The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction

Stepchildren of Voltaire

$55.00

In stock

SKU: 9780786458578 Categories: , ,

About the Book

Following World War II, the Fleuve Noir publishing house published popular American genre fiction in translation for a French audience. Their imprint Anticipation specialized in science fiction, but mostly eschewed translations from English, preferring instead French work, thus making the imprint an important outlet for native French postwar ideas and aesthetics. This critical text examines in ideological terms eleven writers who published under the Anticipation imprint, revealing the way these writers criticized midcentury notions of progress while adapting and reworking American genre formats.

About the Author(s)

Bradford Lyau has taught at various universities in California and Europe. He has published several academic articles analyzing science fiction and is a lifelong traveler to historical sites. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bibliographic Details

Bradford Lyau. Series Editors Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 248
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2011
pISBN: 978-0-7864-5857-8
eISBN: 978-0-7864-6217-9
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments      ix

Foreword by George Slusser      1

Introduction      7

One. Background      11

Two. The Moderates      31

F. Richard-Bessière      31

M.A. Rayjean      59

Kemmel      73

Chapter Summary      75

Three. The Extremist      76

Jimmy Guieu      76

Four. The Conservatives      94

Stefan Wul      94

Maurice Limat      115

Peter Randa      126

Kurt Steiner      132

Chapter Summary      139

Five. The Radicals      140

Jean-Gaston Vandel      140

B.R. Bruss      169

Chapter Summary      182

Six. A Last Word      183

Gilles D’argyre      184

Seven. Conclusion      193

Chapter Notes      199

Bibliography      211

Index      225

Book Reviews & Awards

“recommend it…should be acquired by all libraries sporting even a modest collection of SF criticism and history…students of twentieth-century French cultural history simply must consult this work”—Extrapolation; “remarkable”—Science Fiction Studies.