Book description
In this wide-ranging series of essays, an award-winning science fiction
critic explores how the related genres of science fiction, fantasy, and
horror evolve, merge, and finally "evaporate" into new and
more dynamic forms. Beginning with a discussion of how literary readers
"unlearned" how to read the fantastic during the heyday of
realistic fiction, Gary K. Wolfe goes on to show how the fantastic
reasserted itself in popular genre literature, and how these genres
themselves grew increasingly unstable in terms of both narrative form
and the worlds they portray. More detailed discussions of how specific
contemporary writers have promoted this evolution are followed by a
final essay examining how the competing discourses have led toward an
emerging synthesis of critical approaches and vocabularies. The essays
cover a vast range of authors and texts, and include substantial
discussions of very current fiction published within the last few years.
"There is much to admire in Evaporating Genres."--Matthew
Cheney, Strange Horizons GARY K. WOLFE is a professor of humanities
and English at Roosevelt University. He is the author of several books,
most recently Soundings: Reviews 1992-1996 (2005), as well as hundreds
of essays and reviews. In addition to his scholarly work, he is
contributing editor and lead reviewer for Locus magazine.
