It may come as a shock that the 'boys' club' of Science Fiction was founded by a 19-year-old girl, but the strange life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley makes it seem quite logical. Shelley's "Frankenstein" (think Gothic manor meets modern laboratory) was an all-too-sane response to the mix of idealism

Catastrophe, Dystopic, Intense, Monumental, Romantic literature, Technology, Tragic

"The writer is in a god-like relation to what he creates," Martin Amis once mused in an interview. The question that logically follows is: what kind of god is Amis? Well, he is clearly not the god of Leibniz, who could only create the "best of all possible worlds." In fact, the case could easily be m

Catastrophe, Dark, Death, Dystopic, Funny, Ironic, Postmodern fiction, Self-reflection

Beaver coats, hooch, Roadsters, flappers, the Charleston, and hot jazz -- all these ingredients blended in the punch bowl that was the Roaring Twenties, the era in which F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were the crown prince and princess of the fast set. The author had gained wealth, excitement

Catastrophe, Charming, Manic, Modernist literature, Opulent, The lost generation, Tragic

Crowds, conspiracies, consumer society, and futile attempts to thwart despair -- these are the trademark features of the work of Don DeLillo, a prolific American novelist at the edge of contemporary trends. DeLillo is undoubtedly an ironist, as his characters relentlessly mock their relation to

Catastrophe, Death, Ironic, Neo-ironic, Postmodern fiction, Smart, Witty