Strange Stars

A Hugo Award-winning author and music journalist explores the weird and wild story of when rock ’n’ roll met the sci-fi world of the 1970s As the 1960s drew to a close, and mankind trained its telescopes on other worlds, old conventions gave way to a new kind of hedonistic freedom that celebrated sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. Derided as nerdy or dismissed as fluff, science fiction rarely gets credit for its catalyzing effect on this revolution. In Strange Stars , Jason Heller recasts sci-fi and pop music as parallel cultural forces that depended on one another to expand the horizons of books, music, and out-of-this-world imagery. In doing so, he presents a whole generation of revered musicians as the sci-fi-obsessed conjurers they really were: from Sun Ra lecturing on the black man in the cosmos, to Pink Floyd jamming live over the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing; from a wave of Star Wars disco chart toppers and synthesiser-wielding post-punks, to Jimi Hendrix distilling the “purplish haze” he discovered in a pulp novel into psychedelic song. Of course, the whole scene was led by David Bowie, who hid in the balcony of a movie theater to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey , and came out a changed man… If today’s culture of Comic Con fanatics, superhero blockbusters, and classic sci-fi reboots has us thinking that the nerds have won at last, Strange Stars brings to life an era of unparalleled and unearthly creativity--in magazines, novels, films, records, and concerts--to point out that the nerds have been winning all along.

"Fans of popular music and sf alike will thoroughly enjoy this journey through the center of the 1970s." —Library Journal

"...an impressive guide for anyone who wants to explore the ear-tingling sci-fi pop of the turbulent 1970s." —Starburst

“Strange Stars is an ultra-engaging dive into science fiction's impact on the rock and pop music we know and love. Heller's exploration of where these fandoms intersect and become one is gloriously nerdy delight that expands far beyond Bowie. It connects the essential dots between the transportive work of J.G. Ballard, Jimi Hendrix, P-Funk, British New Wave, and Phillip K. Dick.” —Jessica Hopper, author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

"Strange Stars is full of cosmic wisdom that will open your mind to alien melodies, and also make you hear your favorite classic rock and funk in a whole new way. This book taught me so much about the science fiction influences of some of my favorite albums, but also a ton of surprising stuff about how music shaped the worlds of science fiction. A totally indispensible guide." —Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky 

“There’s never been anything like Strange Stars before—a fantastic voyage through rock & roll history, decoding the sci-fi inspiration that’s always lurked at the heart of it. Jason Heller finds the interstellar connections between visionaries from Sun Ra to Kraftwerk to P-Funk to Bowie, from The Left Hand of Darkness to The Dark Side of the Moon. This brilliant book makes you hear whole new strains of weirdness in music you thought you already knew.” —Rob Sheffield, author of On Bowie

"Jason Heller's fun and authoritative new book makes a compelling case for how science fiction defined a decade in music." —Shelf Awareness*
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"Enlightening... excellent.” *—Tor.com*
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* "Heller does an admirable job...incredible... Strange Stars is a marvelous guide to a little-explored corner of the musical universe...[a] mindblowing work." —Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

"An authoritative look at the intersection of science fiction and music in the 1970s." *—Vulture*

"Interesting... Heller's digging reveals some great factoids." *—University Bookman*

"Indeed, Heller can champion any nerd who needs redemption. Strange Stars finds common ground and a parallel trajectory between rock and the cosmos.” *—Salt Lake City Weekly
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Auteur

Jason Heller

Échantillon de lecture
Strange Stars
INTRODUCTION THE AIR WAS HOT AND CHARGED WITH ELECTRICITY AS I THREADED my way through the crowd at Mile High Stadium. It was August 12, 1987. I was fifteen. And I was there to see David Bowie.

I’d camped out for tickets a few weeks before that. Those were the pre-Internet days, when taking such drastic action was not just the best way to secure good seats at a concert, but the ideal method by which to flaunt your fandom. After standing in line for half a day, I snagged a coveted seventh-row ticket. All I had to do then was wait for August 12 to arrive—easier said than done, especially for a fidgety, high-strung teen.

I can’t remember a world without David Bowie in it. My mom had given birth to me when she was still in high school; in fact, August 12, 1987, was her thirty-first birthday. She was a child of the rock ‘n’ roll age, and being a free-spirited ex-hippie, she flooded our household with music. It was mostly the radio—and rock radio in the ’70s and ’80s could not play Bowie enough. As popular as he’d become, though, he retained an overwhelming mystique. My mom also loved Lynyrd Skynyrd and Tom Petty, dressed-down rock stars you could easily imagine bumping into at the supermarket. The thought of seeing Bowie at Safeway seemed absurd. He wasn’t from here. He wasn’t of Earth.

Being like any other reasonable kid who had reached his teens, I rejected the music my mom listened to. Bowie, however, was the exception. Sure, his music belonged to the generation before me. But he’d also reinvented himself in the early ’80s as a creature of that decade, one who was both an honored forefather and a vital contemporary of all the new wave artists I loved. One of those bands, Duran Duran, was opening for Bowie that night at Mile High Stadium. They were at the height of their popularity, and I was excited beyond belief to see them. But the gravity belonged to Bowie.

There was another reason why Bowie appealed to me, apart from his ability to remain cutting-edge over twenty years into his career as a recording artist. More than any other singer or band I knew of, he embodied something else I loved, something that, by the age of fifteen, had become stamped onto my psyche as an inextricable part of my identity: science fiction.

I saw Star Wars during its first run in the summer of 1977. My grandmother managed a tiny single-screen movie theater in a strip mall in Englewood, Florida, and it was there that one of the defining moments of my life occurred. It’s almost embarrassing today to speak so glowingly about seeing Star Wars. The experience has been shared so many times, by so many people, it’s become rote. That doesn’t soften the impact that movie had on me: it filled my entire body, it seemed, with its images and movements and ideas and sounds. I reveled, even at that young age, in its contradictions. It was futuristic, yet it happened in the past. The technology was advanced, yet it was grimy. I had grown up watching reruns of Star Trek with my grandfather, but this was nothing like that shiny, gleaming, immaculate tableau. Star Wars felt lived-in. As such, it was a place kids could imagine living in. And becoming so much more than they already were.

One of the first records I remember owning was Meco’s Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band. Being 1977, disco was huge, and I heard those hypnotic beats on the radio just as much as Southern rock. The fac…