Stuff
Product Details
Free Press, July 2000
Trade Paperback, 272 pages
ISBN-10: 0684859785
ISBN-13: 9780684859781
Description
From one of science fiction's most acclaimed novelists comes this engrossing journey through the books, movies, and television programs that have shaped our perspective of both the present and the future. In an uncompromising, often irreverent survey of the genre from Edgar Allan Poe to Philip K. Dick to Star Trek, Thomas M. Disch analyzes science fiction's impact on technological innovation, fashion, lifestyle, military strategy, the media, and much more.
An illuminating look at the art of science fiction (with a practitioner's insight into craft), as well as a work of pointed literary and cultural criticism, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of reveals how this "pulp genre" has captured the popular imagination while transforming the physical and social world in which we live.
Alexander Star The New York Times Disch is an eloquent storyteller and polemicist....[His] book is consistently rewarding.
Frank McConnell San Jose Mercury News Brilliant....It's a wonderful book, and no one who cares about science fiction, or about American culture, should miss reading it.
George Feeley The Washington Post Witty, urbane and generous....Thomas M. Disch has got it right.
Robert Silverberg The Wall Street Journal Mr. Disch's lively and provocative new book is a science-fiction insider's brilliant attempt to come to terms with the bizarre morphing of our civilization in the past fifty years into something that might well have leaped out of the archetypical tales of yesterday's SF masters.
Alyssa Katz Newsday [Disch speaks] for the entire genre with admirable authority and grace.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt The New York Times Provocative.
Dick Allen The Hudson Review Entertaining and provocative....Long overdue
-- a pioneering look at what other cultural observers have ignored....Disch convinces us that any cultural study of our century which does not deal seriously with the genre is or will be fatally flawed.
Robert Taylor The Boston Globe A provocative and enjoyable book.
Robert Sheckley San Francisco Chronicle Sharp, provocative....More than just a history, Disch gives us a sense of the events and moods that are so much a part of science-fiction....[Disch] has covered the vital aspects of the field in a highly readable book.
Michael Jacobs USA Today Fascinating.
Fred CleaverThe Denver PostA witty tour....Disch is funny and provocative.
ForbesAbsolutely fascinating....Combines wit and scholarship with a pointed critical impulse....Disch will force you to give up your prejudices.
Ray OlsonBooklistA rollicking thought-provoker of a book.
Publishers WeeklyWith pungency and wit, Disch explores the enormous cultural impact that SF [science fiction] has had over the past century.
Ronald RatliffLibrary JournalA rip-roaring ride....Disch's account is sure to raise the hackles of many while providing an insightful study. Recommended.
Kirkus ReviewsA gifted writer casts a critical eye on the genre that gave him birth....Disch's provocative, engrossing book may fan the flames of a number of simmering arguments in the SF community, but when the smoke clears we may all, as a result of this tonic work, see more clearly.
Harold BloomThomas Disch, always ruefully wise and exuberantly visionary, gives us a superbly disturbing meditation on the triumph of science fiction over our expiring (or is it expired?) culture.
Scott Bradfieldauthor of The History of Luminous MotionThomas M. Disch's tough love survey of America's most characteristic pulp genre is one of those rare birds -- an authentic critical work that's muscular, smart, chatty, and a pleasure to read. If you want to find out what's been happening to our weirdly imagined future for the past century or so, don't bother watching the skies
-- they're filled with the same big-screen nonsense and billboard bull as always. Just read this book and find out what's been really going on.
John Cluteco-editor of The Encyclopedia of Science FictionDisch is one of the Secret Masters of science fiction: knowing, masterful, sly, hilarious, and profound. This bible of SF insight, this devil's dictionary of sharp wisdom is the best book on SF ever written by a practicing writer in the field.
Nicholas Christopherauthor of Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American CityDisch has written an elegant and wonderfully lucid study of science fiction, in all its glorious permutations. Now that we have this definitive book, a subject too often skimmed or oversimplified has been given its due and then some.
