ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
List of Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION

0.1: BACKGROUND

• 0.1.1: Creatures and Creators
• 0.1.2: Science Fiction

0.2: DEFINING SF

• 0.2.1: Problems and Expectations
• 0.2.2: A Working Definition
• 0.2.3: Varieties, Origins and Concerns of SF

0.3: SF AND RELIGION

• 0.3.1: A Literature of the Rational
• 0.3.2: SF and Gnosticism

CHAPTER 1

THE ELECTRICAL AGE: 1818 to 1900

1.0: MILTON, SATAN AND PROMETHEUS: THE ROMANTIC CREATION MYTH

1.1: STUPENDOUS MECHANISMS: MARY SHELLEY AND VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN

• 1.1.1: The Workshop of Creation: Synthesising a New Genre
  • 1.1.1.1: The Scientific Method
  • 1.1.1.2: The Gothic Milieu
• 1.1.2: The Frankenstein Heresy
• 1.1.3: The Absent Female: Technology and the Motherless Child

1.2: SF AFTER DARWIN

• 1.2.1: Parasitism
• 1.2.2: Apes and Serpents: the Origin of Species

1.3: DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES: EREWHON

1.4: A SLAVE TO ORIGINAL EVIL: HENRY JEKYLL AND HIS INNER PRIMATE

1.5: THE MARK OF THE BEAST: HG WELLS AND DOCTOR MOREAU

• 1.5.1: A Victorian in Futurity: The Time Machine
• The Mark of the Beast: The Island of Doctor Moreau
  • 1.5.2.1: The Beast Folk
  • 1.5.2.2: The Hand that Makes
  • 1.5.2.3: The Man and the Beast

CHAPTER 2

THE EUGENIC AGE: 1900 to 1945

2.0: SF BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST

• 2.0.1: Eugenics and Utopias
• 2.0.2: Teilhard de Chardin and the Omega Point

2.1: THE PRINCIPLE OF MASS PRODUCTION: ČAPEK AND HUXLEY

2.2: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND THE LIFE FORCE

• 2.2.1: A Genuinely Scientific Religion
• 2.2.2: The Eternal Feminine
• 2.2.3: Pygmalion Unbound

2.3: DAVID LINDSAY AND THE DEVIL MASQUERADING AS GOD

• 2.3.1: The Lived Dialectic of A Voyage to Arcturus
• 2.3.2: A Shadow on the Face of Muspel: Gnostic Cosmogony
• 2.3.3: Evolutionary Fervour: Sport and Creation in Tormance
• 2.3.4: Prometheus the Bodhisattva

2.4: OLAF STAPLEDON AND THE INFANT DEITY

2.4.1: A Note on Magnitude
• 2.4.2: The Maker and his Works: Thomas Trelone, the Third Men and the Star Maker
• 2.4.3: Aspects of the Star Maker
  • 2.4.3.1: Stapledon’s Trinity
  • 2.4.3.2: The Diabolic in the Divine
• 2.4.4: Virtue in the Creature

2.5: CS LEWIS AND THE BEATIFIC VISION

• 2.5.1: Eschatological and Mythopoeic SF
• 2.5.2: Anti-Science Fiction
  • 2.5.2.1: The Metabiological Heres
  • 2.5.2.2: The Scientist as Serpent
  • 2.5.2.3: Men Without Chests
• 2.5.3: Rebellion and Obedience
  • 2.5.3.1: The Bent One
    
  • 2.5.3.2: Unnatural Usages
    
  • 2.5.3.3: The Sculptor and the Clay

CHAPTER 3

THE ATOMIC AGE: 1945 to 1965

3.0: SF AFTER HIROSHIMA

3.1: CORDWAINER SMITH AND THE UNDERPEOPLE

3.2: LUCIFER HAS FALLEN: A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

3.3: ARTHUR C CLARKE AND THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING

3.4: EMANCIPATION FROM THE GODS: JAMES BLISH

3.5: POSITRONIC PRELAPSARIANISM: ISAAC ASIMOV’S ROBOTS

• 3.5.1: The Frankenstein Complex
• 3.5.2: Paradise Regained and Lost
• 3.5.3: Mechanical Men, Mechanical Gods
  • 3.5.3.1: Human Robots
  • 3.5.3.2: The Device and the Divine
  • 3.5.3.3: The Robot as Messiah
• 3.5.4: Frankenstein Revisited: Biological Engineering in Asimov

CHAPTER 4

THE AGE OF THE ROCKETS: 1965 to 1980

4.0: SF AFTER APOLLO

4.1: THE SEX THAT PASSES THE CENSOR: NAKED LUNCH

4.2: THE CYBORG NOVELIST: SAMUEL DELANY

4.3: FATHER SLAYERS AND MOTHER FIGURES: BRIAN ALDISS

4.4: TWO-SOURCE COSMOLOGIES: PHILIP K DICK

CHAPTER 5

THE AGE OF THE ELECTRONIC BRAINS: 1980 to 2000

5.0: SF OF THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION

• 5.0.1: The New Technophilia
• 5.0.2: Cyberpunk
  • 5.0.2.1: The New Romanticism
  • 5.0.2.2: The Old Romantics: Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine

5.1: BRUCE STERLING AND POSTHUMANISM

5.2: WHEN IT CHANGED: WILLIAM GIBSON’S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES

5.3: SF AT THE TURN OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

• 5.3.1: Post-Cyberpunk SF
• 5.3.2: The State of the Art: Iain Banks and Ken Macleod
• 5.3.3: Entelechy Opera

5.4: WARRING ULTIMATE INTELLIGENCES: DAN SIMMONS

• 5.4.1: Fragments of “Hyperion”
  • 5.4.1.1: Keats, Simmons and Silenus
  • 5.4.1.2: Dr Morbius Meets Macbeth
• 5.4.2: Dramatis Personae
  • 5.4.2.1: Keatsian Correspondences
  • 5.4.2.2: The Olympians
  • 5.4.2.3: The Titans
• 5.4.3: A Paean to Evolution

CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSION 1
CONCLUSION 2
CONCLUSION 3
CONCLUSION 4
CONCLUSION 5
CONCLUSION 6
CONCLUSION 7
CONCLUSION 8

APPENDIX A

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Brian ALDISS
Isaac ASIMOV
Iain M BANKS
James BLISH
William S BURROUGHS
Karel ČAPEK
Arthur C CLARKE
Samuel R DELANY
Philip K DICK
William GIBSON
David LINDSAY
Ken MACLEOD
Walter M MILLER Jr
Dan SIMMONS
Cordwainer SMITH
Olaf STAPLEDON
Bruce STERLING

APPENDIX B

‘A MOMENTARY STAY AGAINST CONFUSION’: AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN SIMMONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FIGURES

FIGURE 1: The Clarkeian Great Chain of Being
FIGURE 2.1: Valis
FIGURE 2.2: The Divine Invasion
FIGURE 3.1: The Gnostic Schema 1
FIGURE 3.2: The Gnostic Schema 2