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Publisher: Melville House
Theme: David Bowie, Music Related
UPC: 9781612196978
Product ID: MLVI96978
Weight: 1 lb
Available Date: 6/5/2018
Model Number: 9781612196978
Summary
A Hugo Award-winning author and music journalist explores the weird and wild story of when the sci-fi world met the rock ’n’ roll world of the 1970s
As the 1960s drew to a close, and mankind trained its telescopes on other worlds, old conventions gave way to a new kind of hedonistic freedom that celebrated sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. Derided as nerdy or dismissed as fluff, science fiction rarely gets credit for its catalyzing effect on this revolution.
In Strange Stars, Jason Heller recasts sci-fi and pop music as parallel cultural forces that depended on one another to expand the horizons of books, music, and out-of-this-world imagery.
In doing so, he presents a whole generation of revered musicians as the sci-fi-obsessed conjurers they really were: from Sun Ra lecturing on the black man in the cosmos, to Pink Floyd jamming live over the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing; from a wave of Star Wars disco chart toppers and synthesiser-wielding post-punks, to Jimi Hendrix distilling the “purplish haze” he discovered in a pulp novel into psychedelic song. Of course, the whole scene was led by David Bowie, who hid in the balcony of a movie theater to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, and came out a changed man…
If today’s culture of Comic Con fanatics, superhero blockbusters, and classic sci-fi reboots has us thinking that the nerds have won at last, Strange Stars brings to life an era of unparalleled and unearthly creativity—in magazines, novels, films, records, and concerts—to point out that the nerds have been winning all along.
About the Author
Jason Heller has written for publications including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NPR, and The AV Club. His latest book was Taft 2012.
Product Details
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Melville House
Social Science / Popular Culture
