Abstract
In his 2010 study Evaporating Genres American critic Gary Wolfe discusses both the (as he puts it) ‘evaporation’ of science fiction and its subsequent condensation across the surfaces of culture more broadly conceived. In part this reflects the state of cultural production today, where tropes and features once associated only with science fiction appear in all manner of cultural texts, indicative of the need for art to deal with an increasingly technological, alienated and mediated social reality.
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Notes
- 1.
A fourth bestselling series worth noting here is the multi-part erotic romance by British author E L James: Fifty Shades of Grey (2011), Fifty Shades Darker (2012), Fifty Shades Freed (2012) and Grey (2015). The first novel in this sequence began as fan fiction set in the Twilight universe and was rewritten to avoid copyright infringement. Though, mercifully, beyond the scope of the present study these books do illustrate the continuing appeal of Meyers’ peculiar mix of erotic liberation and sexual restraint.
- 2.
I am indebted to Farah Mendlesohn for this insight.
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Roberts, A. (2016). 21st-Century Science Fiction. In: The History of Science Fiction. Palgrave Histories of Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_16
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