Release Date 14/08/19
A Shadow Within: Evil in Fantasy and Science Fiction is the third Call for Papers of Academia Lunare, the non-fiction arm of Luna Press Publishing.
The papers focus on the theme of Evil, a constant in human history, one that shifts with every passing decade. Evil isn’t a static presence confined to any one given time, but rather something that evolves under the influence of the author’s own experience, society, the technology of the period, and even their understanding of humanity.
Featuring papers from Teika Bellamy, Step P. Bianchini, Octavia Cade, Alice Capstick, A J Dalton, Sharon Day, Tatiana Fajardo, Sean Z Fitzgerald, Jason Gould, Lucinda Holdsworth, Anna Köhler, Jyrki Korpua, Rostislav Kůrka, Kim Lakin-Smith, Robert S Malan, Anna Milon, Thomas Moules, Katarina O’Dette, Charul Palmer-Patel, Matthew J. Elder, Dominic Riemenschneider and Barbara Stevenson.
- "The Antihero’s Journey: The Influence of Milton’s Satan on the Evolution of the Dark Hero" Alice Capstick
- "Rewriting Evil. An Alternative to Personification: Portrayal, Presence and Purpose in the Short Fiction of M. John Harrison" Jason Gould
- "Through the Veil of the Digital Revolution and into the Abyss of Artificial Intelligence: The Insidious Desensitisation of Humanity" Sharon Day
- "Embodiments of evil and reflections of social change in second-world fantasy" A J Dalton
- "Xenomorphobia – Eighties Societal Fears and Issues as Reflected in the Movie Aliens" Robert S Malan
- "Born Bad: Unmasking Evil in John Carpenter’s Halloween and James Cameron’s The Terminator" Kim Lakin-Smith
- "Bluebeard – The Eternal Predator" Teika Bellamy
- "The Problem of Evil in Pseudo-Taoist Secondary Worlds" Lucinda Holdsworth
- "From Dark Side to Grey Politics: The Portrayal of Evil in the Star Wars Saga" Rostislav Kůrka
- "Imperialism as “Evil” in Epic Fantasy: An Analysis of the Fantasy Works of Eddings, Jordan, Sanderson, and Brett" Matthew J. Elder & C. Palmer-Patel
- "Yesterday’s Tyrant: Evolving Evil in Fantasy Television’s Reformed Villains" Katarina O’Dette
- "Spring Again: The Problem of Evil and the End of Winter in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia" Octavia Cade
- "‘I have done only what was necessary’ An exploration of individual and structural evil in the works of N. K. Jemisin" Thomas Moules
- "The Nature of Evil in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson" Barbara Stevenson
- "Machines of Chaos – The Shadows and the Reapers as representations of evil in the television series Babylon 5 and the Mass Effect game series" Jyrki Korpua
- "The Bloodlust of Elizabeth Báthory: From the Brothers Grimm to American Horror Story" Tatiana Fajardo
- "From Light to Dark – Using Gothic Styles to Visualise Evil in Architecture" Dominic Riemenschneider
- "The Inquisitor’s Creatures: The Historical Roots of the Witch Trope and its Evolution Over the Centuries" Steph P. Bianchini
- "Naming the Terror in the Forest: Evolution of The Horned God in Fantasy Fiction" Anna Milon
- "Evil Rewritten: Witches in Revisionist Fairy Tales" Anna Köhler
- "The Fictional Scientist as a Dichotomy of Good and Evil in Contemporary Realist Speculative Fiction" Sean Z Fitzgerald
A Shadow Within: Evil in Fantasy and Science Fiction
"The array of essays that Barbini has assembled in this volume represents an impressively inclusive cross-section of various spheres of discourse on the fantastic. The collection boasts essays from academics, independent researchers, fans, creative writers, and other creative industryprofessionals, and as such it is just as likely to be of interest to the casual reader as it is to more research-oriented audiences. This diversity of contributors is a strength, as it represents the opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration and popular appeal afforded by Fantastika studies. [...] a worthy contribution to research in a frequently cited, but rarely examined, phenomenon in Fantastika, gesturing towards numerous opportunities for further study and likely to be accessible to academic, professional, and casual audiences alike." Full review at Fantastika Journal.
