Science Fiction Quotations: From the Inner Mind to the Outer Limits

Overview

Selected for AAUP Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries, 2006

In this unprecedented collection of science fiction and fantasy quotations, the reader revisits the stunning moment when Mary Shelley's Frankenstein monster first comes to life; witnesses the transformation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde; is present when Bruce Wayne resolves to become Batman; and overhears the cosmic conclusions of The Incredible Shrinking Man. Drawing upon two centuries of the vast and provocative literature of science fiction and fantasy, this comprehensive book presents more than 2,900 quotations from wide-ranging sources, including science fiction and fantasy stories, novels, films, and television programs.

The quotations are organized by topic--alien worlds; darkness and light; robots, androids, and cyborgs; machines and technology; weapons; and more than one hundred others. The reader will encounter the wit and wisdom of renowned authors (H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin) along with definitive versions of such important statements as Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and Star Trek's Prime Directive.

With its thorough index, this book is both an invaluable resource for the writer or scholar and an irresistible page-turner for the curious browser.

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Author Information

Bio of Gary Westfahl

Gary Westfahl teaches at the University of California, Riverside. He has published extensively in the field of science fiction and in 2003 received the Science Fiction Research Association's Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship.

Bio of Arthur C. Clarke

A sense of the cosmic underlies much of Arthur C. Clarke's (1917-2008) fiction and manifests in a variety of forms: the computer accelerated working out of prophecy in "The Nine Billion Names of God," the sentient telecommunications network given the spark of life in "Dial F for Frankenstein"; and the mysterious extraterrestrial overseers guiding human destiny in the novelization of his screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke's best known story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and its sequels 2010: Odyssey Two; 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: Final Odyssey represents the culmination of ideas on man's place in the universe introduced in his 1951 story, "The Sentinel," and elaborated more fully in Childhood's End, his elegiac novel on humankind's maturation as a species and ascent to a greater purpose in the universal scheme. Clarke grounds the cosmic mystery of these stories in hard science. Degreed in physics and mathematics, Clarke was contributor to numerous scientific journals and first proposed the idea for the geosynchronous orbiting communications satellite in 1945. Some of his best known work centers around the solution of a scientific problem or enigma. A Fall of Moondust tells of efforts to rescue a ship trapped under unusual conditions on the lunar surface. The Fountains of Paradise concerns the engineering problems encountered building an earth elevator to supply orbiting space stations. His Hugo and Nebula Award winning A Rendezvous with Rama extrapolated his solid scientific inquiry into provocative new territory, telling of the human discovery of an apparently abandoned alien space ship and human attempts to understand its advanced scientific principles. Clarke's other novels include Prelude to Space, The Sands of Mars, Earthlight, Imperial Earth, and The Deep Range, a futuristic exploration of undersea life in terms similar to his speculations on space travel. He has written the novels Islands in the Sky and Dolphin Island for young readers, and his short fiction has been collected in Expedition to Earth, Reach for Tomorrow, Tales from the White Hart, The Wind from the Sun, and others. His numerous books of non fiction include his award winning The Exploration of Space, and the autobiographical Astounding Days. Clarke was officially knighted by the Queen of England in 2000.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Yale University Press 1

Filesize

12.72 MB

Number of Pages

488

eBook ISBN

9780300127645