Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction

by Damien Broderick

Reading by Starlight explores the characteristics in the writing, marketing and reception of science fiction which distinguish it as a genre.
Damien Broderick explores the postmodern self-referentiality of the sci-fi narrative, its intricate coded language and discursive `encyclopaedia'. He shows how, for perfect understanding, sci-fi readers must learn the codes of these imaginary worlds and vocabularies, all the time picking up references to texts by other writers.
Reading by Starlight includes close readings of paradigmatic cyberpunk texts and writings by SF novelists and theorists including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Aldiss, Patrick Parrinder, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Varley, Roger Zelazny, William Gibson, Fredric Jameson and Samuel R. Delany.

Genres: Nonfiction, Criticism, Literary Criticism, Writing

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Damien Francis Broderick was an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credits him with the first usage of the term "virtual reality" in science-fiction, in his 1982 novel The Judas Mandala.

Reviews

[Alexander Popov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not as groundbreaking or original as Delany's theoretical writings, but perhaps just as erudite and expansive. Bringing together various critical-theoretical strands of thought and providing numerous valuable readings of particular SF works, it is indispensable for the seriously interested in the theory of SF. Also a must for Delany devotees.

[Gary Reger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This challenging, highly theoretical, and densely written book falls into two parts. The first seven chapters (pp. 3-100) consider theories and definitions of SF. Despite some reservations, Broderick largely accepts the view argued by Dark Suvin in his 1975 Metamorphoses of Science Fiction that this body of literature is characterized by a cognitive estrangement and the presence of a novum. The former describes SF's sense that it does not take place in our naturalistic world, unlike "realistic" literature (as, say, Joyce's books take place in the real Dublin) but that it can be grasped cognitively, unlike fantasy, which typically employs illogical features like magic. The novum (Latin for "new thing") is simply the world of the SF story that is new--a moon of Saturn, or an interstellar space ship.

Broderick also argues in this first section against seeing SF as a genre; he prefers to call it a "mode," which is a narrative form that relies on metaphor. Individual works of SF in this view reside in a "mega-text," which is the set of "mutually imbricated sf texts" written over more than 50 years and which "works by embedding each new work" (p. 59). Readers must access to be able to understand a given text. This would seem to differ from a genre in that a genre is defined by a set of rules by which each new work must abide, whereas the mode of SF permits of indefinite variation and newness which the mega-text takes in.

The second part of the book (pp. 103-152) is devoted almost entirely to an explication of the intertwined theory and practice of the SF writer Samuel R. Delany. In a series of chapters Broderick explores several of his novels, which he sees as exemplary of a postmodern move in the writing of SF. These chapters are especially dense and sometimes hard to follow if you have not read your Delany.

Anyone who doubts that SF can be taken and analyzed seriously as literature, no less than War and Peace will find plenty to disabuse him/her/them of this misapprehension in Reading by Starlight. But be prepared--it is a hard slog.

[Davorin Horak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Izvrsna Broderickova knjiga o SF-u. Fino strukturirana, lijepo pisana, zanimljiva za one koji nemaju pojima o SF-u podjednako kao i znalcima. Mozda ce biti malo naporna onima koji se ne bacaju naglavacke u teoriju, pogotovo pred kraj kad Broderic razlaze Delanyja, ali prije toga sve je ko vodu piti. Lektira definitivno.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading by Starlight: Modern Science Ficton, a bit of William Gibson, and lots of Samuel Delany

[Sol]

By the author of the "SF Megatext" SFE article