Science Fiction (The New Critical Idiom)

Author - Adam Roberts ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Routledge was reviewed on 4-Nov-2008.

Search ISBN:0415192056 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Science Fiction (The New Critical Idiom) Reference Book. Classifications : History & Criticism Movies Entertainment Subjects Books General British World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General AAS British World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Co . Click the following link to view the cover of Science Fiction (The New Critical Idiom).

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1) Paperback Book Science Fiction (The New Critical Idiom) by Routledge. Science Fiction. The title says it all. The author, Adam Roberts has written a book which contains his interpretaton of one of the most popular genres in literature. This highly intellectual study covers a wide range of the science fiction experience, encompassing definition, gender and race issues in sci fi, as well as the author´s arcane exploration of the relationship between metaphor and science fiction. Where Adams is strongest in his study is when he offers a definition of science fiction. The wording he uses is simple and direct. He provides examples that enable the reader unfamliar with the genre to comprehend how the dividing line of science demarcates science fiction from other fantastical literature or tales. As he explains when he compares Kafka´s Metamorphosis to a sci fi story called The Jonah Kit. Both stories are about extraoridinary circumstances. In the former, a man transforms into a bug, the latter, human conciousness is infused into a whale. Kafka´s piece provides no explanation of the man´s transformation, managing in a masterful way to focus on the consequences of his change on those around him.
For the Jonah Kit, science is at the heart of the story. A scientific explanation for why a whale has a human consciousness is the essence that makes this story science fiction. As Roberts points out, science fiction presents stories where the fantastic is given a scientific basis, where that which is a scientific/technological concept today is extrapolated and fleshed out in the pages of fiction. The author explores the history of science fiction, where, instead of settling on one timeframe for the genre´s origins, he offers three periods out of which sprouted science fiction´s ongoing preoccupation with science based tales. He goes as far back as Johann Kepler, 1571-1630, an astronomer who wrote one sci fi book, which seems to have reflected the known science of the day. Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein is another work the author rightly recognizes. In the sci fi and gender chapter, Adams studies the role of women in science fiction as characters and authors. From being marginal players in both arenas, Adams presents a picture of women emerging at the forefront to add their own perspective to a mix where the main ingredient has been, and remains white and male.
The author´s weakness, however, is more than apparent when he fashions his presumptions into facts. When he discusses science fiction and race, for instance, Adams is convinced that the aliens in the ´Alien´ and ´Predator´ movies are metaphors for blackness. He goes so far as to describe the malignant creature in the first ´Alien´ movie as "an expression of white middle class fear at the potential for distrust of an alienated black urban underclass." As a black male, I can easily invert this metaphor, proclaming the alien to represent the scourge of racism and the black man´s heroic struggle to stave of the worst of its effects. Roberts´ take on the movie Predator stretches metaphor further into an area that is unconvincing. Granted, the alien in Predator, with its seeming dreadlocks appears to suggest blackness-an appearance which may very well have been coincidental. I found it odd that Roberts dismisses Danny Glover´s casting in the second movie with the assertion that his character´s struggle against an extraterrestrial nemesis reflected the realty of black-on-black violence. Again, a simple inversion could cast Danny Glover´s character as symbolic of the black man´s daily struggle against the specter of white supremacy as represented by the towering Predator. The previous examples prove that ideology and bias can often lead one to interpret whatever one wishes to interpret from a text, a movie or television. In Roberts´ case, his interprepations are so embued with a tone of certitude that he does not even pause to consider a varying view. He is complimentary of the way Geordi Laforge, a black character, is portrayed in Star Trek: The Next Generation. And rightly so, the Laforge character is very smart and certainly occupies the central, not marginal role that the black female character, Uhura occupied in the original Star Trek. On the other hand, those of a far more critical bent could disparage the Laforge character as being an unthreatening, desexualized black male. That is not my view, but it would have been instructive if Roberts had offered a varying view on that character. His failure to comment on Deep Space Nine and its black commander/captain is inexcusable.
A strain of contradiction appears in the author´s work when he jabs E.E. Doc Smith´s Lensmen series for its lack of analysis, because the villians of this expansive tale desire power. Yet he heaps praise on Star Wars, whose villains are no less amitious in their drive to rule the galaxy. While Adams exibits iron-clad certainty that most if not all aliens are coded representations of black people, he is not so amitious when referring to the villianess Borg in Star Trek as coded representations of AIDs. He cites someone else as making that claim. overall, Adam Roberts´ Science Fiction is an interesting read. Not so interestng, however, as to escape the flaws of questionable anaylsis, over-philosophising and a few glaring contradictions.¤

2) Paperback Book Science Fiction (The New Critical Idiom) by Routledge. Many of the arguments upon which Adam Roberts bases his ideas are specious and undeveloped. More often than not, they are also tenuous, tedious and even ridiculous.

Even as he is conceited enough to describe other author´s work as ´clumsy´ or ´bathos´, with an ´over written excess of bad impressionistic poetry´, his own work fails to reach the same heights of which he is so readily critical. Many of his his references are to late 20th century film and novels from the 1990s -a period of science fiction which, although popular, is hardly formulative nor representative of the genre. His criticism is trite and silly. The film ´Lost in Space´ he argues, has a hidden ´racial´ agenda. The difference of the alien world presented in this film has been reduced to a racial stereotype where the black man represents evil and the ´Aryan family unit´ is a force for good. It is quite tiresome. He has also unaware, it seems, that this film is garbage and no one really cares what it says about anything.

Science fiction is predicated on a longing for past, he declares. According to Roberts it is less about ´prediction´ than it is ´nostalgia´. There is something to be said for this angle. Roberts, however, doesn´t say it. He refers rather to re-runs of ´Star Trek´, which by their obviously crude effects, and ´unmistakably quaint 60s fashion...constantly remind us that we are looking backwards, not forwards´. This puerile arguement doesn´t even stop to consider than at its time of production it was way ´out there´ in an imagined future.

The text is filled with equally uniformed and uninformative ´insights´. Roberts tries to define the genre early in this book. It is indicative of the problems to come later that he fails to manage even this.

Roberts is uniformly pretentious. One particularly revealing moment is when he pauses, using brackets, to deride the literary quality of Frank Herbert´s ´Dune´. Referring to Herbert´s word choice, ´"Cavort" is an especially ugly touch´, he snottily remarks. His cliched criticism is present here too. ´Dune´, he contends, is notable for its racial, sexual and physical prejudice and its ´crude´ and ´lumpish´ battle bewteen good and evil. The sand-worms are ´phallic symbols´ indicative of the novel´s concern with ´power and the institutions of masculinity´. Blah, blah, blah...Post-Modern buzz words that stupid people use to sound intelligent. They struck me, too, as remarkably dated.

It is always interesting to look at the history of the genre. Roberts´ chapter on this is no exception. Unfortunately its power is in its absurdity. According to Roberts, the roots of Science Fiction can be found in Milton´s ´Paradise Lost´. Satan, he states, ´is the original bug-eyed monster´. This is really just silly. His comments on Well´s ´War of the Worlds´ are equally uninspired. His ideas reek of undergraduate misappropriation.

References to TV and film seem to dominate and one is left with the impression, ultimately, that Roberts´ knowledge and experience with the genre is limited to his exposure to pulp and the television screen.

The Amazon editorial suggests it is a good work for undergrads. Perhaps so...it seems written by one. just be prepared to suspend belief, because the ideas here are often no less ´imaginative´, albeit less inspired, than the genre of Sci-Fi itself.¤

3) Paperback Book Science Fiction (The New Critical Idiom) by Routledge.

Science fiction is one of the most vigorous and exciting areas of modern culture - from ground breaking novels of ideas, to blockbusters on the cinema screen. In Science Fiction, Adam Roberts offers a clear and engaging account of the phenomenon, illustrating the critical terminology and following the contours of its ongoing history. You will find that this book:

*provides a concise history of science fiction, and explores the key concepts in SF criticism and theory
*focuses particularly on the impact that postmodernism and technological advances have had on the subject
*examines the interactions between science fiction and science fact - with events such as the moon landings, the Challenger disaster, and the film Apollo 13
*concentrates on SF in book or short-story form as well as SF on screen
*discusses in detail the categories of "the Alien," "Technology," and "the Future," looking at Cyberpunk, New Wave, and Alternative Science Fictions, as well as the mainstream

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 2-Dec-2008, 04151920569780415192057, 480-560-170-350-970-850-8

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