| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £6.60
Trade in Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction (Marxism and Culture) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £6.60, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
This collection shows what science fiction criticism can do when Marxist critical practice is joined by science studies and the rest of theory. The results are tremendously exciting and powerful, explaining not just a genre but our world, from the financial crash of 2008 to the utopian impulses that remain always in us. (Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars trilogy )
This collection marks a red shift in thinking about the history, form, and impact of science fiction literature and film. In robust dialectical manoeuvres, the essays, by a dynamic mix of scholars, simultaneously revive, critique, and transform the vibrant tradition of Marxist sf criticism. The book is a timely, readable, and incisive intervention in contemporary cultural critique. (Tom Moylan is Glucksman Professor of Contemporary Writing in English and Director of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies at the University of Limerick. )
Red Planets is a highly readable and interesting collection of essays. Many of the pieces have completely new things to tell us, and will be of interest even to those who are antagonistic toward politically inspired criticism. (Neil Easterbrook, Associate Professor of Critical Theory, Texas Christian University )
This collection marks a red shift in thinking about the history, form, and impact of science fiction literature and film. In robust dialectical manoeuvres, the essays, by a dynamic mix of scholars, simultaneously revive, critique, and transform the vibrant tradition of Marxist sf criticism. The book is a timely, readable, and incisive intervention in contemporary cultural critique. (Tom Moylan is Glucksman Professor of Contemporary Writing in English and Director of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies at the University of Limerick. )
Red Planets is a highly readable and interesting collection of essays. Many of the pieces have completely new things to tell us, and will be of interest even to those who are antagonistic toward politically inspired criticism. (Neil Easterbrook, Associate Professor of Critical Theory, Texas Christian University )
Product Description
Science fiction and socialism have always had a close relationship. Many sf novelists and filmmakers are leftists. Others examine explicit or implicit Marxist concerns.
As a genre, sf is ideally suited to critiquing the present through its explorations of the social and political possibilities of the future. This is the first collection to combine analyses of sf literature and films within a broader overview of Marxist theorisations of and critical perspectives on the genre.
This is an accessible and lively introduction for anyone studying the politics of sf, covering a rich variety of examples from Weimar cinema to mainstream Hollywood films, and novelists from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross.
As a genre, sf is ideally suited to critiquing the present through its explorations of the social and political possibilities of the future. This is the first collection to combine analyses of sf literature and films within a broader overview of Marxist theorisations of and critical perspectives on the genre.
This is an accessible and lively introduction for anyone studying the politics of sf, covering a rich variety of examples from Weimar cinema to mainstream Hollywood films, and novelists from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very strong set of analyses,
By
This review is from: Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction (Marxism and Culture) (Paperback)
This is the first review I've ever written for Amazon. Ordinarily I don't, but I disagreed so strongly with the existing review - and there was no other review to act as a counterpoint - that I have decided to write this one.
Firstly, this collection is not perfect. A few of the articles focus unduly on relatively brief and barely-noticed happenings in the history of science fiction which (this SF student believes) didn't have significant long-term effect, while the parallel apparently drawn between the work of Verne and the Wachowski Brothers is a somewhat challenging one to convince with (amongst others). With that said, the majority of the articles are insightful, interesting and continue to contribute to a growing body of work around an oft-ignored genre. Nevertheless, the previous review and its associated defending comments rather miss the point. The core of the review is criticising an *academic* book for containing academic terminology. Nobody (I would hope) would criticise a romantic film for containing a kiss, a historical novel for failing to include the internet or a sculpture for having the audacity to appear off canvas. In the same way, criticising a collection of sophisticated literary study for being exactly that seems a little unusual, to say the least. Such books have nothing to do with being "cleverer than the masses"; they are to do with academia. Just because something involves a high level of linguistic and conceptual complexity does not automatically relegate it to the realm of "posturing". This social science PhD student agrees that there is undoubtedly a fine line between meaningless jargon and worthwhile scrutiny. I (like anyone in academia) have encountered a number of the former, and would not disagree that a not insignificant subset of the sum total of academic writing could be rightly criticised for being such. This book, however, is firmly in the latter category, and criticising *any* work (be it fiction, non-fiction, art, video games, cinema, or anything else) requires justification stemming from actually engaging with the material; not simply dismissing it because it can sometimes be challenging to understand.
11 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Red Planets: Don't Waste Your Time or Money,
By
This review is from: Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction (Marxism and Culture) (Paperback)
This book was a massive disappointment. I was hoping to read a series of articles that would make interesting comments on specific science fiction works from the point of view of contemporary politics and economics. I was encouraged by the name of China Mieville on the cover because his fiction is great. Instead I got monotonous academic posturing of the most nauseating kind. It was one of those exercises where everyone has to use long convoluted sentences with as many pseudo-scientific technical expressions as possible and constant references to other writers (who you have never heard of). It is tedious trying to unravel what each writer is trying to say (and all about them posing for their friends who inhabit the same little club). Here is an example from the Introduction where the writer is discussing The Matrix trilogy (not that it matters what he is discussing): "In the context of the communicational concept of gobalisation,which tends to see intra-, inter-, cross- and trans-cultural contacts as a progressive proliferation, producing 'an immense global urban intercultural festival without centre', many have argued for the trilogy's multiculturalism - in its conceptualisation, production, casting, audio-visual field and global success." The first article is entitled 'The Anamorphic Estrangements of Science Fiction' (what?). I regret to report that China Mieville's little contribution was as bad as the rest.
A good writer can write about complex matters in a clear and accessible way. George Orwell insisted that this is essential for a worthwhile essay (oh no!I've started name dropping now). It is particularly bizarre that this little club of Marxist writers are so committed to this kind of exclusive high brow language when they are supposed to be about solidarity with the masses. There should be some sort of warning about this book being totally unsuitable for anyone who is not part of this narrow academic elite. I still love your work China but really!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
