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Lavished with praise at the time of its 1925 publication, Leonard Clines phantasmagoric God Head is being republished so a new generation of readers can marvel at its dark magic. Clines mesmerizing debut follows the journey of Paulus Kempf, a fugitive labor agitator who takes refuge with a colony of Finns on the remote shores of Lake Superior in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Kempf, a former surgeon, poet, writer, sculptor, and hyper-intellectual, is at first deeply impressed by the folklore and traditions of the quiet, gentle Finns, not to mention their generosity and hospitality. But he soon begins to play upon their superstitions and exploits their kindness through the power of his cunning and imagination, manipulating them into seeing him as a kind of a god. As Clines novel hurtles toward its unforgettable climax, Kempfs capacity for compassion or mercy swiftly falls to the wayside as he seduces his hosts wife and then murders the man in cold blood. Soon thereafter he carves a giant God Head into the side of a nearby mountainside, which the villagers look upon with awe and fear, held in the thrall of Kempfs mysterious intimations of its malicious power. Having achieved complete domination over the Finns, Kempf ultimately tires of their gullibility and returns to civilization, his quest for self-mastery complete. God Heads descent into the dark void of the human heart will thrill modern readers who are sure to cherish this lost literary artifact from the shadow canon of American fiction.

Chinese policy has turned to the globalisation of communication and stories. Beyond the diplomatic ‘voice’, one of the ways that Chinese culture is reaching out to the rest of the world is through science fiction. Sci-fi can be construed as a specialist thinking-circuit for cultures to build and explore experimental models of collective action at global and planetary scale. What do its stories tell us about the globalisation of Chinese culture? When the need to ‘save the world’ has crossed over from sci-fi to science, from entertainment to activism, and from a thought experiment to imminent danger, humans as a whole face challenges of their own making: climate change, environmental pollution, pandemics, extinctions, exclusions and nuclear annihilation. Can sci-fi inspire collective action at species scale? What role will globalising China play?

The start of something new. Evolution of the species.

We discuss how visions for the futures of humanity in space and SETI are intertwined, and are shaped by prior work in the fields and by science fiction. This appears in the language used in the fields, and in the sometimes implicit assumptions made in discussions of them. We give examples from articulations of the so-called Fermi Paradox, discussions of the settlement of the Solar System (in the near future) and the Galaxy (in the far future), and METI. We argue that science fiction, especially the campy variety, is a significant contributor to the ‘giggle factor’ that hinders serious discussion and funding for SETI and Solar System settlement projects. We argue that humanity's long-term future in space will be shaped by our short-term visions for who goes there and how. Because of the way they entered the fields, we recommend avoiding the term ‘colony’ and its cognates when discussing the settlement of space, as well as other terms with similar pedigrees. We offer examples of science fiction and other writing that broaden and challenge our visions of human futures in space and SETI. In an appendix, we use an analogy with the well-funded and relatively uncontroversial searches for the dark matter particle to argue that SETI's lack of funding in the national science portfolio is primarily a problem of perception, not inherent merit.

This study investigates the metaphorical use of the TEMPERATURE domain in character descriptions within Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, adopting the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Despite extensive scholarly attention to the series from literary and cultural studies perspectives, there is a notable gap in cognitive linguistic analysis. Concerning the TEMPERATURE domain, though it is essential to human experience and metaphorically rich in daily thought and language, there has been limited research on the role of this domain in literary discourse. To fill these research gaps, this study adopted the mixed-methods approach, combining (1) content analysis to examine the relationship between the TEMPERATURE domain, specifically WARMTH and COLDNESS domains, and character types and (2) thematic analysis to explore how these domains describe good and evil characters throughout the series. The findings reveal that both WARMTH and COLDNESS domains are used to describe good and evil characters, with no distinctive domain exclusive to each character type. This challenges the conventional association of warmth with goodness and coldness with evil. Such complexity can be attributed to the deceitful nature of evil characters and the emotional detachment of virtuous characters for the greater good, as demonstrated in the novel series. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the creative use of temperature-related metaphors in literature, offering insights into their role in character construction and thematic development.

This chapter contains sections titled: Arthur C. Clarke and Genre SF New Wave SF and the Mainstream Michael Moorcock and Dark Fantasy Interzone References and Further Reading

King Leopold of Belgium was especially notorious for his merciless treatment of the Congolese, who were pressed into service on the rubber plantations. Lanters's discussion places the play within this historical and artistic setting with the European and American treatment of the Blacks as less than human including exhibiting some of them as freaks, natural oddities, and sub-humans or creatures on an evolutionary ladder leading to White perfection, while enslaving native populations to extract natural resources to fuel the \"home\" country's prosperity. The contemporary clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison demonstrated the truth in Dryden's observation in important books using her clinical experience to evaluate several artists, poets, and musicians, including Touched with Tire (1993), An Unquiet Mind (1995), Night Tails Tast (1999), and most recently Robert Lowell: Setting the River on Tire (2017). Lowell being fully conscious \"of its relevance . . . made it a creative force in his writing . . . [as] the duality of mania and discipline, insanity and sanity was the major organizing force of his life.\"

By drawing on material from popular legend and children’s literature, Marco Kreuzpaintner’s film Krabat presents a series of conventional leitmotifs—seduction by dark powers, a pact with the devil and ultimate redemption through love—to explore the tensions implicit in master-disciple relationships common to religious formulations. In depicting how a young boy was compelled to enter under a demonic master’s protection, Krabat exploits the complex intersection of the fantastic genre, magical lore and structures of discipleship. The film is about growing up, about friendship and death, group dynamics, seduction “to the dark side,” and finally, in terms of a positive message, about love which is capable of overcoming everything. Even though the film has no theological intention in the strict sense of the word, Christian values are conveyed by way of narrative elements that have been absorbed and transformed over the course of the reception history devoted to the Krabat material. In addition to marking the shifts between the genre of the literary fantastic and cinematic fantasy, this paper investigates Krabat’s rich intertextuality and demonstrates how its examination may contribute to understanding the provocative interface between literary, cultural and religious studies.

How can humor illustrate critical trends related to social, economic, and ecological sustainability? This article is based on a case study that focused on the filmRare Exports: A Christmas Tale(2010) and two related short films—Rare Exports Inc. (2003) andRare Exports: Official Safety Instructions(2005). These fantasy films employ irony and dark humor that reverse the popular impressions related to Santa Claus and his elves and, more generally, exotic northern nature and culture. By representing the gentle Santa Claus as a savage hybrid creature brutally punishing those not adhering to certain social norms, these films break several conventional dichotomies between good and evil, human and animal, and society and nature. The use of dark humor and irony may compromise attempts to create public understanding based on best available scientific knowledge, but it also opens up complementary and potentially fruitful ways to discuss sustainability issues. Irony provides opportunities to identify and criticize unsustainable trends and to challenge and disclose dichotomies that may otherwise remain unnoticed.