Of Sex and Faerie: Further Essays on Genre Fiction

about

Taking up where the author's book Of Modern Dragons (2007) left off, these essays continue Lennard's investigation of the praxis of serial reading and the best genre fiction of recent decades, including work by Bill James, Walter Mosley, Lois Mcmaster Bujold, and Ursula K. Le Guin. There are groundbreaking studies of contemporary paranormal romance, and of Hornblower's transition to space, while the final essay deals with the phenomenon and explosive growth of fanfiction, and with the increasingly empowered status of the reader in a digital world.

Contents

1. Of Policemen and Poussin: Bill James’s Dance to the Muzak of Crime
2. Of Mean Streets and Mortgaged Castles: Walter Mosley, Easy Rawlins, and the G. I. Bill
3. Of Marriage and Mutations: Lois McMaster Bujold and the Several Lives of Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan
4. Of Sex and Faerie: Meredith Gentry’s Improbable Code of Orgasm and other Paranormal Romance
5. Of Voyages and Volumes: The Many Successors of C. S. Forester and Horatio Hornblower
6. Of the Western Shore: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Late Distillation of Fable
7. Of Criticism and Continuities: A Personal Account of Serial Reading in the Age of the Web

There is an extensive bibliography of genre and critical work, with eight illustrations and many hyperlinks.

author

John Lennard is an independent scholar and editor of Fairleigh Dickinson University's online journal Exploring Globalization. He was from 2004-09 Professor of British & American Literature at the University of the West Indies--Mona, and has taught in Cambridge and London. His books include But I Digress (Clarendon Press, 1991), The Poetry Handbook (OUP 1996, 2005), and The Case of Ronald Merrick (HEB, forthcoming), as well as the precursor to this volume, Of Modern Dragons and other essays on Genre Fiction (HEB, 2007). He has also written on Shakespeare, Nabokov, Paul Scott, Reginald Hill, Walter Mosley, Ian McDonald, Octavia E. Butler, and Tamora Pierce for Humanities Ebooks.