Science Fiction: Fantasy and Reality (Hardbound - 2009)

Science Fiction (SF) suggests a hybrid form of novel, partaking of both ordinary fiction and elements of science. One of the unacknowledged pleasures of reading SF is that it challenges readers to decide whether what they are reading is within the bounds of the possible. The degree of a willing suspension of disbelief varies from one novel to another.

In its initial phase, SF was criticised as a brash, emotionally dry, and a commercial form which appeared in pulp magazines but today it is an established genre of fiction. Readers from different spheres of life are turning to it as an important “sign of times”. The supreme blend of fantasy and reality as exhibited by H.G. Wells is luring more and more readers.

The purpose of Science Fiction: Fantasy and Reality is to explore the relationship between fantasy and reality in the major British SF from 1890 to 1970 in their diverse manifestations. An attempt has been made to find answers to the following key questions: 1) Why does a writer create fantasy? 2) How does a writer make fantasy acceptable to the readers? and 3) What is a writer’s approach to reality? In answering these questions, the works of major SF writers like H.G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Arthur C. Clarke among others have been analysed.

The book will prove extremely useful to the students and teachers of SF and researchers in this field.

Ratnakar D. Bhelkar is the recipient of Madhaorao Chandorkar Gold Medal, XII All India English Teachers’ Conference Prize for topping M.A. in English, in 1985, Nagpur University, Nagpur. He teaches Romantic Poetry, Victorian Fiction, Modern Poetry, Modern Fiction at undergraduate and postgraduate levels; Research Methodology to M.Phil. students and guides research students. He is bilingual, writes in Marathi and English and translates from both the languages.

He has published Rangdhoon: Saj and Gaj, edited (criticism on paintings); Kanpa Ani Prandhoon (a collection of poems) and Jatau Ani Etar Katha
(a collection of short stories).

He is the editor of Voice of Saint Tukdoji (a Quarterly in English), a magazine of international circulation. At present he is engaged in working on Major UGC Research Project, “Translation of Grammgeeta: Analysis and Interpretation Panorama Beyond the Hills” which purports to investigate the nature of fantasy and reality in the British SF. His forthcoming publications are Paradha Ani Ayudha (a collection of poems), Chakrabalicha Pravas (a collection of prose-lyrics) and a collection of poems in English.