This book is the definitive critical history of science fiction. The 2006 first edition of this work traced the development of the genre from Ancient Greece and the European Reformation through to the end of the 20th century. This new 2nd edition has been revised thoroughly and very significantly expanded. An all-new final chapter discusses 21st-century science fiction, and there is new material in every chapter: a wealth of new readings and original research. The author's groundbreaking thesis that science fiction is born out of the 17th-century Reformation is here bolstered with a wide range of new supporting material and many hundreds of 17th- and 18th-century science fiction texts, some of which have never been discussed before. The account of 19th-century science fiction has been expanded, and the various chapters tracing the twentieth-century bring in more writing by women, and science fiction in other media including cinema, TV, comics, fan-culture and other modes.

"This immensely readable critical survey combines a strong thesis with engaged, provocative and often highly original accounts of an astonishing range and variety of texts. Now thoroughly revised and updated, it makes an indispensable contribution to literary history." (Patrick Parrinder, Emeritus Professor, University of Reading, UK) "The revised edition of Professor Roberts's History of Science Fiction is a truly comprehensive history of European and American SF. The second edition preserves most of the major arguments and interpretations from the first, and adds a wealth of new material. This is likely to become the standard work in the field." (Lewis W. Call, author of "BDSM in American Science Fiction and Fantasy") "Roberts's deft anatomisation of the evolution of science fiction, from deep roots in Ancient Greek literature to its present preeminence in popular culture, is remarkably wide-ranging and marvellously detailed. A meticulous, entertaining, essential critical resource." (Paul McAuley, author of "Fairyland, The Quiet War, and Into Everywhere")

About the Author
Adam Roberts is Professor of Nineteenth-century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is also the author of more than a dozen science fiction novels: his most recent, Jack Glass (2012) won the BSFA and Campbell awards for the year's best science fiction novel. He has published a number of critical and academic works on science fiction, 19th-century and other topics.


Book Information
ISBN 9781137569592
Author Adam Roberts
Format Paperback
Page Count 524
Imprint Palgrave Macmillan
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan