Books by Damien Broderick

Science fiction explores the wonderful, baffling and wildly entertaining aspects of a universe unimaginably old and vast, and with a future even more immense. It reaches into that endless cosmos with the tools of rational investigation and storytelling. At the core of both science and science fiction is the engaged human mind--a consciousness that sees and feels and thinks and loves. But what is this mind, this aware and self-aware consciousness that seems unlike anything else we experience? What makes consciousness the Hard Problem of philosophy, still unsolved after millennia of probing? This book looks into the heart of this mystery - at the science and philosophy of consciousness and at many inspiring fictional examples - and finds strange, challenging answers.The book's content and entertaining style will appeal equally to science fiction enthusiasts and scholars, including cognitive and neuroscientists, as well as philosophers of mind. It is a refreshing romp through the science and science fiction of consciousness.

Until now, no scholarly study has dealt specifically with the abrupt shift of emphasis away from space travel, atomic weapons, robots, and other once-imaginary technologies, and into the realm of the paranormal treated as science. Damien Broderick surveys this long-ignored terrain, reading a series of influential or characteristic psience fiction novels and short stories, from the 1930s to now.

"Science Fantasy" blends science fiction AND fantasy, so it tends to be bolder and more highly colored than pure science fiction. In the middle of the last century, the British magazine SCIENCE FANTASY created its own distinctive strains of fantasy narrative, most famously by such writers as Brian W. Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, John Brunner, Michael Moorcock, and Thomas Burnett Swann, among others. This book looks closely at the whole trajectory of that lost magazine, from its birth in 1950 through 1967, when it was briefly called (SF) Impulse. John Boston provides a brilliantly insightful and often every funny account of the rise, evolution, and final fall of SCIENCE FANTASY, its writers, and its quirky editors. Boston is joined by writer and critic Damien Broderick, adding his own waspish and nostalgic comments. This volume, the first of three dealing with the history and development of the major British SF magazines, is a compelling night journey into the past, where the future took a turn down paths not often explored. It's a trip not to be missed.

Damien Broderick `has had a major impact as an Australian SF writer since 1964. He is undoubtedly the leading Australian theorist of the SF genre' (Russell Blackford, Van Ikin, Sean McMullen, Strange Constellations). Now, Broderick draws upon his skills as both critic and novelist to analyze science fiction of the last two decades, and its earlier roots. The book proposes sf as a distinctive form of writing, the extreme narrative of difference, then closely reads authors such as John Barnes, Jamil Nasir, Wil McCarthy, Robert Grossbach and Poul Anderson. While concentrating on exciting work published in the USA and Britain, Broderick does not neglect his own country's contributions, discussing sf by George Turner and other Australians. His critical voice is wry, entertaining and occasionally scathing.

Damien Broderick `has had a major impact as an Australian SF writer since 1964. He is undoubtedly the leading Australian theorist of the SF genre' (Russell Blackford, Van Ikin, Sean McMullen, Strange Constellations). Now, Broderick draws upon his skills as both critic and novelist to analyze science fiction of the last two decades, and its earlier roots. The book proposes sf as a distinctive form of writing, the extreme narrative of difference, then closely reads authors such as John Barnes, Jamil Nasir, Wil McCarthy, Robert Grossbach and Poul Anderson. While concentrating on exciting work published in the USA and Britain, Broderick does not neglect his own country's contributions, discussing sf by George Turner and other Australians. His critical voice is wry, entertaining and occasionally scathing.

Two centuries ago, the first Enlightenment failed when its dream of reason smashed into the passions and fury of stubborn humans. Without a deep, broad understanding of the world, the emerging Enlightenment was left floundering, its best impulses perverted into the bloody excess of the French Revolution. Arguably, its idealism and noble goals led directly, and shockingly, to the 20th century's totalitarian nightmares.Now the 21st century is learning anew the Faustian hunger to know everything that can be known. But Enlightenment values of reason and tolerance, enriched by new knowledge, face a complex world no less eager to embrace medieval terrorism and ancient superstitions, a world bizarrely denying itself many of the fresh opportunities amd insights availed by science. Can we find cures for poverty, unhappiness, ignorance, the ruination of the planet, aging, and perhaps for death itself? If so, should we? Damien Broderick's own ferocious mind invites you to explore today's unexpected treasure-house of understanding-and provides enticing glimpses of tomorrow's.

Transrealist writing treats immediate perceptions in a fantastic way, according to science fiction writer and mathematician Rudy Rucker, who originated the term.

Explores the characteristics in the writing, marketing and reception of science fiction which distinguish it as a genre. This book includes close readings of paradigmatic cyberpunk texts and writings by SF novelists and theorists.