptional brilliance.”

All these are reasons that Bradbury’s novel resonates with contemporary readers. However, it is worth noting the ways in which our world differs from that of Fahrenheit 451.

We have our big-screen TVs, some of them approaching wall size; but increasingly we refuse to be passive recipients of what the networks want to hand out. We Tivo our favorite shows and skip past the commercials, infuriating the sponsors. DVD technology lets us view the films we want when we want. The mass quality of mass communications is eroding, and the television network executives and advertisers are growing frantic as they see the impending end of an era. Television viewing, though still consuming a huge amount of our leisure time, is actually declining as people spend more time playing video games or using the Web. The Internet is notoriously the greatest innovation that science fiction failed to anticipate, and it is far more anarchic, individualized, and unregulated than the mass media which preceded it and which shaped the nightmares of earlier dystopian writers.

The Internet has also helped to reverse in some measure the decline in reading. The classics Bradbury cites as endangered in his novel are all available for reading or downloading via the Web—though the foreign ones are usually available only in dated public-domain translations. On the Web the classics are more accessible than contemporary fiction and poetry, which remain locked in limited-circulation books and magazines.

The “seashells” that people insert in their ears today are earbuds through which people listen to highly individualized playlists of songs on their iPods, and they can even listen to an audio study guide for The Martian Chronicles, though the novel itself doesn’t seem to be available yet for downloading from the iTunes Store.

We now see a generation of young people who have grown up text-messaging, blogging, and creating Web sites online for whom reading and writing are constant, natural activities. Much of the prose they generate and read is appalling by traditional standards, but it is not just the passive consumption of images that Bradbury envisioned. Increasingly I encounter students entering college who think of themselves as both readers and writers, and who are interested in using these skills in the workplace. The number of English majors at Washington State University has climbed in the last three years from 200 to 230 to 282, with no signs of the rate of increase diminishing.

E-books have been slow to catch on. The paper and hardbound book is not yet in danger of extinction. Ironically, fat “airport novels” and huge science fiction and fantasy trilogies are more popular than the comic books Bradbury deplored, which in 1950 filled racks in stores all over town and now have to be sought out in specialty shops. Magazines have narrowed in focus, but they have proliferated wildly.

Attempts to censor fiction, like the fundamentalist attacks on the Harry Potter books, are largely doomed to failure—are greeted with contempt or indifference. And the much-criticized Federal government has granted a large sum to Seattle to support the study of a book that criticizes government opposition to the freedom to read. It reminds one of the Athenians paying Aristophanes for creating plays which fiercely attacked their foreign policy.

The problem with dystopias and other cautionary forms is that their exaggeration can cause us to become complacent because things just aren’t as bad as the novels predicted. But so long as we read them thoughtfully, understanding that they are meant to point us toward problems rather than accurately foretelling the future, they can still inspire us to work for a world which, if not utopian, is a lot better than our worst nightmares.

 

Afterthoughts

During my time in Enterprise I developed the following thoughts in discussion with the folks there, which may be useful things to think about.

1)    Some people feel just fine about being secretly spied on by the government, arguing that they have nothing to feel guilty for. This assumes the government is always trustworthy. Note that 2^nd amendment defenders insist they need their weapons in case the government becomes tyrannical. One would think that 1^st amendment rights would need even more vigilant protection from government abuse, especially since there are well-documented examples of government records being abused for political purposes by officials.

 

2)    Bradbury is notoriously weak at depicting women. One way to view his fiction is to think of the usual gender relations being replaced by the relations between macho, brutal stupid males and sensitive, intelligent males.

 

3)    The novel is least likely to appeal to insecure teenagers who are anxious to conform to their peers’ tastes and expectations. Its defense of learning and peculiar tastes is not calculated to appeal to the average high school student; and its lack of surface appeal is not likely to draw such readers in.

 

List of Books and Stories Referred To

This is not a formal bibliography but a guide to tracking down titles mentioned above, other than Fahrenheit 451, which it is assumed the reader already has. Inexpensive paperback editions have been preferred.

Paul Brians

September 24, 2007

Atwood. Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985. Anchor.

Bradbury, Ray: Dandelion Wine, 1957. Spectra.

___: “The Fireman,” Galaxy Science Fiction Vol. 1, No. 5 (Feb. 1951). Reprinted in Science Fiction Origins, ed. William F. Nolan & Martin H. Greenburg. Popular Library, 1980.

___: The Martian Chronicles,  1950. Spectra.

___: The October Country. 1955, Del Rey.

Charnas, Suzy McKee. Walk to the End of the World, Out of print but readily available used. Berkley.

Dick, Philip K. Time Out of Joint, 1959, Vintage.

Galouye, Daniel F. Simulacron-3, 1964. J’ai lu.

Harrison, Harry: Make Room, Make Room, 1967. Out of print. Spectra, 1994.

Heinlein, Robert A. “If This Goes On…”, 1940. Reprinted in The Past Through Tomorrow, Ace.

Huxley, Aldous. First published 1932. Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

More, Thomas. Utopia. First published in Latin in 1516. Translated by Paul Turner in 1965. Penguin.

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949. Though Orwell always spelled the title out many editions read 1984 on the cover, and that’s how you’ll have to shop for it. Signet Classics.

Plato: Republic. There are several good translations of this ancient Greek classic, including the one used in the very cheap Dover Thrift Edition by G.M.A Grube, revised by CDC Reeve. The old Benjamin Jowett translation, freely available on the Web, is still quite readable.

Pohl, Frederik. “Tunnel Under the World,” Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1955.  Often reprinted, notably in The Best of Frederik Pohl, out of print but readily available used, Ballantine.

Russ, Joanna. The Female Man, 1978. Beacon Press.

Simak, Clifford D. City, 1952, Ace (out of print edition, but still readily available used).

Von Harbou, Thea: Metropolis. The novel version of her screenplay for Fritz Lang’s movie by the same name. First published in German 1926. Translated anonymously in 1927 and available currently from Wildside Press.

Wells, H. G. The World Set Free, Macmillan, 1914. .

Zamyatin, Evgeny: We. Written 1920, published in English 1924, Czech, and in the original Russian (My), 1952. Modern editions translated by Mirra Ginsburg, 1972 and Clarence Brown, 1993.

 

List of Films

Brazil, dir. Terry Gilliam, 1985. Criterion.

Escape from New York, dir. John Carpenter, 1981. MGM.

Fahrenheit 451, dir. François Truffaut, 1966. MCA Home Video.

Mad Max, dir. 1979. MGM.

Metropolis, dir. Fritz Lang, 1927. The only version to get is “The Complete Metropolis,” Kino International, 2010.

Soylent Green, dir. Richard Fleischer, 1973. Warner Home Video.

Thirteenth Floor, The, dir. Josef Rusnak, 1999. Sony Pictures.

More Science Fiction Study Guides

• H. G. Wells: War of the Worlds
• Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles
• Walter M. Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Stanislaw Lem: Solaris
• Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed
• Philip K. Dick: Blade Runner
• Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale
• William Gibson: Neuromancer
• Selected Stories from The Norton Book of Science Fiction