Table of Contents

IIntroduction: Edging into the Future
Veronica Hollinger and Joan Gordon

PART ONE: GENRE IMPLOSION
1. Evaporating Genre: Strategies of Dissolution in the Postmodern Fantastic
—Gary K. Wolfe
2. Omniphage: Rock 'n' Roll and Avant-Pop Science Fiction
—Lance Olsen
3. Synthespians, Virtual Humans, and Hypermedia: Emerging Contours of Post-Sf-Film
—Brooks Landon

PART TWO: IMPLODED SUBJECTS AND REINSCRIPTED BODIES
4. Staying with the Body: Narratives of the Posthuman in Contemporary Science Fiction
—Jenny Wolmark
5. "But Aren't Those Just ... You Know, Metaphors?": Postmodern Figuration in the Science Fiction of James Morrow and Gwyneth Jones
—Brian Attebery
6. Sex/uality and the Figure of the Hermaphrodite in Science Fiction; or, The Revenge of Herculine Barbin
—Wendy Pearson
7. Mutant Youth: Posthuman Fantasies and High-Tech Consumption in 1990s Science Fiction
—Rob Latham
8. "Going Postal": Rage, Science Fiction, and the Ends of the American Subject
—Roger Luckhurst

PART THREE: REIMAGINED APOCALYPSES AND EXPLODED COMMUNITIES
9. Apocalypse Coma
—Veronica Hollinger
10. Kairos: The Enchanted Loom
—Gwyneth Jones
11. Dead Letters and Their Inheritors: Ecospasmic Crashes and the Post-Mortal Condition in Brian Stableford's Histories of the Future
—Brian Stableford
12. Utopia, Genocide, and the Other: Science Fiction Explores the Truly Monstrous
Joan Gordon
13. Dis-Imagined Communities: Science Fiction and the Future of Nations
—Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.

Notes
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments

About the Author

Veronica Hollinger is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Trent University in Ontario. Joan Gordon is Associate Professor of Literature at Nassau Community College. Together they coedited the volume Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Reviews

"Edging into the Future effectively maps where science fiction has come in the last fifteen years and opens a number of new avenues of exploration for scholars in the field. It also confirms the vitality of science fiction as a cultural form that, even as it is transformed by its transactions with other genres and technologies, continues to provide insights about contemporary life as no other art form can."--Contemporary Literature "The savvy critical essays in this provocative collection investigate the interface between science fiction and postmodern culture... Highly recommended for readers at all levels."--Choice