(Download) "Booker, M. Keith, And Anne-Marie Thomas. The Science Fiction Handbook" by Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Booker, M. Keith, And Anne-Marie Thomas. The Science Fiction Handbook
Author : Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
Release Date : January 22, 2011
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
Pages : * pages
Size : 61 KB

Description

Booker, M. Keith, and Anne-Marie Thomas. The Science Fiction Handbook. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. xviii + 348 pp. Paperback. ISBN 9781-4051-6206-7. $29.95. I find it difficult to conceive the scholarly niche this curious little book is designed to fill. It is billed as a "handbook," perhaps the most nebulous term that can be applied to a reference volume, lacking both the scope of an encyclopedia and the analytic rigor of an anatomy--and certainly, if you already own the latest editions of the Clute/Nicholls Encylopedia (2nd ed., 1993) and Neil Barron's Anatomy of Wonder (5th ed., 2004), you don't need this book too. It is closer in spirit to the various sf "Companions" that have appeared in recent years from Cambridge, Blackwell, and Routledge, yet it is considerably thinner in its coverage, frankly "attempting] no overall history of science fiction" but merely offering "overviews of the development of a number of important subgenres" (12), supplemented by brief bio-critical sketches of nineteen major authors and detailed readings of twenty of their books (H. G. Wells getting two). The volume might potentially be useful in an sf course that focused on (some of) these particular themes, authors, and texts, but as a general guide to the genre, it is of rather limited value.