KETTERER, David (Anthony Theodor)

(1942-)

   UK-born Canadian academic (with a DPhil from the University of Sussex) based at Concordia University, Montreal. His New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature (1974) interestingly, though in rather academic terminology, links apocalyptic themes in US MAINSTREAM literature with similar obsessions in genre sf. The Rationale of Deception in Poe (1979) covers the whole of Edgar Allan POE's writing, including the PROTO SCIENCE FICTION; a brieferwork on Poe is Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Work, and Criticism (chap 1989). Frankenstein's Creation: The Book, the Monster, and Human Reality (1979)is another of DK's later works which, to a degree, enlarge on the thesis of his first. DK's critical work is widely respected and by no means "one-note", but it does often return to the idea of "metaphoricaltranscendence". The Science Fiction of Mark Twain (coll 1984) ed DK contains 120pp of Introduction and critical apparatus. DK attracted much attention with Imprisoned in a Tesseract: The Life and Work of James Blish (1987). Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy (1992US) is an importantcritical and historical survey of both English and French Canadian sf literature, and includes a bibliography.

   PN

   See also: CANADA; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; DEFINITIONS OF SF; SENSE OF WONDER; WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION.