Acknowledgements Introduction

1. The Cybernetic Imagination

   Science Fiction as a Form of the Literary Imagination Information Theory and Computer Technology Social and Philosophical Implications of Cybernetics

2. Germinal Literary Images and Early Technologies

   The Myths Early Automata Frankenstein and His Nineteenth-Century Followers Twentieth-Century Antecedents

3. Science Fiction Images of Computers and Robots

   Isaac Asimov Develops the Genre The Role of Consciousness

4. An Aesthetic and an Approach

   An Aesthetic of Complementary Perception The Problem: Too Much Material A Systems Approach Using Isolated, Closed, and Open Systems Advantages of the Systems Approach

5. The Isolated-System Model

   Creation as an Ongoing Process The Robot as Metaphor Machine Intelligence as a Tool Conclusion

6. The Closed-System Model

   Dystopian Literature An Automated Society Who Controls a Totalitarian World? The Choice: A Natural or an Aritficial World? Vision of the End Conclusion

7. The Open-System Model

   The Speculative Transforming Imagination A Complementary Mode Genetic Information Codes The Computer and the Community Man-Machine Symbiosis Transformations and Reversals Stanislaw Lem's Robot Fables and Ironic Tales Conclusion

8. Into the Electronic Future

   The Transformation of Man and Machine Philip K. Dick's Robots

Conclusion

Some Critical Questions and Speculations

Notes Nonfiction Bibliography Fiction Bibliography Index