A book of monsters
This book traces the rise to prominence in the twentieth century of a sub-genre of gothic fiction that is, emphatically, a horror of enlightenment rationality rather than gothic darkness. It examines post-modern revisions of Modernist "Promethean" tropes in an eclectic range of gothic, fantasy, and SF writing.
Whether the subject is terror of London's churches in the psychogeographical fiction of Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore, the Orcs in the linguistic fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien, King Kong, killer-computers, or demon-children in post-war British science-fiction, A Book of Monsters offers illuminating perspectives on the darker recesses of the post-modern imagination. It sets out a compelling, and comprehensive, overview of our contemporary unconscious.
Description
This book traces the rise to prominence in the twentieth century of a sub-genre of gothic fiction that is, emphatically, a horror of enlightenment rationality rather than gothic darkness. It examines post-modern revisions of Modernist "Promethean" tropes in an eclectic range of gothic, fantasy, and SF writing.
Whether the subject is terror of London's churches in the psychogeographical fiction of Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore, the Orcs in the linguistic fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien, King Kong, killer-computers, or demon-children in post-war British science-fiction, A Book of Monsters offers illuminating perspectives on the darker recesses of the post-modern imagination. It sets out a compelling, and comprehensive, overview of our contemporary unconscious.
