"The sun should be yellow, perhaps? Not black." "That's not the sun," explained my brother. "It's me. I'm in mourning, you see."

What the perpetrators of the endless trilogies which clog bookstore shelves do not seem to grasp is that their attempts to reproduce the wonder of, for example, The Lord of the Rings are doomed by the very methods they employ. Just as the qualities of a summer night cannot be reduced to a formula or a checklist, the insight and passion which move us in works of great literature cannot be canned, shrink-wrapped, or faked.

across the atrium faces die to be heard / within the canons of the heart / no word is sacred

The latter half of the twentieth century was a time of deep experimentation in sound production, whether breaking down western musical traditions; pulling inspiration from popular, eastern or ethnic music; or incorporating the latest technologies. Many composers found science fiction a natural theme when they wanted to use these new elements in their music.