Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction (Popular Fiction) [Paperback]

Damien Broderick (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415097894 | ISBN-13: 978-0415097895 | Publication Date: December 23, 1994

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. Delaney.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (December 23, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415097894
• ISBN-13: 978-0415097895
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #53 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > History & Criticism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hardly for everyone, but amazing for a few of you, July 26, 2003

By 

Anthony D Ravenscroft (Santa Fe, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction (Popular Fiction) (Paperback)

This is a stuffy, stodgy, & all in all difficult book, a mammoth dissertaion on a confluence of somewhat obscure subjects. That's why I knocked it down a star.

But, basically, it's also a lucid and frighteningly thorough study of what (for lack of a better term) I will call "literarily serious science fiction." It keeps slipping into a paean to the godhood of Samuel R Delany -- but since I would hardly be one to argue with that, this is hardly a black mark. (You *do* own at least one Delany novel... right? No? Bad puppy.)

In backhanded fashion, this book also forms a central node for attempts to define that horribly overworked & vague term from the 1990s, "postmodern."

Don't even try to read this unless you are Very Serious about Delany, modern literature, or science fiction -- preferably all three. But if that's you, then you need to read this book, probably four or five times.