Palgrave Science Fiction and Fantasy: A New Canon

In this comprehensive study of The Stars My Destination, D. Harlan Wilson makes a case for the continued significance of Alfred Bester’s SF masterwork, exploring its distinctive style, influences, intertextuality, affect, and innovation as well as its extensive metafictional properties. In Stars, Bester established himself as a son of the pulp-SF and high-modernist writers that preceded him and a forefather to the New Wave and cyberpunk movements that followed his lead. Wilson’s study depicts Bester as an SF insider as much as an outlier, writing in the spirit of the genre but breaking with the fixation on hard science in favor of psychological interiority, literary experimentation, and adult themes. The book combines close-readings of the novel with broader concerns about contemporary media, technoculture, and the current state of SF itself. In Wilson’s view, SF is a moribund artform, and Stars foresaw the inevitable science fictionalization of our benighted world. With scholarly lucidity and precision, Wilson shows us that Stars pointed the way to what we have (un)become. 

Fantasy author Neil Gaiman’s 1996 novel Neverwhere is not just a marvelous self-contained novel, but a terrifically useful text for introducing students to fantasy as a genre and issues of adaptation. Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock’s briskly written A Critical Companion to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere offers an introduction to the work; situates it in relation to the fantasy genre, with attention in particular to the Hero’s Journey, urban fantasy, word play, social critique, and contemporary fantasy trends; and explores it as a case study in transmedial adaptation. The study ends with an interview with Neil Gaiman that addresses the novel and a bibliography of scholarly works on Gaiman.  

This book assesses the work of one of the foundational figures of American fantasy, Peter S. Beagle. Through its focused analysis of The Last Unicorn, this study contextualises Beagle’s work in relation to the popularity of the fantasy genre, following its growing success in the aftermath of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In addition, through reference to the film adaptation of The Last Unicorn and also Beagle’s other works, this study highlights the author’s longevity and the influence that his metafictional and comedic work has had on contemporary fantasy. 

William Gibson’s Neuromancer: A Critical Companion presents Gibson’s rise as an influential figure within and beyond the science fiction field. Gibson’s success with Neuromancer, the first novel to win the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and Philip K. Dick Award, is in part a direct result of the rising popularity of cyberpunk in the early- to mid-1980s, although it could just as easily be said cyberpunk’s success was in no small part a direct result of Neuromancer’s explosion onto the science fiction scene.

J.G. Ballard's Crash (1973) remains a byword for transgression in literature: declared 'too disgusting for words' upon publication. The basis for David Cronenberg's equally provocative film, Crash has been regarded variously as the apotheosis of New Wave science fiction, the ur-source for postmodernism, a transhumanist manifesto, and a pornographic masterpiece in the tradition of Sade and Bataille. This revisionist account, based on previously unexplored archive material, shatters the myths that have accrued around this tantalising work whilst also revealing why it continues to inspire writers, artists, musicians and filmmakers in the 21st century. The book vividly reconstructs how Ballard came to write Crash, the cultural landscape in which it was written, the effect of its reception, and the toll it took on its author. New perspectives reveal how Crash reworks surrealist anthropology, evolutionary theory, and pornographic imagery in order to expose a society addicted to the abuse of power, the silencing of others, and its own environmental destruction. As Ballard later admitted, he 'must have been mad' to write Crash.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of Keith Roberts's Pavane and explores why this work was instrumental to the evolution of the Science Fiction genre in British Literature. In addition to a focused exploration of the individual stories and themes that make up Pavane, this study also presents a commentary on the mosaic structure of this work, and the impact this has on the book as a whole. Through its discussion of themes such as religion, technology and morality, this text explores how alternate history plots can be used as a commentary or criticism of the current state of society.