How Does Hugo Gernsback Affect The Origins Of Science Fiction?

Extraterrestrial beings, dazzling light shows, and dangerous laser guns are among the many thoughts that go through a person's mind when the genre science fiction is brought up. It seems as if each piece is so different, and so unique. However, many science fiction pieces are extremely similar. The science fiction pieces "Anthem," "Fahrenheit 451," and "The Pedestrian," are similar in the fact that they all encompass an expansion of technology, a new perspective on the well being of society, and each author's purpose for writing the book.

Over the course of Kurt Vonnegut’s career, an unorthodox handling of time became one of many signature features in his fictional works (Allen 37). Despite The Sirens of Titan (1959) being only his second novel, this trademark is still prevalent. When delving into science fiction, it is often helpful to incorporate ideas from other works within the genre. This concept is exemplified by the “megatext,” an aspect of science fiction that involves the application of a reader’s own knowledge of the genre to a new encounter (Evans xiii). By working within the megatext, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974) provides an insightful avenue in exploring the handling of time and its consequences in Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan.

[Thesis: The Space Race and it 's overall support from the general public can be credited to the prevalence of Science fiction in American pop-culture.]

Literature sounds too stuffy and high-browed an descriptor for Science Fiction as a genre. Science fiction is meant to be fantasy, something that is not real and does not strive to meet the literary aspirations of those who would write meaningful prose. Not to say that science fiction writers do not want to something meaningful, but even though the genre may be filled with writers who are degraded by "real" authors as a breed, does not mean that there are not classics that have been recognized as achieving a literary mark. It can be argued, because of the use of literary devices, that there are those science fiction novels that definitely reach the level anyone would consider literature, and among these is a book from Phillip K. Dick called The Man in the High Castle. This paper examines what literary devices were used in this book to make it both a work of science fiction and a work of literature.

Science fiction is a genre of fiction revolving around science and technology, usually conveying the dystopian alternative future context, the pessimistic resultant of society. Ray Bradbury 's Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Andrew Niccols Gattaca (1997) both explore the values and concerns of human existence. Despite the difference in context, Gattaca and Fahrenheit 451 both extrapolate the relationship between man and machine in a metaphorical sense. Both pose similar dystopian concepts of a machine like world. Through the use of juxtapoism, satire, film noir, textual devices and symbolism, both artists are able to successfully convey their interpretation on the values and concerns of science and technology. The historical

“Science fiction is alien, travel, space and so on” defined by Nnedi Okorafor. Nnedi Okorafor is a novelist of African based science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism for both children and adults. In the event, Nnedi Okorafor introduced her understanding of science fiction, her background, her works and how she created her works. From her speech, I understand science fiction come from daily experience.

Often described as “… one of the true geniuses of our time” (qtd. in “Others on Sir Arthur”), twentieth-century author Arthur C. Clarke changed the impossible to possible in the area of science fiction. Born into a period in the world often termed as its “modern period” (“The 20th Century”), Clarke experienced firsthand the rapid advancements in technology and science. Inside his works of literature, Clarke’s personality, his strong sense of optimism and interest in education, transcends to every page. These personal beliefs changed the course of science fiction, creating a new found hope and endless opportunities for mankind rather than predicting a dystopia caused by the advancement of technology and science.

We have discussed, over the semester, several different common themes of science fiction. But there are three common themes of science fiction that stick out the most when reading the novel, The Transall Saga by Gary Paulsen, which would be extreme environmental changes, time traveling, and post-apocalyptic situations. The bluish-white light that transport Mark through time, thousands of years into the future and the way the people look with their webbed feet would serve as the novums within the story. Gary Paulsen wrote this book in 1998 and would best fit into the definition we discussed in the beginning of the course given by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1989 which reads, “Imaginative fiction based on postulated scientific discoveries or spectacular environmental changes, frequently set in the future or on other planets and involving space or time travel.” Although the Oxford English Dictionary definition leaves out the apocalyptic theme, it fits the story almost to a tee.

Michael Cunningham’s strange and elegiac Walt Whitman-hued novel Specimen Days is prefaced with an author’s note in which Cunningham succinctly articulates the dilemma historical fiction forces on a writer: “Novelists must usually decide what degree of slavish accuracy would make their stories more alive, and what degree would make them less.” Still, he writes, there are some novelists, “who wouldn’t think of tampering with recorded fact, and I know—and greatly admire—a certain writer who invents everything… When questioned about it, he simply says, ‘It’s fiction.’”

With over fifty novels published, more than twenty short stories, a couple of textbooks, many political essays, a few accurate predictions of the future, influence on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and zero awards to show for it, Herbert George Wells was one of the most notable authors of the 20th century. An early interest in reading and science shaped Wells’s studies in college and career. The publication of his first novel, The Time Machine, rocketed his name to the metaphorical top. His political views also influenced his books and personal life. He was most well-known for his science fiction works; themes of science, society, class, community, as well as socialist ideas that ran through his work. Additionally, Wells frequently

Verne’s unique childhood and early adult life opened up the road to his successful career as a pioneer science-fiction author. As a young 11 year old kid, Verne was fond of extreme adventures and traveling to exotic lands. Once, he almost ended up on a ship to India before being stopped by his father. Verne’s childish memories and imagination are evidently showcased in his later writing style later in his adulthood (Taylor, 2). Verne, on his journey to becoming a writer, took a temporary pit stop meeting fellow French writer Alexandre Dumas, and began working in theater accompanying Dumas. Frequently on and off the stage, Verne would be caught reading science journals about new technological discoveries. Even though Verne was outstanding at the theater, he eventually abandoned that portion of his journey, further

Literature can embody time, start a revolution, or be used as a coaster under the flattest fizzless cup of Pepsi. It can tell historical triumphs or new wave gyres, yet in each of these examples, literature has a single and simple purpose. It is easy to tell time through a book because a reader can simply glance back out their window to check. It is easy to grab a group of friends read a guidebook on revolution and paint some signs. A hipster might think it’s chic to take an old copy of Peter Rabbit, cut it into a circle, and proudly place his Pepsi atop. These examples are easy, but again, these forms of Literature are old. A myth with new literature is that it cannot tell time, rebel, or be cut up as quickly. Modern literature is confusing, bewildering, wild, and beyond the page. Difficulty is the hand that puts the books, short stories, or poems down after one may pick them up. Yet, modern British literature can be especially trying and monstrously influential because the authors did not only challenge their peers or their government, but the universe. A strategy to challenge the universe must first challenge the reader. If someone needed a clock, they would be able to find it within May Wedderburn Cannan’s “Rouen”. If someone wanted to rebel against the world, a reader would be able to discern a reasonable direction in William Butler Yeats’ “Easter 1916”. If someone needed a coaster, they would be able to find the one piece of Literature accepting of its’ new purpose

“Science fiction is a literature of (1) ideas; (2) change; (3) anticipation; (4) the human species. […] I bring it up now however, because I may add another choice: (5) discontinuity” (8).

In the times leading up to, during, and after World War I the world changed. As a reflection of that change writers began experimenting with perspective, time and order, form, etc. Literature wasn’t as straightforward; there were metaphors within metaphors, stories without clear beginnings middles and ends, poets used mixed meters and free verse became common becoming what is known as the modernist era. Around World War II the same thing happened again, but taken to the extreme. This was known as the postmodern era and writers began to use their works to convey their sense of how strange the world around them was. The works that will be discussed are Samuel Becket’s Waiting on Godot, a play about two friends who wait for the titular Godot over two day with the second questioning the existence of the first. House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski, is a cult classic about man trying to understand a manuscript about a movie about a family who moves into a house that’s bigger on the inside the the outside, this novel is special because of how it’s printed, and it’s use of multiple narrators, and the final piece, Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, is a bafflingly complex piece with four major interwoven narratives and nearly a hundred pages of footnotes, some of which have footnotes within themselves. In this paper these three books will be discussed in detail and, through the review, the characteristics of postmodernism will be identified. Additionally, how the writing

A pioneer of Science Fiction, French novelist, and short story writer known as Jules Verne. In his expansive and illustrated writings, Verne foresaw a number of scientific devices and theories that were more than a century ahead of his time. He wrote over 80 books and a few of the things he described were scientific developments, possibilities, and inventions. Some inventions he imagined were actually created later in his lifetime. For instance, Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1864), was written years before the first submarine was invented. Verne’s novels all feature characters motivated to adventure based on a sense of personal challenge and though his books are fictional they have a