Sounds of the Future: Essays on Music in Science Fiction Film

Sounds of the Future: Essays on Music in Science Fiction Film
edited by Mathew J. Bartkowiak [Music 781.542 Bar]

This one jumped off the "new materials" display in the Polley Music Library as I was walking by, since I consider myself a collector and big fan of motion picture orchestral soundtracks. In the end, although I found this one to be a bit dry and pedantic in tone -- it felt like reading somebody's doctoral dissertation at times -- I still enjoyed browsing through it and picking out parts of it to further my understanding of the use of music in science fiction films. The book itself is broken into six parts, including "A survey of music's role in science fiction film", "Broadway's relation to science fiction film", "Music and the construction of subjectivity", "Science fiction and popular music", "Instances that shaped our auditory future", and "Composers and compositions in science fiction film." There are a total of 13 essays that make up the book, and I did certainly learn things about both the creative and technical uses of various types of music in these types of films. I just wish that the reading had been a bit more pleasurable. While I recommend this book for the movie music completist, it is very much a technical read. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.