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Despite the growing importance of economics in our lives, literary scholars have long been reluctant to consider economic issues as they examine key texts. This volume seeks to fill one of these conspicuous gaps in the critical literature by focusing on various connections between science fiction and economics, with some attention to related fields such as politics and government. Its seventeen contributors include five award-winning scholars, five science fiction writers, and a widely published economist. Three topics are covered: what noted science fiction writers like Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, and Kim Stanley Robinson have had to say about our economic and political future; how the competitive and ever-changing publishing marketplace has affected the growth and development of science fiction from the nineteenth century to today; and how the scholars who examine science fiction have themselves been influenced by the economics of academia. Although the essays focus primarily on American science fiction, the traditions of Russian and Chinese science fiction are also examined. A comprehensive bibliography of works related to science fiction and economics will assist other readers and critics who are interested in this subject.

The J. Lloyd Eaton Conferences on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature--long held at the University of California, Riverside--have been a major influence in the study of science fiction and fantasy for thirty years. The conferences have attracted leading scholars whose papers are published in Eaton volumes found in university libraries throughout the world. This collection brings together 22 of the best papers--most with new afterwords by the authors--presented in chronological order to show how science fiction and fantasy criticism has evolved since 1979.

Seventeen wide-ranging essays explore the evolving scientific understanding of Mars, and the relationship between that understanding and the role of Mars in literature, the arts and popular culture. Essays in the first section examine different approaches to Mars by scientists and writers Jules Verne and J.H. Rosny. Section Two covers the uses of Mars in early Bolshevik literature, Wells, Brackett, Burroughs, Bradbury, Heinlein, Dick and Robinson, among others. The third section looks at Mars as a cultural mirror in science fiction. Essayists include prominent writers (e.g., Kim Stanley Robinson), scientists and literary critics from many nations.

In a secret war waged in worlds both virtual and real, the fates of nations depend on the definitive weapon. And that weapon is knowledge—knowledge to die for....The race is heating up between the U.S. and China to develop a quantum computer with infinite capabilities to crack any enemy's codes, yet keep secure its own secrets. The government that achieves this goal will win a crucial prize. No other computer system will be safe from the reach of this master machine.Dr. Jaron Kwok was working for the U.S. government to build such a computer. But in a posh hotel in Hong Kong, a Chinese policewoman sifts through the bizarre, ashlike remains of what's left of the doctor. With the clock ticking, alliances will be forged—and there are those who will stop at nothing to discover what the doctor knew. As the search for answers intensifies, it becomes chillingly clear that the quantum computer both sides so desperately want will be more powerful, more dangerous than anyone could have ever imagined.For in the twenty-first century, machines become gods, gods become machines, and the once-impossible now lies within reach. The key to unlimited knowledge will create the ultimate weapon of mass destruction—or humanity's last chance to save itself....

Venturing into a universe different from where his previous novels—Lightpaths, Standing Wave, and Better Angels—were set, Howard V. Hendrix tackles one of life's most enduring questions: What does it mean to be human?In a dramatically altered near-future, the world's newest technology resurrects a plague of apparent global madness that not only destroys ten thousand years of urban civilization, but also creates a world under the sway of the full moon—and a human race transformed in astonishing ways.