Science fiction is one of the most vigorous and exciting areas of modern culture, ranging from groundbreaking novels of ideas to blockbusters on the cinema screen. This outstanding volume offers a clear and critically engaged account of the phenomenon. Adam Roberts: provides a concise history of science fiction and the ways in which the genre has been defined explores key concepts in SF criticism and theory, in chapters such as Gender, Race and Technology examines the interactions between science fiction and science fact anchors each chapter with a case study drawn from short story, book or film, from Frank Herbert's Dune to Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black . Introducing the reader to nineteenth-century, Pulp, Golden Age, New Wave, Feminist and Cyberpunk science fictions, this is the essential guide to a major cultural movement.