Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader is the first extended collection of previously published essays on science fiction film and television. This Reader brings together a great number of seminal essays that have opened up the study of science fiction to serious critical interrogation. It is divided into eight distinct themed sections and includes important writings by Susan Sontag, Vivian Sobchack, Steve Neale, J. P. Telotte, Peter Biskind and Constance Penley amongst others, writing on films such as Blade Runner, Alien, Star Wars, Total Recall, Them! and The Thing.

Sean Redmond is Lecturer in Film Studies at the Southampton Institute, UK, co-editor of The Cinema of Kathryn Bigelow: Hollywood Transgressor(Wallflower Press, 2003) and contributor to Contemporary North American Film Directors: A Wallflower Critical Guide (2002).

2004
366 pages
978-1-903364-87-1    £16.99 (pbk)
978-1-903364-88-8    £50.00 (hbk)


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chapter samples
preface
Introduction to Part 1
Introduction to Part 2
Introduction to Part 3
Introduction to Part 4
Introduction to Part 5
Introduction to Part 6
Introduction to Part 7
Introduction to Part 8


reviews
'A significant collection of essays addressing the major themes that have informed the genre since it emerged on film and television screens in the 1950s … it provides an invaluable – and singular – text for both students and scholars interested in surveying the key literature in the field and exploring a range of interpretive methods and critical practise.'
Prof. Vivian Sobchack, University of California

‘Sean Redmond’s selection process is a … rigorous one, drawing together extracts, essays, and articles from monographs, edited collections, and refereed journals, including some unlikely sources as well as Science Fiction Studies … As reprint collections on sf film go, Liquid Metal is second only to Annette Kuhn’s Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema (1990) in terms of the overall quality of the contributions – and it is likely to rapidly overtake that groundbreaking intervention when it comes to classroom utility … In the range of its coverage, Liquid Metal makes a fair bid at becoming the set text around which both undergraduate and postgraduate courses on sf film will, with some supplementary readings, be based, and the list of contributors is a pretty solid guarantee of the quality of the criticism it contains.’
Science Fiction Studies

‘The first question that arises, and undoubtedly the most problematical, is to identify what is meant by a "science fiction" film. This book provides a whole range of answers, more by implication than definition, and the range is indicative of a positive indecision rather than a wish to encompass all preferences. Science fiction is, after all, a vast subject, rendered only more complex when translated into film. H. G. Wells (1886–1946), whose influence lurks surprisingly behind much that is in this book, called his own writings "fantasias of possibility", an expression all the more pleasing for its relevance to any kind of fiction. The Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, however, has suggested that the only way to progress is by abolishing formerly valid definitions, and since science fiction is concerned with progress there is little sense in expecting it to conform to a fixed pattern. The only constant thing about it is that it changes all the time. This collection of essays examines the identity of science fiction cinema. At the core is a narrative that argues that in principle the cinema "is" science fiction. It deals with unrealities in a mood of total conviction. It demonstrates alternatives and allows you to share in them. It is a fantasy constructed around actuality, and the translation of ideas into images. Any film worth experiencing is one that hauls you in for ninety-plus minutes, finally to disgorge you in a state of dazed rebirth, and the same applies, of course, to the science fiction genre … Liquid Metal brings together a number of seminal essays that have opened up the study of science fiction with serious critical interrogation. It begins with an exploration of the generic specificities of its form, and concludes with a historically specific case study with 1950s invasion films. It is divided into eight distinct, themed sections including, the cyborg in science fiction; the science fiction city; time travel and the primal scene; the disaster imagination; science fiction fandom; and 1950s invasion narratives and includes important writings by Susan Sontag, Vivian Sobchack, Steve Neale, J. P. Telotte, Peter Biskind and Constance Penley, covering such films as Blade Runner, Alien, Star Wars, The Terminator, Total Recall, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them! and The Thing … The book succeeds as an illuminating study of the science fiction film, as well as a work of pointed literary and cultural criticism, revealing how this genre has captured the popular imagination while transforming the physical and social world in which we live … "The exploration of the unexplorable" is perhaps the most acceptable definition of the science fiction film, wide enough to include the broad range between the "Wonder of Science Fiction" of the first chapter to the "Look to the Skies!" of the last. In the cinema of the fantastic, the speculative and the surreal, the filmmaker satisfies not only the basic requirement of entertainment by striving to provide new and fresh experiences, but also the human mind's healthy refusal to withdraw from its deepest hopes, fears and dreams.
Adrian Gargett, www.kamera.co.uk

'This book is crammed with information. Thirty essays are presented in eight subsections, including such critics as Vivian Sobchack, Susan Sontag, Scott Bukatman, John Tulloch and Peter Hutchings among others. The subsections feature film utopias, disasters, time travel and cyborgs. There is great value for money to be had here given the affordability of the paperback version … Editor Sean Redmond’s insights about the essays and the science fiction genre as a whole are consistent, clear and useful … There is plenty here for anyone with an interest in science fiction film history and criticism.’
Jeff D’Anastasio, Science Fiction Research Association

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Science Fiction: From Outerspace to Cyberspace
Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Desctruction in American Cinema
The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Classic
The Matrix Trilogy: Cyberpunk Reloaded
Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context
Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology