Political Science Fiction - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1570038473 ISBN 13: 9781570038471

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, 1997

Synopsis

Political Science Fiction examines the close relationship between politics and science fiction and shows how much of the former is grounded in the latter. Sixteen science fiction writers and critics join forces to offer an anthology that explores a diversity of futuristic literature, from the novels of H. G. Wells to Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a spectrum of ideas, from the libertarianism of Robert A. Heinlein to the feminism of Ursula K. LeGuin and Sheri S. Tepper. As Frederik Pohl observes in the lead essay, the contributors collectively find science fiction to be either implicitly or explicitly political by its very nature.

Equally divided between essays that analyze science fiction texts as literature and essays that discuss them as models of political science theory and practice, the collection reveals the propensity of fiction writers to center their works on particular governmental structures. Many of the essays explore the frequent portrayal of the U.S. government's response to a catastrophe or an intergalactic issue. Others reveal the ways in which science fiction speaks to the study of international relations, such as the support for realist ideology found in the enormous genre of interspecies war novels and stories.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

An exploration into the provocative politics of futuristic fiction

About the Author:

Donald M. Hassler is a professor of English at Kent State University and the author of books on Erasmus Darwin, Isaac Asimov, Hal Clement, Arthur Machen, and others. He is coeditor with Clyde Wilcox of New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1570038473
• ISBN 13: 9781570038471
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Hassler Donald M., Wilcox Clyde