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For example, if you ever wanted to know why L. Ron Hubbard managed to start a cult but Philip K. Dick didn't, Disch is your man. Beginning with Edgar Allan Poe, Disch elaborates a vision of science fiction as one of the twentieth century's most influential manifestations of America as a culture of liars. Among the frauds are the alien abduction stories of Whitley Strieber, the sadomasochistic dominance fantasies of John Norman, and the co-opting of cyberpunk by postmodern academics and avant-gardists trying to stay hip.
Disch plays very few favorites, and when ideology gets in the way of good writing, it doesn't matter what side you're on. Subliterary feminist fantasies of matriarchial utopias get slammed just as hard as subliterary conservative militaristic wet dreams. Not even one of sci-fi's most beloved Grand Masters, Robert Heinlein, is unimpeachable; Disch correctly nails Heinlein on his consistent sexism and racism, as well as his gradual descent into solipsism. One of Heinlein's last novels, The Number of the Beast, is described as "the freakout to which [Heinlein]'s entitled as a good American, whose right to lie is protected by the Constitution."
What does Disch like? For starters: Philip K. Dick, the British New Wave as exemplified by J. G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock, and Joe Haldeman's Hugo- and Nebula-winning The Forever War, described as being "to the Vietnam War what Catch-22 was to World War II," and which he believes deserved a Pulitzer as well.
Disch may confirm your suspicions, or he may raise every last one of your hackles. But one thing this book will definitely not do is bore you.
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Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World 0.8. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780684859781
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Disch traces Sci-Fi's phenomenal growth from the supernatural tales of Edgar Allen Poe to the utopian dreams and technological nightmares of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, to today when it has become a multi-billion dollar global entertainment industry. While he highlights the genre's predictive successes, he emphasises its cultural role as both a lens and a medium for the very rapid changes driven by modern technology. Disch traces sci-fi's role in all aspects of modern life and explains how it has become a cultural battlefield even helping us to adjust to new social realities. But Disch is also highly critical of the genre and sees its darker expression in the appearance of suicidal UFO cults. Behind the spaceships and aliens, Disch reveals the blueprints of the dizzying postmodern future we have already begun to inhabit. Synopsis coming soon. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780684859781
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