This outstanding volume offers a clear and critically engaged account of the phenomenon of science fiction. Adam Roberts provides a concise history of science fiction also explaining key concepts in SF criticism and theory, in chapters such as Gender, Race and Technology. He examines the interactions between science fiction and science fact, anchoring each chapter with a case study drawn from short story, book or film, from Frank Herbert's Dune to Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black.
Introducing the reader to nineteenth-century, Pulp, Golden Age, New Wave, Feminist and Cyberpunk science fictions, this is the essential guide to a major cultural movement.