 First UK edition | |
| Author | John Fowles |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Pablo Picasso |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape (UK) Little, Brown (US) |
Publication date | Aug 1982 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 192 |
| ISBN | 0-224-02938-X |
Mantissa is a novel by British author John Fowles published in 1982. It consists entirely of a presumably imaginary dialogue in a writer's head, between himself and an embodiment of the Muse Erato, after he wakes amnesiac in a hospital bed.
Mantissa was Fowles' only novel to receive generally negative reviews. The New York Times called it "a surprisingly tedious novel," asserting that it was little more than Fowles' response to critics that he felt misunderstood his work. [1] The Boston Globe named it "an idiotic story." [2] Time magazine, in a more positive review, asserted that the book consists of a sort of intellectual play between Fowles and the reader, or by Fowles at the expense of all reading. [3] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette likewise identified the book as intellectually playful but found the dialogue tiresome. [4]
Dave Langford reviewed Mantissa for White Dwarf #55, and stated that "Although packed with allegory about what creativity/inspiration actually is, the book is wonderfully, unexpectedly funny. An in-joke or so too many, but great stuff." [5]
John Robert Fowles was an English novelist, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others.
Tik-Tok is a 1983 science fiction novel by American writer John Sladek. It received a 1983 British Science Fiction Association Award.
1982, Janine is a novel by the Scottish author Alasdair Gray. His second, it was published in 1984, and remains his most controversial work. Its use of pornography as a narrative device attracted much criticism, although others, including Gray himself, consider it his best work.
The Planiverse is a novel by A. K. Dewdney, written in 1984 about a two-dimensional world.
High Spirits is a collection of short stories by Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist and professor Robertson Davies. It was first published by Penguin Canada in 1982
Deadeye Dick is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut originally published in 1982.
Mindkiller is a 1982 science fiction novel by American writer Spider Robinson. The novel, set in the late 1980s, explores the social implications of technologies to manipulate the brain, beginning with wireheading, the use of electric current to stimulate the pleasure center of the brain in order to achieve a narcotic high.
We Can Build You is a 1972 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. Written in 1962 as The First in Our Family, it remained unpublished until appearing in serial form as A. Lincoln, Simulacrum in the November 1969 and January 1970 issues of Amazing Stories magazine, re-titled by editor Ted White. The novel was issued as a mass market paperback original by DAW Books in 1972, its final title provided by publisher Donald A. Wollheim. Its first hardcover edition was published in Italy in 1976, and Vintage issued a trade paperback in 1994.
The Damnation Game is a horror novel by English writer Clive Barker, published in 1985. It was Barker's first novel.
The Urth of the New Sun is a 1987 science fiction novel by Gene Wolfe that serves as a coda to his four-volume Book of the New Sun series. Like Book of the New Sun, it is of the Dying Earth subgenre. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1988.
Software is a 1982 cyberpunk science fiction novel written by Rudy Rucker. It won the first Philip K. Dick Award in 1983. The novel is the first book in Rucker's Ware Tetralogy, and was followed by a sequel, Wetware, in 1988.
'X' Stands for Unknown is a collection of seventeen nonfiction science essays written by Isaac Asimov. It was the seventeenth of a series of books collecting essays from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, these being first published between January 1982 and May 1983. It was first published by Doubleday & Company in 1984.
The Solitudes is a 1987 fantasy novel by John Crowley. It is Crowley's fifth published novel and the first novel in the Ægypt tetralogy. Titled after Luis de Góngora's Las Soledades, the novel follows Pierce Moffett, a college history professor in his retreat from ordinary, academic life to pastoral life of Faraway Hills. While in the area, Pierce comes up with a plan to write a book about Hermeticism, in the process finding several parallels with his own project and that of the nearly-forgotten local novelist Fellowes Kraft.
Anatomy of Wonder — A Critical Guide to Science Fiction is a reference book by Neil Barron.
Aurelia is a novel by R. A. Lafferty published in 1982.
Science Fiction Puzzle Tales is a book written by Martin Gardner. It is a book of puzzles and short stories that relate to them.
In Viriconium is a novel by M. John Harrison published in 1982. It is the third novel in the Viriconium series.
Starburst is a science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl, published in 1982. It is an expansion of his 1972 novella The Gold at the Starbow's End.
The Book of the River is a novel by Ian Watson published in 1984.
The Book of Being is a novel by Ian Watson published in 1985.
