Overview
The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies is a comprehensive guide to the ''final frontier'' of film. It explores our fascination with space exploration, time travel, fantastical worlds and alternative futures. This guide explains how everything from the philosophy of Plato to classic Victorian tales and cult comic books have helped to create one of cinema''s most engaging genres. Discover the classics from Mexico, Russia and Japan, not forgetting the Anime science fiction tradition, along with everything else you need to know from Metropolis to Star Wars, via Blade Runner, 2001 and Alien. The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies is your essential guide to a galaxy of film unbounded by time or space.
Synopsis
The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies is a comprehensive guide to the ''final frontier'' of film. It explores our fascination with space exploration, time travel, fantastical worlds and alternative futures. This guide explains how everything from the philosophy of Plato to classic Victorian tales and cult comic books have helped to create one of cinema''s most engaging genres. Discover the classics from Mexico, Russia and Japan, not forgetting the Anime science fiction tradition, along with everything else you need to know from Metropolis to Star Wars, via Blade Runner, 2001 and Alien. The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies is your essential guide to a galaxy of film unbounded by time or space.
Library Journal
With these four volumes, Rough Guides launches a new film series under the "Rough Guides" umbrella. The similarly formatted titles, each written by an expert in the field, contain relatively brief sections on the history of the genre; 50 classic films (according to the authors' personal and sometimes quirky preferences); the icons (i.e., notable films, directors, and actors); an overview of the genre in international cinema; and "Information," a catch-all term that encompasses bibliographies, specialty periodicals, web sites, video games, festivals, and conventions. Additionally, Horror and Sci-Fi each feature a section on the origins of the genre in literature through the centuries; Gangster has a section called "Tools of the Trade," which discusses archetypes like molls, mobs, and hitmen. Bottom Line Like other titles in the long-running "Rough Guide" series, these entries skim their topics and hit the high points rather than delve deeply into details. Indeed, given the multiplicity of books on all four subjects, at first glance these volumes seem so superficial as to be totally nonessential. But first impressions are deceptive: this quartet yields many guilty pleasures. Among the most interesting tidbits are the numerous sidebars that reveal unexpectedly fascinating data on the given subject. Although most suitable for one's own home library, these books are also recommended for larger public libraries.-Roy Liebman, Los Angeles P.L. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.