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Literature Criticism
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Doris Lessing's series, Canopus in Argos: Archives, grew, according to the author, out of her plan for a single book, Shikasta. This first experiment in science fiction led to the exploration of multiple related themes...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Despite being an assiduous reader of Thomas More, Jonathan Swift, H.G. Wells, and C.S. Lewis, Borges had a natural disdain for SF. His opinion of it is clearly stated in a review, published in the Argentine literary...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)On the 20th anniversary of H.G. Wells's death, Godfrey Smith spoke of him as a substantial figure in our "literate subconscious." Numerous readers, in other words, have encountered Wells's writings either directly or...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Ira Levin's highly accomplished novels of suspense contain elements of science fiction and fantasy, and one, This Perfect Day, is set in the future. His first novel, A Kiss before Dying, the study of a psychopath...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Russel Hoban is a science fiction writer through only one novel, Riddley Walker; but that novel is a masterpiece. Hoban's other novels are essentially fantastic or surreal, even though several are set in contemporary...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Mircea Eliade is better known in the West for his scholarly works and studies in comparative religion, written in French or English and translated all over the world. Unfortunately, his literary work, written in...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Most critical discussions of Arthur C. Clarke's writings rarely look beyond his stories and novels; but to understand his fiction, one must examine how Clarke has thought about future possibilities, because this reveals...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)It's an unfortunate fact that Robert Bloch will probably always be remembered as the man who wrote Psycho—unfortunate not because the novel lacks significance, but because he has written so much other excellent fiction...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Michael Crichton's primary science fiction works are The Andromeda Strain, Binary, The Terminal Man, Sphere: A Novel, and Jurassic Park. Each of these books is set in what is essentially contemporary society, and in each...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)What is Kurt Vonnegut's relationship to SF? It would be misleading to say that he began as a SF writer and later drifted away from the "lodge." Vonnegut never identified with the "lodge," and he has continued to use SF...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Madeleine L'Engle has been publishing successful and provocative science fiction since the mid-1940s, adding intriguing variations to a considerable body of work, and continuously crafting fiction to engage her readers...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Ignatius Donnelly was first and foremost a politician, and his writings reflect that fact. In a long political career he was twice lieutenant governor of Minnesota (with long periods as acting governor), three times U....
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, now a classic of the genre, introduces the reader to hobbits and their culture in Middle-Earth. As the tale develops, we are to meet characters that step into Bilbo's adventure out of folk...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Vladimir Mayakovsky, the futurist poet and playwright, is one of the brightest stars in the great constellation of modern Russian literature. His paradoxical fusion of lyrical tenderness and oratorical violence marks a...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Due to both the merits of his fiction and the pull of circumstance, Philip K. Dick seems likely to achieve literary fame outside the science fiction community. Born in 1928, Dick was a prolific writer of short stories...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Very few people are ambivalent about Harlan Ellison; most either thoroughly like or thoroughly dislike his writing. But he has won many awards for that writing, and not a few of them, such as those from the Writers Guild...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)A writer who constantly challenged himself, Roger Zelazny is difficult to categorize. He successfully wrote both fantasy and "hardcore" science fiction; he created works of both light and serious tone; he was adept at...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)Timothy Zahn started his career primarily as a short story writer for Analog magazine during the early 1980s. Although most of his early stories are reasonably entertaining, they were largely formulaic. His blend of...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)The immensely popular fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin proves that popular literature may have literary merit, a serious message, and a large audience all at once. Today the notion of a science-fiction writer producing a...
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From:St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers (4th ed.)H. Rider Haggard shares the fate of writers like Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Lewis Carroll in that his novels now serve either in children's editions or as grist for Hollywood's mill. But Haggard never meant...