Roberts’ history lacks the readable snark of Brian W. He offers an especially good analysis of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a work that fits his thesis perfectly. With the advent of multimedia science fiction texts like the Star Wars saga, Roberts says that science fiction is a primarily visual genre, not a literary one. He gives the pulp era short shrift, and he laments that Gravity’s Rainbow was beaten in the 1973 Nebula Awards by the more traditional Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. It is no surprise that he offers especially good readings of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, From Earth to the Moon, The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. He has translated Jules Verne and written books on Wells and Tolkien. Roberts is a careful enough scholar to qualify such sweeping generalizations with sometimes maddening frequency. He sees the evolution of science fiction as a continuing dialogue between these two poles, represented most clearly by H. Technological fiction was largely a Protestant interest, while Catholic writers tended to stick with fantasy and mysticism in the Platonic tradition. Science fiction, Roberts argues, reflects a cultural divide that began with the Protestant Reformation. His History of Science Fiction is an academic work with a definite, somewhat restrictive thesis. Adam Roberts is an academic literary critic who moonlights as a science fiction novelist, short story writer, and parodist.
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