Beasts of the Sky

Often the sky is conceptualised as a place of infinite possibilities, past the limits of our scientific explorations – and into the realms of our fiction and speculation; it is the site for our thoughts on the future, of the extra-terrestrial and beyond. Our representations in the media of space, sky and the infinite invariably mediate social and cultural anxieties that are current, looming and indeed threatening. These concerns range from the environment and fears of ecosystem collapse; the nuclear arms and space race; modernity, utopia and dystopia.

Beasts of the Sky: Strange Sightings from the Stratosphere is the third and final collection in the Beasts series. This collection offers its readers an in-depth and interdisciplinary engagement with the skies above and their monstrous inhabitants, through critical readings of science fiction and popular culture – through the media of film, television, popular music, digital games and animation.

Within this collection there are a multitude of convergent critical perspectives used to engage and explore fictional and real monstrosities of the sky and space in media. As with previous collections, Skies features chapters from a variety of academic perspectives; genre and narrative, textual analysis, spectatorship and reception, Tolkien studies, performance studies, digital media and indeed fiction are featured. Under examination are a wide range of narratives and media forms that represent, reimagine and create subjects as varied as the threat of nuclear weapons, sightings of UFOs, space exploration and flying creatures.