The articles collected in this volume focus on the literary genre science fiction. Part one, "Backgrounds," includes "Starting Points" (Kingsley Amis), "Science Fiction and Literature" (Robert Conquest), and "The Roots of Science Fiction" (Robert Scholes). Part two, "Theory," contains "On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre" (Darko Suvin), "The Time-Travel Story and Related Matters of SF Structuring" (Stanislaw Lem), and "Genre Criticism: Science Fiction and the Fantastic" (Eric S. Rabkin). Part three, "Approaches," provides "On Science Fiction" (C.S. Lewis), "The Imagination of Disaster" (Susan Sontag), "How to Play Utopia: Some Brief Notes on the Distinctiveness of Utopian Fiction" (Michael Holquist), "The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature" (David Ketterer), and "Science Fiction and the Future" (John Huntington). (KS)