The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction

By: Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr.

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Synopsis: This major critical work from one of the preeminent voices in science fiction scholarship reframes the genre as a way of understanding today’s world.As the application of technoscience increasingly transforms every aspect of life, science fiction has become an essential mode of imagining the horizons of possibility. Though the broad scope of science fiction may vary in artistic quality and sophistication, it shares a desire to imagine a collective future for the human species and the world. A strikingly high proportion of today’s films, commercial art, popular music, video games, and non-genre fiction are what Csicsery-Ronay calls “science fictional” —stimulating science-fictional habits of mind. We no longer treat science fiction as merely a genre-engine producing formulaic effects, but as a mode of awareness, which frames experiences as if they were aspects of science fiction. The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction describes science fiction as a constellation of seven diverse cognitive attractions that are particularly formative of science-fictionality. These are the “seven beauties” of the title: fictive neology, fictive novums, future history, imaginary science, the science-fictional sublime, the science-fictional grotesque, and the Technologiade, or the epic of technoscience’s development into a global regime.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 336 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9780819571526
Related ISBNs:: 9780819568892
Publisher:: Wesleyan University Press
Date of Addition:: 01/27/25
Copyrighted By:: Wesleyan University Press
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Literature and Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Language Arts
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.