314 Winter 2015

Editor

Chris Pak SFRA University of Lancaster, Bailrigg, A publicationRe of the Scienceview Fiction Research Association Lancaster LA1 4YW. [email protected]

Nonfiction Editor In this issue Dominick Grace SFRA Review Business Brescia University College, 1285 Western Rd, London ON, N6G Being Human...... 2 3R4, Canada phone: 519-432-8353 ext. 28244. SFRA Business [email protected] International SFRA ...... 2 “Get Your Ass to Mars”...... 3 Assistant Nonfiction Editor Ciència i Ficció: L’Exploració Creativa dels Móns Reals i Irreals, Barcelona 2-5 Kevin Pinkham September 2015...... 3 College of Arts and Sciences, Ny- ack College, 1 South Boulevard, Nyack, NY 10960, phone: 845- Feature Interview 675-4526845-675-4526. An Interview with Elizabeth Knox...... 6 [email protected]

Fiction Editor Feature 101 Ecology 101...... 16 Jeremy Brett Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M University, Nonfiction Reviews Cushing Memorial Library & Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films...... 26 Archives, 5000 TAMU College Station, TX 77843. Germany: A Science Fiction...... 27 [email protected] Religion in Science Fiction: The Evolution of an Idea and the Extinction of a Genre...... 28 Media Editor Revolutionary Experiments: The Quest for Immortality in Bolshevik Science and Leimar Garcia-Siino Fiction...... 30 Department of English, 19-23 Abercromby Square, School of the Fiction Reviews Arts, University of Liverpool, L69 7ZG. Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir...... 32 [email protected] The Self-Propelled Island...... 32 Livid...... 35 Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction...... 36

Media Reviews Star Trek Continues...... 40 The 100...... 41 Submissions The SFRA Review encourages submissions of The Martian...... 42 reviews, review essays that cover several related Parks and Recreation: Season 7...... 44 texts, interviews, and feature articles. Submis- sion guidelines are available at http://www.sfra. Predestination...... 45 org/ or by inquiry to the appropriate editor. All submitters must be current SFRA members. Contact the Editors for other submissions or for Announcements correspondence. Books and Events...... 48 The SFRA Review (ISSN 1068-395X) is pub- Call for Papers—Conference...... 48 lished four times a year by the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA), and distributed Call for Papers—Articles...... 51 to SFRA members. Individual issues are not for sale; however, all issues after 256 are published to SFRA’s Website (http://www.sfra.org/). PB SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 1 SFRA Review Business interviewing writer Elizabeth Knox at Liverpool Wa- terstones One in June of this year, and I have pro- duced a transcript of our discussion. We also have an EDITORS’ MESSAGE excellent Feature 101 article, “Ecology 101,” written Being Human by Gerry Canavan. Finally, we have our regular series Chris Pak of non-fiction, fiction and media reviews. Enjoy!

AS I WRITE, the UK’s National Festival of the Hu- PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE manities, Being Human, is poised for its 2016 launch at the end of this week. This event is funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and the International SFRA British Academy, with support from the Wellcome Craig Jacobsen Trust. Over forty institutions across the UK receive funding to host events over the eleven days of the A FEW YEARS AGO, an earlier incarnation of the annual festival. Having curated an exhibition for Be- - ing Human at the University of Liverpool, it strikes ciation’s commitment to its international character me as encouraging that the only national festival of andSFRA articulated Executive its Committee hope that the reaffirmed annual conference the asso the humanities in the UK would choose as its theme would be held outside of the United States once ev- a topic that is no stranger to those familiar with sci- ery three years. I think that it is important that we

I cannot help but look forward to SFRA 2016. Delv- occasionally. It isn’t something that we can ensure ence fiction. ing into the Science Fiction Foundation Collection at willremind happen. ourselves We rely of on this the goal ability and and its significancewillingness the University of Liverpool’s Special Collections and of a member, or sometimes a few, to coordinate each Archives for suitable exhibition material has allowed year’s conference. Often work begins a year and a me the chance to think again about the place of sci- half before the conference begins. Coordinators have to scout venues, secure affordable lodging, seek in- stitutional sponsorship, and rough out a budget well ence fiction in academia, and about what our role as I am reminded of the successful 2011 British Library in advance. It’s complicated and demanding, and scholars of science fiction means to the wider public. exhibition, Out of this World: Science Fiction But Not sometimes things don’t work out for one reason or As You Know It, which was curated by one of next year’s keynote speakers, Andy Sawyer. These events will meet outside of the US every three years. But we - cananother. say that That in makes 2016 we it difficultwill convene for us again to say outside that we of nect with a wider public audience, and for science the US, and outside of North America, in Liverpool, speak favourably of science fiction’s potential to con - England. This pleases me immensely, and not because it fiction as a powerful mode to think through philo - keeps us within spitting distance of our one-in-three sophical, social and political questions about what it nates in the UK amongst scholars of a diverse range goal at an admirable one-in-four (Lublin, Poland in means to be human - a question that evidently reso of disciplines and with public audiences. - This activity and the presence of the Science Fic- ment to our international membership that was the tion Foundation archive in Liverpool makes the UK genesis2011), but for because the goal. it reaffirmsThe SFRA in has deed an that increasingly commit an ideal location for SFRA 2016. The SFRA 2016 global membership, with particularly strong repre- website will be available any day now at the address sentation from the UK, and many others who will , and its appearance will - be announced on the SFRA-listserv. In the meantime, pensive than it has been in a few years. Simple fair- www.liv.ac.uk/sci-fi-2016 I would like to draw your attention to the call for pa- nessfind thewould journey argue to that SFRA we 2016 not alwaysshorter meetand lesson theex pers for SFRA 2016, on p. 46 of this issue. I do hope western side of the Atlantic/eastern side of the Pa-

For this issue of the Review, I had the pleasure of Beyond simple fairness, though, is the simple fact to see you there! cific/northern side of the equator. 2 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 3 campuses seem to have replaced the shooting range, is international. SFRA must be international as well, as the Middle East erupts in bursts of religious and beyondthat science simply fiction the isaddresses international. on our The membership study of it ideological dogma, the world of Science Fiction has list. Every annual conference takes on some of the in recent months given us a number of chances to re- character of its host location, through both the in- evitable experience of place and the conscious pro- Robinson’s ground-breaking take on the trope of the gramming of the conference coordinator. SFRA 2016 flect on these crises from a safe distance. TheKim Martian Stanley will not simply be SFRA in Liverpool, it will be the or the trailer for the new Star Wars SFRA of Liverpool, and all of us fortunate enough to bygeneration the thrilling ship, togetherannouncement with films that like scientists may attend will carry that experience away with us. have discovered an ‘Alien Superstructure,’ film, and all topped point But only if we go. The sad truth is that, historically, to the renewed interest in what’s out there. the conferences held outside of the US have had the In the meantime, here on earth, the eagerly await- lowest attendance. That’s understandable. For North ed Museum of Science Fiction, what the founders American members, time and money commitments increase, and institutional support, for those lucky - enough to receive some, might be more limited. claim will be the world’s first comprehensive SF Those are, often, challenges that can be overcome ismuseum, great news has just for announced the writers that and they readers will begin among is with enough lead time and planning. Just think of thesuing SFRA. an academic I’ll take thisjournal opportunity on science to fiction, give a whichheads the people you met in Detroit, or Atlanta, or Phoenix up to our SFRA community about a ‘Support a New who came all of the way from Australia, or Brazil, or Scholar’ funding program that we’re working on in Israel. The people who made you think “Wow, that’s the EC and will have details published for you soon. a long way to come.” They planned, they saved, and Finally, I hope you’re all starting to think about our theY contributed enormously to the experience for next SFRA conference at the University of Liverpool the rest of us. Let’s see some SFRA reciprocity. Start in June 2016. I look forward to seeing there, on Mars, planning right now. Start saving now. Get your pro- posal ready, and I’ll see you in Liverpool. or elsewhere!

SFRA Business VICE-PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

SFRA Business “Get Your Ass to Mars” Keren Omry Ciència i Ficció: L’Exploració Cre- ativa dels Móns Reals i Irreals, THIS IS THE MESSAGE Arnie tells us urgently, in 1990’s Total Recall. More recently, none other than Barcelona 2-5 September 2015 Sara Martín Alegre1 reading the newspapers these days, getting the hell outBuzz of Aldrinhere seems urged like the good same advice journey, more and often indeed, than not. A long time promoter of the extended space pro- The SCCFF (Societat Catalana de Ciència-Ficció i gram, the famed astronaut urges the development of Fantasia, http://www.sccff.cat/) is an association a ‘master plan’ to colonize Mars before 2040. While founded in 1997, as a spin-off of the Catalan writers’ this ‘master plan’ is yet a ways away from fruition, society. As an association established by writers it the idea of carving out a space for travellers, for refu- - gees, to rest temporarily or to build a new life seems zations such as the Asociación Española de Fantasía, more timely than ever before. As Europe stumbles Cienciais, then, Ficciónquite different y Terror from (http://www.aefcft.com/ fandom-based organi), on the pragmatics and the morals of providing responsible for the annual HispaCon. This Autumn homes for the displaced, as the United States fum- bles among presidential candidates and university 1 [email protected]. 2 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 3 the SCCFF is heading towards a deep renovation - which will make it the central hub of communica- vised translation into a good occasion to meet other tion connected with the genres it promotes all over delegates.these cases, turning the frequent need for impro the Catalan-speaking area (including Catalonia, the Two of the three plenary lectures are already avail- Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands in able online ( Eastern Spain, and the South-east of France). The in- imatges/), with the third one to be shortly available tention is to remain a meeting point for writers, pub- as well. The inauguralhttps://cienciaificcio.wordpress.com/ lecture, titled “Lletres i tecno- lishers, academics and, secondarily, fans while mak- ciència”, offered by Laura Borràs, the current presi- ing its public presence more prominent in its area dent of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes and a well-known specialist in the study of hypertexts, of- perception of fantasy and SF. fered an impression of how technological advances ofThe influence international so as to conference alter the still reviewed prejudiced here, public ‘Cièn- affect writing, hence also the possibility of generat- cia i ficció: L’exploració creativa dels mons reals i dels ing creative alternatives to plain print. Carme Tor- irreals’ (‘Science and Fiction: The Creative Explora- ras, a distinguished researcher who carries out her tion of Real and Unreal Worlds’), was co-organized work on robotics at the Universitat Politècnica de by the SCCFF and the Societat Catalana d’Història de Catalunya, offered a lecture on the convergence of la Ciència - SF and current robotics, offering as well an over- ganization for Catalan culture, the Institut d’Estudis view of her own work, applied mainly to nursing Catalans. The, a branch conference, of the organized main official by aresearch team head or- robots intended to help elderly and disabled per- sons. The French writer, editor, scholar and collec- editor Antoni Munné-Jordà, ran from 2-5 Septem- tor, Jean-Pierre Laigle–whose amazing collection of ed by science historian Pasqual Bernat and writer/ SF-related phone cards was displayed as one of the the IEC, right in the medieval heart of cosmopolitan three exhibitions attached to the conference–offered ber and was held in the beautiful headquarters of the closing lecture, “La vie dans la haute atmosphère the guided visit to the Biblioteca de Catalunya (the selon la science fiction”, at the charming library of Barcelona. Those of us who had the fortune to join the Museum Víctor Balaguer of Vilanova i la Geltrú going back to the 14th century when the building (about 50 kms. south of Barcelona). He dealt with wasnational one of Catalan biggest library) hospitals enjoyed in Europe. true timeApart travel, from the advances in aviation from the 1910s onwards, were invited to admire–in the room entirely devoted athe series quite ofoverlooked fantasy and subject SF worksof how, speculated coinciding with toenjoying Cervantes–the spaces off-limit library’s to collection regular library of Isaac users, Asimov we the possible existence of aerial creatures, and even novels. whole lands, to be found in the upper reaches of the - atmosphere, occupying the blue heavens tradition- tic and, as such, truly inspirational. Its modest aim ally assigned by Christianity to God, his angels and The conference, small and lively, was quite eclec the saintly ones. The Museum, by the way, accompa- placing this connection within the context of Catalan nied Laigle’s talk with an exhibition of the many SF academia,was analyzing yet thehow international science and naturefiction connectof the event and and fantasy books it houses. opened up the debate well beyond national limits. I believe it is safe to claim that the papers were di- The conference gathered together about 45 partici- - pants, with 30 papers submitted, a little above half gies). The scholars with a background in the Human- of them by scholars based in Catalonia, and half by itiesvided leaned into two towards quite examiningdifferent areas science (or inmethodolo the work scholars based in other areas of Spain or interna- of particular writers or in particular works by well- tionally (there were visitors from Cork, Nice, Paris, known SF and fantasy writers. In contrast, those in- Houston among other cities). The linguistic factor clined towards the sciences tended to review lists

communicate with actual science and technology. was at points difficult to navigate without the aid of Aof third novels hybrid and filmscategory paying dealt attention more generally to how with they automatic translation (or Babel fish!) since Catalan, state-of-the-art technoscience, with transhumanism tothe visitors most frequently who spoke used neither. language, We all and managed, Spanish how are- - ever,more toor communicateless mutually intelligibleusing English, but simplyas is usual opaque in becoming quite a bone of contention among the par 4 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 5 ticipants. The writers discussed were of quite a wide range: Victor Hugo, Alexander Bogdanov, Edgar Rice tual science, which is a refreshing change from past Burroughs, Whitley Strieber, Frederick Pohl, Richard times. Eric Picholle spoke on behalf of other French Morgan, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ray Loriga and, of course, colleagues based in the Université de Nice Sophia- Antipolis about what they have wittily called ‘the exhibition accompanying the conference (a display Nice way’ to generate an interdisciplinary approach oflocal his hero SF and Manuel fantasy de books). Pedrolo, Films the subject and TV ofseries the third with to SF studies in higher education. Personally, the main lesson I took home and, argu- papers, from Kubrick’s oeuvre to Chris Marker’s clas- ably, the keynote of the conference is the realization sictechnoscientific La Jetée passing connections through Districtalso featured 9 and Breakingin many that whereas from the perspective of science and Bad. Delegates will certainly remember (perhaps technology the battle to teach SF in universities is (or forever) Manuel Moreno and Joan Miró’s paper criti- seems) won – and I refer here to Spain and France cizing the wildly inaccurate representation of sun mainly. This is not at all the case in the Humanities. It is easier, in short, for a Catalan scientist to include SF topics discussed in the ‘hybrid’ papers I’ll mention in his classes to illustrate his or her teaching than for and moon eclipses in fiction and film. Among the- a specialist in Catalan Literature to teach a course on tectural dystopia, ecology, hypnosis and hibernation. Catalan SF (replace Catalan with Spanish or French theSince treatment it is impossible in fiction to of summarize organ transplants, all the panels, archi and the problem remains the same). As an English allow me to refer to the two that, in my view, gen- Studies specialist, I made the point that in any case erated much food for thought among the audience. the SF taught by Catalan, Spanish or French scien- The panel dealing with post-humanism and transhu- tists in their university courses is not local but most- manism included three very different papers, even ly Anglophone (and in translation). The cultural and linguistically: the paper in Catalan by Sergi Mon- literary nuances are bypassed but, then, Anglophone SF is so overwhelmingly dominant and popular that enthusiastic view of transhumanism, eulogizing ad- few science teachers would think of replacing it with vancesteagudo that and other David specialists Castejón have presented found aterrifying. certainly their local variety. This remains, thus, relatively un- The second paper, by Rocío Vanesa Ramírez and in known even in its own territory. - I cannot think of a better compliment to the orga- telligence develops self-awareness from a far more nizers than this: the conference not only served its cautiousSpanish, dealtphilosophical with the position. possibility The that third artificial paper, inby purpose but opened new ways of thinking about Saba Razvi, offered a reading in English of the con- troversial biopolitical issues that Paolo Bacigalupi territories. Wonderful food for thought. raises in his biopunk novel The Windup Girl. The how science and fiction connect beyond Anglophone panel chair, Carme Torras, found herself explaining to the participants, who did not understand each other, how very different their papers were but at the same time how representative of the world-wide positions around this debate–which the audience

The other panel I wish to highlight dealt with how SFjoined is used in eagerly. to teach science; it also connected with the paper by professor Joandomènec Ros, who has been teaching ecology in the Universitat de Barcelo-

Hernández-Fernández, a secondary school teacher andna for an decades associate with teacher the support at the ofUniversitat SF fiction. Politèc Antoni- nica de Catalunya, based his presentation on the ex- cellent materials he has helped to develop in order to teach science and technology using SF cinema to young students in Spain. The handbooks were not only exciting but were also oriented to producing ac- 4 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 5 Feature Interview takes the town and real insanity are based on my sister. Also my mother was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, a fatal, progressive disease, and my husband’s younger brother was killed by a man who An Interview with Elizabeth Knox later went to prison for it. And Duncan was killed leaving behind four children between the ages of seven and twelve. Interviewed by Chris Pak So these things all happened and basically I think I was writing about that - or how that made me feel. I ELIZABETH KNOX is a highly regarded author from keeper, so I wrote things down, but I started writ- blends fantasy, horror and sf. Knox was awarded the ingwas this writing horror journal novel notes, because too. I’mof this a sporadic darkness journal that New Zealand Zealand Order whose of youngMerit (ONZM) adult and in 2002 adult for fiction her services to literature and the 2000 Arts Foundation were things that I could do with it in terms of writ- of New Zealand Laureate Award. In 1999, her novel ingwas about inside disaster, me. Then but Inot quickly a real realised disaster. thatBecause there I The Vintner’s Luck (1998) won the Deutz Medal for think what happens with the what I, and other peo- Fiction, the Reader’s Choice Award and the Book- sellers’ Choice Award, and was long-listed for the about the holocaust, or the massacres in Rawanda, Orange Prize for Fiction. Her YA duology Dream- orple, a callschool ‘crisis shooting fiction’ - about- where real, you historical have a book incidents, that’s hunter (2005) and Dreamquake (2007) were also but not written by participants or a immediate rela- extremely well-received, garnering three awards between them. Knox has written sixteen novels and a collection of essays titled The Love School (2008). tive,I wanted is that to the avoid dignity importing of the dignity. real horrific But I did event want is More information and links to reviews and articles toimported write about into the how fiction. people survive a crisis and be- can be found on her website, http://www.elizabeth- have themselves. Do what people often do. I really knox.com/. don’t believe in the whole dystopian notion, that On the 2nd June 2015, I interviewed Elizabeth when something terrible happens everyone starts Knox at a Waterstones Liverpool One event to mark tearing each other apart. Actually, usually, they start the UK release of her novel, Wake (2013). What fol- trying to help each other, and they do their best. So I lows is an edited transcript of that interview. wanted to capture that, and I wanted to explore the idea of different kinds of perils. CP: The reading that you just gave us talks about The book starts with a physical peril and moves on trauma brought about by loss. The book [Wake] to psychological peril where people think they’re go- begins with a very different type of trauma, a ing to lose their minds. You know, because they are very immediate, physical kind. The whole book trapped with an invisible monster that is picking does appear to be very much centred on this idea away at the loose threads of their characters, so they of trauma and with dealing with trauma, and do suffer somewhat, the survivors. And when they how you find a way to get over it. Is that what you get to the end, when they really don’t think they’ve set out to try to do with this book? got any hope, there comes what I call moral peril, where all you’re left with is trying not to fail yourself EK: I started writing not knowing that I was writing or the people you care for. And I wanted to try to use this book, a novel, anything in particular. But what horror to get that arc of things, but at the same time was happening in my life at the time was a catalogue to provide all the usual thrills, of suspense and fear of disaster that unfolded over about three years, and creepiness. I wasn’t going to cheat. I wasn’t go- with one year at the centre of it where everything ing to fail to do the real thing because I’m a horror happened, really, and the rest of the time around reader, so it’s not like I thought, “Oh, horror, I’ll use - this” and then started researching horror. I’ve been ing that year my older sister had a psychotic break reading horror forever. andthat Iyear had was to section just dealing 8 her. with The whatnovel’s happened. observations Dur about the difference between the insanity that over- CP: And you can really tell that you’ve been read- 6 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 7 ing both horror and science fiction as well, be- EK: Yes. Ergot poisoning. cause the whole book is flush with allusions to various works of science fiction and horror. CP: Yes. Some of the other characters, Oscar for example, the boy who’s very interested in games, EK: And video games. does something very interesting with rationali- sation. He plays a lot of console games as a teen- CP: and video games, yes. We’ll definitely get to ager and he begins to react as if he is in a simu- that – I’m very interested in that. And there’s a lation, and that paradoxically allows him to deal lot to pick out from what you’ve said. I’ll start with trauma a little better. I wonder – with this therapeutic aspect, this kind of dis- placement. You mentioned books about horrific events, the holocaust for example, are almost too he’s also got this thing where he goes, “I’m going to immediate and they import some sort of dignity. dealEK: He’s with got these a more strange flexible things mind as than they’re the happeningadults, but So do you find the use of horror a good way to ap- and try to work out how they work.” He doesn’t keep proach trauma that isn’t necessarily attached to working on his expectations. He gets that from play- a whole history that has this baggage? ing games.

EK: Yes. Well, the thing is, it makes you work harder, CP: So was Oscar there to point to all the expecta- because you – people, readers – haven’t already made tions that an event like this might bring with it, up your mind about the events. If the writer gives as a horror event? them completely made up events, then they’re actu- EK: I think it was partly that, but it was also – look, how the people are behaving, rather than going “Oh, well obviously this book was written by someone thisally lettingperson’s readers on this exercise side and their believes judgement these things, about who’s read Dean Koontz and Stephen King. And Ste- and that person’s on that side, etc.” So yes, that’s what phen King and I had read the same Dean Koontz book. Under the Dome: King got his inspiration partly from in this group of survivors being mostly comprised of Phantoms ordinaryI was trying New avoid. Zealanders But specifically from a whole I was ageinterested range. - Oh nevermind.”, and so We’re did I. Kingboth happenedplaying off to finishPhantoms and est one’s in her eighties, Kate. And most of them are [EK:publish Also, his King before says I did, he andwas I inspiredwas like “Oh!by the [laughs] dome strangersSo the youngest to each person other isand fifteen, they’re Oscar, a various and the bunch old The Simpsons movie]. Anyway, – like there’s a truck driver – he’s a working class there’s a great character in King’s The Langoliers, a overnovelist Springfield who is so in used to generating plots that he’s intellectual. It wasn’t that I was being representative. very good at working out what’s happening. It could They’reguy, and allthere’s probable a documentary New Zealanders, filmmaker and who’sthe way an be this, it could be that. The novelist does thought they operate is probable. And there’s an American experiments. I think Oscar’s my version of that, the one who’s doing the thought experiments. But he with everything, not because he’s an American but becausethrown in, he’s who’s already the mostsuffering equipped from topost-traumatic actually deal year old son, who’s a gamer. Very tall, too. Gawky, stress disorder [laughs], so for him it’s one trauma tall,also greatstarted big off feet. as a loving portrait of my then fifteen on top of another [laughs]. Yes. CP: [laughs]. CP: And his way of dealing with that trauma and a lot of the characters’ way of dealing with the EK: Throws them down all over the place willy-nilly. horror of the events is to rationalise it in various But yes. ways, and he actually provides some very inter- esting explanations for the events that happen. CP: Okay. So I’m really interested in that because He offers ergot poisoning, for example, as one the plot of the story plays with your expectations. explanation. It opens with the horror aspect, the insanity, the quite gory attacks, and after that unfolds at a 6 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 7 right angle and goes off in a different direction.

EK: Yes, it’s a desert island story, practically. I’ve al- black Man in Black. But it was also because New Zea- ways loved the pleasure of “working out how to do EK: Yes, well, it’s partly that I was just tickled by the things with limited resources” story. Which turns up in all kinds of books. You get that as a theme. So these Itland has is a full very of Asians,small African Pacific population,Islanders and so soMyr’s on, andap- survivors, in effect they’re in a kind of desert island, pearancethen just ais few partly refugees an excuse from forvarious the charactersother places. to which is a small New Zealand town full of corpses, he’s so different than we are, he doesn’t understand for sanitary reasons. And also because Teresa, the us.’keep The telling fact thatthemselves, he’s [got] ‘He’s very not dark joining skin usgives because them cop,and they’veis absolutely got to convinced figure out that [how they to dealcan bewith seen that] by that little hesitation before they begin really looking everyone outside through satellite technology and at him and wondering about his reticence, and what she wants to convince the people out there to do ev- his story might be. erything they can to rescue them, because they can see that they’re not the perpetrators, that they’re CP: Well I was quite interested in that bringing good people burying the dead. So she’s sort of doing together of the mystery of his position, and also this mental exercise, this public relations, as a way the social positioning that might have. And as you of maintaining her identity as the forces of law and mentioned this book is about isolation as well, order. it’s almost like an experiment with fourteen in- So yes, the survivors face challenges, like how do dividuals, but there’s also a reference to the is- land itself, New Zealand as isolated and being land? You know, what’s the protocol? So it starts the subject of traumas such as the one depicted fromyou do there mass – whoburials does when the burying. you’ve got And very because little oneflat in the book. I was wondering about the relation- of the characters is Maori he has some strong rules ship, then, between New Zealand as an isolated about the fact that anyone who’s handling corpses place, and this small town as a reflection of that. can’t be cooking food. So some people have become cooks. Others are the burial detail. So it was all this EK: Well there’s a whole lot of things going on. I mean lovely problem solving that I wanted to do. the fact that they sort of do go into the old “number And then I wanted slowly to turn horror to sus- eight wire” technology. That they’re so determined pense, when it becomes clear the survivors are still to be able to run their lives, and that they’ve got fun- in danger. That there’s something there. There’s ny little complaints about it. That kiwi “number eight something getting at them, and there’s this myste- comes from having very few resources going back who keeps running away from them. Who is he and severalwire” thing, generations, that you canso that fix stuff you forhad yourself, to re-use which and rious man who’s the only one who won’t join them,- adapt and make do. If you pulled down a house you tion because he is literally a Man in Black. had to re-use the nails, because otherwise you’d be what’s his story? And then it bends into science fic waiting three months for a ship to arrive with nails. CP: And that mysterious character, he appears So [laughs] the survivors have got that going on. quite early in the book actually, so he’s always in But also I was dealing with islands within islands the back of your mind, he’s always there, much within islands. So there’s the Stanislaw’s Reserve, like Sam’s alter ego is there in the back of your which is the fenced wildlife reserve, with a preda- mind all the time. tor-proof fence. And then the people trapped inside the wall of inertia which, if you go into it, makes you EK: Yes. pass out and eventually stop breathing. And then the survivors keep trying to imagine what would be CP: As you said he’s a man all in black, and his happening outside the No-Go. If there was such an blackness is very much emphasised, I was curi- extraordinary event, a global threat like this strange ous because I don’t know much about racial and alien thing happening, in New Zealand, what would social aspects in New Zealand. Why did you make it mean for the management of the thing. Wouldn’t it him black? be taken away from New Zealanders? 8 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 9 And in fact you do know that there are Australian it’s an experiment. Because all the characters be- helicopters out there and American satellites that have differently. Everyone succeeds or fails to dif- have been moved into different orbits so that they ferent degrees with their duty of care and some of them are very, very strong and make the wrong de- New Zealand wouldn’t be able to run its own disas- cision about important things. Like the old woman, tercan – fly that over kind the of top disaster, of Kahukura. the scary So unknownmy idea was threat that- Kate, who is one of the strongest people, but who ening event. Which is true. That is how it would play has decided to be strong about the wrong things. out. So the novel is saying strength isn’t in itself a good thing. Which is something I was learning from go- CP: Ah right. A vulnerable position? ing through all those experiences that I was going through at the time. I was learning a lot about look- ing after people, and I was learning a lot about, you like, well, they crawl around in the tussock. know, being strong and it’s not always a good thing. EK: Well not really. It’s just, you know, our army’s CP: [laughs]. CP: That does remind me of the way you’ve kind of portrayed Sam with the kind of confident EK: [laughs]. No, I’m kind of insulting them, but yes. persona that she has and the less capable one. [laughter] But the less capable one appears to have some strength that comes out towards the latter part EK: Small scale. [laughs]. of the book? So was that play part of your strat- egy for tackling this point? CP: Well. The satellites: as you already men- EK: No, I wasn’t really over-determining Sam; the tioned Teresa’s convinced that they’re watching Sams. Gentle Sam isn’t stoical and compassionate to provide this external evaluation, where – because she’s limited. She’s stoical and compassion- ate because she’s a care-giver of old people and she’s EK: The satellites are standing in for God. spent a lot of time learning from them. Learning to care for them, and also from them. So I think it’s CP: Yes. And I was curious as well because the what she’s picked up, whereas other Sam is full of narrator who opens the book talks about the survivors, so there’s this sense that we have the story after the events have already happened, we CP:rage Yes. and Well, rejection I was of fascinated everything by really the play [laughs]. between know that there are survivors, so it’s almost as if those two characters. She’s the only one who is that external evaluative role is always there, and within the settlement when the book’s started? the reader is being – EK: Yes. EK: Survivors of the initial event. With the Wake the story might be post-mortem. And it was a book CP: So she’s also a bit of an outsider, much like that needed the possibility of an occasional narra- the mysterious black character – tive voice, mostly because there were a couple of sentences in that voice I couldn’t let go, because of EK: Well yes, she’s a mystery. I mean she’s the ex- - ception: they say everybody who went mad died, tive voice, something above the usual third person.” except Sam. We know this. Sam went mad and we their beauty. I thought, “dammit! I need that narra know she didn’t die - it throws the other characters CP: Well, that kind of strategy really did make it off the whole time because they’ve got an exception. feel, as you said elsewhere, that it was a moral But they don’t keep thinking, “why is she an excep- tale, that it had a very strong moral aspect and tion?” because they can’t get their head around why that it’s asking the reader to kind of also fill that she might be. – CP: Yes. EK: But an undecided moral aspect, you know? Like 8 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 9 - your earlier work.

EK: That’s the science fiction. The novel makes an in EK: It’s not so much straight fantasy. It is a departure CP:sidious [laughs]. move intoYes. science Well, that fiction. move actually, from but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up fantasy because horror to science fiction, does introduce that the book I’m writing at the moment is an arcane community building aspect, and with that comes thriller / fantasy so, you know... a lot of social commentary. I’ve heard this book described as dystopian but I perhaps would dis- CP: [laughs] right. agree with that description.

EK: Yes, it’s not. I mean, I do, I think Dreamhunter yes? [laughs]. and Dreamquake – my YA books – were described EK: Got to try something different or I just get bored, very intelligently once as utopian and dystopian, CP: So when you were writing Wake, then, was it and I think almost all my books have got some ele- a challenge? It’s quite obvious that you’re well ment of dystopian / utopian, and in fact most of my aware of science fiction after reading this book, books have some elements of utopian / dystopian. but was it a challenge to write this, then, com- You know, usually one thing is balanced against an- pared to the other works? other. Usually there’s been something bad that’s been turned to good or something good that’s been turned to bad. hellEK: Iof often a lot think of problems of science was fiction the sort ideas, of change so it wasn’t from CP: Well in the context of your wider work – The thethat seventy it was science pages of fiction. bloodshed The thing and mayhemthat gave at me the a Vintner’s Luck, for example, about a – it’s set in beginning to how it slowly turns into a suspenseful the 1800s, overlapping with the Napoleonic War? story about survivors. So it was that complete cra- ziness and then I had to put the brakes on. What I EK: Yes. did was keep thinking that change had produced a pacing problem. I chased that gear change up and CP: And there’s the appearance of an angel in the down a hundred pages, re-writing and re-writing, book. and then I suddenly realised it was a tonal problem,

EK: Yes. frightening and also make it slightly colder? More clinical.not pacing, But andalso that to introduce I had to make a slight the sense first ofbit absur more- CP: He visits – dity, which gives the reader signals that there’s some kind of intelligence behind what happens. Because EK: Yes, he’s the main character [laughs]. there’s some very horrible things that happen, that are also slightly absurd? CP: [laughs] CP: Yes, I think that comes through. EK: Yes. Angel. Yes.

CP: Okay. Mortal Fire has a lot of – well, it’s set in a bit of fun. It’s because some thing is having a bit of a valley, or a space where magic can be conduct- funEK: withYes, and its victims.it’s not just because the author is having ed by the people there. So there’s a lot of fantasy elements in your previous work, and your young CP: I definitely sensed that, and I wasn’t sure adult work. This one seems much more horror whether that was me reading into it, but I defi- and science fictional. nitely picked up on this very weird sense. And funnily enough, as the book went on, because EK: Yes. it was so exaggerated, I kept on looking for ex- planations, and one of my immediate ones was CP: So it does feel like a bit of a departure from to think that all the corpses would re-animate. 10 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 11 I kept picking up on little games it seemed like be educable under the right circumstances. So by the you were playing that might suggest that might time you get towards the end of the book the mon- happen, but foreclosing it. So I thought that was ster’s character is changing. Which was also my in- really effective. And it also makes the shift into tention. Everybody who is in the story gets changed the community aspect of the book – towards the one way or another, including the invisible monster. middle – very much marked in a way, as well. And unexpected. So were you trying to portray a small CP: Yes, and I found that fascinating as well, ac- community in ways that might be unexpected for tually. That felt like quite a departure from the readers who’ve read a lot of this kind of thing? genre of horror, although that might reflect my reading [laughs]. EK: I wanted the people to be very real, so I didn’t throw together stereotypes. I threw together people. EK: [laughs]. And I was aware from the very beginning that I was trying to write a desert island story of a certain sort, CP: But the monster also felt like it was symbol- because I like desert island stories, and so yes, I was ic for – you could detach the literal aspect of it letting all those things play out, the possibilities of and it could almost be one way in which social that. But I also wanted to keep suspense in there, dynamics can be –

are safe. They go off walking at night on their own. EK: Well, yes: an invisible monster is always sym- Technicallyso that you’re speaking, never quite they sureshould that know the everybodycharacters who’s there. They know that the corpses are slowly You don’t know when you’ve lost the monster, or being put into the ground. They know they’re not go- youbolic. don’t So you know just whether go with you’ve the built locked in possibilities. it in with ing to get up again, or you could assume they’re not you when you’ve tried to lock it out. You don’t know going to get up again and still there’s this feeling, the whether or not it’s looking over your shoulder. creepy, haunted feeling. Which there should be be- I’ve always loved invisible monster stories of every cause there’s an invisible monster there [laughs]. sort, like the monster from the Id in Forbidden Plan- et. And “The Horla,” – is it Guy de Maupassant? Yes, CP: So about the invisible monster. Now, it’s an Guy de Maupassant’s “The Horla,” you know, about invisible monster. But because it’s invisible, and the man whose bedside milk starts being drunk, not – by him, and then when he’s out in his garden he can see rose stems bending, as the Horla follows along EK: undetectable in every way.

CP: Yes. And also – after him, sniffing the same rose he did. Basically it CP:just Perhapshaunts his there life. Itwas enjoys an echo what of he James enjoys. Herbert’s EK: Apart from the way it makes people feel and be- The Dark? have. EK: Ah, yes, well I read that so long ago it’s probably CP: Exactly, yes. And because it makes people feel mulched in there. But that’s the thing about these and behave in certain ways, and it’s immaterial, things, they haven’t made such a big mark on you it feels like it’s everywhere within that space as that you think, “There was that and that.” Having well. So, what does that monster do? Why is that been a horror reader for years, then having written monster there? the book, I realised I’d created a kind of Lovecraftian monster. But I hadn’t read Lovecraft. My early horror EK: I kind of wanted to make the monster out as a reading was Algernon Blackwood, M R James, Rob- being. It’s an alien, an entity. And I didn’t want it to ert Chambers - and Shirley Jackson. And my Dad put Richard Matheson into my hands. mayhem and bloodshed and everything. I wanted it tobe have full ofits malice ways: andthe ways just determinedin which it behaves to thrive and on CP: Oh, right, okay. has done things for a long time. But I wanted it to 10 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 11 - it last by being enthusiastic about it, because other- ter read some Lovecraft.” It was really startling. Be- wise it doesn’t happen. But, yes, that is actually the EK: Once I’d finished the book I thought, “Well, I bet- only thing, literature is what lasts, so the fact that Ur- craft’s got his own weird stuff going on. But I’m very sula K. Le Guin has many books that have never been gladcause I’ve Lovecraft’s read him. heirs You sortaren’t of needquite to.Lovecraft. Love out of print: The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dis- possessed and The Earthsea Books. You can go back CP: Yes. There’s lots of detective books in the world. Crime - books.through But history then there’s– of, for Raymond example, Chandler.detective There’sfiction. tion. I don’t use genre – and I don’t play with genre. I Elmore Leonard. There’s the people who are fantas- actuallyEK: What think I do, what I write I’ve genre, always but been I write doing literary is whole fic- tic stylists, like Georgette Heyer in romance. Dorothy heartedly writing books that are as literary as I want Dunnett, Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson. them to be, as serious as I want them to be, but as Great writers. The people whose characters are real. genre. There are a few people doing that. When I was very young and I was reading my way through CP: Fascinating. I do want to – we’ve chatted for about thirty minutes now, and I just wanted forth – the things that really stuck with me were the to give the opportunity for everyone to ask any thingsscience that fiction were – thedeep Gollancz and had science this sort fiction of vibration and so questions if they had any. So would anyone like of life in them, like Ray Bradbury or…. to?

CP: Were there any other authors that you might AS: I got the feeling that from the way you were de- want to cite in this context? scribing it that you talk about events in your life, ob- viously that rather unfortunately influence the writer EK: Yes, I’m – well obviously Ursula K. Le Guin. That’s and I’m sorry for that, but it also struck me that of kind of obvious. And Ray Bradbury. I have particular course New Zealand had something of a traumatic books that I passionately love, like Clifford E. Simak’s international event that I’m beginning to realise, and Time and Again. George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides. it just came to me that this book seems to be quite in- Early Philip José Farmer. His short stories, “Mother”, formed by the experience of New Zealanders seems to “Daughter,” – the ones about the man who gets swal- have gone into it. lowed by the giant slug creature so that he can cause it to breed. And Philip K. Dick, you know, and Alfred EK: It did, yes. I was already writing the novel when Bester. the crisis in Christchurch happened, and I have a lot of relatives in Christchurch. None of them were hurt. CP: Oh, yes. Two of them lost their houses permanently. But, you EK: All those works remain incredibly exciting. you a sense of the magnitude of the disaster as an CP: So for you, science fiction or any genre fiction experience,know, I got letgood alone first anything hand stories. else. And Those it’s changedcan give is not exclusive of any literary quality. Oh boy. EK: I don’t think that of any genre. What I think is the whole country, particularly financially. [laughs]. that literature appears in any genre. I mean, there think whether I should acknowledge it. And I kept are books that are literature, and they can appear thinkingAnyway, about, so yes, you the know, earthquake people helping was there. each other I did anywhere. point where in the book somebody is arguing for the CP: So what makes a book literature, then? goodwhen behaviour that earthquake of human happened. beings in And calamities, I got to and the I thought, okay, has Christchurch happened or has EK: Well it lasts, that’s it. That’s the only measure. You can take bets, you know. When you get a new book had to decide that this is before Christchurch, and so - Iit wentnot? Thenback toI thought, talk about no theit’s Wahinetoo big. disaster.I just can’t, The I Wahine was a ferry that sank in 1968 in Wellington that’s only just appeared, you can say, “Well that’s lit erature,12 SFRA that Review will 314 last.” Winter Eventually 2015 it’s your job to help SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 13 - I remember it. I was a little girl. I remember it really vals. Yes. So I’m having a ball with it. That’s really all I well.Harbour And with so I awent loss backof fifty-two to that. – Butfifty-two? Christchurch – people. is canquarian say. [laughs]bookshops, And and it’s goinglibraries, to make and literaryperfect sensefesti still there. Haunting the book. plot wise, no holes. Not one hole.

AS: It had its own invisible monster as well. AS: How far along with it are you?

EK: [laughs]. Yes, it wouldn’t go away. It kept growl- ing. EK: I’m somewhere between a quarter and a third, CP: Okay, do we have any other questions? but I plan to finish it this year, because I really want writeto make it fast.a mad And rush woe at betideit. I’m enjoyinganyone who it, you prevents know. [anon]: you mentioned earlier that you were working me.When you’re really enjoying something you should on an arcane thriller. Can you tell us anything more about that? [laughs]

EK: Ah, well it’s – [laughs]. Okay. Well, I’m working CP: Well I might as well just jump in: I’m right in on an arcane thriller. Why I describe it as an arcane thinking you’re writing a memoir now? thriller was that I became aware as soon as I started writing it that because it was about a young wom- EK: Yes I am. I’m writing about my mother and mo- an with some strange recent mental problems, like tor-neurone disease. Partly because I want to write she’s losing time, and she’s also the author of a book about the care of the elderly and care-givers who are underpaid. You know, that whole thing, I want in her grandfather’s library as a child. Gradually it to write about that. I also wanted to write about my becomesabout library clear fires, that and something she experienced is being looked a library for fire in mother because she’s a real character. She dealt with the libraries that burn. You know, there’s a thing. losing her ability to talk with great panache and cre- When I realised that the book became a thriller, ativity, so that makes a good story. And also I really a mystery, then I had this thought: that what an- want to write about Duncan, my brother-in-law be- noys me about arcane thrillers is that they sort of ing killed. And about his kids. And about the trial of dabble with the fantastic, you know, like the whole the man who killed him. Because, you know, because holy blood, holy grail in The Da Vinci Code, of which the feelings of victims of crime, is kind of interesting somebody says in my book would after centuries to think about. So, it’s mostly that. And then it’s, you be only a homeopathic holiness. Basically the holy blood stuff felt like a great let-down. So I like arcane thrillers and I always feel vaguely let down by them. thatknow, can just pull life. in I don’tall sorts want of to things, write abut memoir not have about to I wanted to write one that slowly opens up into fan- domy alife, whole so thelot offact stuff? that Notit’s justthe fullof a story. period Just of three time tasy. And opens with elegance, but deals with crazi- ness. Because I had got over those terrible events that caused me to write Wake and Mortal Fire (Mor- becauseyears of it’sa life. upsetting It’s quite but attractive because I’mas a frightened project. But of tal Fire’s the bright twin of Wake’s darkness. They’re annoyingit’s not easy. various It’s turned in-laws. out [laughs]. to be a very difficult, not sort of companion books, they’re written in the same time, though one’s YA and one’s adult.) CP: Yes. You don’t get that displacement that And then I realised right at the start of the arcane speculative fiction gives you. thriller – The Absolute Book – that I was managing this sense of the largeness of the world, and myth, EK: No personal displacement, yes. So, you know, and the scope of time, and all the things that you can that’s makes the work an exercise in diplomacy and do with an arcane thriller. And writing it was caus- delay.

- GM: Could you tell us a little bit about the genre com- ing tome go great in there, excitement with appetite, and joy. with And MI-5I was and going anti to- munity in New Zealand? Because we don’t see much of throw in mythical beings and gods, and I was just go 12 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 13 it up here but I assume that you’re not the only writer CP: I actually noticed there was a lot of magic down there. realism coming out of Australia and I think I somewhat assumed that the speculative fictions EK: No, no, I sort of only tangentially get to be a and the literary communities overlapped quite member. You know, it’s a bit weird because I think strongly and that there wasn’t such a division, but that is a mistake, then, is it? - land,I’m considered so I’ve been to kindbe a ofbit embraced more like and literary kind fiction,of held [laughs] atthough arm’s I havelength. won But a science perhaps fiction I am prize being in embraced New Zea and held at arm’s length along with Margaret Mahy, EK: No, I think we’re like siblings, you know? We’re who was only writing children’s books – when I say the annoying little sister or brother or something of only, I mean she wasn’t trespassing into adult fanta- this great big swaggering, “We’re going to inherit the Earth” Australia. and so on. sy,Margaret she wrote is youngthe person adult whoalong I withalways junior feel fictionis my CP: Are there any other questions? imaginative mother in New Zealand literature. The fact that she was there made it possible for me to – well, made me feel more comfortable doing the things that I wanted to do anyway. So there’s some CP:EK: OhI just well. insulted I think Australia. you’re safe. them seem to have a presence in America. It’s funny. very fine writers, and they do have presence. A lot of I would like to thank Elizabeth Knox and Glyn Mor- good genre goes either to Germany in translation – gan, who organised this reading and interview, along there’sThe literary Paul Cleeve.fiction Thencarves Juliet off towardMarillier, England. Sherryl AndJor- with Waterstones Liverpool One for hosting the dan, Helen Lowe, Karen Healey, people like that, sort event. of carve off towards America. My young adult books have much more presence in America than they do Bibliography in England, too. But there are very, very, good young Novels adult publishers there. Knox, Elizabeth. Wake. Wellington: Victoria Univer- sity Press, 2013. Print. GM: And do you get a lot of noise from the noisy neigh- –-. Mortal Fire. New York: Frances Foster Books, bours? 2013. Print. –-. The Angel’s Cut. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria Univer- EK: Oh, the noisy neighbours? No, we ignore each sity Press, 2008. Print. other. We’ve got nothing to teach each other. They’re –-. Dreamquake. New York: Farrar, Straus and Gir- like, “Oh, New Zealanders are incredibly boring,” and oux, 2007. Print. we’re like, “Australians are incredibly annoying,” and –-. Dreamhunter. New York: Farrar, Straus and Gir- oux, 2006. Print. –-. Daylight. New York: Random House, 2003. Print. we don’t read each other’s fiction, which is terrible. I –-. Billie’s Kiss. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002. Margomean I Lanagan?do, because I don’t I’m aware know that if you it’s know just nuts Black not Juice to. Print. andI read so poetry on? She’s and a literary great writer. fiction. I mean,I love, forI think instance, she’s –-. Black Oxen. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a very Australian writer. There are fantastic non- 2001. Print. realist Australians. And it’s actually a bit of a tradi- –-. The High Jump. Wellington: Victoria University tion anyway, because there’s old fellows who wrote Press, 2000. Print. things that were – could be magic realism. Patrick –-. The Vintner’s Luck. New York: Farrar, Straus, and White’s books are not entirely realist. And Randolph Giroux, 1998. Print. –-. Tawa. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria University Press, Australian sort-of-non-realist of older times. 1998. Print. Stow. Fantastic writer. A bit rarefied but yes, a great –-. Glamour and the Sea. Wellington: Victoria Univer- 14 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 15 sity Press, 1996. Print. –-. Pomare. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria University Press, 1994. Print. –-. Treasure. Wellington : Victoria University Press, 1992. Print. –-. Paremata. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria University Press, 1989. Print. –-. After Z-Hour. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria University Press, 1987. Print.

Essays Knox, Elizabeth. The Love School. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria University Press, 2008. Print.

14 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 15 Feature 101 is the cash nexus; 2. It doesn’t matter where something goes as long as it re-enters the circuit of capital; Ecology 101 3. The self-regulating market knows best; 4. Nature’s bounty is a free gift to the prop- Gerry Canavan erty owner. (120)

In this use of the word “ecology,” it is intended to distinctions between environmentalism as an um- suggest as a matter of scientific determination that [1]brella THERE term HAVEfor a seriesBEEN frequentof interrelated, attempts usually to draw re- no environmentalist reform of capitalism is or could form-liberal political movements and ecology as an ever be viable, and that a new economic order will - ing the web of relations and interconnections be- social system is what Foster and others call ecoso- tweenostensibly organisms neutral and field their of scientific environments. inquiry concern cialismbe required, or what for genuine Kim Stanley sustainability; Robinson this (borrowing proposed [1.1] In practice, however, such distinctions have a term from agriculture) has called permaculture tended to collapse in the face of the overawing eco- (see “Comparative Planetology”). In both cases, the logical crises with which humanity has been con- proposed alternative system is to be one that does not degrade or undermine the conditions for its own centuries. Ecological apprehension of late capitalism continuation, as both industrial and agricultural infronted the contemporary in the late twentieth- moment andis far early from twenty-first politically systems do under capitalism; as Robinson puts this neutral, and tends in a contemporary context to be proposition elsewhere:

Justice becomes a survival technology. […] therather use fiercely of “ecology” anticapitalist, and “ecological” in ways thatby humanities frequently scholarsgo significantly on the left beyond to describe liberal reformism.their own work (Indeed, has has desperate people stripping away forests typically denoted a deliberate attempt to go beyond andReal soiljustice in much would of alleviate the world, the andpoverty it would that “mere” environmentalism, in the name of something reduce the hyper-consumption of the rich, more radical.) [1.2] “The realms of ecology and capitalism are op- resources and excessive in carbon burn. The posed to each other—not in every instance but in onlywhich possible is equally road or toeven sustainability’s more destructive neces of- their interactions as a whole,” John Bellamy Foster - writes in Ecology Against Capitalism (7). In an ear- avan, Klarr, and Vu 213). lier work, The Vulnerable Planet, Foster points to the sary carbon neutrality involves justice. (Can “four laws of ecology” as proposed by Barry Com- [1.3] For this reason, ecological knowledge is often moner in The Closing Circle in 1971, as a means of understood to logically entail anticapitalism by mak- distilling the ecological worldview into its core ele- ing visible what K. William Kapp once called capital- ments: ism’s “economy of unpaid costs” (231). “To call for capitalism to pay its way”—to demand, that is, that 1. Everything is connected to everything else. capitalism take into full account the natural world 2. Everything must go somewhere. from which it draws its resources and into which it 3. Nature knows best. dumps its by-products and refuse—is “to call for the 4. There is no such thing as a “free lunch.” abolition of capitalism” altogether (Moore 145). (118) ecology and leftist politics must ultimately come un- Foster’s proposed “four laws of capital,” in turn, sug- der[1.4] some However, revaluation, even with this regard easy equation both to anticapi between- gests the extent to which ecology and capitalism talist or anti-Western political movements that are - or, indeed, fully anti-ecological in their political necessarily find themselves in inevitable and irre agenda—asonly superficially well asor recognitionopportunistically of the “ecological”— various ways solvable1. The conflict: only lasting connection between things that the property rights that undergird Western cap- 16 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 17 italism have sometimes led to greater conservation and types of growth within systems. and environmental protection than would have been [2.2] As Richard Grove shows in his 1995 Green Im- possible in their absence. As will be discussed below, perialism, however, it would be incorrect to say that the ecological history of human civilization does not ecology only emerges as a concern this late in histo- necessarily yield simplistic or unidirectional politi- ry. In fact, many of the intellectual developments we cal conclusions. now associate with ecology actually have their ori- [1.5] From this perspective, however, we can cer- gins in European imperialism, as Europeans in set- tainly say that all ecology is in some sense political - ecology, in terms of its application to real-world situ- ations and cultural institutions; in practice ecology environstler colonies in the in thename tropics of creating frequently viable attempted and sustain sci- necessarily implies some evaluation of human social ableentific colonies. management Grove of notes and interventionthat much environmen within their- relations as either ecologically salutary / sustainable talist rhetoric has its origins in these kinds of colo- / rational / desirable or else destructive / irrational nized spaces, a noteworthy and unacknowledged / unsustainable / undesirable. But neither the right nor the left should be understood to have some total also traces the importance of the spatial topoi of the or undisputed claim on the political implications of gardencase of andthe “periphery”of the island influencingto early ecological the “center.” thought, He ecological thought. as well as the devastation that the imperialists often [1.6] In what follows I will primarily be discussing brought with them to these island through improper management and invasive species, which ultimately cultural, and literary-aesthetic implications. I hope came to premediate a fully global devastation that is thisecology piece as will a scientific serve as phenomenona useful companion with political, to simi- lar “101” pieces that have run in this space, perhaps around the corner. But Grove also destabilizes the most directly Eric C. Otto’s “Environmentalism 101” familiaryet to come postcolonial but seems narrative to us, today, of villainsto be always and justvic- (also available in the eBook SF 101: A Guide to Teach- tims by noting that the imperialists were sometimes ing and Studying Science Fiction.) While some over- more ecologically “rational” than native groups, and lap is unavoidable, I have endeavored to focus here that the legal absolutism of the imperial state often less on political movements and more on ecological unsettlingly allowed for conservationist policies in science’s use within humanities discourses as a cog- the colonial sphere that were possible neither under

troubled) interconnections between organisms (es- under the entrenched free markets of Europe. peciallynitive standpoint human beings) that highlights and their the environments, (at times quite es- the[2.3] precolonial David Mazel’s status tour-de-force quo of the Global chapter South “Ameri nor- pecially as that standpoint manifests within contem- can Literary Environmentalism as Domestic Orien- porary SF. talism” in The Ecocriticism Reader (1996) similarly [2] The term “ecology” was coined (as Ökologie) by - Ernst Haeckel in 1866, drawing together the Greek sire for ecology as a neutral ground from the ideo- roots for “house” and “study”—the etymological ori- logicaldemonstrates construction the difficulty of terms of likedisentangling “wilderness” the that de gins thus again suggests the tension between “ecol- are always embedded in political and historical as- ogy” as a pure science and “ecology” as a theory of sumptions about property rights, utilitarianism, best practices for domestic management, whether white settlement, gender, and the state. Just as Mazel - notes that environmentalism is always both resis- tance to power and the exercise of it, so too we have thethat deliberate management intervention reflects of the human unconscious, actors (which, auto already seen it is with ecology, which is always both again,matic consequencesare to be evaluated of evolved as either animal adaptive behaviors or mal or- a tallying of mankind’s crimes against the environ- adaptive for the various organisms involved). ment as well as, precisely through that tallying, the [2.1] Now another strong internal tension within blueprint for continued human domination over the the idea of ecology becomes visible as well: ecology planet. is at one and the same time the principle of mastery [2.4] As David Harvey has warned the Left in such that allows agents in an ecological system to control works as The Enigma of Capital (2011) and else- that system and the principle of hard limit that con- where, anticapitalists neglect the “blueprint” com- strains mastery and makes impossible certain levels ponent of ecology’s relationship with capitalism to 16 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 17 their peril, as capitalist innovation has repeatedly of whack. turned seemingly impenetrable limits into mere [3.1] This observation returns us to Foster’s obser- boundaries to be leaped. Perhaps the most emblem- vations about the inevitable relationship between atic recent case is the discourse around Peak Oil, ecology and anti-capitalism, a relationship that can which for a time in the early 2000s seemed to be an be traced back to Marx’s horror in Capital, Vol. 1 at indisputable, silver-bullet argument against capital- the “metabolic rifts” produced by capitalist indus- ist sustainability but which has now utterly vanished trial and agricultural practices. Marx’s analysis of as a salient political argument in the face of improved agriculture in Capital is an early articulation of the negative ecological futurity that now dominates eco- that now seem to promise enough oil to last beyond logical analysis of the future: “All progress in capi- anyoil sand, of our oil lifetimes. shale, and That deep-sea these drillingnew oil-extraction efficiencies talistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only technologies are themselves incredibly ecologically of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all destructive to any lifeforms living nearby has been progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time is a progress towards ruining the last- calculus governing their use, not nearly enough to ing sources of that fertility” (638). As Foster himself prohibita relatively their small development component and of spreadthe quasi-utilitarian across North shows in Marx’s Ecology, Marx derived his apprecia- America and, increasingly, around the world. Indeed, tion of this ecological crisis in the making from the in many cases an ecological claim has been made on work of Justus von Liebig, whose work in soil ecol- the side of the hydrofrackers, to argue the technol- ogy led to the development of chemical fertilizers to ogy is not only mostly safe but less globally and cli- matologically harmful than a turn to coal would be. management necessary for the continuation of ag- [3] While ecology was an increasingly important ricultureartificially at replenish the time thebut soil—a which, practicein two hundreds of scientific of - years since, has now contributed to the destabiliza- tury, it was the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s tion of the entire planet’s nitrogen cycle. And the ni- anti-pesticidefield of scientific Silent inquiry Spring in thethat early catapulted twentieth ecology cen trogen cycle is only one of any number of ecological to the forefront of public consciousness in the indus- stabilities that industrialization and global capital trial West, as well as launched the environmentalist have disrupted, the most famous of which is surely the carbon cycle that is now producing rapid anthro- - pogenic climate change. lemic.political Carson’s movements text is that an exemplarywould frequently one in manydraw reon- [3.2] Traditionally, the environment was been gards,scientific not ecological least of all analysisfor its demonstration as evidence and of the as linkpo viewed as a potentially hazardous space of danger between ecology (as a means of thinking about the that was to be transformed, through settlement, into - empty, homogenous space for use by human be- tain life) and futurity - ings—especially in white-settler colonies like the tionsinterdependent of the bad futureflows betweenthat contemporaneous organisms that social sus United States that have been so structured by the and agricultural practices through were bringingher frequent about. invoca “How ideology of the frontier. The rise of ecology as a sci- could intelligent beings,” she asks, “seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contami- now the environment is not cultivated and made nated the entire environment and brought the threat usefulentific bycategory settlement, inverts but this is ideologicalrather destroyed formulation: by its of disease and death even to their own kind? Yet this settlement. Rather than a threat that must be tamed is precisely what we have done” (8-9). Ecology’s fo- cus on evolutionary processes, feedback loops, and the environment is primarily seen today as that tipping points necessarily produces a temporality whichby being is broughtthreatened into by the capital, flows ofin human need of commerce, whatever that—especially in our time—suggests the possibil- ity of radically apocalyptic, even extinctive change if [3.3] At the same time, ecology is understood to ecological cycles become disrupted, distorted, or de- partial or fitful protection is possible from it. - stabilized. In the late twentieth century an ecological talist modernity cannot transcend: it is the thing to mindset has thus been closely linked to notions of represent a final limit point past which technocapi apocalyptic futurity: once-stable (or stable-appear- ing) systems crashing, collapsing, being thrown out theorizationwhich capitalism of capital is ultimately at all stages: and the finally beginning subject. of Thus, ecology represents a key figuration in our 18 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 19 capital (in the primitive accumulation of early settle- tedness” between organism and environment that ment or frontier life), the middle stage of capital (in cannot really be supported by how actual ecologies work) are highly unstable, and prone to rapid change and the end stage of capitalism (as mounting ecolog- and catastrophic collapse. the conflict between expansion and conservation), [4.3] A similar intellectual moment has been un-

ical[4] pressures As much force of the the examples system to thuseither far significantly discussed - havereform suggested, or else finally ecology collapse). as a discourse (especially cism’sderway fondness in a recent for harmonystrain of andecocriticism unity in favor frequently of the in the hands of nonexperts, like ecocritics in the hu- called “dark ecology,” which rejects literary ecocriti manities) can be rhetorically hard to disentangle strange, the ugly, the ironic, and the grotesque. The moralistic assumptions about the beauty of nature, Ecologyfigure most without closely Nature associated (2007) withhas been this devotedmovement to andfrom about closely the heldsupremacy Romantic of the and natural frequently world quiteover articulatingis Timothy Morton, a vision whose of ecology work that since is his distinct influential from the old, no-longer-workable notion of “Nature” as an is taken to be the ultimate source of value—almost immanent and stable totality. This ecology is mul- aeither replacement human artificefor God—as or social well institutions. as the guarantor Nature tiple, unknowable, never fully traceable in human of sustainability and stability. Nature is posed as a place of harmony, unity, and balance that human than with the attractive charismatic megafauna we beings degrade, disrupt, and ruin—in almost theo- typicallyterms—more associate at home with with environmentalist squids and cave conserva lichen- logical terms. Human beings oppose nature, the sug- tion and preservation movements. This formulation at times almost seems to put ecology someplace be- nature is thereby ideological posed both as what is yond politics altogether, somewhere in the realm of threatenedgestion would by mankindconsequently but also be, towhat their will great soon peril; rise Goth, punk-rock, or emo aesthetics instead. up and punish a mankind who has failed to heed its [4.4] When this line of philosophical speculation warnings. returns, in the end, to the realm of the political, as it [4.1] James Hansen’s famous “Gaia hypothesis” does in Morton’s later Hyperobjects (2013), it is ecol- sees this sort of poetic valorization raised to the ogy in the mode of radical unknowability rather than

planet itself is refashioned as a kind of homeostatic, capitalism) so “massively distributed in time and level of scientific proposition, wherein the entire spacescientific relative certainty—structures to humans” that (likewe are the barelyclimate, able or a very bad cancer (humanity). The radical political to cognize them at all. In Steven Shaviro’s own ap- movementself-regulating often superorganism called deep ecology currently suggests fighting a revi off- propriation of the term, SF actually becomes one of sion of our social and technological behaviors so as the best tools available for attempting to partially, to minimize any and all deviation from that natural harmony, at times teetering on the edge of out-and- socio-technological cartography” that “traces our out misanthropy. incompletely think such hyperobjects: a “psycho- [4.2] As Dana Philips argues in The Truth of Ecol- threaten to overwhelm us” (4). ogy (2003), these formulations are often predicated place alongside, and within, these hyperobjects that-

is [5]both Still, more the majorreductionistic uses of ecologyand more in SFconcretely have re on a transcendent vision of the Earth as a unified- political,flected a andmore traditionally down-to-earth both sense apocalyptic of futurity and that an- caltotality science. that Inis actuallyfact, our significantly attraction to out such of syncvalues with as harmonythe last fifty and to balance a hundred (and years our desire of practiced to use ecologithem as genre—ranging from a complex, polyvocal work like - Johnticapitalist. Brunner’s The majorwonderfully texts inhorrifying the eco-apocalyptic novel The tionship to actual ecologies on this planet, which are Sheep Look Up (1972), modeled on John Dos Pas- farweapons less stable, in a political self-regulating, fight) bears or well-ordered little or no relathan sos’s USA Trilogy, or Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and the typical “bumper sticker” use of environmental Crake series (2003-2013) and Paolo Bacigalupi’s metaphors in politics and culture would seem to al- The Wind-Up Girl (2009) and The Water Knife (2015) low; in fact ecological niches (a term itself that mis- to pulpy big-screen thrillers like Silent Running - (1972), Soylent Green (1973), The Day after Tomor-

18 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 leadingly suggests a relationship of “perfected fit SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 19 row (2004) and Snowpiercer (2013)—have tended the application of limit (especially environmental to understand the ecological in almost exclusively - negative terms. Drawing freely from the tropes of layed. As Donald Sassoon notes in One Hundred Years post-nuclear and post-plague scenarios now almost oflimit) Socialism to socialist, the earlyand leftistGreens critique were generallywas quite con de- two centuries old— see Mary Shelley’s The Last servative, and that rhetoric around limits and “zero Man growth economics” appeared very reactionary at the is now so familiarized and habitual that nearly all time of the 1973-1974 oil shock, when the collapse , from 1826—apocalyptic ecological critique of growth rates meant widespread unemployment aegis, including such radically non-ecological narra- and suffering especially in traditional left constitu- tivescontemporary as The Walking science Dead fiction (comic falls 2003-,under itsTV general2010-) encies like industrial workers. Sassoon notes that and World War Z typically read in ecological terms (epidemic; inva- the idea of zero growth economics, as it was seen as sive species; the (book symbiotic 2006, relationshipfilm 2013), which between are “preparingthe 22nd congress for a future of theof penury PCF “explicitly and restrictions”; rejected” predator and prey; the view from human extinction its president, George Marchais, said that “growth is and “the world without us”), even though the zombic - “ecologies” they posit are purely fantastic. [5.1] Undoubtedly this sense of the ecological as againnecessary that toan meet optimistic, the requirements progressive of futurology social and and na inherently or inimically negative has something to ecologicaltional progress” reasoning (qtd. arein Sassoon somehow 676)—suggesting fundamentally incompatible. [5.3] Indeed, as Hans Magnus Enzensberger sug- Age)do with has the itself larger been history a largely of science anti-ecological fiction, which genre, in imagingits more optimisticfantastic technological flavors (especially devices in itslike Golden zero- is a sense in which ecological thinking has tended to - gests in his 1974 “Critique of Political Ecology,” there ciency recycling machines precisely in order to “get the purposes of conservativism and reaction (as in around”point-energy the constraints engines, replicators, that the ecological and perfect-effi poses. manybe specifically ecological repurposed, readings of or J.R.R. misappropriated, Tolkien’s legend for- This Star Trek—or perhaps, more directly, Jetsons— arium); as Enzensberger writes, “The bourgeoisie future encounters the ecological as an unwelcome can conceive of its own imminent collapse only as interruption of what is attractive about futurologi- the end of the world. In so far as it sees any salvation - at all, it sees it only in the past” (17). Enzensberger son Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Force ofcal Nature”fantasy in(1993), the first where place—as the crew in the discovers seventh-sea that like Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb (1968) with the warp drive on which the entire Federation (and thejuxtaposes anti-limit, the optimistic neo-Malthusian futurology arguments of Fidel of Castro: people the interior narrative logic of the entire franchise) depends is actually tearing apart the very fabric of In certain countries they are saying that space. (The solution is the imposition of a Warp-Five only birth control provides a solution to the speed limit in the name of spacetime preservation problem. Only capitalists, the exploiters, can which is, itself, hastily abandoned by the time Star speak like that; for no one who is conscious of Trek: Voyager what man can achieve with the help of tech- need to deploy some “ecological cheat” to get around nology and science will wish to set a limit to the unhappy factspremieres that wouldjust a fewotherwise years later.) taint This the the number of human beings who can live on fantasy become especially necessary in the case of the earth . . . That is the deep conviction of extraplanetary colonization, to be discussed below. all revolutionaries. What characterized Mal- [5.2] The sense that ecology might “ruin the fu- thus in his time and the neo-Malthusians ture” was, interestingly, also the mood with which in our time is their pessimism, their lack of environmental propositions were originally re- trust in the future destiny of man. That alone ceived by many leftist political movements during is the reason why revolutionaries can never the moment of their earliest articulation in the po- be Malthusians. We shall never be too numer- litical mainstream in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite ous however many of us there are, if only we my above remarks about the seemingly natural af- all together place our efforts and our intelli- gence at the service of mankind, a mankind finity20 SFRA between Review ecology 314 Winter and 2015 anti-capitalism, in fact SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 21 which will be freed from the exploitation of survive the trip without civil war, famine, and man by man. reigns of terror?

[5.4] Reactionary fear of overpopulation, ecologi- We can recognize the central problematic of this cal devastation, and competition over energy sourc- thought experiment as sustainability, in two senses: es—of a future in which the fantastic economic and technological growth that characterized postwar within which the limited resources available to the prosperity becomes impossible—is everywhere we first, the need for a renewable material environment- maining available to humans as the voyage contin- have already mentioned Soylent Green; we can think ued;asteroid and at second the start the of need the journeyfor a sustainable could recycle, cultural re look in science fictionLogan’s from theRun 1970s, which and maintains after. I form, an ideology in the Althusserian sense, that a glittering palace of technoutopian futurity at the could survive and reproduce itself within those tech- herecost ofjust universal as easily suicide of the day you turn 21. In Lar- ry Niven’s novel The Mote in God’s Eye (1974) the say, we need a natural ecology, and in the second we logic of overpopulation is transformed into the soci- needno-natural a political constraints. one. And In so the it wasn’t first case, very we long might be- ety of the Moties, who (without any biological abil- - ity to check their reproduction) endlessly repeat a line: we are already, alas, in precisely this situation, cycle of civilization, overreach, crisis, and collapse. onlyfore thewe livecommentators atop our planetoid figured and out notStross’s inside punch it. In Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves the energy [6.1] The notion that the Earth can itself be thought crisis is solved by the invention of a miraculous so- of as a vast “spaceship” long predates the immense lar “pump” that would be the perfect green energy geodesic dome at the center of Disney’s Epcot Cen- source if only it weren’t leeching its free energy from ter (that theme park’s most famous, most iconic the universe next door. I have suggested elsewhere structure). Perhaps the earliest reference is Herman that even cyberpunk should be read as a kind of re- Melville’s Moby Dick, in which Ahab speaks of a “frig- active backlash to ecological thinking, insofar as the ate earth” that “in her murderous hold … is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned” (249). In place inside the computer can itself be read as an at- Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879), where temptrapid 1980s to circumvent relocation the of “reality the object principle” of SF desire of ecolog to a- the “ship” is imagined as a sea-faring galleon: ical scarcity by positing an interior cybernetic world where such limits no longer apply. It is a well-provisioned ship, this on which [5.5] To the extent that twentieth-century sci- we sail through space. If the bread and beef - above decks seem to grow scarce, we but open limited, techno-optimistic future of Promethean a hatch and there is a new supply, of which world-transformation—providedence fiction historically imagined we a radicallydon’t, say, un before we never dreamed. And very great nuke ourselves in the meantime—ecological science command over the services of others comes has therefore tended to function not as a licensor or to those who as the hatches are opened are guarantor, but as its bad conscience. [6] Despite this seemingly antagonistic relation- Thepermitted best known to say, reference “This is mine!”today (243)(outside Epcot) may be R. Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual othership, however, direction, science in the fictionalservice of thought ecological experiments polemic. for Spaceship Earth (1968), which ecologically in- Nothave long quite ago, commonly for instance, often SF beenauthor deployed Charles inStross the vites us to reimagine the spaceship/planet as “an in- tegrally-designed machine which to be persistently “Charlie’s Diary”: successful must be comprehended and serviced in posed a simple question to the readers of his blog, total” (52). (Contrast Fuller’s biopolitical vision with James Lovelock’s similarly totalizing Gaia hypoth- have embarked on a 1000-year voyage esis, in which the Earth is a machinic superorgan- aboardYou, and a hollowed-out a quarter of aasteroid. million What other sort folks, of ism that homeostatically services itself.) For Fuller, governance and society do you think would as for George, the ship is well provisioned, designed be most comfortable, not to mention likely to as such so that human beings (originating in igno- 20 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 21 - exploitative, romantic, and violent behavior, tions and proper maintenance: which is characteristic of open societies. The rance) could have sufficient time to learn its opera closed economy of the future might similarly I would say that designed into this Space- be called the “spaceman” economy, in which ship Earth’s total wealth was a big safety fac- the earth has become a single spaceship, tor which allowed man to be very ignorant without unlimited reservoirs of anything, for a long time until he had amassed enough either for extraction or for pollution, and in experiences from which to extract progres- sively the system of generalized principles a cyclical ecological system which is capable governing the increases of energy managing ofwhich, continuous therefore, reproduction man must offind material his place form in even though it cannot escape having inputs of employment of those generalized principles energy. (209) inadvantages rearranging over the environment. physical resources … Objective of en- vironment seems to be leading to humanity’s The echo of Fredrick Jackson Turner’s 1893 “frontier eventually total success and readiness to cope thesis” is unmistakable; a once-open, once-free fron- with far vaster problems of the universe. (54) tier of expansive possibility, which previously drove American history, has now slammed forever shut. [7] This central insight—an ecological one—makes of Earth, however, is purely retrospective; against visible certain contradictions that were program- George’s[6.2] The cornicopian quoted reference nineteenth-century to the “total use, wealth” the matically obscured by the “space empire” fantasies Spaceship Earth metaphor tends in the twentieth so beloved by Golden Age writers of SF. In stark con- century to be associated not with abundance but trast to the untold riches they are imagined to pro- with scarcity, fragility, and limit. In the next chapter vide, distant space colonies—whether on inhospita- of Operating Manual, Fuller notes that necessarily markers of deep, abiding, and perma- the abundance of immediately consumable, nentble moons scarcity or orbiting far-flung planets—are in fact- obviously desirable or utterly essential re- out any waste of resources for any hope of survival. until now to al- From an earthbound, requiring perspective, careful management the colonization with low us to carry on despite our ignorance. Be- of space appears wildly expansive, a “New Frontier” sourcesing eventually have been exhaustible sufficient and spoilable, they that opens up the entire universe to human experi- ence and exploitation—but from a perspective inside moment. (58, emphasis mine) one of these spaceships or colonies, life is a state of have been adequate only up to this critical fragile and even hellish enclosure, at constant risk From this point forward, then, scarcity prevails, of either deadly shortages or deadly exposure to the - void outside. listic thinkers, rationally managing every aspect of [7.1] Ecology today remains the unhappy visitor, andshipboard humanity operations, will require to keep careful the plannersmachine runningand ho or the poisonous supplement, to any number of fa- smoothly. [6.3] In his essay “The Economics of the Coming well, but it is perhaps most radically destructive of Spaceship Earth,” published two years before Full- thismiliar fantasy contemporary of extraplanetary science fictionalcolonization. scenarios The col as- er’s Operating Manual in 1966, Kenneth E. Boulding (the cofounder of the Society for the Advancement of itself as the perverse solution to the discovery that General Systems Theory) characterizes this “critical theonization environment of outer of spaceour planet has frequentlyis under threat presented from moment” as the transition from a “cowboy economy” the unknown or unacknowledged by-products of to a “spaceman economy”: human activity—the idea being that we might be able to bootstrap our civilization into orbit and out into the larger galaxy before the terrestrial environ- to call the open economy the “cowboy econo- ment crashes. But in contemporary works like Kim my,”For the the sake cowboy of picturesqueness, being symbolic Iof am the tempted illimit- Stanley Robinson’s recent far-reaching novel Aurora able plains and also associated with reckless, (2015), that logic reverses itself entirely: we now 22 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 23 know too much about ecology and evolutionary bi- ble future of human extinction. What the ecological ology to take seriously the idea that we could ever promises in our context is not safe-in-God’s-hands live there. Ecol- reliability or stability, but a world of rapid and radi- ogy becomes the despoiler of that greatest of science - simply go to another planet and just selves or die (and most die). In the archive of recent - SF,cal Octaviaflux to which E. Butler’s life forms various must space either colonization adapt them sto- fiction dreams, the conquest of the stars; even if we - decide to brave the centuries-long journey to an ables series of the 1990s, “Amnesty” in the 2000s— greetedother star, by anda counter-ecology even if we are luckywith which enough we to cannot find a mayries—Xenogenesis speak most directly in the 1980s,to the depressivethe unfinished sense Par of biologicallyhabitable planet interact there, or weco-exist, are likely much to findless ourselveseat or in- incipient, irrevocable doom that permeates contem- terbreed with. In Aurora the toxic particle is as small porary life, as well as offer grim visions of the sorts as a tiny prion, but all the same it renders the new of biological and ecological transformations that (we planet utterly uninhabitable to us, in effect dooming our dreams of space altogether. [7.2] Other recent works about extraterrestrial andhope) even will grab be better for themselves than the species tiny pieces just dying of those out travel end more happily, though typically with some entirely. Her characters find a way to adapt, and live, sour ecological note. In Interstellar, the astronaut to us to have fallen out of our civilization’s grasp— - albeitolder, betterat very science-fictional great cost. futures that now seem mensional time-travel shenanigans to get a viable [7.4] The alternative to the sort of vexed self-trans- off-worldheroes take colony advantage started—but of a wormhole the last andshot fifth-di of the formation we see in Butler, or in something like Mar- garet Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, is rather the world of universal death posited by Atwood in her “Time standsfilm reveals silent, the miserable settlement guard. as More a tiny typically, encampment how- Capsule Found on the Death Planet,” written in 2009 ever,in an theicy heroes’hellhole, reward over which at the a end single of the American narrative flag is alongside the Copenhagen climate talks. Human his- to be allowed to return to Earth, to live here instead of tory, per “Time Capsule,” is a progressive history that there. The Martian sees its titular hero (barely) able to survive being stranded on Mars, hacking together creation of a universal desert, characterized by spac- a temporary ecology of oxygen, water, feces, and po- esarrests where itself nothing in the grows, final age until through “at last the all industrious wells were tatoes that is able to get him just enough food, for there was no land left to grow food.” At this point At- that he doesn’t have to keep living on Mars, but gets wood’spoisoned, unnamed all rivers narrator, ran with implied filth, all to seas be thewere last dead; hu- tojust come long home—asenough to thebe rescued.characters His do, happy to one ending extent is or another, in other recent space operas like Jupiter her message: Ascending, Battlestar Galactica, and WALL-E. Space, man alive, turns to the person who will someday find alas, is no longer the place. Even a nominally techno- You who have come here from some distant optimistic novel like Neal Stephenson’s recent Sev- world, to this dry lakeshore and this cairn, eneves (2015)—ostensibly devoted to proving the and to this cylinder of brass, in which on the indomitability of human ingenuity and creative po- last day of all our recorded days I place our tential even in the face of the end of the world—pos- its an incomprehensibly terrible nightmare future Pray for us, who once, too, thought we could in horrid cramped, starvation-ridden satellites in its final words: attempt to argue that we might realistically live any- where else but Earth. Herefly. again, as in Butler’s and Robinson’s later sto- [7.3] Not that home is looking so great either. If the ries, the dream of outer space turns toxic, a narra- ecological poisons dreams of escape, it also poisons tive for some other, better version of the human race dreams of our continued survival down here, as wit- rather than ourselves; our species, we feel, seems nessed both through the incipient mass extinctions somehow to have missed its chance, and fallen into of animal life in the present and, via the prolepsis of the deep gravitational well of its doomed planetary - ecology instead. wards-looking cognitive standpoint from an inevita- [8] Back in the real world, and real human history, the suddenly ubiquitous “Anthropocene,” the back 22 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 23 the human species seems at the dawn of the twenty- Fuller, R. Buckminster. Operating Manual for Space- ship Earth. 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The Social Costs of Private Enter- ragingout-and-out on multiple mass death fronts and everywhere extinction. A across five-alarm the prise. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. planet—andfire, all our ecologicalSF, like so many knowledge of our screams, cultural institu is now- Marx, Karl. Capital, Vol. 1. New York: Penguin Books, tions, is still struggling to catch up. 1976. Mazel, David. “American Literary Environmental- ism as Domestic Orientalism,” in The Ecocriticism Works Cited Reader, ed. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, 137-146. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, Atwood, Margaret. “Time Capsule Found on the Dead 1995. Planet.” The Guardian (25 September 2009): Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: W.W. Norton http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/ & Company, 2001. . Moore, James W. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecol- Canavan, Gerry, Lisa Klarr, and Ryan Vu, “Science, ogy and the Accumulation of Capital. New York: sep/26/margaret-atwood-mini-science-fictionJustice, Science Fiction: A Conversation with Kim Verso, 2015. Stanley Robinson.” Polygraph 22 (2010): 201- Morton, Timothy. Ecology without Nature: Rethink- 218. ing Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge, MA: Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Harvard University Press, 2007. ---. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the “Comparative Planetology: An Interview with Kim End of the World. Minneapolis: University of Min- StanleyMifflin, 2002.Robinson.” bldgblog.blogpost.com (19 nesota Press, 2013. December 2007): http://bldgblog.blogspot. Otto, Eric. “Environmentalism 101.” SF 101: A Guide com/2007/12/comparative-planetology-inter- to Teaching and Studying Science Fiction. Ed. Ritch view-with.html. Calvin, Doug Davis, Karen Hellekson, and Craig - Jacobsen. Science Fiction Research Association, cal Ecology.” Tr. Stuart Hood. New Left Review 2014. Enzensberger,(March–April Hans 1974): Magnus. 3-31. “A Critique of Politi Philips, Dana. The Truth of Ecology: Nature, Culture, Foster, John Bellamy. Ecology Against Capitalism. and Literature in America. Oxford: Oxford Univer- New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002. sity Press, 2003. ---. Marx’s Ecology. New York: Monthly Review Press, Sassoon, Donald. One Hundred Years of Socialism. 2000. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010. ---. The Vulnerable Planet. New York: Monthly Re- Shaviro, Steven. “Hyperbolic Futures: Speculative Fi- view Press, 1999. nance and Speculative Fiction.” The Cascadia Sub- Boulding, Kenneth E. “The Economics of the Com- duction Zone (April 2011): 3-6. ing Spaceship Earth.” Rpt. in The Environmental Stross, Charles. “Designing Society for Prosper- Debate: A Documentary History, with Timeline, ity.” Charlie’s Diary (November 12, 2009): Glossary, and Appendices. Ed. Peninah Neimark http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-stat- and Peter Rhoades Mott. Amenia, NY: Grey House ic/2009/11/designing_society_for_posterit.html. Publishing, 2010. 24 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 25 Suggested Additional Reading Wark, McKenzie. “Critical Theory after the Anthro- pocene.” Public Seminar (9 August 2014): http:// Baratta, Chris, ed. Environmentalism in the Realm of www.publicseminar.org/2014/08/critical-theo- Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. Newcastle: ry-after-the-anthropocene/#.U-gwi4BdXs4. Cambridge Scholars, 2012. ---. “The Capitalocene.” Public Seminar (15 Oc- Bernardo, Susan M., ed. Environments in Science Fic- tober 2015): http://www.publicseminar. tion: Essays on Alternative Spaces. Critical Explo- org/2015/10/the-capitalocene/. rations in Science Fiction and Fantasy, 44. Jeffer- Yanarella, Ernest J. The Cross, the Plow, and the Sky- son, NC: McFarland & Company, 2014. line: Contemporary Science Fiction and the Ecolog- Buell, Frederick. From Apocalypse to Way of Life: En- ical Imagination. Parkland: Brown Walter, 2001. vironmental Crisis in the American Century. New York: Routledge, 2003. While a full list of SF novels and short stories deal- Buell, Lawrence. “Toxic Discourse.” Critical Inquiry 24.3 (Spring 1998): 639-665. too overwhelmingly numerous to name here, I Canavan, Gerry and Kim Stanley Robinson, eds. Green woulding with suggest the subject the list of generated “ecology” byis ofEric course Otto inmuch his Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction. Middletown: “Environmentalism 101” piece as a very good start- Wesleyan University Press, 2014. ing point, as well as entries like ECOCATASTROPHE, Canavan, Gerry. “‘If the Engine Ever Stops, We’d All ECOLOGY, and NATURE in Brian Stableford’s Science Die’: Snowpiercer and Necrofuturism.” Paradoxa Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia (Rout- 26: “SF Now.” Vashon Island, WA: Paradoxa, 2014. ledge, 2006) and the list of works “Of Further Inter- Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “The Climate of History: Four est” I complied as an appendix to Green Planets. Of Theses.” Critical Inquiry 35 (Winter 2009): 197- the novels that have appeared since that publication, 222. I would especially recommend: Garrad, Greg. Ecocriticism: The New Critical Idiom. New York: Routledge, 2004. Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam (2013); Haraway, Donna. “Reprise: Science Fiction, Fictions Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife (2015); of Science, and Primatology,” in Primate Visions. Liu Cixin’s The Dark Forest (2015); New York: Routledge, 1989. Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Our- Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: selves (2013); The Environmental Imagination of the Global. New William Gibson’s The Peripheral (2014); York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014); MacDonald, Graeme. “Improbability Drives: The En- James Patterson’s Zoo (2012); ergy of Sf.” Paradoxa 26: “SF Now.” Vashon Island, Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 (2012), Shaman WA: Paradoxa, 2014. (2013), and Aurora (2015); Murphy, Patrick D. Ecocritical Explorations in Liter- Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves (2015); ary and Cultural Studies: Fences, Boundaries, and Claire Vaye Watkins’s Gold Fame Citrus (2015); and Fields. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2009. Andy Weir’s The Martian (2011) ---. “Environmentalism,” in The Routledge Compan- ion to Science Fiction, ed. Mark Bould, Andrew M. as being of particular interest. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint, 373-381. New York: Routledge, 2009. Otto, Eric. Green Speculations: Science Fiction and Transformative Environmentalism. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012. Stableford, Brian. “Science Fiction and Ecology,” in A Companion to Science Fiction, ed. David Seed, 127-141. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Vint, Sherryl. Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal. Liverpool: Liverpool Uni- versity Press, 2010. 24 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 25 Nonfiction Reviews Movies Are Colonizing Our Brains” Other 5 (October 2004): n. pag. Web. 29 March 2015). Terms related

Neuroscience in Science Fiction for SF scholarship include Harvey Blume’s “neuro- narratives,”to “neuroscience which appeared fiction” that in 2000 can (“Neuro-Narra be repurposed- Films tives.” The American Prospect 11.13 (22 May 2000): Jason W. Ellis n. pag. Web. 29 March 2015.), and later, Marco Roth’s ‘neuronovel,’ which appeared in 2009 (“Rise of the Neuronovel: A Specter is Haunting the Contempo- Packer, Sharon. Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films. rary Novel.” 8 (14 September 2009): Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. Paperback, 300 n+1 magazine n. pag. Web. 29 March 2015.). While none of these pages, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-7864-7234-5. sources are cited in Packer’s book, they are indica- tive of the fact that there is an established and grow- Order option(s): Paper | Kindle ing discourse around the intersection of the neuro- SHARON PACKER’S Neuroscience in Science Fiction critical engagement and development. Films contributes important new ideas and analyses sciences,Packer uses literature, scenes and from film Shane that Black’s deserves further to the study of brain-centric, neuroscience-focused Iron Man 3 (2013) to frame her overall argument about the audience gives it an uneven execution that does not the tension between “the ‘two minds’ of psychia- necessarilySF film. However, undermine its attempt her arguments to appeal but to does a broad cre- try:development biological ofpsychiatry, neuroscience now known fiction as as ‘neuropsy driven by- ate impediments to engaging them. Nevertheless, chiatry,’ and the proverbial ‘couch cure’ of psycho- this book offers many interesting and insightful ob- analytic lore” (Packer 5). In key passages peppered servations that might prove useful to scholars work- throughout the book, she guides the reader through the evolution of brain studies—the neurological, Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films is a historical ing on these topics and films. psychological, behavioral, and back to the neuro- logical, including among others, anatomical studies, - psychopharmacology, neurosurgery, brain imaging, nitionanalysis or of trace what thePacker term’s terms historical “neuroscience development. fiction” (Packer 5), but she neglects to give it an explicit defi and endocrinology. After providing an overview and

- theWhile effect Packer of “the qualifies parallel her paths book’s of focuspsychodynamic as “on the background information in the first two chapters, psychiatry,neuroscience psychoanalysis, aspects of science behavioral fiction conditioning, film,” and Packer establishes in chapter three the lasting influ and, to a lesser extent, humanistic psychology” on Fran- kensteinence of proto-SF(1818), Robert literature Louis on neuroscienceStevenson’s Strange fiction Casefilm, of including Dr. Jekyll discussionsand Mr. Hyde of (1886), Mary Shelley’sand H.G. Wells’ (1896). There are chapters term’sSF film origin(Packer and 11), historical she does development. not supply the Hal reader Hall, The Island of Dr. Moreau inwith a comment a formalized to my definition blog dynamicsubspace.net, nor acknowledge tells the ape and human brains, mid-century emphases on us that an early appearance of the term appears in thedevoted physicality to exploring of the brain, biological using affinities examples between includ- two book chapters by Joseph D. Miller: one in 1989 ing (1957) and (“Neuroscience Fiction: The Roman à Synaptic Cleft.” The Brain from Planet Arous The Brain Eaters (1958). In chapter seven, she discuss- Mindscapes. Eds. George E. Slusser and Eric S. Rab- kin. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, Change of (1969), (1970), and to some 1989. 195-207. Print.), and another in 2009 (“Neu- Mind Hauser’s Memory extent,es how Planet“social of problem the Apes films,” (1968), including use neuroscience roscience Fiction Redux,” Reading Science Fiction. Eds. James E. Gunn, Marleen S. Barr, and Matthew. the neurosciences. Other chapters focus on neuro- New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 199-211. technologicalfiction to expose interventions, “social problem including films” memory hinging era on- Print.). While Miller focuses on SF literature, An- (1966), nalee Newitz independently applies the term to SF Cyborg 2087 The Mind Snatchers (1972), Videodrome (1983), Johnnysure and Mnemonic recall, in (1995),films such and as The Manchurian Can- 26film SFRAin 2004 Review (“Brain 314 Winter Damage: 2015 Neuroscience Fiction SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 27 didate (2004). Chapter nine explores memory era- sure and recall; increasing intelligence; and simulat- ing phenomenological experience and dreams. The fiction.

and the effects of drugs. Through these chapters, she final chapters focus on the influence of video games, Germany: A Science Fiction this brief chronological sampling: A Blind Bargain Donald M. Hassler (1922),discusses The a tremendousApe Man (1943), number The of Brain films, from including Plan- et Arous (1957), Change of Mind (1969), The Mind Rickels, Laurence A. Germany: A Science Fiction. Fort Snatchers (1972), Brainstorm (1983), Total Recall Wayne, IN: Anti-Oedipus Press, 2015. Paperback, (1990), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Eternal Sunshine 265 pages, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-9905733-3-3 Kin- of the Spotless Mind (2004), Limitless (2011), and dle $9.95, ASIN B00YBGVGDO Transcendence (2014). While Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films has Order option(s): Kindle many valuable insights on a range of popular and

might give an audience of SF scholars pause. One of IN HIS MARCH 1940 REVIEW of Mein Kampf, George theseless-well-known is its repetition films, of it previously exhibits some discussed issues mate that- Orwell acknowledges that the ambitious Hitler rial. While Packer attempts to account for this when somehow manages always to cast himself as under- she writes, “Naturally, there is some overlap between the different sections, as we show how many (if not this strangely analogous to Milton’s rhetorical ploy most) NSF tropes repeat themselves over and over ofdog. giving Honest Satan Orwell his great feels speeches. a bit sorry Later, for in him. the satireI find again over the decades” (Packer 12), there are nu- 1984 (1948), as this study points out, Orwell omits merous repetitions of plot, background, and analysis any explicit reference to the Holocaust at the same that distract more than focus her arguments. Cou- time that he captures well the feel of the Nazi goose- stepping and robotic Newspeak. Laurence A. Rickels pulls no punches in the use of rhetorical trickiness, Somepled to of this these are might interjections even confuse of tangential novice readers. film trivia For however, in this complex academic study of our ter- example,that unnecessarily she writes, bisect “I mention the flow William of her Gibson, discussion. who ribly warlike 20th century. I must be very clear on earned the epithet, ‘father of cyberpunk’ (although the solemn, almost depressing, thesis of Germany: A Science Fiction (Packer 63). While she goes on to explain that Bruce immolation, and mourning are the key ideas. Rickels Bethkehe was publishednot the first a short to use story the titled term “Cyberpunk” “cyberpunk”)” in ranges as far back. Sin as andHomer death, and loss Vergil in war, to establish hellfire, 1983, she neglects to explain how the term began to this thesis. Troy and Dido must burn in order for circulate as a descriptor of Gibson and his cohort, or Rome to rise from their holocaust. Two instances of that it was not a term appropriated or embraced by modern burnings are important to the thesis: Ray Gibson. Bradbury’s burning in Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Despite these issues, I recommend Packer’s Neu- Thomas Pynchon’s rockets that return and burn roscience in Science Fiction Films for scholars work- their makers in V (1963) and Gravity’s Rainbow ing at the intersection of the neurohumanities and (1973). It is a sad and purging thesis, indeed, that - Rickels dresses up as well with a particular 20th- ies collections. It is a book brimming with insights our wars SF, and for libraries to stock in their SF or film stud and our centurycleanses trajectory as it burns or awaytimeline at sinthat and includes death. Rickels needs,on the includinghistory of surveyingthe neurosciences the relationship and SF betweenfilm that argues that SF. “hard” The trajectory SF for twenty is, also, years a therapy or so after that addresses a range of audiences and fulfills different- the Nazi holocaust allowed our culture to hide from - itself any involvement with sin and death, to move the neurosciences and SF film, providing close read onward and upward like a discovery rocket. But in ings of brain-focused SF films, and categorizing neu order for a cure to take place, inevitably, he argues, roscience fiction films into manageable groups. It can be equally useful in scholarship as in teaching. 26 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 It is a milestone in the growing field of neuroscience there had to be a returnSFRA of Reviewthe fire 314 from Winter the 2015rocket, 27 a purging. It is that literature of the purge that Rickels work with my German dictionary as Rickels turns on a massive compound word in German that, eventu- to explicate in this explosion of a book that follows ally, we decipher as a technical term for balancing earlierfinds so work complex of his and in which fascinating he hinted and atthat the he thesis. works - The problem, as I see it, with this set of ideas and losophy must be in balance. But still, there is sin and with the effects in Rickels is that nearly every dis- death.radio frequency. Rickels favors Our notclever only machines the German and ourbut alsophi tinct part gets burned to a crisp. To borrow the cen- outrageous puns in English. On the paradox in the tral image from his celebration of Bradbury here, it story about the burning of Troy, he writes, “…the is almost as though the very book that Rickels sets -

He mixes genres. He mixes time periods. He mixes FinallyTrojan onhorse—a rockets lost and object lebensraum of identification, or “territory” rever that practicalout to write psychiatric for us is destroyed therapy case in the studies fire of withthe idea. the Hitlersal, and could preservation never have carried enough out of, defeatRickels first” ends (73). well thrilling SF of discovery and time travel. He tells us a and with his typical word thickness. He refers to the lot about sculpture and a lot about media and mov- brave wave at the end of the movie Dr. Strangelove ies. The book includes a few interesting pictures of sculpture. Rickels analyzes two SF novels written Pynchon’s novel, the rocket […] opens up a techno- by the NASA leader Wernher von Braun. He spends logical(1964) horizonthat builds of auto-developmenton Pynchon’s rocket before fictions: which “In the prosthetic or humanist [SF] reach of our follow- War and the fact that it was our “lost war” and served ing falls short” (245). So now that this review has tomuch divide time our on history a fine discussion right in the of middle. the American In fact, douCivil- reached its own word limit, I can honestly say that bleness and return (I suppose “eternal return”) are haunts throughout the book. Rickels is never limited a little silly. But of course, I try not to be a Romantic either by any sense of genre limits, even though his visionaryI find Rickels but ratherboth penetrating a practical and and humanist playful, or liberal. even work of the American writer Julian Green, for exam- ple,entire who argument is a Southerner has to do at withheart a through defining his of motherSF. The and who was born in Paris and published mostly in French (in French his Christian name is spelled “Ju- Religion in Science Fiction: The lien”), is well-used by Rickels to make both thera- Evolution of an Idea and the Ex- peutic and literary points about the power of what is called “ambivalent introspect” in Green’s case. But in tinction of a Genre no way is Green meant to be seen as an SF writer. So Edward F. Higgins not only is there continually a conceptual blurring in the book, but also there is no Index and not a very Hrotic, Steven. Religion in Science Fiction: The Evolu- clear Table of Contents. All seems to get consumed in tion of an Idea and the Extinction of a Genre. Lon- don, New York: Bloomsbury Academic (an im- - print of Bloomsbury Publishing), 2014. Hardback, damentalthe flame thesis,of vision but and I am insight, not sure. and That one hasdoubleness trouble 240 pages, $112, ISBN-9781472533555; Kindle, orfinding continuous one’s way ambivalence, in the text. ofI think course, I believe is fundamen the fun- $59.11, Page Numbers Source ISBN 1472533550 tal to Rickels’s argument. I think that Rickels fully redeems himself, however, Order option(s): Hard | Paper | Kindle of any weaknesses in argument by means of his lin- guistic wit. Of one of his favorite writers, P.K. Dick, HROTIC’S OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS would likely Rickels observes that after Dick wrote The Man in be of interest and of some use to anyone teaching or the High Castle (1962) he could speak only German researching religious, philosophical, or mytho-poet- for a time. The German that Rickels knows well is loaded with amusing ambivalence—a kind of twin- a full set of chapter notes and an extensive bibliogra- kling solemnity like Santa or Kris Kringle, that soft- phyic structures of items (actually,in science 15 fiction. pages The of seeming volume providesoverkill) ens the impact of all heavy meaning. For example, related to other studies of academic religio-cultural the opening paragraph of the book took me much -

28 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 analysis. There’s a good general index to specific au SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 29 half of his book to Part Two: starting off with a cou- somethingthors, novels, remembered or stories discussed,or to select providing some focused- quick plesome of attentivechapters reading on the isGernsback-to-Campbell when he gets past the erasfirst onreference need again. and a This narrowing study seems for looking to perform back toits find as- (including trudges through brief analyses of several serted task of offering “a cognitive anthropology of “trash” 30s-40s stories) followed by two more en- narratives” (14) focused on religious elements and gaging chapters in this section, “The Rise of the Nov- spirituality in a wide-ranging overview of selected el,” and “Poli-Sci-Fi.” The three Gernsback 20s-30s SF works from the Gernsback/Campbell eras up to Amazing Stories - and through such late 20th century authors as Octa- sion illustrate early SF religion as “typically only a via Butler and Mary Doria Russell. Alongside a hand- supportive thread Hrotic to the takes main note plot of and in quickwas not succes yet a ful of other scholar-critics’ various published essays - and a few book-length studies of the topic of religion ence through Astounding and the publishing and dis- in SF, Hrotic’s examination brings a welcome per- coverymajor theme” of such (64).writers But as with Asimov, Campbell’s Heinlein, major Sturgeon, influ spective to an oft overlooked exploration of science van Vogt and others, more “normative views of reli- - gion” (67) arose. Hrotic goes on to examine individu- cred ground, or sacred grounding. al stories by Asimov, Heinlein, de Camp, and del Rey fiction’sHrotic’s sometimes approach assumed is basically presumptive an historical lack ofover sa- that present religion as “based on misunderstand- view informing his critical rationale and applying ing about the world, about history, even about basic the cognitive anthropological apparatus he lays facts; religion and science are contrasting opposites, even if not necessarily mutually antagonistic” (79). - Readers of Hrotic’s “The Rise of the Novel” and cialout behaviors in the first resting chapter, on “Thethe acceptance Rules.” Religion of certain for “Poli-Sci-Fi” chapters will obviously recognize such culturally-embeddedthe purposes of his studyclaims devolvesof supernatural to specific author so- classic religion-oriented novels as Arthur C. Clark’s ity–this of course as applied to Hrotic’s given body of Childhood’s End (1953), Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960), Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomor- “thought world” gives rise to a range of SF authors’ row (1955), George Stewart’s Earth Abides (1949), useillustrative of as well science as change fiction to literature.any given religion’sThis particular sche- and, of course, James Blish’s A Case of Conscience ma “across many stories over several generations (1958), Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land creates a story in its own right” (16), as is the case in (1961), and Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965). Addi- tionally, there are two religio-centric short stories - he discusses: Fritz Leiber’s probably lesser known science fiction. “When the Change-Winds Blow” (1964), and Roger TheAs observationsto science fiction and itselfproblems as a literaryof this considerable genre, Hrot Zelazny’s highly regarded “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” ic—like everyone else—chafes a bit at a definition. (1963). Such novels and stories have shifted the view

hisdefinition solution chaffing is to opt regarding for a few the at-handgenre are normative familiar thought experiments, positing new variants ” (101), assumptions--including“but still flawed” (19), claimsNorman Hrotic. Spinrad’s Nevertheless, amusing accordingof religion to to Hrotic’s one of “self-reflection”framework analysis—although and “represent - given his two-to-three pages for each work these are tion,” and/or most anything else found in the Clute/ given short shrift, yet nonetheless are treated with Nichollsdictum that Encyclopedia SF is “anything published as science fic crucial insights. Part Three moves through selected 1970s to 2000s ’s definition entry for science- SF, with three chapters considering religious-orient- nitionfiction. chapter For anyone in Hrotic even passinglycould be eitherfamiliar glanced with the at ed examples from such authors as Ray Bradbury, much-rehearsed, ever-ongoing quandary, this defi Michael Moorcock, James Morrow, Orson Scott Card, next is a chapter of early redacting and placing of Octavia Butler, Mary Doria Russell, Neil Gaiman, and Maryknowingly Shelley-to-Poe-to-Wells-to-Stapledon, or just ho-hum glazed over. What etc.comes in a few others. With all of these writers, Hrotic’s main their various portrayals of religion. This short nine- focal point is that unlike earlier mainly negative page chapter may perhaps be best skipped except treatments of religious themes, in their work there for the half-page conclusion at its end. appears a “lessening of negative valences in the Where Hrotic better shines, I think, and deserves schemas for religion, and a corresponding lessening 28 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 29 of positive valences in the schemas for science and (2010), he investigated political and ideological con- in particular technological progress” (170). Which is not to say writers like Piers Anthony and James In his latest book, Revolutionary Experiments (2014), Morrow can’t be found seriously lampooning or Krementsovtexts as they addresses affect scientific the lack ideas of contact, and discoveries. or inter- satirizing aspects of Western religion. Again, while change, between the political history of Russia and Hrotic’s analyses of various authors’ works seems the history of Russian science; he focuses his atten- slight, there are interesting conclusions such as his tion on the mechanisms that make that interaction comment on The Sparrow’s treatment of “faith as a possible (3). He postulates his approach as an anti- powerful, sustaining, fascinating force . . . but a dan- dote to previous attempts to describe this interac- gerous one” (164), or on Parable of the Sower’s strat- tion, which he regards as mono-disciplinary, a kind - ligion is a particularly memorable and effective way” (7) Mono-disciplinary approaches, he argues, pre- ofegy sustaining wherein “the the novel’sneeds religion plot and fills themes are real, (161). and re ventof “‘cross-gazing’ scholars from over seeing artificially the social erected characteristics borders.” Finally, in Part Four Hrotic delivers a couple of of the highly complicated process of intercommuni-

As a student of the USSR Academy of Sciences in themedfinal chapters history, highlightingleaving us with conclusions the pronouncement about his thecation 1980s, between Krementsov scientific noticed and cultural that many discourses. of the sci- thatoverview culture journey generally through and SFscience as a storytelling fiction’s religion- mode with an “allegiance to myth and ritual and recurring examples of mysticism and the sacred” (199) will entific discoveries of the early 20th century Russia likely continue with an ongoing legacy of (at least ofwere stories represented that in the in late works 1920s of were fiction, called particularly ‘science occasional) religious exploration. Indeed, “The mul- in the “scientific-fantastic” stories, the same kind - - gious and guagefiction’ that in the cannot USA. beScientific easily understood discourse, heby argues,non-pro is- waytiplicity, into not genre just SF. of planets,I doubt butanyone’s of worldviews—reli going to argue fessionaldistinguished readers. by an Thus, elaborate as Krementsov and very claims, specific there lan with that. scientific” (199) will continue to find their should have been an independent agent responsible

is genuinely non-public) to the public domain. Kre- mentsovfor the transposition found that agent of scientific in the media—in knowledge popular (that - Revolutionary Experiments: The ly newspapers, etc. Quest for Immortality in Bolshevik magazines, documentary films, radio programs, dai- edge into the public sphere, Krementsov replaces Science and Fiction To illustrate the migration of scientific knowl Artem Zubov worksthe technique of literature of ‘cross-gazing’ of the same periodwith that (8). of He ‘reading choos- Krementsov, Nikolai. Revolutionary Experiments: The in parallel’ articles on scientific experiments and Quest for Immortality in Bolshevik Science and Fic- - tion. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, ry:es four experiments cases, each with of isolated which exemplifies organs, anabiosis, sensational hor- 2014. Hardback, 288 pages, £50.00, ISBN 978-0- scientific experiments of the early twentieth centu 19-999298-0. demonstrates how the popularization of anabiosis mones, and rejuvenation. For instance, Krementsov Order option(s): Hard | Kindle by scientists Porfirii Bakhmet’ev and Petr Shmidt manyprovided prominent writers Russian of fiction writers with such the vocabulary as Alexander to NIKOLAI KREMENTSOV has authored several books Blyaev,build their Aleksey own Tolstoy,artistic speculations.Vladimir Mayakovsky, Subsequently, and and multiple articles that explore the interaction Boris Pilnyak used experiments with anabiosis as a between politics and science. In his earlier works, Stalinist Science (1996), The Cure: A Story of Cancer Further, Krementsov shows that the plots of Mikhail and Politics (2002), and A Martian Stranded on Earth Bulgakov’snarrative technique novellas in“The their Fateful works. Eggs” (1924) and 30 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 31 rhetoric of popular science that established a corre- - spondence between scientists, their patrons, and the rate“The how Dog’s scientists Heart” (1925) experimented are literary with reflections the possibil of- public. Put another way, Krementsov describes the experiments with rejuvenation. Both novellas nar emergence of popular science discourse understood

“theity of ray eternal of life” youth that andaccelerates conquering life processes, death. While he thede- riveswriter them gives from fictitious real experiments scientific explanations, that were widely e.g., aas discursive a socio-rhetoric campaign action directed (Dijk 193). at popularizing In this case, scithe- covered in the Russian popular media in the 1920s. ence,science bringing fiction genre“science should to the be masses,”studied asand a partgiving of “knowledge to everyone,” as common Soviet-era slo- “Professor Dowell’s Head” (1925) is usually studied gans would have it. Alexander Beliaev’s ‘scientific-fantastic story’ This book can be of great interest and value for 1922 to 1925, Beliaev was literally chained to a bed, everyone interested in Russian studies and the his- andas an he author’s himself self-reflective described this biographic period as work. “life ofFrom the tory of science in Russia. Revolutionary Experiments head without the body.” Krementsov shows how this - seemingly ‘fantastic’ idea – the possibility of keeping fers many theoretical observations on the nature of a severed head alive in a laboratory – was pursued theis not genre a study “as [an]specifically historical of scienceand mutable” fiction, formation but it of by many scientists and widely discussed in popular that consists not of “a set of texts, but rather a way of media. For instance, Sergei Briukhonenko’s appara- using texts and drawing relationships among them.” tus, called the autojector, which helped keep the sev- (Rieder 193) The author demonstrates the emer- ered heads of animals “alive,” was sensationalized in gence of what may be called “popular science dis- - and popular magazines (an account of his invention ence literary evolution and to give birth to the genre wasmore even than placed a dozen in Science Russian and and Invention Western, edited scientific by course,” which implicitly had the potential to influ Russia. (48). At the same time, Krementsov states, “neither of ‘scientific-fantastic stories’ in early 20th century the “godfather”scientist nor of the science writer fiction: could Hugo claim Gernsback) the prior- ity on originating this idea.” (52) Both Beliaev and Works Cited Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. traditions of speculating on such experiments. But L.; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998. whatBriukhonenko is of more are importance part of long is howscientific the “living and literary head” Dijk T.A. van. - discourse emerged, and how it was utilized by scien- tory.” Science Fiction Studies tists and writers (52). Rieder2010:191-209. J. “On Defining SF, or Not: Genre, SF, and His The author shows how the study of internal secre- , Vol. 37, № 2, July,

earlytions and20th hormones century – played the process a major of role the in institution one of the- alizationlargest “scientific of science. experiments” Although writers that took of literature place in - ies and technological progress, Krementsov posits thatwere they very skipped sensitive the to emergence current scientific of “big discoverscience” and how it became a mass profession (100). “Dirty” dealings of “big science” did not correspond with the romantic image of the “lonely genius” obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge, and thus, it could hardly inspire the literary imagination (126). His analysis of the interaction between ‘real’ and

- tural‘fictional’ resource’ sciences in Bolshevik allows Krementsov Russia (161). to Popular explore mediahow scientific and the knowledgepopularizers became of science an influential created a new‘cul 30 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 31 Fiction Reviews outer space. But of course, Sondra grows lonesome - pernatural intervention (don’t ask). Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Mem- forSondra’s home and wacky quickly adventures returns to in Forest this Hillsvolume via suin- clude visiting lectureships in South Africa, where oir she has close encounters with wildebeest and Af- rikaner men; Austria, where she is romanced by a Andrew M. Gordon feminist to stay home and cook him Apfelstrudel and Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir by Marleen S. LeberknödelsuppeGerman who wants; a thisstint quintessential in exile in the Forest American Hills Barr. Seattle, WA: NeoPoesis Press, 2015. 240 pp. midwest at the dubious “Meshuconsinois State Uni- pb. $18.95. ISBN 978-0-9892018-6-5. versity”; and a gig as feminist scholar-in-residence and “academic whore” at “Brand-X University.” In Order option(s): Paper

IN OY PIONEER!, the feminist SF critic Marleen Alongother ludicrousthe way, episodes,she wins shethe masqueradesSFRA Pilgrim as Award, black Barr invented her own genre: comic autobiography managesand then to as snag a lesbian a husband, to find a French-Canadian a tenured position. she crossed with academic satire and leavened with sud- dubs “Pepe Le Pew,” visits his large family in Canada, - and goes on her honeymoon on a risky mule trek Oy Pioneer! introduced the into the Grand Canyon. In a sad interlude, she wit- dennarrator flights and of protagonist,fancy, and infusions Sondra Lear,of elements an ambitious of sci nesses the fall of the towers on 9-11 in Manhattan. enceacademic fiction intellectual and fantasy. and SF critic who is also, para- But the irrepressible Sondra ends as she began, once doxically, a husband-hunting feminist. Sondra, a car- again launched into outer space, this time accompa- icatured version of the author, is a female schlemiel nied by her new husband.

University, globe-trotting to conferences and Ful- American humor, academic satire, and feminism. It brightin flight lectureships from the oppressiveand even leaving southern earth “Blackhole” on a star- is Thealso novel peppered will appeal with references to those who to American enjoy Jewish- pop ship. Goaded by her monomanical mother “Herbert,” culture: tons of allusions to movies, TV, Broadway an omnipresent voice on the phone whom Sondra - has internalized and can never escape, she is always tasy. Those in the know about SF authors and criti- cismshow will tunes, get anda special especially frisson science-fiction from this roman and à fanclef But as she criss-crosses the world and even launches by trying to spot the real-life identities of the many intochasing outer the space elusive on quarry, her comic a man misadventures, who will marry Son her.- dra, a Jew from Forest Hills, Queens, is never really laughed out loud, as at the mention of a dinosaur comfortable outside of the Big Apple. Apart from its calledfigures a she “tsorisaurus.” lampoons. I smiled often and sometimes Oy, Pioneer! is also a I look forward to the further adventures of the comic Jewish-American novel in the vein of Erica Jong’saffinities Fear with of Flying SF and. fantasy, critic and schlemiel from Forest Hills. Oy Feminist Oy Feminist Planets continues the zany, episodic Planetsinimitable is a Sondra true jew Lear, d’esprit the. feminist science-fiction misadventures of Sondra Lear. As the narrator notes

Tom Sawyer to follow Huckleberry Finn, you don’t needin the to opening, have read just Oy, like Pioneer! you don’t need to have read The Self-Propelled Island reality, married to her cat and with to enjoy a talking this horse second as daughtervolume, which (both beginstransformed with Sondra to human in full form), flight aboard from John J. Pierce a spaceship bound for a feminist planet near Alpha The Self-Propelled Island by Jules Verne, translated Centauri. Assisted by a ship full of Sondra clones by Marie-Thérèse Noiset, introduction by Volker and her vampire lover, who is also her fairy godfa- Dehs. Lincoln, NB, University of Nebraska Press/

32 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 33 ther, she is about to embark on the first Fulbright to Bison Books, 2015. Hardcover, 323 pages, $29.95, then titled Propeller Island) can be seen as showing ISBN 978-0-8032-4582-2. how “Verne makes capitalist society destroy itself by its own contradictions.”4 In that and other late Order option(s): Hard | Paper | Kindle works, Chesneaux continues, “Verne becomes more and more aware of the expansionist and dominating JULES VERNE went through a number of changes in character of American policy.”5 his life, and has gone through even more since his Butcher is rather skeptical of “postcolonial critics” death. There have been revisionist accounts of not claiming Verne for their cause: only his works but his life. Far from being the father While it is true that Verne occasionally noted having never written any sf at all. the negative effects of late nineteenth cen- ofWilliam science Butcher fiction, famously he is now asserted regarded that by Verne some was as “thrust, screaming and kicking, into a genre invented to French, British and American presence after his death.”1 In introductory notes to his trans- abroad,tury colonialism, Very rarely he did also he suggest ascribed as benefits a solu- lation of Mysterious Island (1873), Butcher argues tion the independence of a third world col- - ony. With the general exception of “the only robin- God-given country” [France], his mocking at- (supportedsonade – indeed, by quotes Mysterious from Verne’sIsland began own introduc life as a tacks on overbearing or ridiculous individu- tions)manuscript that Verne’scalled Unclefirst loveRobinson was, rather,that had the nothing als encompassed all nationalities.6 to do with science, or with Captain Nemo. Arthur B. Evans, an eminent authority on Verne, As for The Self-Propelled Island, we can now see had already argued in a 1988 essay, that Verne was au- thentic Theand Floatingjudge for Island ourselves (1896), on thewas basis presumably of the first one of distinguishablethe father of the from “scientific the latter novel” by rathera number than of what fac- those “with English the passages translation; offensive the first, to the published British or as torswe know – including as science its pedagogicalfiction, and that agenda the formerand conse was- Dehs in his introduction.7 today call them “information dumps”) that later sf AmericansFor all the modified interest or it omitted,” has inspired according among to critics,Volker writersquent attention dispensed to thewith kind (In ofa 2014technical afterword, details how(fans- The Self-Propelled Island is not a great novel. Butcher ever, Evans had second thoughts, saying that Verne’s tales that mixed adventure and science “were the and present tense”8 (Could he really have known for praisedsure?), and it as Dehs “the admiresfirst novel it forever its in use the of third metaphors person the way … for the rise and popularity of sf in the that make it a “very modern novel.”9 But it is mostly twentiethfirst to popularize century.”) this2 new, hybrid genre and paved a travelogue loaded with information dumps, and Long before either Butcher or Evans, Jean while it is a “futuristic novel”10 as Dehs calls it, the Chesneaux had offered a revisionist interpretation of The Political and Social Ideas of Jules futuristic element. Verne (1971). A Maoist at the time,3 he saw Verne as huge floating city called ‘Standard Island’ is the only aVerne’s sort of fiction closet inMarxist (Butcher would later see him 4 Chesneaux, Jean, The Political and Social Ideas of as possibly a closet homosexual.), whose works take Jules Verne, trans. Thomas Wikeley, London, Thames on the evils of American imperialism and capital- and Hudson, 1972, p. 161. ism. In particular, The Self-Propelled Island (1895, 5 Ibid. 6 Butcher, op. cit., p, 301. 1 Butcher, William, Jules Verne: The Definitive Biogra- 7 Verne, Jules, The Self-Propelled Island, translated phy (Acadian, 2008), p. 182. by Marie-Thérèse Noiset, introduction by Volker 2 Evans, Arthur B., “Science Fiction vs. Scientific Fic- Dehs. Lincoln, NB, University of Nebraska Press/Bison tion in France,” Science Fiction Studies, March 1988; Books, 2015. P. xv. reprinted, with an afterword, in Evans, ed., Vintage 8 Butcher, op cit., p, 218. Visions (Wesleyan University Press, 2014), pp. 82-95. 9 Verne, op cit., p. xix. 3 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Chesneaux. 10 Ibid., p. xiv. 32 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 33 Much has been made by critics of the fact that in ous satirical works like Emile Souvestre’s The World the novel the United States has annexed Mexico and As It Shall Be (1846) as well as Robida’s later works, Central America, but the novel itself does little with elder Verne avoided the truly futuristic novel. of future history as a marker. Aboard the Standard scholarsStandard might Island well itself address is ruled the by question two wealthy of why fami the- Island,this – as we if Vernelearn justof the wanted telautograph to use that (a prototypeone element of lies, the Tankerdons and the Coverleys. They are fax machines) and the kinetograph (a movie cam- compared to the likes of the Astors, but more often era); but both were already in existence when the to the Montagues and the Capulets, and there is even novel was written (Thomas Edison had named and a replay of Romeo and Juliet (The two families are patented the kinetoscope in 1889). Electric power also divided by religion – Calvinist Protestant ver- and light, electric carriages and the use of aluminum sus Catholic.). Verne’s social criticism of American as a construction material weren’t exactly new ideas ways is hardly Marxist; more in the vein of Charles in sf. They are new only to Verne’s viewpoint char- Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit; indeed, Deh notes that

America (of which we see next to nothing, and noth- ‘Barnum’, and that of another character, Barthelemy ingacters, at all members futuristic of –a theFrench Wild string West quartetis still the touring Wild Ruge,the name alludes of one to ofDickens’ the officers, Barnaby Munbar, Rudge is. Membersa play on - of the ruling families are self-absorbed, and pay lit- land. tle attention to what is going on in the wider world. West),Perhaps tricked the mostinto an imaginative involuntary element sojourn to on modern the is Yet at the same time there is a sympathetically-por- readers is the idea of music as a form of therapy – trayed governor, Cyrus Bikerstaff (based on Cyrus but that is credited by Verne to “J. Harford” (actually W. Field, who had befriended Verne while both were Frederick Kill Harford) of Westminster Abbey, who aboard the Great Eastern in 1867). sponsored sessions at hospitals late in the 19th Cen- The travelogue takes the Standard Island, and the tury but was later almost forgotten.11 It is the charac- - ter Munbar who sings the praises of musical therapy ber of islands and offering touristy impressions of - thestring natives quartet, – also around now-obscure the Pacific, histories calling of at some a num of linist, to complain: “And you simply saw us as some their ruling families. Along the way, the British Navy tosort the of quartet,musical medicalwhich leads men orPinchinat, apothecaries…?” the alto 12vio At gives the Americans grief, and Pinchinat is captured least the music they favor – Beethoven, Haydn, Mo- while most of the Polynesians are appealing, Verne But there is an invisible elephant in the room here: hasand itnearly in for killed the Malays on Fiji and– a Britishthe New possession. Hebrideans But – Albertzart – seems Robida, to bethe just author what theand doctor illustrator ordered. of The “treacherous and cowardly people”14 who are re- Twentieth Century (1882), a comic (but with serious cruited by a Malay named Sarol to stage an attack undertones) vision of everyday life in 1952. Robida on Standard Island – an attack barely thwarted in a was obviously inspired by Verne, having previously battle that takes the life of Bikerstaff. published a parody of the Voyages Extraordinaires: That bit of racism sets up the denouement: the The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul (1879). But Tankerdons and Coverleys fail to agree on a new Verne himself was uninspired to do likewise; two governor, and end up trying to steer their respec- stories set in the future, “An Express of the Future” tive halves of Standard Island on different courses, (1888) and “In the Year 2889” (1889) are generally causing it to break down and later founder. But what attributed to his son Michel13 – and seem to recycle - Robida’s ideas, including express tubes, without talist elite is seen by Dehs rather as an expression adding anything truly novel. In light of his then-un- ofseemed Verne’s to Chesneauxown distrust a socialist of democratic critique government, of the capi published Paris in the Twentieth Century, and previ- for citizens in the monarchy than in the republic.”15 quotingDeh also him notes as the saying parallels that to“there Paris is in more the Twentieth freedom 11 http://mtp.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/1/17.ab- Century - stract, retrieved Aug. 26, 2015. 12 Verne, Op. cit., p. 67. , which had been rejected in 1863 by his edi 13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Verne, re- 14 Ibid., p, 180. trieved Aug. 9, 2015. 15 Ibid., p. xviii. 34 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 35 tor Pierre Jules Hetzel. There too, there seems to be a ‘gosh-wow’ attitude towards technological wonders Alba has been killed and dismembered by a band of as such, yet also a feeling that overdependence on sadisticdared to thugs approach (headed in person by Charlie, for over Peter’s fifteen brother) years. technology in everyday life can be dehumanizing. who are interested in collecting and selling the re- But Verne has yet another message at the very end usable parts and technological components found in of The Self-Propelled Island, harking back to the mes- the huge areas of waste surrounding the megalopo- - lis where the story is set. In this wasteland of desire ley and some of his own earlier (“Master Zacharias,” and despair Verso builds the account of Peter’s own 1864)sage of and gothic later science (Master fiction of the in theWorld vein, 1904) of Mary works. Shel thoughts and comments throughout the narrative; Peter himself has also been a member of the band ordained by the hubris of its creators: had they “not of trashformers, scavengers who scour the polluted beenHis final forbidden word isto thatusurp Standard so recklessly Island’s the doom power was of urban areas of the planet, so he feels responsible for the Creator…?”16 what has happened. But of course the novel can also be interpreted as a -

typical science-fictional admonitory tale of a dysto Livid bodypian future from the where mind. science If the bodyhas finally decays defeated it can be death sup- and eternity has been conquered by separating the Fernando Porta the human mind itself can be electronically stored andplemented downloaded by prosthetic in “new” limbs synthetic and artificialbodies, but organs; only Livid by Francesco Verso. Xoum Pty Ltd., 2014. Pa- for the lucky citizens who can afford this expensive perback, 256 pages, $ 19.99. ISBN 192-1-13430- treatment. In this way, Verso seems to depict a very 5. - ress has made eternal the recorded memories and Order option(s): Paper | Kindle cynical future for mankind whereby scientific prog- ity of the population is left to its mortal destiny, poi- FRANCESCO VERSO is one of the best representa- sonedthe lives by of the the smog lucky and few, the whereas industrial the wastelarge majorwhich, tives of modern and critically mature Italian science - ter belongs to this second category: his love for Alba and Livid also won the national Odyssey Prize in mightlike a newwell artificialsymbolize desert, a kind surround of hopeful the cities.dawn Pehe fiction. He has won several prizes with his stories, 2013 and the Premio Italia for Best Novel for 2014. wants to achieve in spite of the derelict existence he Livid - is condemned to live (in fact, the word “alba” means lish, by the Australian publisher Xoum for the “Fan- ‘dawn’). is also his first novel to be translated into Eng tastica” series. The book has been well- translated - by Sally McCorry in collaboration with the author ample, what Verso has staged is a very sophisticated Either as a subjective tale or as a paradigmatic ex - abound: Edgar Allan Poe, T.S. Eliot and above all Phil- himself. The final result is a good example of careful lator and editors. ipnarrative, K. Dick. whereThe last literary is made references clear when and one quotations realizes collaboration and refinement between author, trans As Verso has admitted in a radio interview on SBS that the sea of waste is referred to, in both the origi- radio, Livid can be read as a sort of bildungsroman nal Italian text (“palta”) and in its English translation of the narrator, Peter Pains, who is in love with Alba, (“kipple”), with the same term that was coined in Do - Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. ry of a woman already dead (a nexhuman, as these This is a complex drama interrogating the dilem- an artificial being with the conscience and memo rather fortunate citizens of the future are called in ma of life and death in the year 2040, when existence the novel). The story is centred on the painful life’s has turned either into an empty game of survival – - as for the trashformers - or into personal addiction assemble the dispersed body parts of the girl he has to videogames that dominate televisions and com- journey of Peter – who is literally at “pain”(s) to re spied inside a local travel agency, but whom he never puters: this is the virtual gamesphere of those who want to forget the tragedy of the present to pursue 16 Ibid., p. 323. 34 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 35 their electronic victories. In this degraded context everything is hybrid, a mixed compound of what is by Interzone magazine in the 1980s. “The Server – or what used to be – human and what has become andaesthetically the Dragon,” hard, for and example, first influentially recounts a advocatedfar-future a material thing, thus consumable and re-usable. creation-myth fable in which a server node shot into The protagonist is hybrid too - he is made up of both deep space by a “darkship” fends off existential lone- - liness by replicating a so-called “dragon,” which may result not so much in the yearningly desired compan- merelyflesh and to metalscan theafter horizon a terrible to locateaccident the in right his childRFID ionship as in utter destruction for the server. With hood, and when he wears his artificial glasses he has Only in this way can he win his own game of survival tag that identifies the missing body parts of Alba. giddy abandon, Rajaniemi steeps this basic story that belong to the body of his beloved humanoid. “supersymmetrictemplate in defiantly vacuums.” unglossed Likewise, allusions to“Invisible “N-body andFollowing move quickly these sameamong dramatic the junk premises to find the finaleparts Planets”chaos,” “gauge riffs on field Italo knots,” Calvino’s “Shkadov Invisible necklaces,” Cities by andfol- of the novel is even more meaningful for the reader. lowing the travelogue of another darkship that com- The author demonstrates again his narrative skill labelled “Planets and Death,” “Planets and Money,” confronted with the existential dilemmas of living a andmands so on.fleets These of networked dispatches mindsspeculate in sixon aliendispatches civili- lifeand as imaginative a nexhuman power when the reader is finally slowly chip away at problems of longevity, econom- . Bravo Francesco Verso! ics,zations communication, whose gradual or techno-scientific laws of physics. progress Yet beyond can its meditation on the epistemic limits of cross-cul- Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fic- tural encounters, what really distinguishes the story tion - rencies,”as unique which are its suggest casual referencesa fascinating to density“xenocatabolic behind Jerome Winter anenzymes,” otherwise “tetroxide straightforward fuel,” and narrative “quantum set-up. cryptocur

Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction by Hannu Ra- some of these terms are newly coined neologisms, The baffled reader may be forgiven for assuming- 2015. 238 pages. $25.95, hardcover. ISBN 978-1- al strategies in the “Jean le Flambeur” series; yet even 61696-192-3.janiemi. San Francisco, CA: Tachyon Publications, agiven cursory some web of Rajaniemi’s search will notoriouspull up reams science-fiction of relevant

Order option(s): Hard artistic choice to omit, much less digest narratively. Thescientific effect data for the and reader theory of thatintricately Rajaniemi lacing makes some an of IT IS OBLIGATORY in all discussions of Hannu Ra- his more complex stories with these dream-like trac- es of real-world hard science can at best be exhila- simply, the author received a PhD in string theory rating and hypnotic, at worst inexplicably confusing andjaniemi works to as mention an entrepreneur his impressive in the bonacommercial fides: putap- plications of advanced math and sciences. In these new stories that exhibit his patently distinctive voice forand lyrical dizzying. and Regardless,imagistic prose Rajaniemi’s with a resonance bold science- and now familiar to readers of the “Jean le Flambeur” verisimilitudefictional technique to our undergirds own global his singularity remarkable of ver gift- - tiginously rapid technocultural acceleration of which we are doubtless deep in the throes. Even if most of trilogy (2011-2014), Rajaniemi’s work of short fic- the allusions dart over the heads of uninterested tasytion collectedreminiscent here of blends Roger the Zelazny hardest or science Neil Gaiman. fiction readers like so many neutralinos in empty space, imaginable with surreal, mythopoeic flights of fan readers cannot help but recognize the contours of - their own world in these vividly rendered scenes of Even though the fantastic elements in his fiction are hyper-advanced societies saturated in cutting-edge closelyoften quite follows pronounced in the spirit - more of than“radical most hard science science fic - tion loosely labelled “hard” today - Rajaniemi’s work quantum mechanics, nanotechnology, genetic engi 36 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 37 fiction,” that subgenre both politically radical and neering, and artificial intelligence. The novelette “Skywalker of Earth” indeed in- inducing treatments to shelter her from the trau- cludes heady references to “Alcubierre warps” and matic knowledge that her parents might have died. “icosahedral symmetry orbitals,” but the most piv- otal formal allusions are to E.E. “Doc” Smith’s The gives this story a young-adult feel, in other words, Skylark of Space restsBeneath a scepticism the buoyant of blindtechno-scientific reverence to futurism the impera that- veritable space opera - and Star Wars (1977), which tives of Big Science, which, it must be said, space-ex- as everyone knows(1928) transformed - often considered that moribund the first - er story that challenges such dictates of Big Science New-Wave and Cyberpunk renovations on the pulp- moreploration historiographically narratives too frequently is “The Haunting endorse. of AnothApollo magazinesubgenre origins into kitschy of the pop.genre, Clearly this story, influenced moreover, by A7LB,” which shows an unusual sensitivity to the self-consciously marks itself as the latest entry to the still evolving canon of New Space Opera. The en- science; the clever story concerns the exorcising of aunjustly haunted marginalized spacesuit and contributions the female NASA of women designers in subverts its plaintive nostalgia for space-opera cli- and seamstresses who stitched and threaded while ché,tertaining gadget space-opera fetishism, and pastiche superscience. both flirts By withthe close and the hypermasculine astronauts hogged the glory. of the adrenaline-soaked, hyperkinetic plot, the by- gone heroic exploits of the plucky amateur tinker- misuse of even the purest and most theoretical sci- er Marc Dupres have barely defeated the genocidal enceDespite by overweening Rajaniemi’s criticalcorporate reservations and governmental over the bigotry of the myopic technocrat and eugenic proto- interests, his stories consistently maintain an un- fascist, Richard Soane. Moreover, the omnicompe- derlying utopian conviction. “The Jugaad Cathedral,” tent protagonist, federal agent Kathryn Leroy, sum- for instance, extrapolates on the vexing technocul- marily disproves the sexist assumptions routinely tural problems of data mining, social networks, spouted off by the aging paterfamilias Soane. These high-tech prosthetics for the differently abled, and dated American male engineer heroes and villains gold farming. Following a near-future governmental are faintly lampooned as throwbacks of a vanished crackdown on the internet referred to as “the As- era, as they pepper their dialogue, for instance, with sangecalypse,” Kev, a graphic designer, overcomes gauche 1930s idioms that overtly parody “Doc” - Smith. In the outrageous climax, involving the Large cial networking site F+ and decides instead to help Hadron Collider at CERN and a kind of open-source a superficial obsession with the cool-hunting so Kickstarter campaign to save the planet from immi- - ofRajia, a Cathedral a disabled in ahacktivist, role-playing build game the calledalgorithm Dwarv for- cum of the exuberant optimism of traditional space craft.artificial Instead hands of andsolely legs highlighting through the the constructionhorrifyingly operanent destruction, while also Rajaniemimaintaining even a savvy reclaims critical a modi dis- exploitative sweat-shop conditions of videogame tance. currency farming by low-wage workers in underde- - veloped countries for purchase in First-World coun- posite affective tack and puts a near-miserabilist twistIn “Tyche on moon and colony the Ants,” and Rajaniemialien-invasion takes tropes the op in to volunteer computing and citizen-science research. Atries, relevant Rajaniemi real-world uses the example story to ofalso this draw phenomena attention by Charles Stross. In the story, an infestation of com- municationa story that robotsreads like called a Heinlein Ants plagues juvenile the rewritten private is called Foldit, an online puzzle video game in which moonbase sanctuary of the young child Tyche after users(that Rajaniemifold proteins discusses to assist elsewhere disease research. in a TED Talk) she is deserted there. Tyche nonetheless populates - her colony with an elaborate virtual-reality fantasy- - Along the line of Rajaniemi’s interest in hard sci to the moon as a weigh-station in a cosmic hegira asence well. fiction, The rationale this collection for this contains story is explained intriguing more evi forland a independentpersecuted sect of her of bioengineeredparents who originally diaspora. flew To dence of Rajaniemi’s experiments with neurofiction- line). While reading the story “Snow White is Dead,” must not only fend off the invasion of Ants but also afully reader in a would Google ideally Talk bywear Rajaniemi an electrode (available headset on begin her journey to the utopian Right Place, Tyche called Brain, who makes her submit to amnesia- and a collaborator coded and then open-sourced, retake control over an artificially-intelligent nanny that measures brain waves as a program Rajaniemi 36 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 37 which directs readers through a combinatorial array of potential story paths based on their neural reac- and “His Master’s Voice.” tions to life-and-death imagery in a primal fairy-tale ofInterweaving artificial intelligence complex are allusions “Elegy fromfor a culturesYoung Elk” as - to the most popular story structure for this collec- tion generally assumes global dimensions, and this tion,template. but gives Rajaniemi the URL orders of the the coded section story according program collectiondiverse as is Arabic no exception. to Chinese The ones,entirely Rajaniemi’s non-science- fic for readers who would like to recreate the experi- - ment. Given these experimental parameters and - these standard cognitive responses, the story as re- land.fictional Clearly “Fisher drawing of Men,” on sources for instance, such asrevisits the famous Finn printed here seesaws with bipolar affect section by Finnishish neo-pagan epic poem, myths The from Kalevala Rajaniemi’s, as well native as homeworks section and concludes rather ambiguously; but the from Finnish oral traditions, the story involves a story overall, complete with self-conscious allusions struggling entrepreneur Jaakko Rissanen who nar- to the interactive experimental scenario, amounts to rowly evades betrothal to the sea goddess, Ahti, who an interesting contemporary retelling of the Snow wishes to carry Jaakko down to Tuonella, the land White fairy tale, with Snow White as a suicidal co- of the dead. One of Ahti’s other enslaved husbands, splay celebutant, the huntsman as a guilt-ridden pa- - parazzi, the seven dwarves as a clutch of Dungeons forcer who wishes to bind Jaakko to such hellish nuptials,Iku-Turso, and son Jaakko of the mustsky-god outsmart Äijö, is him the assecret well en as the obligatory wicked stepmother. A more conven- overcome the seductions of Ahti to stay alive. Both tionaland Dragons technology-driven gamers, and experiment a jealous, aging is additionally heiress as included: namely, “Unused Tomorrows and Other crafted story make for a rich, compelling read. Simi- - the mythopoeic and geocultural aspects of this finely- - tion, “The Viper Blanket” wrestles with the Finnish customedStories,” a prose collection velocity of Twitter-esqueand compression 140-charac does not larly sheer fantasy as opposed to his hard science fic- seemter pieces altogether of microfiction distinct thatfrom due the to habitual Rajaniemi’s style ac of his other regular-length stories and novels. pagan legend of Hallow Eve cults sacrificing the un Perhaps the most resonant meditations on the un- baptized to the queen of the underworld Tuonettar, intended fallout and collateral damage of military-in- andvividly suckling depicted her as children, living under the churchred-haired floorboards clan of with claws, wild hair filled worms and branches, narrator, grieving over his deceased wife, decides to “Deusdustrial Ex Big Homine,” Science for derives instance, from extrapolates Rajaniemi’s on deep- the endHurmes. this barbaricOne of this ritual clan, and, the to unnamed the condemnation first person of experienceseated interest of military in artificial- veterans intelligence following the research. wars in the ghosts of his ancestors, feeds Tuonettar to the titular blanket of vipers. Other stories in the collec- and becomes a transhuman cyborg — rendered on tion complexly evoke their settings of Scotland (“The thisIraq editionand Afghanistan. visually with Aileen the joins astonishing the armed cover forces art Jugaad Cathedral”), America (“Skywalker of Earth”), - France (“Paris in Love”), Egypt (“Imhotep Austin in gularity-like virus, after she gives birth to killer arti- by Lius Lasahido — to fight the “godplague,” a Sin more inventive extra-terrestrial and far future spac- the Atomic Deathtrap!”), and Japan as well as all the- withficially the intelligent godplague babies — the with revelation her boyfriend, of which, Jukka, told whose own quantum hacking has made him merge aes. fascination In the much-reprinted with the contemporary “Shibuya no Love,”ephemera Rajani of of the birth of a godplague baby, drives Aileen to Japaneseemi’s first youth published fashion, story, language, for instance, and milieu he shows with thein confessional military. This flashbacks virus effectively that detail gives the the aftermath narrator the novuum of a twenty-minutes-into-the-future, Jukka high-functioning Asperger’s and because of - which he needs a symbiote implanted in his brain to celerates romantic relationships in the vein of R.A. cue appropriate emotional responses. As an investi- Lafferty’subiquitous-computer “Slow Tuesday dating Night.” device that rapidly ac gation into the human costs of our recent and doubt- less future bouts of high-tech warfare, the story is - - ingAll new in all,voice Hannu has arrived Rajaniemi’s on the latest scene. collection The stories of fectively breathe fresh life into the often tired trope showcaseshort stories the definitivelyestimable powers establish of thata gifted a promis young quite insightful. Other stories collected here that ef 38 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 39 - - tionwriter, as onea genre, who namely, is uniquely to express qualified our to sublime help resusci thrill andtate theterror foundational of living inmodus technoculturally operandi of sciencedominated fic societies.

38 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 39 Media Reviews in May 2013, four episodes have been released and another is completed and scheduled for release in late 2015. In its short production history, it has been Star Trek Continues nominated for and received several awards, includ- ing Best Fan Film for the episode “Pilgrim of Eter- Tania Darlington nity” at World Con/Lone Star Con 3 in 2013 and Best New Media – Drama for the episode “Fairest of Them All” at the 2014 Burbank International Film Festival. Star Trek Continues. Prod. Vic Mignogna. Trek Con- tinues, Inc., 2013 Star Trek Continues. Web. 1 July Star comes closest to of all of the 2015. Trek Continues TOS Star TrekIn termsfan productions of production online, quality using andexact design, replicas of the TOS set and similar costumes, color schemes, and Order option(s): http://www.startrekcontinues. com/ calls back to the original by casting Chris Doohan, sonlighting of techniques veteran to the James original Doohan episodes. in the It alsorole THE PHENOMENON of fan creation is nothing new Star Trek his father made famous – Chief Engineer Montgom- to the Star Trek universe. Fans have been largely ery Scott. Like , its episodic nature eliminates responsible for the series’ longevity, campaigning TOS strong story arcs; however, its offerings are connect- successfully for a third season of the original series ed through consistent themes of peace, tolerance, (TOS) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and and personal freedom. Though its most acclaimed running increasingly well-attended conventions episodes, “Pilgrim of Eternity” and “Fairest of Them that kept Star Trek alive in the cultural imagination All,” are direct continuations of offerings (“Who while the series was neither on the air nor in the box TOS Mourns for Adonais” and “Mirror, Mirror,” respec- tively), Star Trek Continues is at its best when it gen- Spokanalia in 1967, fan created writing and art (and erates original content. Its two standalone works, eventuallyoffice. Since videos) the advent have ofcreated the first a community Star Trek fanzine, among “Lolani” and “The White Iris,” feature its strongest fans and allowed them to share their appreciation of storytelling and most compelling themes. “Lolani” the series and its characters. - Given the role of fan creation in Star Trek history, it visit some of TOS creator Gene Rodenberry’s favor- is little surprise that in this era where user-created uses the figure of an escaped Orion slave girl to re online content proliferates, Star Trek web series have become a somewhat common occurrence. From the newite themes, insights racial into theand history gender and equality biology and of politicalthe Ori- long-running fan-produced Star Trek Hidden Fron- onneutrality species. inThrough the face its of eponymous injustice, whileheroine, providing it takes tier (2000-2007) and its many spin-offs, with their lower production values but groundbreaking stories noninvolvement policies in a very similar manner and themes, to the forthcoming, star-studded Star a stand on gender equality and critiques political- Trek: Renegades (2015), produced by Star Trek: Voy- pression in TOS episodes like “Let That Be Your Last ager alum Tim Russ (Tuvok), Star Trek web series to Roddenberry’s earlier critiques on race and op “The White Iris,” possibly the strongest episode of of the most acclaimed of these series is Star Trek theBattlefield” series thus and far, “A features Private a Little well-crafted War.” Meanwhile, script that Continuesrun the gamut. of ambition, quality, and content. One foreshadows the themes of grief, guilt, and loss that Produced by and starring veteran voice actor Vic are an integral part of the early Star Trek Mignogna (Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach), Star Trek Star Trek Continues’ appeal is likely limited to fans Continues aims to complete the last two (unpro- of the original series. While the characters films. are well duced) years of the starship Enterprise portrayed and the dialog well written, the writing mission. Picking up with a vignette based on Star Trek: The Original Series’ (TOS ’s five year- about Intruder,” Star Trek Continues explicitly ties and acting maintain many of the quirks that some itself to TOS episodes and extends) final the episode, most popular “Turn speechesviewers find are off-puttingoften overly-optimistic. in the original For series. Line themes and missions of that series. Since its debut Star Trek deliveryfans, these is frequentlyelements canstilted, be endearingbad puns abound, carry-overs and 40 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 41 to the production values, humor, and hopefulness of sion is not on HBO or AMC, but on teen romance and TOS. For casual viewers, though, they may be annoy- superhero adventure giant CW. Like its predecessor ances. Hannibal, the teen dystopian thriller The 100 proves Star Trek Continues lends itself to many scholarly that network TV is ready and able to go nearly as uses. Its retro optimism compared to most contem- dark as its pay cable counterparts. Based loosely on a young adult novel (now series) of the same name Trek series such as Deep Space Nine illuminates by Kass Morgan, The 100 takes place 97 years after changesporary science in the genre fiction over media the andlast evenhalf century. other Star Its Earth has been decimated by nuclear war on a space prominence and acclaim as full-length, episodic web station housing surviving generations that is run- series also make it a good candidate for the study ning out of oxygen. The station’s leaders send 100 of emerging screens and how they change the ways teenage criminals back to the surface 100 years ear- we watch and produce television. Given its place in lier than anticipated to see whether Earth’s atmo- the history of fan-produced Star Trek content, how- sphere is survivable and to build a new civilization ever, Star Trek Continues on the seemingly uninhabited planet. While it might discussions of fandom history and practices and the role of transmedia in spreading will find fan its engagementgreatest use in post-apocalyptic young adult offerings proliferating media franchises. It is also ideally suited for studies ininitially the wake appear of Theto be Hunger just another Games, oneThe of100 the many of the changing face of adaptation in the wake of in- ternet fan culture. While it is not for everyone, Star become a deeply intriguing study of what it means quickly to Trek Continues is an intriguing example of fans’ roles bemoves human past and a weak the lengths and derivative humans first will half-season go to in order to in the longevity of cherished media properties. to survive. The 100 -

Works Cited many cast hasmembers, roots in both a number primary of otherand secondary, science fic it sharestion properties, with Lost and(Henry viewers Ian Cusick) will quickly and Battlestar note the Star Trek Continues. Prod. Vic Mignogna. Trek Con- Galactica (Kate Vernon, Alessandro Juliani). As stat- tinues, Inc., 2013 Star Trek Continues. Web. 1 July 2015. like a hybrid of Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and Lord Star Trek: Phase II. Prod. James Cawley, Jack Mar- ofed, the its Fliesinitial, with episodes political are intrigue quite derivative, and the failure playing of shall. Star Trek New Voyages, 2015 Star Trek New aging machinery taking its toll on the space station Voyages. Web. 1 July 2015. and survivors dealing with hostile others, dangerous Star Trek: Renegades. Prod. Sky Conway. ST Ren- fog, and battles for supremacy on the ground. This egades, LLC, 2015. Star Trek Renegades. Web. 1 derivativeness, paired with often mediocre acting, July 2015. to get through at times, yet the payoff for doing so ismakes considerable, the first andfour the episodes fourth ofepisode the series foreshadows difficult how dark the show will become by its second sea- son. The 100 In addition to its strong storylines and challenging material, The 100 boasts one of the most multicul- Tania Darlington tural casts on contemporary television, roundly cri- - The 100. Created by Jason Rothenberg. Perf. Eliza tures, and depicts a future where attitudes toward Taylor, Bob Morley, Paige Turco, Henry Ian Cusick. gendertiques colonization and sexuality and are treatment so open that of indigenous the reveal culof a The CW Network. WCJB, Gainesville, FL. 2014-2015. protagonist’s bisexuality warrants no surprise. The Television. 100’s placement on teen romance giant CW may give some viewers pause. However, CW has been home to Order option(s): other innovative genre series such as Buffy the Vam- pire Slayer and Angel, and The 100 has the potential Netflix ONE OF THE DARKEST SHOWS currently on televi- to serve as a worthy successor to those series. 40 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 41 Like many dystopian works, The 100 considers the Taylor, Bob Morley, Paige Turco, Henry Ian Cusick. positive and negative extremes of human potential. The CW Network. WCJB, Gainesville, FL. 2014- Despite its shaky beginning, as it matures, it grows 2015. Television. beyond its imitative beginnings to offer a darker study of human nature and the lengths humans will go to in order to ensure their own survival and the survival of their loved ones than those found in most The Martian of today’s young adult dystopian works. Early in The 100 - Kanta Dihal to that’s first theme season, again a character and again. notes Viewers that “onesee gooddeci people,sion does especially not define good a man,” leaders, and dothe terrible series returnsthings. The Martian. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Matt Damon. No character, no matter how likeable, is innocent of 20th Century Fox. 2015. atrocities, be they murder, torture, or even genocide. The show’s willingness to travel the darkest recess- es of the human psyche and human behavior is its most accurate. Take Castaway, Apollo 13 and Sav- The bluntest description of this film might be the greatest asset, and producers prove on multiple oc- ing Private Ryan, blend the three together and set the result on Mars. Thanks to its relentless, youth- and even the lives of their most central characters ful humour, the story of Mark Watney, an astronaut tocasions illustrate that theythe dreadful are willing potential to sacrifice unleashed the goodwill when stranded alone on the planet after being presumed human survival is at stake. The show consistently in- dead, made Andy Weir’s novel The Martian one of terrogates what humanity is and whether the misery bandwagon.the most popular Their science rapid adaptationfiction works disturbed of 2014. fans 20th Century Fox was very quick to jump on the ofwe the willingly distasteful inflict acts on onothers the show makes are us driven more humanby fear and critics alike as the casting choices were an- andor less desire so. Further rather complicatingthan necessity, the illustrating question, many how In- terror can corrupt even the strongest and love can terstellar (2014). After the success of Interstellar, nounced and many jumped at the parallels with drive some to unspeakable deeds. The 100 asks both how far we are willing to go and how much we are well an audience would cope with another ‘hard’ sci- these critical voices found it difficult to imagine how willing to forgive. Given its young adult dystopian pedigree, The 100 Chastain. ence fiction film starring Matt Damon and Jessica is of interest to those working with or teaching chil- Damon proves to be an excellent Mark Watney those with an interest in trends in contemporary - as he manages to perfectly pitch the jocular tone of mediadren’s and and cross-media young adult adaptation. science fiction Its dark as turn well and as ence’s respect for him as an extremely accomplished Watney’s soliloquies while maintaining the audi cable-like tone also warrants consideration for stud- scientist. This balance between humour and scien- ies of the current challenges and changes in network genre television. Finally, its engagement with issues - tific knowledge, which avoids the pitfall of simply of indigenous cultures and colonization and the mis- barraging the viewer with nerd jokes, is all too un treatment of indigenous societies through techno- science – Larry Niven’s Ringworld is one well-known common, both in science fiction and in fiction about logical means make it a worthy addition to studies example. of media interpretations of imperialism and postco- - lonialism. parison between The Martian and Interstellar must Yet, for one important aspect of this film, a com While The 100 is off the air until early 2016, Sea- - son One is available and Season Two forthcoming on be made. Both films extrapolate contemporary sci entific knowledge in order to excite the viewer about science’s current possibilities. The films, then, stand Netflix. Works Cited to promote science, which can be traced back to Hugo Gernsback’sin a long tradition 1926 of launch science of fiction the magazine created explicitlyAmazing The 100. Created by Jason Rothenberg. Perf. Eliza Stories 42 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 . Both films rely heavily on scientific advisors: SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 43 the idea for Interstellar came from Kip Thorne, one An important part of the ending of Weir’s novel, which is left out at the end of the movie, is Mark who wrote the companion book The Science of Inter- stellarof the world’s; and for most The influential Martian NASA theoretical generously physicists, pro- which motivated the world to save him. The omis- vided copious amounts of free consultation. Science sionWatney’s of these reflection musings on thewas innate a wise altruism decision of people,on the

this aspect that The Martian outshines even the suc- cesscommunication of Interstellar is .central to both films, and it is in filmmakers’ part as it is one of the weakest points Where Interstellar - noof the point novel. during Watney’s his stay reflections on Mars soundvoices self-centred the altruis- sults, The Martian - ticand opinion are not thatadequately Earth should justified, not especially bother spending as he at cess. The one scene from is a Interstellar film about which scientific shows re this difference the isbest a film is the about epiphanic the scientific blackboard pro this issue by simply showing the motivations that scene. Blackboard epiphanies are a trope in count- madea billion the dollars world decidetrying toto savesave him.Watney: The itfilm would solves be - a PR disaster for NASA not to give it their utmost to Hawk- save this handsome, charismatic young white (in the ingless andscience The fiction Theory and of regularEverything science). In films Interstellar (for in, thisstance, epiphany the two leads films toabout an embarrassinglyStephen Hawking, dramatic - scene: Murph (Jessica Chastain) has suddenly solved tionfilm) prizes male whoof 2014 is stranded all went toin Annfull viewLeckie’s of the Ancillary thrill- - Justiceseeking, rather reality-TV-addicted than to The Martian world., Theand scienceone reason fic reer, and celebrates by showering her stacks of notes might be that Weir’s story is better off without any onthe her scientific colleagues problem downstairs. that has beenIn The haunting Martian her, there ca is a brief epiphany when Rich Purnell (Donald Glov- Finally, the ending is also changed to provide, yet er) realises how to send Watney’s colleagues back again,deep existentialist a PR opportunity reflections. for NASA. The book ends to Mars to save him, but the emphasis throughout with the reunited crew homeward bound on board the space ship Hermes Watney uses his stock of knowledge to experiment, shows Watney back on earth, educating a new gen- fail,the learn film is from on thethis, processes and try again. that He underlie has no science.epipha- eration of astronauts. The. The book’s film, on ending the other is particu hand,- nies; he is doing science to save his life. The Martian larly interesting because it leaves one option open is honest about science in the most positive way that must cross the minds of everyone who is famil- imaginable. Interestingly enough, many claims were iar with the 2003 Columbia disaster: after all this made about Interstellar’s potential in the classroom, work, it could still have been possible for them to but The Martian would be a much better choice as its lessons about science can be extrapolated to all show its audience not only that the crew have been sciences, whereas Interstellar’s usefulness is limited not survive their trip home. Instead, the film must to upper-year science classes on relativity. Interstel- suffered from this event. Humans are unstoppable, lar might awe its viewers, but The Martian will in- andbrought most back importantly, safely, but NASA also thatis unstoppable. space flight has not spire children to become scientists in all shapes and It seems to have become a trend to depict both forms; most strikingly, this includes botanists. science and space travel in a more realist fashion The Martian provides new opportunities of NASA propaganda. It is the plausibility of the mis- for education and academic research through its sionHowever, to Mars the in film which is also Watney a very partakes successful that example makes in fiction. - - cess. On Earth, there is no noticeable evidence that iscombination likely to already of box-office be very success effective and in accurate the leisure sci this film both a cinematic and a propaganda suc ence communication. While its scientific message viewer’s excitement over space missions seamlessly an excellent educational opportunity within formal withthis film the isexcitement set in 2035 previously rather than felt 2015, over the linking deploy the- schoolingcontext of as the it cinema,touches theupon film themes could that also apply provide to ment of the Curiosity rover, the landing of the Philae

tries its hardest to not emphasise that it is science bothall science theoretical subjects: and the practical film manages sciences. to In explain an age the of on the Rosetta comet, and the Pluto flyby.possibility The film. interdisciplinarity,scientific method as it aemphasises whole, and similarities, the importance rather of

42 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 fiction, and instead attempts to be science SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 43 board-game’s inventor, Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott)), to advanced phones and tablets that resemble the than differences, between fields. Furthermore, this- glass-based technologies imagined by the Corning nication,film makes particularly an important for those benchmark academics for investigat academic- company (and which humorously double as mini- research in both science fiction and science commu skateboards), and delivery drones that closely re- look forward to seeing critical engagement with this semble Amazon’s proposed drone service. ing the borders between the two fields. We should- These overt technological innovations clearly sig- sage about science stands in stark contrast to what seemsaspect toof bethe a film deluge in particular, of science as criticism its positive in dysto mes- one scene in which Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), the series’nal a science-fictional main character futurity.and a bureaucrat Especially atsinister the De is- partment of Parks and Recreation, learns from the pian fiction. vice-president of Gryzzl, Roscoe Santangelo (Jorma Taccone), that the company is monitoring the town’s population through their phones, tablets and inter- Parks and Recreation: Season 7 net activity. These irruptions of the present in the imagined 2017 of Parks and Recreation are framed Chris Pak bring the sinister and comedic into tension with Parks and Recreation: Season 7. Created by Greg Dan- eachby these other. science-fictional Parks and Recreation sequences shows in how ways persis that- iels and Michael Schur. Perf. Amy Poehler, Rashida tence, charm and persuasion against often unrea- Jones, Paul Schneider, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, sonable opposition can result – at the local level – in Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Rob Lowe, Jim mutually advantageous compromise. Yet the pace O’Heir, Retta, Billy Eichner. Deedle-Dee Productions, of change remains unaffected as corporate forces – Fremulon, 3 Arts Entertainment, Universal Televi- such as Gryzzl and the local Sweetums Candy Com- sion. 2015. Television. pany – continue to shape the world of Pawnee. In the concluding two-part episode, “One Last Order option(s): DVD | Amazon Ride,” we see a fragment of a dystopian future in - Parks and Recreation is an un- ward to a Pawnee with a severely neglected educa- usual conclusion to a light-hearted comedy set in the tionDonna system. Meagle’s Meagle (Marietta establishes “Retta” a foundation Sirleaf) flash-for to fund The final season of small town of Pawnee, Idaho. Season seven contin- the ailing school system in support of her husband, ues to follow the lives of several members of Paw- the school principal Joe (Keegan-Michael Key). Mo- nee’s Department of Parks and Recreation but, unlike ments such as these allow Parks and Recreation to the previous six seasons, it is set in the near future amplify the satiric gaze it casts on society and poli- in 2017. This time span is used to emphasise the tics. It also underscores how change and adversity changes that the characters and the town itself has are inevitable, yet the series’ overriding message is undergone throughout the course of the life of the that with the support of friends and an openness to unlikely alliances, the individual can intervene and fun at the ways in which technology interpenetrates contribute to shape the unfolding future. show. It also uses science-fictional clichés to poke - folded into our everyday experience. reation’s seventh season are fascinating for the way our lives and becomes deceptively quotidian as it is theyThe scaffold science-fictional the lives of elementsthe characters of Parks as the and viewer Rec elements that Parks and Recreation uses in this near is confronted with the changes that are instituted The most salient examples of the science-fictional future are ushered in by the tech-company Gryzzl. in their future. It brings to the surface surprisingly This analogue for the start-up companies of Silicon sinister moments that the series does not com- of technological services and innovations, from free Valley (such as Google and Microsoft) brings a flood permeatespletely laugh popular away. Iculture, find this providing interesting other for severalmodes in a game of the Cones of Dunshire, which involved withreasons: resources as an indicatorfor satire andof the comedy; ways science-fiction as an example internet (won for the town in the Season 6 finale Gryzzl’s CEO Mike Bean (Blake Anderson) and the of how a long running TV-series can, with a simple 44 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 45 shift into the near-future, provide the context for a Jane meets a man, who later seduces and then aban- satisfying resolution to the show; and as a way to dons her expecting a child. After the birth, the doc- tor informs Jane that her body contained two set of shock. The episodes discussed above are helpful for organs –male and female. Unfortunately, after giving teachinggrapple with as they what provide Alvin Toffleraccessible describes examples as future- of sci- birth to the child, her female set was severely dam- aged and was removed from her body making her a contrast to earlier seasons of the show, they can also complete male. The bartender – who reveals himself ence-fictional tropes and narrative strategies. As a to be a temporal agent – offers to take the Unmarried tropes are doing in the series and what these forays Mother to his seducer so he can have his revenge. prompt students to reflect on what it is that these Travel to the Unmarried Mother’s past is the turn- traits of the mode. ing point of the plot when the actual time-travel into science-fiction can tell us about the distinctive narrative begins. The characters go to 1963 where they meet the Unmarried Mother’s former female- self, then to 1945, 1985 (according to the movie, this is four years after the invention of time-travel ma- Predestination chine), 1970, 1975, etc. While travelling, the charac- ters actively interact with surroundings but these in- Artem Zubov terventions do not disturb history. On the contrary, they trigger the ‘correct’ course of things. The Un- Predestination. Dir. Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig married Mother goes to the past to avenge himself (as the Spierig Brothers.) Perf. Ethan Hawke, Sarah of his seducer, but ends up becoming a father to her- Snook, Noah Taylor. Screen Australia. 2014. - ble. Later on, the bartender recruits the Unmarried Order option(s): Amazon | Blu-Ray | DVD Motherself, subsequently as a temporal making agent, her i.e. own he recruitsexistence himself, possi

PREDESTINATION is the latest movie by the Spierig The story is a one-character play. The bartender, Brothers following the zombie-movie Undead (2003) theand thusseducer, finishes and theJane, circle. the Unmarried Mother, in- and the post-apocalyptic vampire thriller Daybreak- teract only with each other. They are the same con- ers (2009). The movie is an adaptation of SF grand- sciousness wearing various forced or voluntari- master Robert Heinlein’s acclaimed short story “All ly-taken masks. Moreover, like an Ouroboros, the You Zombies…” (1959). Heinlein’s text is usually read eternal serpent eating in own tail, the characters as an ultimate time-travel story that addresses such participate in their own emergence and thus know philosophic themes as predestination and solipsism. where they come from. ‘But where do all you zom- The narrative structure of the story is highly compli- bies come from,’ asks the temporal agent implying to cated and multilayered in its attempt to portray the that he is the only living human in this world. Others inevitability of a ‘natural’ course of history. The plot - tions of his mind. by Ray Bradbury in his famous short story ‘A Sound areWith ‘zombies,’ Predestination plain shadows, the Spierig and Brothers intangible address reflec proves the ‘butterfly effect’, so eloquently referenced of Thunder’ (1952), wrong several years earlier. the same themes as Heinlein did in the short story, The plot starts in 1970 (the future from Heinlein’s but they do it with a shift in nuances and details. perspective) in a bar with two men having an idle These changes are strongly bound to the medium of chat. A bartender (Ethan Hawke) and a confession- cinema itself. Literary narratives are a perfect me- story writer known under the pen name “The Un- dium by which to demonstrate an entire universe married Mother” (Sarah Snook) bet on a bottle of whiskey that the latter could not tell a story that others from the narrative. The Spierig Brothers per- would surprise the bartender. From this moment fectlyconfined understand in one person’s that cinema, mind assimply a visual by excluding medium, on, the narrative moves back to 1945 to Jane’s (the Unmarried Mother’s female name) lonely childhood, watching a piece of surrealist or avant-garde experi- hardships of adulthood, seduction, abandonment, ment,does nota person work on quite a screen the same is always way. recognized Unless we and are and sex change. Coming home after an evening class,

44 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 identified by viewers SFRAthrough Review his 314 or Winterher interaction 2015 45 with (again) visually recognizable surroundings. Nevertheless, the directors managed to explore the characters’ solipsistic and predestined existence, though with a different scope. While in the original story Jane is more or less a regular human being, whose only difference from others is her two sets of sex organs, in the movie the character is portrayed as a super being – she is stronger, faster, and more

a perfect candidate to become a temporal agent, butintelligent they also than make others her are. feel Such as a qualitiesdeviation, make an alien her

world to her solipsistic selfness. amongWhile humans,the original and text subsequently was a story limitof recruitment an entire of a new temporal agent, the movie tells about the

from the future. In the movie, the directors add an extrafight betweenactive character the Temporal – the Bureau“Fizzle andBomber,” a terrorist who performed a horrible act of violence in 1970. This act became a raison d’etre for the Time Bureau to emerge. Still, even though temporal agents have suc- ceeded in preventing crimes in time, they always fail to stop the “Fizzle Bomber.” In other words, the movie that initially starts as a narrative about the terraforming of timescapes turns into a philosophic speculation on the nature of inevitability and – as the title informs us – predestination. The Spierig Brothers’ Predestination s is an elo- in literature and cinema, and it can be of great inter- quent statement in the time-travel discourse, both sub-genre. The movie is a vivid example of a contem- est to scholars of science fiction and the time-travel tradition that in many ways proves to be more in- ventiveporary moderately and innovative low-budget than the science usually fiction less-daring movie expensive blockbusters. The movie would make valuable material for courses on philosophy of time and the possible mechanics of time-travel. While in mainstream time-travel movies (Roberts Zemeckis’ Back to the Future or Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomor- row manipulation and can easily be reversed, the Spierig Brothers are fine show examples time as here),a dense time and usually solid substance yields to that refuses to be controlled. It is also worth men- tioning that Predestination would make inspiring material for anybody studying cinematic adapta- tions, since it can offer multiple observations on the mechanics of translation of a work of literature into the ‘language’ of cinema.

46 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 47 Announcements

SFRA 2016 Theme: “Systems and Knowledge”

Date: June 27-30, 2016 Location: The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK. http://bit.ly/1zYQvGO. Home of the Science Fiction Foundation Collection, the largest speculative fiction archive in Europe.

Guests of Honour Dr Joan Haran (Cardiff University) Professor Emeritus Andrew Milner (Monash University) Andy Sawyer (Science Fiction Foundation Librarian, University of Liverpool)

SFRA 2016 will be a joint event in association with Current Research in Speculative Fictions, an annual post- graduate conference held at the University of Liverpool. CRSF will take place on the 27th June and SFRA 2016 from the 28th - 30th June, 2016. Andy Sawyer will be curating an exhibition on science fiction as part of SFRA 2016

From computers, robots, cyborgs and androids to ecological systems, management practices and industry (in- cluding the production of goods, agriculture or meat production), to the social and hard sciences, art, language and communication, right through to the systematisation and dissemination of knowledge, the theme of this year’s conference – “Systems and Knowledge” – reaches across a wide range of areas in science fiction scholarship. As a genre inherently replete with a multitude of systems and ideas of knowledge generation and systematisation, science fiction is ideally suited to scientific, linguistic, cultural, sociological, political or philosophical studies. We invite submissions on any theme and especially encourage proposals that address the thematic, formal, conceptual or theoretical engagement of sf with the conference theme, “Systems and Knowledge”. We welcome submissions from SFRA members on a range of sf productions and sf media, including those that might not typ- ically be associated with the mode. This includes but is not limited to literature, film and TV, performance and the- atre, music, games, art and sculpture, advertising, architecture, popular science and research in the social sciences. Areas of engagement might include:

• Cybernetic Fiction and Cyberpunk • Myth and Storytelling • Information Systems and Technologies • Indigenous Knowledge • Climate Change, Sustainability and Ecology • Society and Politics • Carbon and Energy Systems • Scientific Paradigms • Genetics and Genetic Engineering • Disciplinary Knowledge and the “Two Cultures” • (Cognitive) Mapping, Cartography and Modelling • Trans-, Multi- and Interdisciplinary Knowledge • World Systems Theory • Translation • Alternative Systems of Knowledge • Publishing, Scholarship, Libraries and Archives

The deadline for proposals is the 31st March 2016. Please send 250-400 word abstracts and a 100 word bi- ography to [email protected]. Panel proposals are welcome, as are suggestions for alternative presentational forms. All presenters must be members of the SFRA.

http://www.sfra.org/ | http://currentresearchinspeculativefiction.blogspot.co.uk/

46 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 47 Books and Events as well. Submitted abstracts were encouraged to ex- plore and present contemporary issues in medicine, science and technology as well as philosophical and Star Trek: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in sociological issues relating to the Humanities, with a Theory and Practice - tion. Mariella Scerri and Victor Grech specific2016 alsofocus marks and a directthe 50th correlation anniversary to science from thefic launch of Star Trek: The Original Series, thus creat- ing the need to prepare for another Star Trek event which will be held on the 15th and 16th July, 2016. The organizers are inviting academics to send in their abstracts. The proceedings of these events, when published, will yield an interesting book se- ries.

A copy can also be directly ordered from https:// www.facebook.com/groups/MaltaSciFi/This first book in this series is available onor Amazon.send an email on . Further information on these symposia can be found at:[email protected] , www.star- treksymposium.com and . www.scifisymposium.com www.scifimalta.com STAR TREK: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Theory and Practice is a wonderful illustration of the well- known declamation ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before.’ This anthology explores various inter- Call for Papers—Conference sections between the Humanities and the Sciences within Star Trek, with a wide range of topics that Title: Philip K. Dick Conference 2016: Philip K. Dick, include architecture, medical and ethical concepts, Here and Now among others. The essays feature topics such as ‘The Deadline: 1 December 2015 Relevance of Star Trek in the Big Bang Theory,’ ‘Car- Conference Date: April 29-30, 2016 diopulmonary Resuscitation and Science Fiction,’ California State University, Fullerton ‘Ethical Issues in Reproduction in the Star Trek Se- Contact: [email protected] ries,’ ‘Sentient Creatures in the Star Trek Universe to Confirmed Special Guests: Dr. Ursula Heise, Jona- name but a few. These essays form the proceedings than Lethem, Tim Powers and James Blaylock. of the Star Trek Symposium held in Malta in 2014. Delegates and speakers worldwide came together Topic: Philip K. Dick’s visionary works often occur in and architecture, providing a rich and innovative in- the corner, the day after tomorrow. The conference terpretationfrom varied fieldsof Star of Trek medicine, nursing, humanities- callsplaces for he papers lived, set on in Philip a dystopic K. Dick’s present works, just aroundand on his attention to setting (or undermining of setting?) academic symposium devoted and science exclusively fiction in to gener Star in terms of both place and time. But we want much Trekal. To. Thisour knowledge, book aims to this reach was and the appealfirst international not only to more besides. We call for papers on PKD’s presence academics from various disciplines but also to sci- - Star Trek. ture. We want papers that explore how writers and The organizing team will not stop here. With a Sci- and influence in sf literature and visionary litera ence fictionFiction lovers Symposium with a heldpenchant in 2015 for after the very ideas. How does sf today, how does literature to- successful Star Trek symposium, the organizers in- film-makers have produced work influenced by his tend to publish the proceedings of this symposium have his themes, such as a dis-ease with our surveil- day, reflect his concerns, his style, his visions? How 48 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 49 lance society, our precarious hold on our identity, our uneasy relationship with power, technology and broad spectrum of answers. They range from out- progress, continued to resonate? What other writ- central question, “What is the fantastic?”, evokes a ers explore the intersection of time, place and iden- tity? Why does PKD’s work still feel so urgent to the right dismissal of the subject as trivial, to narrow,- problem of being human today? What does it mean tionsminimalist that understand definitions and in theconceptualize tradition of the Todorov, fantas- that we continue to experience PKD, here and now? and then to extremely broad and inclusive defini Write papers that tell us what PKD’s presence has - meant and means to our culture and its conversation tic asone, any and kind which of cultural thereby product becomes which formative juxtaposes for about itself. an empirically verifiable world to another, fantas The conference will be held at CSUF’s Titan Stu- magical realism, and gothic. Both recent and long- dent Union and Pollak Library. We encourage work termgenres developments such as fairy in tales, cultural legends, and scienceliterary fiction,theory (such as transnational, transcultural and transme- scholars, graduate students and advanced under- graduates.from institutionally Acacia is affiliatedthe Graduate scholars, Student independent Group of the English Department at Cal State Fullerton. placedial approaches) the fantastic contribute has in contemporary to the field’s culture. growing At heterogeneity, revealing clearly how significant a Submission: Interested individuals should submit of “the fantastic” necessitates a survey and a taking a titled, 250-word abstract and complete contact stockthe same of the time, contemporary this proliferation landscape and diversificationof research in - the fantastic, of its approaches, its interests, its foci, plicable), mail and email addresses, and telephone number—byinformation—name, December institutional 1st, 2015. Submission affiliation (ifemail: ap The seventh annual conference of the Association [email protected]. forand Research its findings. in the Fantastic aims to take on this task under the title The Fantastic Now: Research in the Fantastic in the 21st Century. It is our goal to include Title: The Fantastic Now: Research in the Fantastic the greatest possible number of diverse voices and in the 21st Century Deadline: 11 January 2016 Conference Date: September 22-24, 2016 andperspectives to discuss in its this societal endeavor, and incultural order implications.to do justice University of Münster to the multiplicity and interdisciplinarity of the field, Contact: [email protected] literary and cultural studies, sociology, philosophy Keynote speakers: Professor Fred Botting andPossible political topics science and leading could include,questions but in arethe notfields lim of- ited to: Topic: literary, cultural, and media studies that is discussed • What is “the fantastic”? and researched There is hardlywith as any much subject controversy in contemporary as “the • What are/should be the aims of research in the fantastic today? was initiated in the second half of the 20th century, • Genres of the fantastic (and their theoretical im- largelyfantastic”. by SinceTzvetan theoretical Todorov debateand Roger on theCallois, subject re- plications): horror and gothic, utopias and dys- search on the fantastic has become a globally rele-

• Fantastictopias, science media fiction, (and their fantasy, theoretical magical implica realism,- vant, interdisciplinary, and rapidly developing field- tions):speculative The fiction,fantastic fairy in tales,literature, fables, art, myths, theatre, etc. of scholarship. The field’s significance is reflected in focusednumerous on scholarly the fantastic. journals, associations, organiza • The transmedial fantastic tions, research projects and institutions which have • Thefilm, neo-fantastic comics, computer games, Web 2.0, etc. - • Gender, race, class, disability in/and the fantastic Yet, ever since the formation of the field, there has • Aesthetics of the fantastic beenbecome active ever disagreement more important on how not toleast define due and to thede • Individual motifs, groups of motifs, or histories currentlineate thebreadth subject and of diversityresearch, of an the issue research. which Thehas of motifs 48 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 49 We are honored that Professor Fred Botting, in- artists and their works have been incorporated into many works of sf. cultural theory, has accepted our invitation as a key- Meanwhile, on countless book covers and in maga- noteternationally speaker. renownedIn addition scholar to the ininclusion gothic fiction of further and voices of distinguished scholars, it is our explicit goal has evolved: bug-eyed monsters; spaceships; robots to encourage academic exchange among already es- andzine soillustrations, on. a visual language of science fiction tablished as well as younger scholars, authors, and Art in the comic strip and the graphic novel has been the means of telling stories in visual form – whilst artists such as Roy Lichtenstein have made Submission:artists in the field. Please send your proposals of no more comic panels into art. than 350 words (for 20 minute presentations) in We invite 300 word proposals for twenty minute German or English, together with your contact infor- papers on the intersection of art and sf across the mation and a short biography to [email protected] media – painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, pho- by January 11, 2016. Proposals for panels of three - papers are also welcome before January 11, 2015. ture and so on – on topics such as: The GFF offers two bursaries for exceptional pro- tography, film, performance, prose, dance, architec posals by students (BA, MA, MEd, PhD). If you are • individual artists or groups of artists; interested in applying for one of them, please make • surrealism; sure to mention this when sending in your abstract. • pop art; In addition to the traditional presentations and • representations of sex, gender, class, ethnicity panel discussions, we plan to hold a roundtable dis- etc.; cussion on the topic, “What can/should research in • the fantastic strive for and accomplish in the 21st • book and magazine covers; - • illustrations;specific techniques or materials; cally apply to be a participant in this roundtable dis- • comic books/graphic novels; cussioncentury?” by If sending you are in interested, a short abstract you can outlining also specifi your • ideas/position. • art direction. We also welcome creative contributions such as art film; readings, performances, and exhibitions. Proposals Submission: - for such contributions should likewise be sent by drew M Butler, School of Media, Art and Design, Can- January 11, 2016 via email ([email protected]) in a terbury ChristSend Church proposals University, or queries Canterbury, to: Dr CT1An format appropriate to the contribution (images, de- 1QU, UK or to [email protected] by 15 scriptions, video excerpts, etc.). January 2016.

We are looking forward to your proposals! Title: Anticipations: H. G. Wells, Science Fiction and Title: Reframing Science Fiction: A One Day Confer- Radical Visions ence on the Art of Science Fiction Deadline: 15 April 2016 Deadline: 15 January 2016 Conference Date: July 8-10, 2016 Conference Date: March 21, 2016 H. G. Wells Conference Centre, Woking, UK Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, Contact: [email protected] Kent, CT1 1QU Organised by the H. G. Wells Society Contact: [email protected] Keynote speakers: Dr Jeannette Baxter (Anglia Topic: H. G. Wells was a novelist, social commenta- Ruskin University) and Dr Paul March-Russell (Uni- tor and utopianist, and is regarded as one of the fa- versity of Kent) featured time travel, mad scientists, alien invasion, Topic: From William Blake and John Martin to Glenn spacethers oftravel, science invisibility, fiction. His utopia, early futurescientific war romances and his- Brown and The Otolith Group, artists have been tories of the future: his mappings of the shape of things to come was an overture to over a century of producing50 SFRA Review works 314 of Winterart that 2015 are science fiction. And SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 51 We wish to mark the 150th and 70th anniversaries 15, 2016, registering as authors on our web page. ofscience Wells’s fiction. birth and death respectively by exploring Thetwo sectionsGuidelines should for Submissions send us their may articles be found by january on the Submissions section of the web page.

onhis sciencetelevision, fiction, on radio, his precursors online and and elsewhere. successors This and The fantastic has carved out a place for itself in ishis especially lasting influence appropriate upon becausethe genre the in print,event onwill film, be the new golden age that television (in particular, in held at the H. G. Wells Conference centre in Woking, the U.S.A, although not only there) seems to be ex- the town where Wells wrote The War of the Worlds. periencing since the end of the 90s. Thus, in addi- Many of his ideas on politics, science, sociology and tion to the characteristics normally attributed to the the direction in which he feared humanity was going series of this new television (greater complexity of plot and character, generic hybridization, treatment of themes seldom or never dealt with by the media, wereTopics contained might include, in his earlybut are science not limited fiction to: and ran through his later influential work. normal for television), others emerge that are inher- • entproduction to the fantastic, values ofsuch more as the cinematic new visions quality of mon than- • - specific individual or groups of novels/stories; - identity through the genre, and its relation to more the connections between Wells’s fiction and non traditionalsters being themes offered, and the characters, questioning among of reality others. and • utopia/dystopia;fiction, including his political, utopian and scien • historiestific writings; of the future; series of essays, panoramic or focused on a particu- • precursors to Wells’s sf; larThe work, objective that analyzeof this monographic in depth the fantasticissue is to in offer series a • produced around the world during this period. The • monograph will only consider works of a fantastic • adaptationssf writers influenced into other by media. Wells; nature as this narrative form has been theoretically sequels by other hands; - Submission: Please send a brief biography and an abstract of 400 words for a twenty minute paper by anddefined, when only they accepting are related papers to fantastic on other narrative. non-mimet 15 April 2016 to [email protected]. ic Somegenres possible such as areas the marvellous of research or include: science fiction if Further details will be available from http://an- ticipations2016.wordpress.com. • Remakes, revisions and reinterpretations of clas- sics of the genre. • Identity and reality in the 21st century. • Hibridization with/relationship to other genres Call for Papers—Articles and/or narrative forms. • The fantastic in new Spanish television. • New representations of the monster in televi- Title: Monographic Issue: “The Fantastic in the New sion. Golden Age of Television (1999-2015)” (Alfonso Cuadrado and Rubén Sánchez Trigos, Coords.) The Miscellaneous section is open to any type of Manuscript Deadline: 15 January 2016 article on any of the diverse artistic manifestations Contact: Register as author on Brumal webpage: http://revistes.uab.cat/brumal/user/register. painting, photography, video games), whether theo- retical,of the critical, fantastic historical (narrative, or comparative theater, film, in comics,nature, The call for papers for articles for the sections “Mono- concerning the fantastic in any language or from any graph” and “Miscellaneous” for the Vol. III n.º2 issue of country, from the nineteenth century to the present. Brumal: Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fantástico /Brumal: Research Journal on the Fantastic is now open. Title: Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities Scholars who wish to contribute to either of these Manuscript Deadline: 1 March 2016 50 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 51 Contact: Register on website: https:// mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mh. Up to 10 articles will be published in Medical Hu- manities in 2016. Medical Humanities will be All articles will be blind peer-reviewed according publishing a special issue: ‘Science Fiction and the MedicalThe BMJ Humanities’. Group journal decisions will rest with the Editor-in-Chief, Profes- We invite papers of broad interest to an interna- sorto the Deborah journal’s Bowman. editorial policies. Final publication tional readership of medical humanities scholars Please submit your article no later than 1 March and practising clinicians on the topic ‘Science Fiction 2016 and the Medical Humanities’. Articles for Medical Humanities should be a maxi- mum of 5,000 words, and submitted via of biomedical advances. Technologies such as clon- website < >. Please choose the Science fiction is a fertile ground for the imagining- special issue ‘Science Fiction and the Medicalthe journal’s Hu- manities’ duringhttp://mh.bmj.com/ the submission process. alsoing, prosthetics,offers alternative and rejuvenation ideals of health are andfrequently wellbeing, en If you would like to discuss any aspect of your sub- andcountered imagines in science-fictionnew forms of stories.disease Scienceand suffering. fiction mission, including possible topics, or the possibility The special issue seeks papers that explore issues of of presenting your work under the auspices of the - tives within a variety of media (written word, graph- the Medical Humanities’, please contact the Guest health, illness, and medicine in science-fiction narra Wellcome Trust funded project ‘Science Fictiongavin. and We are also particularly interested in articles that [email protected]) ic novel, theatre, dance, film and television, etc.). Editor in the first instance: Dr Gavin Miller ( the culturally-embedded imagining of futures en- explore the biomedical ‘technoscientific imaginary’: Title: Museum of Science Fiction Call for Submis- sions motifs,abled by and technoscientific narratives within innovation. medical We and especially health- for New Triannual Journal of Science Fiction relatedwelcome discourses, papers that practices, explore science-fictionand institutions. tropes, The Manuscript Deadline: Ongoing Contact: Register on website: http://publish.lib.umd. imaginary permeate the everyday and expert worlds . ofquestion modern – medicinehow does andthe biomedicalhealthcare? technoscientific – may be a use- ful prompt for potential authors. edu/scifi/about/submissions#authorGuidelines - The Museum of Science Fiction, the world’s first Subject areas might include but are not limited to: comprehensive science fiction museum, will pub- • representations of medicine, health, disability, lish an academic journal of science fiction Journalusing the of • clinicians as science-fiction writers ScienceUniversity Fiction of Maryland’s will be launched journal in management January of 2016 sys other media andtem. will The serve first issueas a forum of the for Museum’s scientists new and academ- and illness in science-fiction literature, cinema, and- gagement with biomedical science and technology • theutopian use and narratives misuse of ofscience miraculous fiction inbiomedical public en theics frommodern around world, the andworld its to prognostications discuss science fiction,of the progress (and their counter-narratives) future.including recent trends in the genre, its influence on Greg Bear, member of Museum of Science Fiction’s (via cognitive estrangement, critical utopias, etc.) Board of Advisors and Hugo award-winning science • socio-political critique in medical science fiction

• science fiction as stimulus to biomedical research fiction author said, “Science fiction as literature has medicaland technology publicity, (e.g. research science-fiction announcements, prototyping) promo- toreal understand staying power the andcultural has beenand mythica huge influenceroots of our on tional• science-fiction material, etc. tropes, motifs and narratives in needour modern for anticipation, world. It’s adventure, only fitting and that imagination.” we attempt - “We want readers everywhere to consider the sci- tion in medicine and healthcare settings • the visual and material aesthetic of science fic 52 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 ence fiction genre they love from new angles. We SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 53 so,“ said Monica Louzon, managing editor of the Museum’swant them new to ask Journal questions of Science and Fictionto have. “We’refun doing en- couraging anyone who considers themselves a sci-

enceThe fiction Journal scholar of Science to send Fiction us their will be original published articles, on- lineessays and or freely book accessiblereviews for to our everyone first issue.” -- no subscrip-

Journal of Science Fiction welcomes original work fromtion or writers submission around fees the are world, required. with an The emphasis Museum’s on the interdisciplinary and innovative aspects of sci-

year and each will feature between eight and twelve peer-reviewedence fiction. Issues academic will be articles published as well three as timesseveral a book reviews and essays. Submission information for the Journal of Science Fiction can be found on the Journal’s homepage at the University of Maryland: http://publish.lib.umd. . Submissions for the Journal of Science Fiction can beedu/scifi/index sent to: submissions#authorGuidelines. http://publish.lib.umd.edu/scifi/about/- ica Louzon, Managing Editor: - Any Journal-related. questions can emailed to Mon More information about otherjournal@museumof activities are avail- ablesciencefiction.org on the Museum’s website: www.museumof- .

Aboutsciencefiction.org the Museum of Science Fiction

coveringThe nonprofit the history Museum of theof Science genre across Fiction the will arts be andthe providingworld’s first a narrativecomprehensive on its sciencerelationship fiction to museum, the real

andworld. impacts The Museumsocieties. will Also show serving how as an science educational fiction catalystcontinually to expand inspires interest individuals, in the influences science, technolo cultures,- gy, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) areas. The Museum uses tools such as mobile applications and - tain. For a full press packet on the Museum of Science Fiction’swifi-enabled vision display and other objects information, to educate please and enter visit: .

www.museumofsciencefiction.org/presspacket

52 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 53 Science Fiction Research Association www.sfra.org The Science Fiction Research Association is the oldest professional organization for the study of science fiction and fantasy literature and film. Founded in 1970, the SFRA was organized to improve classroom teaching; to encourage and assist scholarship; and to evalu- ate and publicize new books and magazines dealing with fantastic literature and film, teaching methods and materials, and allied media performances. Among the membership are people from many countries—students, teachers, professors, librarians, futurologists, readers, authors, booksellers, editors, publishers, archivists, and scholars in many disciplines. Academic affiliation is not a requirement for mem- bership. Visit the SFRA Website at www.sfra.org. For a membership application, contact the SFRA Treasurer or see the Website. SFRA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE President Immediate Past President Vice President Craig B. Jacobsen Paweł Frelik Keren Omry Composition, Literature and Film Dept. of American Literature and Culture Dept. of English Language & Literature Mesa Community College Maria Curie-Sklodowska University Room 1607, Eshkol Tower 1833 West Southern Ave. Pl. Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej 4 University of Haifa, Mesa, AZ 85202 Lublin 20-031, Poland Mount Carmel, Haifa 3190501 [email protected] Paweł[email protected] [email protected] Secretary Treasurer Susan A. George Steve Berman University of California Auburn Hills English Department Davis One, Shields Avenue Davis Oakland Community College CA 95616 Auburn Hills, MI 48326 [email protected] [email protected] SFRA Standard Membership Benefits SFRA Optional Membership Benefits SFRA Review Foundation Four issues per year. This newsletter/journal surveys the field (Discounted subscription rates for members) of science fiction scholarship, including extensive reviews Three issues per year. British scholarly journal, with critical, of fiction and nonfiction books and media, review articles, historical, and bibliographical articles, reviews, and letters. and listings of new and forthcoming books. The Review also Add to dues: $36 (seamail); $43 (airmail). posts news about SFRA internal affairs, calls for papers, and updates on works in progress. Science Fiction Film and Television Three issues per year. Critial works and reviews. Add to dues: SFRA Annual Directory $59 (e-issue only); $73 (airmail). One issue per year. Members’ names, contact information, and areas of interest. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts Four issues per year. Scholarly journal, with critical and bibli- SFRA Listserv ographical articles and reviews. Add to dues: $40/1 year (US); Ongoing. The SFRA listserv allows members to discuss $50/1 year (international); $100/3 years. topics and news of interest to the SF community, and to query the collective knowledge of the membership. Femspec To join the listserv or obtain further information, visit Critical and creative works. Add to dues: $50 (US); $95 (US wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sfra-l. institutional); $60 (international); $105 (international insti- tutional). Extrapolation Three issues per year. The oldest scholarly journal in the field, with critical, historical, and bibliographical articles, book re- views, letters, occasional special topic issues, and annual in- dex.

Science Fiction Studies Three issues per year. This scholarly journal includes criti- cal, historical, and bibliographical articles, review articles, reviews, notes, letters, international coverage, and annual index.

54 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 SFRA Review 314 Winter 2015 PB