The impetus behind this collection of essays is the tension between science fiction and fantasy writing’s aesthetic emphasis on stylistics and the structural or systemic bias of prevailing literary theory. From a variety of perspectives, the contributors show how a new, or expanded, set of methods and models can enrich critical exchange within the genre and between it and other types of fiction. The focus of the book is not entirely on critical limitations, however, for the context in which the essayists write recognises the genre’s robustly subversive, creative drive - its unwillingness or inability to pause for critical validation. The essays examine the proliferation of stylistic acts and experiments in science fiction and fantasy and assess the genre’s revolutionary qualities: its reordering of narrative priorities, inversion of consecrated categories, and elevation of
minor
devices. The essays were all presented at the 1989 annual J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. They are organised thematically: the nature and function of creation and style; stylistic and grammatical aspects of voice and mood; figures and effects in the rhetoric of style; style and structure; and tropes and aesthetic technique. The contributors, including science fiction writers Gregory Benford, David Brin, and Charles Platt, are drawn not only from the disciplines of English and comparative literature, but also from film studies, French and German studies, history, neurobiology, physics and astrophysics. Reflecting the international focus of the Eaton Conference, the essays report on currents in criticism and writing in Britain and Germany as well as the United States, and discuss such authors as Philip K. Dick, Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin and H.G. Wells.
