The Gothic Imagination: Conversations on Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction in the Media is shipping now. The table-of-contents makes it look a lot more interesting than the publisher’s blurb does (which foregrounds the William Shatner involvement, presumably in the vain hope that Trekkies will buy it)…
Preface by Richard Holmes / Prefatory Note by James Gunn
INTRODUCTION: VOICES HEARD ‘ROUND THE COSMIC CAMPFIRE by John C. Tibbetts
THE LOVECRAFT CIRCLE
* “The Provocative Abysses of Unplumbed Space”: S.T. Joshi Explores the Universe of H.P. Lovecraft
* “I Am Providence”: Henry Beckwith on H.P. Lovecraft
* “Psycho Is Not About a Shower Scene!”: Robert Bloch
* “From Providence to Liverpool”: Ramsey Campbell
* “Certain Things Associated with the Night”: T.E.D. Klein
THE HEROIC AGE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
* “Robert E. Howard and The Whole Wide World”: Dan Ireland
* “Batman and Me”: Bob Kane
* “The Man Who Explained Miracles”: John Dickson Carr
* “Superman is a Friend”: Christopher Reeve
* “Wonder’s Child”: Jack Williamson
* “Ragnarok and Relativity”: Poul Anderson
* “The Way the Future Was”: Frederik Pohl
* “I Tell People Stories”: Wilson Tucker
* “The Complete Enchanter”: L. Sprague De Camp
THE BRADBURY COLLABORATIONS
* “Stan and Ollie”: Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen
* “Joe and Me”: Bradbury and Joseph Mugnaini
THE BRADBURY CIRCLE (Friends and Associates)
* “Let’s Put on a Show!”: Julius Schwarz
* “Mister Monster”: Forrest J Ackerman
* “Dandelion Chronicles”: William F. Nolan
* “The Repairman Cometh”: F. Paul Wilson
* “A Bradbury Companion”: Donn Albright
DESTINATION: MARS!
* “Back to Barsoom”: Bob Zeuschner Talks about the Mars Books of Edgar Rice Burroughs
* “This Is Where We Start Again”: Kim Stanley Robinson
THE EXTRAVAGANT GAZE
* “A Sublime Madness”: Professors Albert Boime and Tim Mitchell Talk about Goya, Gericault, and Caspar David Friedrich
* “Scenes from Childhood”
* “Album for the Young”: Maurice Sendak
* “There’s a Lot of Reality to These Fantasies”: Charles Sturridge and Fairy Tale
* “The Mysteries of Chris Van Allsburg”
* “Gahan Wilson’s Diner”
“WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE…”: TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET AND STAR TREK
* Frankie Thomas on “Tom Corbett” and the Early Days of “Live” Television
* Four members of the Enterprise crew speak out about Star Trek: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, De Forest Kelly, and George Takei
THE MUSIC OF TERROR
* “Symphonie fantastique”: Jack Sullivan
POSTMODERN GOTHIC
* “The Night Ride of Charles Beaumont”: Jason V Brock
* “The Kiss That Bites”: Susie McKee Charnas
* “A Magellan of the Interior”: Peter Straub
* “The Billion Year Spree”: Brian Aldiss
* “Savage Pastimes”: Gothic Schlock and True-Crime Horrors: Harold Schechter and Rick Geary
* “Different Engines”: Alternate Worlds and Anachronistic Technologies: Cynthia Miller and T. L. Reid
“THE HERESY OF HUMANISM”: GREG BEAR AND GREGORY BENFORD
EPILOGUE