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The modern marketplace of science fiction, and the relationship between art, culture, and commerce as reflected in works of science fiction, are the concerns of these original essays. The contributors, all of whom are science fiction writers, editors, or critics, offer a wealth of new perspectives and insights on the forces that both drive and hinder creativity and its commodification.

Many of the essays look at how the market constrains a writer's aesthetic and financial development, how changing perceptions of the science fiction audience are "distorting the product," how writers can and must persevere against the problems facing them, and how the market, as a literature-generating machine out of control, has both its down- and upsides.

Through case studies, other contributors relate science fiction to other forms of "underground" literature, consider the continual cycle of illegitimate art replacing legitimate art, look at young readers of science fiction, chart the rising and falling "stock" of science fiction writers' reputations, and consider the influence of editors on a writer's work.

Finally, in looking at science fiction and market realities in other countries and other media, the contributors examine American and British science fiction in the context of the two countries' different histories and market conditions, Russian science fiction and the collapse of the Soviet Union, independent and mass-market science fiction film and video, the opening up of the comic book market, and interactive computer games.