Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies, 53) - Hardcover

Shippey, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781382611 ISBN 13: 9781781382615

Publisher: Liverpool University Press, 2016

Synopsis

The fifteen essays collected in Hard Reading argue, first, that science fiction has its own internal rhetoric, relying on devices such as neologism, dialogism, semantic shifts, the use of unreliable narrators. It is a "high-information" genre which does not follow the Flaubertian ideal of le mot juste, "the right word", preferring le mot imprévisible, "the unpredictable word". Both ideals shun the facilior lectio, the "easy reading", but for different reasons and with different effects. The essays argue further that science fiction derives much of its energy from engagement with vital intellectual issues in the "soft sciences", especially history, anthropology, the study of different cultures, with a strong bearing on politics. Both the rhetoric and the issues deserve to be taken much more seriously than they have been in academia, and in the wider world. Each essay is further prefaced by an autobiographical introduction. These explain how the essays came to be written and in what ways they (often) proved controversial. They, and the autobiographical introduction to the whole book, create between them a memoir of what it was like to be a committed fan, from teenage years, and also an academic struggling to find a place, at a time when a declared interest in science fiction and fantasy was the kiss of death for a career in the humanities.

About this title

About the Author

Tom Shippey is Professor Emeritus at Saint Louis University and has published widely, especially on J. R. R. Tolkien. He was special academic advisor to director Peter Jackson for the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit films.

Review

This is an engaging and thought-provoking (or debate-provoking) selection of work. Jack Fennell, Fantastika In Hard Reading, Shippey discusses a wide-ranging variety of authors whose work has a clearly unacknowledged Wellsian streak. As a collection of essays written over a period of the past fifty years or so, Shippey's book demonstrates an increasing density and intricacy of academic style and approaches practised in SF studies. Oksana Blashkiv, The Wellsian: The Journal of the H.G. Wells Society Those unfamiliar with Shippey's work in this area are in for a treat. Edward James, Foundation

Edition details

• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1781382611
• ISBN 13: 9781781382615
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 351