Description
Book SynopsisReturning to print for the first time since the 1980s,
Metamorphoses of Science Fiction is the origin point for decades of literary and theoretical criticism of science fiction and related genres. Darko Suvin’s paradigm-setting definition of SF as «the literature of cognitive estrangement» established a robust theory of the genre that continues to spark fierce debate, as well as inspiring myriad intellectual descendants and disciples. Suvin’s centuries-spanning history of the genre links SF to a long tradition of utopian and satirical literatures crying out for a better world than this one, showing how SF and the imagination of utopia are now forever intertwined. In addition to the 1979 text of the book, this edition contains three additional essays from Suvin that update, expand and reconsider the terms of his original intervention, as well as a new introduction and preface that situate the book in the context of the decades of SF studies that have followed in its wake.
Trade Review«Peter Lang has done a great job in bringing this book back into print [...].» (Andrew M. Butler,
Table of ContentsContents: Estrangement and Cognition – SF and the Genological Jungle – Defining the Literary Genre of Utopia: Some Historical Semantics, Some Genology, a Proposal, and a Plea – SF and the Novum – The Alternative Island – The Shift to Anticipation: Radical Rhapsody and Romantic Recoil – Liberalism Mutes the Anticipation: The Space-Binding Machines – Anticipating the Sunburst: Dream, Vision – or Nightmare? – Wells as the Turning Point of the SF Tradition –
The Time Machine versus
Utopia as Structural Models for SF – Russian SF and Its Utopian Tradition – Karel Čapek, or the Aliens Amongst Us – Science Fiction, Metaphor, Parable, and Chronotope (with the Bad Conscience of Reaganism) – Considering the Sense of «Fantasy» or «Fantastic Fiction»: An Effusion* – Circumstances and Stances: A Retrospect.
