Science Fiction is a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to one of the most popular areas of modern culture. This second edition reflects how the field is rapidly changing in both its practice and its critical reception. With an entirely new conclusion and all other chapters fully reworked and updated, this volume includes:

• a concise history of science fiction and the ways in which the genre has been used and defined
• explanations of key concepts in Science Fiction criticism and theory through chapters such as Gender, Race, Technology and Metaphor
• examines the interactions between Science Fiction and Science Fact
• anchors each chapter with a case study drawn from short story, book or film, from Frank Herbert's Dune to Star Wars, from The Left Hand of Darkness to Neuromancer.

Introducing the reader to nineteenth-century, Pulp, Golden Age, New Wave, Feminist and Cyberpunk science fictions, this is the essential contemporary guide to a major cultural movement.