Conceptual Breakthrough

Two Experiments in SF Criticism (Alien/Star)

By: James Holden

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Paperback | 1 December 2007

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Why isn't science fiction criticism as bold or as startling as science fiction itself? Could it be that SF criticism usually addresses itself to only two questions: how to define SF, and how to police its boundaries? 'Star' and 'Alien', the two essays that make up this volume, seek to change all that, by ignoring the prescribed definitions and boundaries of SF altogether - breaking through our concepts of SF, and breaking up the orthodoxies of SF criticism. They are experiments: thought-provoking, witty, and sometimes exasperating, making use of philosophy, cultural and 'pop' history, personal memories and, indeed, anything else that comes to hand. Star James Holden wants to show how the protagonists in SF texts never really make it to the stars. Along the way, he finds himself distracted by Derrida, Descartes, Patrick Moore, modernism, and much else besides. Alien Simon King is on a hunt; he's hunting aliens. On the hunt he meets with Japanese cyborgs and medieval monsters, strange gods and the creatures of the deep - but will he find any aliens? Indeed, are there any to find? Afterword: Breaking Through by Adam Roberts (featuring two previously unpublished short stories)

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