This provocative and unique work reveals the remarkably influential role of futuristic literature on contemporary political power in America. Tracing this phenomenon from its roots in Victorian Britain, Gannon convincingly demonstrates that military ficti

Chapter 1 Introduction: Assessing Rumors-of War and Infernal Machines Chapter 2 Armageddon by Gaslight: Victorian Visions of Apocalypse Chapter 3 Opportunistic Anticipations and Accidental Insights: William Le Queux's Exploitation of Edwardian Invasion Anxieties Chapter 4 Promoters of the Probable, Prophets of the Possible: Technological Innovation and Edwardian Near-Future War Fiction Chapter 5 H.G. Wells: The Far-Future War Prophet of Edwardian England Chapter 6 Hard Numbers, Hard Cases, Hard Decisions: Politics and Future-War Fiction in America Chapter 7 An Imperfect Future Tense(d): Anticipations of Atomic Annihilation in Post-War American Science Fiction Chapter 8 Nuclear Fiction and Silo Psychosis: Narratives of Life in the Shadow of a Mushroom Cloud Chapter 9 Radio Waves, Death Rays, and Transgressive (Sub)Texts: Future-War Fiction in the Wide Black Yonder Chapter 10 Making Man-Machines of Mass Destruction: Future-War Authors as Seers in an Age of Cyborg Soldiers Chapter 11 Cultural Casualties as Collateral Damage: The Fragment-ing/-ation Effects of Future-War Fantasies vs. Fictions Chapter 12 Afterword: On Conducting a Literary Reconnaissance in Force-and in Earnest

Charles E. Gannon is associate professor of English at St. Bonaventure University.