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Alfred Bester's The stars my destination : a critical companion / D. Harlan Wilson.

9783030969462 (electronic bk.)
3030969460 (electronic bk.)
9783030969455
3030969452

Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2022]

©2022

English

1 online resource.

10.1007/978-3-030-96946-2 doi

PS3552.E796

813/.54

In this comprehensive study of The Stars My Destination, D. Harlan Wilson makes a case for the continued significance of Alfred Besters SF masterwork, exploring its distinctive style, influences, intertextuality, affect, and innovation as well as its extensive metafictional properties. In Stars, Bester established himself as a son of the pulp-SF and high-modernist writers that preceded him and a forefather to the New Wave and cyberpunk movements that followed his lead. Wilsons study depicts Bester as an SF insider as much as an outlier, writing in the spirit of the genre but breaking with the fixation on hard science in favor of psychological interiority, literary experimentation, and adult themes. The book combines close-readings of the novel with broader concerns about contemporary media, technoculture, and the current state of SF itself. In Wilsons view, SF is a moribund artform, and Stars foresaw the inevitable science fictionalization of our benighted world. With scholarly lucidity and precision, Wilson shows us that Stars pointed the way to what we have (un)become. D. Harlan Wilson is an American novelist, playwright, editor, critic, and Professor of English at the Lake Campus of Wright State University, USA. He is the author of over 30 book-length works of fiction and nonfiction.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Online resource; title from PDF title page (ProQuest Ebook Central platform, viewed June 7, 2022).

Palgrave pivot.
Palgrave science fiction and fantasy.

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