Includes bibliographical references, discographies (pages 237-2244) and index.

Looks at developments in science fiction and pop music in the 1970s, delving into the ways that the work of many influential performers of the time was heavily informed by science fiction and space exploration.

"A Hugo Award-winning author and music journalist explores the weird and wild story of science fiction's outsize impact on popular music and culture. As the 1960s drew to a close, and old mores were giving way to a new kind of freedom that celebrated sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, David Bowie slipped into the empty balcony of a London cinema to see 2001: A Space Odyssey. He emerged a changed man... And indeed, as mankind trained its telescopes on distant worlds, Bowie would lead other rock stars to see the world of science fiction, previously dismissed as nerdy fluff, as the catalyst needed to continue the revolution begun in the sixties. In Strange Stars, Jason Heller recasts sci-fi and pop music as parallel forces that depended on each other to expand the horizons of what could be created with words, sounds, and out-of-this-world imagery. 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 at University of California, Berkeley; to Pink Floyd jamming live over the BBC's Apollo 11 moon landing broadcast; to Jimi Hendrix distilling the 'purplish haze' he discovered in a pulp novel; on to a wave of Star Wars disco chart-toppers and synthesizer-wielding post-punks... 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 creativity--in magazines, novels, films, records and concerts--to point out that the nerds have been winning all along."--Dust jacket.