LINGUIST List 23.2947: Books: The Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Mandala

[Dan Goodman]

Date: 04-Jul-2012
From: Ellena Moriarty <Ellena.Moriartybloomsbury.com>
Subject: The Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Mandala
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Title: The Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy
Subtitle: The Question of Style
Published: 2012
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
                 http://www.continuumbooks.com

Book URL:
http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=168762&SearchType=Basic

Author: Susan Mandala
Paperback: ISBN: 1441145486 9781441145482 Pages: 192 Price: U.K. £ 24.99
Abstract:

Please note: This is a new edition of a previously announced text.

The language of science fiction, and of fantasy, has a steep challenge: that
of the creation of other worlds, societies and characters that are alien
to us in
diverse and fundamental ways, but still compelling and knowable. This
exciting book steps away from the issues of race, gender and politics that
have saturated sci-fi and fantasy criticism. Rather, it challenges two
widely
held but poorly substantiated beliefs circulating about science fiction and
fantasy - that they are a) written in plain and unremarkable prose and
b) apt to
present characters that are flat types rather than fully realised
individuals.

Mandala draws on traditional syntactic categories of stylistic analysis
as well
as the relatively more recent pragmatic and sociolinguistic paradigms such
that the original analyses here take our understanding of these two genres
beyond the usual confines, to consider how language is used to draw
alternative words, represent the far future and distant past, and create
psychologically believable characters.

Covering both British and American fiction and television, this is a wide-
ranging and perceptive book.
--
Dan Goodman

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