SCHOLES, Robert (Edward)

(1929-)

   US academic and sf critic. One of the better-known US theorists in structuralism, he is the author of a number of books on literary theory. Those with special relevance to sf are The Fabulators (1967), which deals with FABULATION, Structural Fabulation: An Essay on the Fiction of the Future (1975), Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision(1977) with Eric S. RABKIN (whom see for further details) and Fabulation and Metafiction (1979). The first two and the fourth of these are academic in approach, the second especially for its attempted definition of the sf genre (DEFINITIONS OF SF). With George Edgar SLUSSER and Rabkin, RS edited Bridges to Fantasy (anth 1982) and Co-Ordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy (anth 1983), both collections of critical essays; healso introduced the 1975 US paperback edition of Tzvetan TODOROV's Introduction a la litterature fantastique (1970; trans as The Fantastic: AStructural Approach to a Literary Genre 1973), and has written many shorter critical pieces on sf.

   PN

   See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF.