The beginning of the 21st century saw the rise of "New" Atheism and a resulting conflict with Theists – at the same time as the resurgence of fantasy in popular culture. This volume analyses the impact of Theist and Atheist thought on the narratology of four highly popular works of contemporary fantastic fiction. In doing so, the work demonstrates how the ideological stances and the associated patterns of thought colour the novels’ stylistic and narrative devices. The book also presents a new conditional genre metric that not only helps overcome previous impasses within fantastic genre categories but also allows insight into the aforementioned patterns of Atheist and Theist thinking.

Daniel Scott studied English and Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, where he has since taught courses in English and American Studies. He combines interests in fantastic literature and subculture, religious ideology and politics, the atheist-theist contention and their effects on contemporary popular culture.