“This study is a meditation upon the uses of the comic as a survival technique in our capricious age of crisis and indeterminacy. ... Comic irony, argues Hassler, becomes a tonal direction for our own skeptical age, where notions of progress have made it a partner with the absurd. Ursula LeGuin, Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov, and William Golding become part of the author's design. This is a closely reasoned study and shows the delight of a scholar enjoying unity in diversity.”– Choice