As seen in HBO's "True Blood", vampires have never been more edgy, gory or sexy. Since its arrival on screen in 2008, Alan Ball's adaptation of "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" by Charlaine Harris has exploited the creative freedoms of the HBO brand and captured a cult audience with its passionate, blood-drenched visuals and stories. From viral webisodes depicting vampires announcing themselves on TV to the steamy title sequence and the show's uninhibited use of language, sex and gore, "Tr...

Doctor Who – new dawn explores the latest cultural moment in this long-running BBC TV series: the casting of a female lead. Analysing showrunner Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker’s era means considering contemporary Doctor Who as an inclusive, regendered brand. Featuring original interview material with cast members, this edited collection also includes an in-depth discussion with Segun Akinola, composer of the iconic theme tune’s current version.The book critica...

NOW THE ACCLAIMED HBO SERIES GAME OF THRONES—THE MASTERPIECE THAT BECAME A CULTURAL PHENOMENONHere is the first book in the landmark series that has redefined imaginative fiction and become a modern masterpiece.A GAME OF THRONESIn a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the North of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are m...

NEW BLOOD EDITION: Contains three new chapters from Season 3.This new edition is available as an E-BOOK ONLY and contains three chapters not found in the print book!The first look at the philosophical issues behind Charlaine Harris's New York Times bestsellers The Southern Vampire Mysteries and the True Blood television series!Teeming with complex, mythical characters in the shape of vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters, and the like, Tr...

Children's literature takes many forms - works adapted for children in antiquity, picture books and pop-ups - and now includes the latest online games and eBooks. This vast and amorphous subject is both intimately related to other areas of literary and cultural investigation but also has its own set of concerns, issues and challenges. From familiar authors including Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl, classic books such as Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and The Secret Garden

Fantasy is a creation of the Enlightenment, and the recognition that excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things. From the ghost stories of the Gothic to the zombies and vampires of twenty-first-century popular literature, from Mrs Radcliffe to Ms Rowling, the fantastic has been popular with readers. Since Tolkien and his many imitators, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon. In this volume, critics and authors of fantasy look at its history since the E...

Pocket Essentials is a dynamic series of books that are concise, lively, and easy to read. Packed with facts as well as expert opinions, each book has all the key information you need to know about such popular topics as film, television, cult fiction, history, and more. This book offers a concise introduction to the appreciation and study of film. It begins with the nuts and bolts, an examination of how films are put together—framing, performance, setting, costume and editing—and then exa...

This thoroughly revised edition includes updated essays on cultural themes and literary analysis, and its new essays analyze the full scope of the seven-book series as both pop cultural phenomenon and as a set of literary texts. Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter, Second Edition draws on a wider range of intellectual traditions to explore the texts, including moral-theological analysis, psychoanalytic perspectives, and philosophy of technology. The Harry Potter novels engage th...

Hercules, Jesus, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, Gandalf, Frodo, Harry Potter, Buffy Summers, Spiderman, Batman, Captain Kirk, Dr Who, Darth Vader, Sauron, Voldemort, Lex Luther, Dr Doom, the Daleks, the Borg.Almost anybody living within the developed West would be able to group these individuals into two camps: the heroes and the villains. However, what criteria they might use to do this is less clear.Mike Alsford introduces us to a whole range of heroic and villainous archety...

Horror cinema is a hugely successful, but at the same time culturally illicit genre that spans the history of cinema. It continues to flourish with recent cycles of supernatural horror and torture porn that span the full range of horror styles and aesthetics. It is enjoyed by audiences everywhere, but also seen as a malign influence by others.In this Routledge Film Guidebook, audience researcher and film scholar Brigid Cherry provides a comprehensive overview of the horror film and...

This introductory volume offers an elegant analysis of the enduring appeal of the cinematic vampire. From Georges Méliès' early cinematic experiments to Twilight and Let the Right One In, the history of vampires in cinema can be organised by a handful of governing principles that help make sense of this movie monster's remarkable fecundity. Among these principles are that the cinematic vampire is invariably about sex and the vexed human relationship with technology, and that the vampire is...

Why not take seriously the claim that Harry Potter's world intertwines with our own? In this timely yet otherworldly volume, more than a dozen scholars of international relations join hands to demonstrate how this well-loved artifact of popular culture reflects and shapes our own lifeworld. A wide range of historical and sociological sources shows how Harry's world contains aspects of our own. Practices such as quidditch dovetail quite clearly with "muggle" sports, and the very Br...