Includes bibliographical references and index.

On contemporary speculative fiction -- Critical contexts. The critical reception of speculative fiction -- We both know they have to have a victor: a critical ecofeminist deconstruction of the battle between nature and culture in Suzanne Collins' Hunger games trilogy -- The games people play: speculative childhood and virtual culture from ender to hunger -- Feminists kick butt: feminism in the work of three urban fantasy authors -- Critical readings. Good, evil and the soul thereafter: whose dark materials in Pullman's His dark materials trilogy? -- Anglo-Saxonism in the Harry Potter series -- "A tall black boy": writing race in the world of Harry Potter -- Who's betting on The hunger games?: a case for young adult literature -- "Minister, said the girl, "we need to talk": China Mi�eville's Un lun dun as radical fantasy for children and young adults -- Prencks contra you: a poetry of horror, a poetry of hope in China Mi�eville's fantasy fictions (for young adults, &/or not) -- Postcolonial speculative fiction in Africa and its diaspora -- Black girlhood interrupted: race, imperial disruption, and adolescence in Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight robber -- "My stories are quite tame": Margo Lanagan and the critics -- Young adult zombies: Daniel Waters' Generation dead as sociopolitical intervention -- The twenty-first-century fantasy film explosion: redefining a film genre.