Strange Divisions and Alien Territories

Strange Divisions and Alien Territories explores the sub-genres of science fiction from the perspectives of a dozen top SF authors, combining a critical viewpoint with exploration of the challenges and opportunities facing authors working in SF today.

Explore hard science, deep space and aliens; consider alternate history and time travel; look at utopias, dystopias, superpowers and religion; think about who we are and who we might become in the not-too-distant future, and be guided by authors who, between them, have won Hugos, Nebulas and other major science fiction awards many times over.

Contributors to this volume are Michael Swanwick, Gary Gibson, Alastair Reynolds, Justina Robson, Catherine Asaro and Kate Dolan, John Grant, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, James Lovegrove, Adam Roberts, Keith Brooke, James Patrick Kelly, Paul Di Filippo and Tony Ballantyne.

Published in the UK and US by Palgrave Macmillan, February 2012.

Contents:

• Foreword - Michael Swanwick
• From Slide-rules to Techno-mystics: hard sf's battle for the imagination - Gary Gibson
• Space Opera: this galaxy ain't big enough for the both of us - Alastair Reynolds
• Aliens: our selves and others - Justina Robson
• The Literature of Planetary Adventure - Catherine Asaro and Kate Dolan
• Infinite Pasts, Infinite Futures: the many worlds of time travel - John Grant
• Alternate History: worlds of what if - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• The World of the End of the World: apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction - James Lovegrove
• Does God Need a Starship? science fiction and religion - Adam Roberts
• No Place Like Home: topian science fiction - Keith Brooke
• Who Owns Cyberpunk? - James Patrick Kelly
• Beyond the Human Baseline: special powers - Paul Di Filippo
• Just Passing Through: journeys to the post-human - Tony Ballantyne
• Postscript - Keith Brooke