Transrealist Fiction: Writing in the Slipstream of Science

(Hardback)

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Description

Transrealist writing treats immediate perceptions in a fantastic way, according to science fiction writer and mathematician Rudy Rucker, who originated the term. In the expanded sense argued in this book, it also intensifies imaginative fiction by writing the fantastic from the standpoint of richly personalized experience. Transrealism is also related to slipstream writing, another category introduced into studies of speculative fiction to account for texts that seem to follow trajectories mapped by the huge body of science fiction accumulated in the last century, while retaining a central interest in traditional literary strategies. This book examines a variety of work from the transrealist perspective, something that has not been done previously. It emphasizes the texts of Philip K. Dick and Rucker himself, while it additionally engages the texts of such slipstream writers as Kurt Vonnegut, J.G. Ballard, and John Barth. It places its argument against the antihumanist trend in science fiction and builds comparisons with more traditional varieties of science fiction works.

Reviews

"Broderick treks the slippery slopes -- a brilliant analyst of metafiction, transrealism, slip-stream, and the rest of the postmodern landscape."-Karen Jay Fowler, author of Sarah Canary and The Sweetheart Season
Damien Broderick's Transrealist Fiction: Writing in the Slipstream of Science is another remarkable work of critical analysis produced by Greenwood Press. Beginning with a quote from sci-fi writer and physicist, Rudy Rucker, Broderick lauches the reader on a wonderful exploration of thematic interplay....Broderick is an excellent scholar and his look at the works of Rucker is especially moving. He has a real appreciation for both Rucker's scientific accomplishments and his literary genius.-Extrapolation
The breadth of Broderick's sources is one of the most attractive aspects of this book.-Choice
"The breadth of Broderick's sources is one of the most attractive aspects of this book."-Choice
"Damien Broderick's Transrealist Fiction: Writing in the Slipstream of Science is another remarkable work of critical analysis produced by Greenwood Press. Beginning with a quote from sci-fi writer and physicist, Rudy Rucker, Broderick lauches the reader on a wonderful exploration of thematic interplay....Broderick is an excellent scholar and his look at the works of Rucker is especially moving. He has a real appreciation for both Rucker's scientific accomplishments and his literary genius."-Extrapolation

Author Bio

DAMIEN BRODERICK is a Fellow in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne./e He is the author of several award winning science fiction novels. In addition, he has published numerous articles and short stories on science fiction.