Science Fiction

Cultural History of Literature (Politiy)

by Roger Luckhurst

In this new and timely cultural history of science fiction, Roger Luckhurst examines the genre from its origins in the late nineteenth century to its latest manifestations. The book introduces and explicates major works of science fiction literature by placing them in a series of contexts, using the history of science and technology, political and economic history, and cultural theory to develop the means for understanding the unique qualities of the genre. Luckhurst reads science fiction as a literature of modernity. His astute analysis examines how the genre provides a constantly modulating record of how human embodiment is transformed by scientific and technological change and how the very sense of self is imaginatively recomposed in popular fictions that range from utopian possibility to Gothic terror. This highly readable study charts the overlapping yet distinct histories of British and American science fiction, with commentary on the central authors, magazines, movements and texts from 1880 to the present day. It will be an invaluable guide and resource for all students taking courses on science fiction, technoculture and popular literature, but will equally be fascinating for anyone who has ever enjoyed a science fiction book.

Genres: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction

305 pages, Paperback

First published May 13, 2005

About the author

Roger Luckhurst is a British writer and academic. He is Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature in the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London and was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Columbia University in 2016. He works on Victorian literature, contemporary literature, Gothic and weird fiction, trauma studies, and speculative/science fiction.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

good overview

[Chris Cannell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. Bit dense academically at points but interesting and useful to contextualise different eras of SF. Feel like I understand my perceptions and opinions of certain books now.

Interesting points:
> Canon begins with Wells. Potentially earlier SF books of exotic travel and technological fantasy like Frankenstein, Utopia, Gullivers Travels.
> Wells established SF themes of separate from the literary mainstream
> American Edison Engineer Paradigm, early 20thC
> Darko Suvin Cognitive Estrangement
>Campbell ASF, atomic science and cultural critique, nuclear anxiety. With Engineer hero.
>Post war English Fantasy Writing and disaster narrative. Reaction to American Modernity.
>60s. British New Wave. New Worlds magazine. Redefine SF from muscular outer space imperial adventures to inner space. Moorcock and the Jerry Cornelius adventures.
>70s. Feminist SF. Joanna Russ. Doris Lessing. Angela Carter. Le Guin. Tiptree.
>80s. Cyberpunk. SF analysis technological ontological transformation of the body. Postmodernism. Splatterpunk.
>90s. The New Space Opera. Iain Banks. Hyperion. Macleod.

[Gary Reger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roger Luckhurst's Science Fiction reads the history of SF from the viewpoint of its relation to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cultural history. This angle makes it not only unusual in the many studies of SF, but rich and thought-provoking. Luckhurst is especially interested in the links between SF and the literary and technological Modernism that began at the start of his periodization (or rather, actually, before). He demonstrates the intertwining of the two, convincingly arguing that SF is a manifestation and a driver of Modernism--thus taking a genre often disdained and ignored by literary critics and placing it in the center of the most important cultural movement of the last century. A must-read for anyone who wants a better understanding of the emergence, trajectory, and cultural significance of SF. Perhaps the only absence is any extended, or even brief, look at SF outside of the US and UK. Europe and Australia indeed have much to contribute.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really rather good outline of the history of SF. I particularly like it for its takedown of Suvin in the intro (which seems to be a Luckhurst calling card, as he does a similar thing in The Angle Between Two Walls). My only real gripe is it - necessarily - ends its chronology where it does. SF has undergone some really interesting changes already in the 21st century, and it would be nice to see them laid out in a similar way to that of the 20th century. Second edition?

I wish it'd been available when I started work on SF back in 2001. Would have saved me a lot of time as it's a wonderful introduction to both the field from an academic perspective and the vast majority of the important creative output.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really exceptional examination of science fiction as "response to technological embodiment in late modernity along a spectrum of responses, and in a variety of modes." Luckhurst proceeds from the birth of the genre in the 1880s through a chapter each on British and American sf before WWII, and then decade studies for the post-war era that do a great job of tracing the relationship between SF and the world producing it.

I can't recommend this highly enough for anyone interested in the field.