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This collection contains a preface entitled "Of Other Worlds" and the following short stories: "The Mind's Eye," "Waking," "The Conquest of the World," "Persephone," and "Extradition." This creative thesis includes a blend of science fiction and literary realism short stories, which are collectively concerned with questions of time, narration, and the use of language. As well, the preface discusses science fiction theory, narrative strategies such as the use of the first person perspective, and the author's theory of composition.

This thesis includes an original science-fiction novella entitled "The Hunted" and accompanying commentary which illustrates how anthropological fiction can use characterization, setting, and conflict to build effective inter-subjective models.

It is a dark future, where corporations have taken the place of governmental bodies, and Earth is a myth, forgotten in the reconstruction after the Second Dark Age. One man--a clone--investigates a murder [that] leads him deep into a spirit quest of his own that will answer the questions of Man's heritage as well as his own identity. This story is a science fiction, but it is similar in structure to a Coyote tale and involves quite a bit of Navajo mythology. The use of Native American imagery is not an attempt to capitalize on another culture, but rather to study the culture and use allegorical elements that transcend many cultures. It must also be noted that non-Native American writers wrote all texts available on the subject. This fact should be taken into consideration by the reader.

The body of work that we usually call science fiction has a rich and often ambivalent history. Its humble roots in pulp magazines and dime novels contributed to an image of disposable, low brow writing, unworthy of the title “literature”. Those incipient assumptions, which still remain, became themselves ways of establishing what we now call a genre. In part, due to this uncomfortable image of a bastardized literature, the history of science fiction criticism frequently reflected a sense of discomfort with the way this genre was perceived. As a result, there have been many readings that attempt to lift the texts under scrutiny from a perception of polluted beginnings. While this impetus has produced some of the most essential science fiction criticism, it has also stirred a level of controversy by inevitably inscribing a canon. In recent years, we have begun to encounter a frontal discussion both on the literature itself and on the significance of these readings. These include further connections not only with theory, but also with their pulp legacy. In this regard, this study attempts to link utopia to science fiction, particularly in relation to how the roots of science fiction became enablers for a thoroughly utopian-driven genre. For this purpose, three authors are analysed: Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick. Their prominence has garnered an enormous amount of study, perhaps the biggest of any other author. Tied to this is the fact that all three have a background in writing for pulps and their work has become iconic on its own. Therefore, it seems productive to analyse the threads that run through their work, the links their writing might have to each other and to external input but, most of all, how utopia may be a fitting way to interpret the science fictional impetus.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Film and Video. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-117). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ67715.

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In much dystopian SF, the city models a society which represses the protagonist's sense of historical time, replacing it with a sense of "private" time affecting isolated individuals. This phenomenon appears in dystopian SF novels of 1960-75--including Thomas M. Disch's 334, John Brunner's The Jagged Orbit, Philip K. Dick's Martian Time-Slip, J. G. Ballard's High-Rise, and Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren--as well as some precursors--including Wells, Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In these novels the cities also reveal in their chronotopic arrangement the degree to which revolutionary forces can oppose the dystopian order. While the earlier dystopias see revolution crushed by despotic state power, those of 1960-75 see it thwarted by the dehumanizing effects of capitalism. The period from 1960-75 ends in resignation to an existence in which individual action can no longer effect political change, at best tempered by irony (Disch, Delany).

The purpose of this paper is to develop an idea about geography in literature and through the study of science fiction literature examine the “future city”. With the perspective that the city is a social construction and through the use of discourse theory, I have tried to emphasize how the future city is a representation of cultural discourses and in what way geography in literature can be used to increase our understanding of urban places. My intention with this paper has also been to find a way to connect the fictional future city with today’s urban planning discussion about the future city. What it should look like and in what way one could define it. By examine four different science fiction novels, five different themes proved to be central in how the idea of the future city can be understood and defined. These themes where all focused around the relationship between people and places and how they interact and influence each other in the science fiction literature as well as in today’s urban planning discussion.

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