Books in the Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy series

What are the greatest, most widely read, most influential, most translated and most adapted children's classics? Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and Carlo Collodi's Le Avventure di Pinocchio are candidates, and through them this book explores what it means to be transnational fantasy icons.

J. R. R. Tolkien is arguably the most influential fantasy writer of all time - his world building and epic mythology have changed western audiences' imaginations and the entire fantasy genre. This book offers the first wide-ranging Christian Platonic reading on Tolkien's fiction.

Uses an own-voices approach to examine the nature, genesis, and history of Arabic and Muslim science fiction, as well as the challenges its authors face. Through personal narratives, these authors share their stories and their struggles with the censors, recalcitrant publishers, critics, the book market, and the literary establishment.

Offers a new perspective on Mary Shelley and on science fiction, arguing that Shelley both established a new discursive space for moral thinking and laid the groundwork for the genre of science fiction.

Explores the relationship between the works of British comic `mavericks' such as Alan Moore and the mainstream comic book style that was dominant at the time - how the British Invasion subverted the norm, but also the many ways in which the movement came to rely on the genius of the American system.

Writers such as 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 Charles Fort and others who saw the possible science-fictional nature of our reality.

Released in May 1977, the original ""Star Wars"" movie inaugurated the age of the movie blockbuster. It also redefined the use of cinematic special effects, creating a new textual universe that now stretches through three decades, two trilogies and generations of fascinated viewers. This book presents an analysis of the ""Star Wars"" trilogies.

Features over a dozen interdisciplinary scholars reading popular texts through critical lenses that range from traditional literary studies, to video game scholarship, to ecocriticism. Challenging the field of popular vampire studies, this book asks the question: What is the vampire in different global contexts, and what does it represent?

Star Trek: The Next Generation blended speculative science fiction and space opera in its portrayal of communication. This book proposes that these patterns of communication reveal a foundational philosophy of Star Trek that informs the series as a whole while also enticing millions of viewers.

This is the first book to bring together the imagination and energy of rock music with its sources in mythology and science fiction. The mythological roots of classic rock music artists from David Bowie, the Jefferson Airplane, and Pink Floyd, to Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Iron Maiden are explored, along with the stories they tell and the critiques of contemporary society that their songs carry.

Concentrating both on studies of Philip K. Dick's writing from recent critical perspectives, and on reassessing his legacy in light of his new status as a "major American author", these essays explore, just what happened culturally and critically to precipitate his extraordinary rise in reputation.

Provides a study of Tolkien's life and influences through an analysis of ""The History of Middle Earth"". This title presents a biography and an analysis of the major influences in Tolkien's early life. It deals with elements common to Tolkien's popular works, including cosmogony, theogony, cosmology, metaphysics, and eschatology of Middle Earth.

This companion to Frank Herbert's six original Dune novels provides an encyclopaedia of characters, locations, terms and other elements, and highlights the series' underrated aesthetic integrity. An extensive introduction covers themes of ecology, chaos theory, concepts and structures, and Joseph Campbell's monomyth in Herbert's narrative.

Interpreted and adapted for more than a century, H.G. Wells' texts have resisted easy categorization and are perennial subjects for emerging critical and theoretical perspectives. The author examines Wells' works through the post-structuralist philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Via this critical perspective, concepts now synonymous with science fiction demonstrate the intrinsic relevance of Wells.

From wondrous fairy-lands to nightmarish hellscapes, the elements that make fantasy worlds come alive also invite their exploration and study. This first book-length study of critically acclaimed novelist Patricia A. McKillip's lyrical other-worlds analyses her characters, environments and legends and their interplay with genre expectations.

A literary genre that pervades 21st-century popular culture, science fiction creates mythologies that make statements about humanity's place in the universe and embody an intersection of science, religion and philosophy. This book considers the significance of this confluence through an examination of myths in the writings of H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert.

Explores the construction of gendered heroic identity from both production and fan perspectives by applying a variety of critical lens (media, fan culture, and queer theory). In addition, fan fiction, criticism, and videos that celebrate and resist BBC SF television heroes and villains are considered.

Spaces, as well as a sense of place or belonging, play major roles in many science fiction works. This book focuses especially on science fiction that includes depictions of the future that include, but move beyond, dystopias and offer us ways to imagine reinventing ourselves and our perspectives; especially our links to and views of new environments.

While Kim Stanley Robinson is best known for his hard science fiction works ""Red Mars"", ""Green Mars"" and ""Blue Mars"", the epic trilogy exploring ecological and sociological themes involved in human settlement of the Red Planet. This book examines Robinson's use of alternate history and politics, both in his many novels and in his short stories.

Explores representations of girlhood and young womanhood in recent English-language children's fantasy by focusing on two fantastic body transformation types: invisibility and age-shifting. Drawing on recent feminist and queer theory, the study discusses the tropes of invisibility and age-shifting as narrative devices representing gendered experiences. The transformations offer various perspectives on a girl's changing body and identity and provide links between real-life and fantastic discourses of gender, power, invisibility and aging.