Description
Book Synopsis Charles Fort was an American researcher from the early twentieth century who cataloged reports of unexplained phenomena he found in newspapers and science journals. A minor bestseller with a cult appeal, Fort''s work was posthumously republished in the pulp science fiction magazine Astounding Stories in 1934. His idiosyncratic books fascinated, scared, and entertained readers, many of them authors and editors of science fiction. Fort''s work prophesied the paranormal mainstays of SF literature to come: UFOs, poltergeists, strange disappearances, cryptids, ancient mysteries, unexplained natural phenomena, and everything in between. Science fiction authors latched on to Fort''s topics and hypotheses as perfect fodder for SF stories. Writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, H.P. Lovecraft, and others are examined in this exploration of Fortean science fiction--a genre that borrows from the reports and ideas of Fort and others who saw the possible scienc
Table of Contents
Key Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: The Damned Facts
1. A Fortean Emergence: The Early SF/Forteana Relationship
2. Defining Maybe-fiction
3. Lo! Forteana! Early Fortean SF Authors
4. Fort's Further Pulpy History: The Editors and the Historians
5. Continuation of Cosmic Dread: A Fortean Analysis of Arthur C. Clarke
6. Forteana and Religious Experience: A Fortean Analysis of Philip K. Dick
7. A Hard-Headed, Commonsensical Fortean: A Fortean Analysis of Robert A. Heinlein
8. Conspiracy and Forteana: A Fortean Analysis of Robert Anton Wilson
9. A Procession of the Damned: Fortean Footnotes
10. Afterthoughts
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
