Butler, Andrew M
Entry updated 17 June 2024. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor.
(? - ) UK academic and critic whose PhD from the University of Hull was published as Ontology and Ethics in the Writings of Philip K. Dick (1995); he returned to Philip K Dick with The Pocket Essential Philip K. Dick (2000), the first of several books he wrote in the Pocket Essentials series of short introductions.
Though his academic interests include various aspects of critical theory, especially postmodernism and Queer Theory, both of which he has written about occasionally, the books he has edited have tended to concentrate on contemporary British writers, in particular Ken MacLeod, Terry Pratchett and Christopher Priest. His idiosyncratic and often very personal take on the British sf renaissance, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Boom: the British SF Boom" (November 2003 Science Fiction Studies), won the SFRA Pioneer Award. His knowledge of the sf world as a whole, combined with his easy grasp of literary theory as applied to sf, has caused him to be held in very high esteem by such fellow critics as Mark Bould.
Butler has long been associated with the main British science fiction organizations, serving variously as membership secretary of the Science Fiction Foundation and as features editor of the British Science Fiction Association's critical journal, Vector. With Paul Kincaid, he co-edited The Arthur C. Clarke Award: A Critical Anthology (anth 2006). He was an editor of Extrapolation from Spring 2009 to Summer 2010. He currently teaches Media and Cultural Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University. [PKi]
Andrew Mark Butler
born United Kingdom
works
nonfiction
series
Pocket Essentials
- Philip K. Dick (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials, 2000) [nonfiction: chap: Philip K Dick: Pocket Essentials: pb/photographic]
- Philip K. Dick: 2nd Edition (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials, 2007) [nonfiction: rev vt of the above: Pocket Essentials: pb/photographic]
- Cyberpunk (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials, 2000) [nonfiction: Cyberpunk: Pocket Essentials: pb/photographic]
- Terry Pratchett (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials, 2001) [nonfiction: chap: Terry Pratchett: Pocket Essentials: pb/photographic]
- Film Studies (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials, 2002) [nonfiction: Cinema: Pocket Essentials: pb/photographic]
- Film Studies: 2nd Edition (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials, 2005) [nonfiction: rev vt of the above: Pocket Essentials: pb/photographic]
- Postmodernism (Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials, 2003) with Bob Ford [nonfiction: Postmodernism and SF: Pocket Essentials: pb/photographic]
- Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012) [nonfiction: hb/]
individual titles
- Ontology and Ethics in the Writings of Philip K. Dick (Hull, East Yorkshire: University of Hull, 1995) [nonfiction: Philip K Dick: hb/]
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's BFI Film Classics series: pb/]
works as editor
- Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature (Reading, Berkshire: Science Fiction Foundation, 2000) with Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: anth: Terry Pratchett: pb/Josh Kirby]
- Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature: Second Edition (Baltimore, Maryland: Old Earth Books, 2004) with Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: anth: exp vt of the above: Terry Pratchett: hb/photographic]
- The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod (Reading, Berkshire: Science Fiction Foundation, 2003) with Farah Mendlesohn [anth: Ken MacLeod: hb/Colin Odell]
- Christopher Priest: The Interaction (London: Science Fiction Foundation, 2005) [anth: Christopher Priest: pb/Colin Odell]
- A Celebration of British Science Fiction (Guildford, Surrey: Science Fiction Foundation, 2005) with Farah Mendlesohn and Andy Sawyer [anth: pb/Judith Clute]
- The Arthur C. Clarke Award: A Critical Anthology (Everdon, Northamptonshire: Serendip Foundation, 2006) with Paul Kincaid [anth: Arthur C Clarke Award: pb/Elizabeth Billinger]
- An Unofficial Companion to the Novels of Terry Pratchett (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Greenwood World Publishing, 2007) [anth: Terry Pratchett: pb/photographic]
- Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction (London: Routledge, 2009) with Mark Bould, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint [nonfiction: anth: hb/nonpictorial]
- The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction (London: Routledge, 2009) with Mark Bould, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint [nonfiction: anth: hb/Frantisek Kupka]
- The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction (London: Routledge, 2024) with Mark Bould and Sherryl Vint [nonfiction: anth: exp rev vt of the above: hb/]
- Rendezvous with Arthur C Clarke: Centenary Essays (Canterbury, Kent: Gylphi, 2023) with Paul March-Russell [nonfiction: anth: Arthur C Clarke: hb/photographic]
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