317 Summer 2016
Editor
Chris Pak SFRA [email protected] A publicationRe of the Scienceview Fiction Research Association Nonfiction Editor Dominick Grace In this issue Brescia University College, 1285 Western Rd, London ON, N6G SFRA 3R4, Canada phone: 519-432-8353 ext. 28244. SFRA 2016 @ Liverpool...... 2 [email protected] SFRA Review Business Assistant Nonfiction Editor Stay Tuned...... 3 Kevin Pinkham “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”...... 3 College of Arts and Sciences, Ny- ack College, 1 South Boulevard, Nyack, NY 10960, phone: 845- SFRA Business 675-4526845-675-4526. [email protected] Candidates for the 2017-2019 SFRA Executive Committee...... 4 Star Trek Symposium – Malta 2016...... 9 Fiction Editor Jeremy Brett 2015-2016 SFRA Awards Cushing Memorial Library and Pilgrim Award Acceptance Speech...... 11 Archives, Texas A&M University, Cushing Memorial Library & Pioneer Award Acceptance Speech...... 15 Archives, 5000 TAMU College Clareson Award Acceptance Speech...... 16 Station, TX 77843. [email protected] Mary Kay Bray Award Acceptance Speech...... 18 Student Paper Award Acceptance Speech...... 19 Media Editor Leimar Garcia-Siino Feature Interview Department of English, 19-23 An Interview with Paolo Bacigalupi...... 20 Abercromby Square, School of the Arts, University of Liverpool, L69 7ZG. Feature 101 [email protected] Simulation Scenarios in the Star Trek Universe Reject Solipsism...... 28
Nonfiction Reviews An Astounding War: Science Fiction and World War II...... 35 Mondo Nano: Fun and Games in the World of Digital Matter...... 36 The Culture Series of Iain M. Banks: A Critical Introduction...... 38 Submissions Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Anatomy and Influence of the Kubrick Mas- The SFRA Review encourages submissions of reviews, review essays that cover several related terpiece...... 40 texts, interviews, and feature articles. Submis- sion guidelines are available at http://www.sfra. org/ or by inquiry to the appropriate editor. All Fiction Reviews submitters must be current SFRA members. Contact the Editors for other submissions or for Ma Gli Androidi Mangiano Spaghetti Elettrici?...... 42 correspondence. The SFRA Review (ISSN 1068-395X) is pub- Announcements lished four times a year by the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA), and distributed Call for Papers—Conference...... 44 to SFRA members. Individual issues are not for sale; however, all issues after 256 are published Call for Papers—Articles...... 45 to SFRA’s Website (http://www.sfra.org/).
PB SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 1 SFRA Review Business - ships and acquaintances with those of you who I see allour too members infrequently. for the Thank first time you all!and to renew friend EDITORS’ MESSAGE SFRA 2016 @ Liverpool In this issue of the SFRA Review, we present the award speeches that were delivered at the SFRA Chris Pak 2016 award ceremony. Congratulations to all of our award-winners! On a personal note, it was a par- SFRA 2016 was a marvellous success. Over a hun- ticular joy to see my external examiner Mark Bould dred attendees arrived to Liverpool for three days of and Farah Mendlesohn receive awards this year, and engaging and insightful presentations, roundtable to hear Bould's touching speech in person. We also disusssions and collegial conversation present the statements for our candidates for the I would like to take the opportunity to thank ev- upcoming SFRA elections, votes for which will be eryone who helped to make SFRA 2016 such a great cast in late September. success. First, let me thank our keynote speakers In addition to all of the above, we have a Feature Joan Haran, Andrew Milner and Andy Sawyer for Interview that I conducted with Paolo Bacigalupi at their keynote talks, their enthusiastic commentary Liverpool Waterstones One and a Feature 101 arti- and questions, and for their excellent company over cle, 'Simulation Scenarios in the Star Trek Universe the three days. Thank you to Sawyer, too, for curat- Reject Solipsism,' from our regular contributor Vic- ing an exhibition that showcased some of the mate- tor Grech. Grech and Mariella Scerri also contribute rial from the Science Fiction Foundation collection a conference report that discusses the second Star and for taking delegates on tours of the archive. I Trek Symposium held in Malta. All this and our regu- want to extend my thanks to Vice-Chancellor Janet Beer, who opened the conference with her welcome address, and to David Seed. andlar run no mediaof non-fiction reviews. reviews I would and encourage announcements, you all to SFRA 2016 would not have been possible without writealthough for forthe thisSFRA issue Review we tohave help few us fiction address reviews these the support of my co-organiser, Will Slocombe, whose lacunae in future issues. help putting the event together made the whole pro- Finally, for those of you who would like to browse cess as smooth and enjoyable as it was. Thank you to the Twitter conversations and photos that emerged the CRSF team - Molly Cobb, Glyn Morgan and Lei- from the SFRA 2016 conference, I have collected the mar Garcia-Siino - for their assistance and help with tweets in a Storify thread that can be viewed here. organising the evening socials, and to The University Thank you everyone who contributed to that thread, of Liverpool postgraduates Asami Nakamura, Beáta and again thank you to everyone who helped to make Gubacsi and Tom Kewin for their assistance through- SFRA 2016 such a memorable event! out the days. Liverpool University Press sponsored a much appreciated wine reception on the second day of the conference and set up a book stall alongside Peter Lang and Liverpool's Blackwells. Thanks, too, to the support staff who helped with the logistics for the event, and to Europa International, whose timely assistance with supplying display cabinets for the exhibition helped avert disaster. Thank you to The Bluecoat Arts Centre, who hosted a wonderful ban- quet and treated our banqueters - myself included - to an eye-opening history of the locale. Of course, I would also like to thank all our dele- gates for making the three days such a success, and the SFRA executive committee for their trust and support. It was an absolute delight to meet many of
2 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 3 SFRA Business and locations for organization and collaboration on the discussion boards for members. If you’ve just thought to yourself “Hey, I run one of those things!” PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE and you’d like to help us explore how to make this idea a reality, you should start drafting your email to Stay Tuned me right now. Craig Jacobsen This, and other new initiatives will be coming your way from this, and the next, EC, so stay tuned and be SFRA 2016 is behind us now, and nothing that I ready to join in. could write here would properly express my appre- ciation to all of our hosts at the University of Liver- pool. Chris Pak and Will Slocombe organized a con- ference for us all to enjoy and be proud of, and all of VICE-PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE their Liverpool colleagues (who I won’t try to name because I will certainly embarrass myself by missing “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” Keren Omry sure those of us from other parts felt welcomed. I hopesome thatof them) everyone gave involvedselflessly takes of their away time with to makethem memories even half as good as my own. column, I confess that my attention strays to the With this issue of SFRA Review we turn our headlinesAS I SIT HERE running reflecting across onthe how bottom best of to my begin screen. this thoughts toward the future of the SFRA and elections Since writing the last column, the world that we know seems to be unravelling. The United King- dom has voted to withdraw from the EU; violent at- of the next Executive Committee officers. Before we will be moving out of the Immediate Past President tacks are wreaking havoc on an almost daily basis do that, I want to publicly thank Paweł Frelik, who across Europe; over 15,000 academics in Turkish knowledge and insight has been of particular value universities have been arrested and/or suspended; chair after four years of service on the EC. Paweł’s to me as President, but his vision has helped to keep and racial violence, race resistance, and racial dis- SFRA relevant and forward-looking. Steve Berman course of the kind assumed anachronistic are mak- has served valiantly as our Treasurer, a position that ing headlines every day in the US. This is a history for which we might have hoped there be a cleverly his guidance, the loss of the old SFRA website last wrought alternative or that a happy twist yet awaits. folks in our field often run and hide from. Without December might have been disastrous rather than In more local – and much happier – news, the an- just really bad. Susan George has served the SFRA nual SFRA conference, this time at the University of for so long and in so many ways that this latest stint Liverpool, has been and gone. Last minute obstacles as Secretary is just another notch on her blaster. I ended up preventing my attendance but if the re- won’t thank Keren Omry yet, because she may sim- ports are anything to go by it was as stimulating, as ply be sliding over a chair (see election information collegial, and as rich an event as promised. Thanks in this issue), but I will say that I’ve come to trust to all those Facebook post-ers and Twitter tweet-ers her implicitly for her good sense and keen eye for who kept the rest of us in the loop. opportunity. I would like to take this opportunity to announce The SFRA is just picking up steam. The new website that the SFRA Survey has been published! allows us the possibility to easily host and promote here or go the SFRA website, login, the efforts of what I think of as “micro-organiza- and click on the Survey tab. The Association has un- tions,” those important but small-scale efforts of our dergoneYou can a findnumber it of changes over the years and it is our top priority to make sure it best serves its mem- bers. Completing the survey is your way of telling us members to push the boundaries of science fiction - what you think. scholarships—the one-time film festivals, the small- As I continue to scan the news for inspiration, press publications, the one-off unaffiliated confer such endeavors with space on our website, promo- my attention is caught by an article on the late Ro- tionences. on We our can event fulfill calendar the SFRA’s and missionsocial media by providing outlets, 2 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 3 salind Franklin. The chemist and crystallographer whose research proved pivotal in the discovery of – our new online system provides much better sup- the structure of DNA but who died before earning portnot necessarily for member entail management. far more work for the officers widespread recognition, would have been 96 yes- Last but not least, you may notice that we only have terday. I have also just discovered that the marvel- one Presidential candidate this year. A number of ous C. J. Cherryh is the 2016 Damian Knight Memo- - rial Grand Master. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and nately, tied up in other projects and cannot commit Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel head atpeople this pointwe invited in time. to runWe foralso the sent office out are,an open unfortu call for candidates to the SFRA listserv but received no Theresa May is the newly appointed British PM and response. Outside general business, a major reason an emerging cadre of female-led superhero films;- for this seeming shortage may be the generational dential candidate. While I have little patience for the change – many of our experienced members have sortHilary of Clintonfeminism finally that confirmeddeclares the as world a viable would US presi have already served on the EC while the fast-growing been a better, nay – peaceful, place if women were in graduate cohort haven't been with us long enough to charge (one has only to read Gilman, Piercy, Russ, et carry out the duties associated with the position. We al to know that doesn’t always end as planned), one trust that in three years the roster will be complete, does begin to think about our alternatives. but, for now, we have decided to work with what we The choices we make as teachers, writers, citizens have – having a dummy stand-in candidate did not can change the world. We are well-versed in alter- seem a fair move to us. natives and in apocalypse and I think we could do - beastworse slouches than practice toward critical Bethlehem’. speculation and reflec Presidential Candidates tive fiction as I can’t help but wonder what ‘rough Keren Omry BEING NOMINATED FOR the position of President of IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE the SFRA presents both an honor and a challenge – an honor I am grateful for and a challenge which I Candidates for the 2017-2019 relish. As my role as the SFRA Vice President comes to an end I feel as though I have only just begun and SFRA Executive Committee I am eager to propel the momentum ever onwards. Paweł Frelik I review with a measure of pride my accomplish- ments over the past two years, in my capacity as BELOW, PLEASE FIND the statements from the can- - an SFRA officer. These include initiating, formulat them and, when we open our online voting page in grant and overseeing the distribution of the ongoing ing, and awarding the first Support a New Scholar latedidates September, for SFRA cast officers. your vote. Please read and consider Survey for which I will be collecting and analyzing First of all, I would like to offer my appreciation to its results over the coming weeks. Furthermore, to- gether with the executive committee, we have com- Like all volunteer organizations, we depend entirely pletely revamped the website platform which opens the candidates for their willingness to run for office.- numerous avenues for further streamlining the As- cer may look glamorous on paper, it is also a commit- menton our of members’ time and efforts.attention While in the being service an SFRAof others. offi headway in systematizing the back end for numer- sociation’s functions; and we have made significant We should always remember this and acknowledge ous functions of the Association, such as award com- their participation. mittees, EC duties, and conference formats. Although As you may remember, last year SFRA voted to ex- these improvements may not be immediately tan- gible to SFRA members, their effects will inevitably the current Executive Committee thinks is going to be felt across the board. As the VP, it has been my servetend the the termsorganization of all officers much better to three in terms years, of whichconti- duty to mediate between different SF associations nuity and organizational memory. Luckily, this does and our own, to navigate between the different me- 4 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 5 dia and thus enhance our digital and global pres- to have the chance to give something back now. ence, and to take advantage of my own position as I believe the coming years offer a vital opportunity an international scholar in order to extend the reach - of the Association’s membership. I am only partially temporary academy: not only is the world becoming for SFRA to massively increase its profile in the con I am elected, I am committed to using my term as exhilarating and terrifying) but the old biases and Presidentsatisfied with to vigorously my success strive in these for evenendeavors stronger and, re if- prejudicesever more against science SF fictional and related (in ways transmedia that are forms both sults. has began to strongly fall away in favor of renewed Indeed, this would be a commitment: with the interest with regard to both scholarship and teach- newly minted policy, the position of President now ing/enrollment-generation. Without being unduly requires a six-year engagement (three as acting territorial or proprietary, I think the excellent work President and an additional three as the Immedi- we have done and are doing in SF scholarship should ate Past President), an engagement I would enter in be at the center of these new and renewed conversa- tions. I therefore see the main task of the VP in the with the outgoing EC we articulated a vision of the coming years to work to enthusiastically promote SFRAwith confidence as a veritable and hub: pleasure. a hub ofIn information,my conversations of as- SFRA members’ scholarship in a variety of digital sociation and collaboration, and a platform for on- locations, especially Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, going conversations of the kind we have only really as well as draw the attention of new scholars inter- begun to have on the listserv or on Facebook. ested in SF to the organization’s annual meeting and I am an Associate Professor of American Studies at publications. I believe the upcoming SFRA meeting the University of Haifa, Israel, and have been a mem- in June 2017 offers an especially ripe occasion to ber of the SFRA since 2010. I have served on the expand the reach of our conference and bring more Pioneer Awards committee for three years (twice interesting scholars into our fold. as a member, once as the chair) and am now on the In addition to my work as an editor on recent edit- Pilgrim Awards committee. I am an active member ed collections and on the journals Extrapolation and of the SF community in Israel, writing, giving talks, Science Fiction Film and Television, I have served on the Pioneer award committee for the last three years popular and academic circles. Finally, over the years, and will serve as its chair this year; this task requires Iand have teaching come to courses rely on on the speculative SFRA as an fiction, invaluable in both in- committee members to read widely in current schol- tellectual as well as a social resource. Some of my warmest professional and personal contacts have supporting and promoting the work of this organiza- emerged from the Association and I am deeply com- tionarship and and its has,current I hope, members, given meas well a firm as forground recruit for- mitted to its growth and to its success. As a presi- ing new ones. I appreciate the opportunity to run for Vice Presi- hope and determination, and I am sincerely grateful dent and thank you for considering me for this im- fordential your nominee considering to the my Association, candidacy. I am filled with or comments you have either by email (gerry.cana- [email protected] post. I’m very), onhappy Facebook, to field orany on questions Twitter Vice-Presidential Candidates (@gerrycanavan).
Gerry Canavan Graham J. Murphy IT'S AN HONOR to stand for election for a leadership First, I am humbled, honoured, and excited by this post in the SFRA. I have sincerely enjoyed my partici- invitation to run for Vice-President of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA). I have been an SFRA in graduate school to attending the Liverpool active member of the SFRA for over a decade; in fact, conferencepation in this last organization month, and from look attendingforward tomy many first future conversations and collaborations with the Guelph, Ontario (Canada) and that conference truly membership; both SFRA and ICFA have become very setmy firstthe barprofessional for my own conference conference was expectations. SFRA 2003 in I important intellectual homes for me and I’m happy was (awe)struck by the calibre of papers, the lively 4 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 5 discussions, and the overall collaboration and shar- tion, Science Fiction Studies, Ariel: A Review of Inter- ing of ideas at this conference. It is this level of pro- national English Literature, and ImageText: Inter- disciplinary Comics Studies) and anthologies (e.g., the SFRA and that I would strive to embody if elected Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, Fifty Key Fig- tofessionalism this position. and collegiality that continues to define ures in Science Fiction, and Science Fiction and Com- I am a former Board member of the International puting: Essays on Interlinked Domains). My editing Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA; 2007- experience includes Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical 2010), a position that afforded me the opportunity Perspectives (with Sherryl Vint) and my role as one to work behind-the-scenes of an international orga- of the Associate Editors for Journal of the Fantastic nization and help assemble and coordinate annual in the Arts. I was also the 2005 Chair of the Philip conferences that appealed to not only full- and part- K. Dick Award. My publication record clearly dem- time academics, but independent scholars, graduate onstrates I can work independently but also in col- students, and writers and artists alike. These skills laboration with others, in leadership roles as well as are certainly transferable to the SFRA and valuable team environments, and these are invaluable traits in this competitive academic climate. After all, we’re for a Vice-President position. In sum, I believe my experience, my academic track offer comparable conferences. This may have been record, and my overall accomplishments have well- lessin fierce of a problemcompetition in the with past, other but conference organizations funding that prepared me for the challenges associated with the and travel budgets for both part-time and full-time position of Vice-President. I thank you in advance for faculty are drying up; at the same time, graduate considering my candidacy and look forward to this students continue to chase funding options so they opportunity. can attend any number of conferences that will pro- fessionalize their academic portfolios. Given these circumstances, my most immediate goal is to draw on my IAFA experience and work with the SFRA’s Secretarial Candidates organizational leaders and membership to build on Jenni G. Halpin the calibre of past conferences and expand the con- I COME TO YOU AGAIN as a candidate for secretary ference’s visibility. In other words, the SFRA Annual of the SFRA, still delighted by the collegiality at the Conference deserves to remain a “must attend,” a heart of the SFRA. I would be honored to return to mandatory conference for anyone working within goal is ensure our conferences don’t lose traction in this office and again contribute in a more substantive the organization’s fields of study, and my immediate the face of stiff competition. This commitment can senseway to that the SFRA'sthe role ongoing provides support a nearly of uniquescience opporfiction- take many forms, including securing exciting new tunityresearch. to thinkMy previous in "big-picture" term in the terms office about confirms the myas- venues for the conference, continuing to invite ex- sociation and its work, in the stepping between the ceptional writers and scholars as special guests, and minutiae of minute-taking and the horizon in view planning more conference panels that address pro- of a summative report. I see the secretarial role as fessional matters that can appeal to junior faculty one of facilitation, with a fairly limited scope to the and/or graduate students alike. formal assignment leaving room for lending another In my professional career, I am a Professor with shoulder to the various objects the SFRA gets into the School of English and Liberal Studies at Seneca motion. Punctual, organized, and attentive to details, College (Toronto) where I teach such courses as Sci- I would consider myself privileged to involve myself ence Fiction, Utopia Fictions, and Young Adult Dysto- again in tracking and shaping the ongoing work of pias in both diploma-level and degree-level streams. the SFRA. These are variations of courses that I taught during my decade (2002-2012) with the Cultural Studies Department and the Department of English Litera- ture at Trent University (Peterborough; Oshawa). I Stefan 'Steve' Rabitsch also have a healthy publication portfolio, including DARMOK AND JALAD AT TANAGRA. What is a secre- tary if not a communicator—a communicator who articles in top journals (e.g., Extrapolation, Founda- 6 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 7 - stop-shop’ for anyone interested in sf stud- formation, ideas, and contacts? As a cultural studies scholarfacilitates and efficient intercultural and sustainable communicator, exchange I was of very in pleased and humbled by the nomination for SFRA premiereies, and b) resource taking thefor all first things steps sf towardsstudies secretary that was submitted by Craig Jacobson inmaking the long the run. website a ‘one-stop-shop’ and 2. Based in Europe at the moment, I would me—the guy who gives papers wearing a T-shirt that like to expand on the already existing inter- and Paweł Frelik. For those of you who do not know- nationalization efforts of the SFRA, foster- duce myself, my credentials, and the goals I would ing new links as well as strengthening es- reads “Academic Trekkie”—allow me to briefly intro tablished ones. At the moment, I am a post-doctoral researcher 3. So far, it was the SFRA that has had the andlike tolecturer pursue inshould American I be voted Studies into atoffice. Alpen-Adria- greatest impact on my professional growth Universität Klagenfurt (AAU), Austria. I joined the as an early career scholar. Consequently, as secretary, I will dedicate myself to reaching, in Arizona in 2010, and it opened the frontiers of sf recruiting, and getting PhD candidates and studiesSFRA at for my me. very Ever first since conference then I have as a PhDendeavored candidate to early career scholars further engaged in the attend every SFRA conference in order to continue engaging in sf academic discussions. Quite a few things have changed since then in that I have been It wouldfield. be my distinct pleasure and privilege to fortunate that sf (across media) has become the support the executive board in the capacity of secre- main dimension of my research and also my teach- tary. I come to serve. Temba. His arms wide. ing. For example, in the last summer term I taught an introductory class to literary studies by focus- ing on sf short stories. In the fall term of 2015/16, a colleague and I co-organized a semester-long, in- Candidates for Treasurer terdisciplinary lecture series in anticipation of Star Trek David Higgins from eleven different disciplines, including our uni- THANK YOU for considering me as a candidate for versity’s’s 50th president, anniversary. a Fulbright It featured guest fifteen professor, speakers and the position of SFRA Treasurer. I've been a member the 2013 Austrian Scientist of the Year. The series of the Association for several years, and I'm current- drew an average of 200 listeners each week (Lec- ture #1 is available on YouTube:
1. the SFRA website recently received a few - under-the-hood upgrades. I aim to fully visingto fulfill journal the responsibilities subscriptions, ofand this working role (managing with the capitalize on the wide range of content the organizations finances, paying the bills, super generation/management and membership best of my ability. management features offered by the new Executive Committee on fiscal efficiency) to the very Wild Apricot platform. My goal is twofold:
6 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 7 a) help making the SFRA website the ‘first- Hugh O’Connell of step with the prevailing trends in contemporary I AM PLEASED to announce my candidacy for the po- British and postcolonial studies, my then primary sition of Treasurer for the SFRA. I’ve been a member year on the Student Paper Award Committee. Cur- departmentfields. I wanted where to engage it was madewith sf clear studies that more there fully, was rently,of the SFRAI’m an since assistant 2012 andprofessor just completed of English my at first the nobut room my first to teachtenure-track it. At this position transitional was in period a traditional in my University of Massachusetts Boston where I primar- career, when I had to decide what kind of work I re- - ally wanted to pursue, the SFRA was an oasis for me. ing introductory lecture courses, upper level special topicsily teach courses, a range and of graduate science fictionlevel seminars. courses, includ Since the position of Treasurer comes with a fairly lastingIt was hereconnections that I first with received other likeminded a positive scholars.response toWhile the work I’ve that since I was moved doing on and to wherea position I first where made use this opportunity to explain more broadly why I sf studies is heartily supported thanks to the pio- wouldwell defined like to serve set of the responsibilities, SFRA. Although I wouldmy childhood like to neering work of Bob Crossley, the SFRA offered me held the usual obsessions with Star Wars, mutant comics, and intergalactic video games, I didn’t be- felt isolated. If it weren’t for the support that the come an avid sf reader until my MA. Later, during my SFRAa significant offered pointme at of the connection earliest stages when of I myotherwise career, PhD, as questions about globalization, immigration I would most likely be a very different academic to- and bureaucracy became intertwined with the vexed day. If elected, I’d welcome the opportunity to give notion of futurity in late capitalism, I found myself back to and support this association the best I can. increasingly drawn to global sf and consequently out
8 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 9 Star Trek Symposium – Malta amicable; and as always thought provoking. The ple- nary talk was Andrew Weber’s “Star Trek in Medical 2016 Ethics Education.” Mariella Scerri and Victor Grech for SciFi The Symposium was followed by a course dinner held at L-Ghonnella Restaurant, St Julians where Malta wine, good humour and animated discussions
THE SECOND Star Trek Symposium held at the Fac- Grech was also hosted. A commemorative set of 15 ulty of ICT, University of Malta on the 15th and 16th paintingsflowed abundantly. individually An numbered art exhibition and bysigned Prof by Victor Vic- July, has boldly gone where no man has gone before. tor Grech himself were exhibited at the symposium. This Symposium organized by Prof Victor Grech, Ms Each piece is being sold for 75 euro, partially fund- Mariella Scerri and Dr David Zammit commemo- raising SciFi Malta. rated the 50th anniversary from the launch of the A collection of papers arising from this event will original series of Star Trek. The two day event was be assembled and published. The same has been most enjoyable and was opened by Prof. Joseph Cac- ciottolo, Pro-rector of the University of Malta. A local and international faculty from the medical and allied hosteddone for last the year. first Both Star books Trek are Symposium now published held twoand canyears be ago, bought and from the firstAmazon. Science Fiction Symposium contributed to the success of the symposium. healthcare fields, IT specialists and the Humanities- Star Trek: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Theory and Practice (Volume 1) Presentations ranged from ‘The Supportive Inter Greenchange Enemies Rituals inand Star the Trek, Liminality to ‘Medical of Otherness’ Attitudes to Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Science Fic- namethe End but of few. Life Discussions in Star Trek,’ were to animated, ‘Gardens lively in Space: and tion (Volume 2)
8 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 9 TREASURER'S REPORT International Members of SFRA for 2016
Treasurer's Report, 2016 Australia 4 Italy 2 Steve Berman Austria 1 Japan 2 Belgium 2 Poland 4 Canada 14 Spain 3 AS OF JULY 17, 2016, the Science Fiction Research China 1 Portugal 2 Association has 240 members, many of whom are Denmark 1 South Africa 1 from outside the United States. In 2015, the SFRA Estonia 1 Sweden 1 had 270 members while back in 2014 there were Finland 2 Switzerland 1 263 members. Last year about 32 members signed France 2 Turkey 1 up during and after the annual conference. If we Germany 3 United Kingdom 26 have 32 new sign-ups between now and the end of Greece 1 USA 160 2016, the SFRA will have 252 members. The small Ireland 4 drop in membership numbers may be due to the in- Israel 1 Total 240 ternational conference and the resulting high cost of travel for many members, but I’m sure there are other factors. Journals: All SFRA members (Except emeritus A breakdown of SFRA members from around the members) receive a subscription to Science Fiction world follows the Treasurer’s Report. Studies and Extrapolation. The discounted fees for Financially, the organization is strong. As of July 17, these journals are included in the annual member- 2016, there is $62,901.81 in the checking account; ship dues. Winners of the Pilgrim Award and Past $20, 432.09 in the savings account, and $574.12 SFRA Presidents receive a free Electronic Only mem- in the PayPal account. Science Fiction Studies sub- bership. scription fees are paid monthly. Extrapolation sub- scription fees, however, are paid annually so about Optional Journals: Members who select an optional $7,000.00 will be mailed to Extrapolation in Decem- journal(s) will receive discounted rates. Here is the ber. Most optional journals are paid bi-monthly. A list number of members who ordered optional journal of the members who have subscribed to the optional (s) so far this year: journals (at a discounted rate for SFRA members) is presented after the list of international members. Foundation: The International Review of Science The SFRA has also received royalties on its vari- Fiction: 28 ous publications. For example, I recently received a Journal of Fantastic in the Arts: 10 royalty check for the SFRA Anthology $1289.22 from Femspec: 8 Pearson Education publications. SFRA also received Locus Magazine: 8 over $10.00 in Royalties from Amazon. SFFTV: 9 The SFRA Review: (An annual issue of the SFRA Scholar Support: The Executive Committee of the Review is published in January of the following Science Fiction Research Association would like to year): 24 thank the SFRA members who voluntarily donated money to support SFRA scholars. This year, SFRA received $407.00 in scholar support funds. These funds are used to help pay for conference travel grants awarded each year by SFRA. This money may also be used for seed money for the next year’s Con- ference.
10 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 11 2015-2016 SFRA Awards It’s an impressive body of work. If you want a more PILGRIM AWARD non-SF film, television and literature. University of the West of England website and be Remarks for the Pilgrim Award preparedcomprehensive to scroll list, for visit a while. his staff profile page at the But the Pilgrim award isn’t given for a tall stack of Craig Jacobsen (Chair), Keren Omry, John publications, not even a very tall stack. Dr. Bould’s Reider work is impressive because of its breadth, depth,
For lifetime contributions to SF/F Studies and significance. Though Mark’s work swirls around I THOUGHT THAT I might begin with a Brexit joke, Americana number SF,of persistentnoir), it isn’t interests limited (science to these. fiction His work on but as I’m an American, I am hardly in a position to showsfilm and that television, he is able Marxism, to write Africanequally effectively and African- to poke fun at the national politics of others. I was also - experts, about “great” works and terrible movies. funny, or even insulting, and that as a result just over theThis relative Pilgrim newcomer award recognizes to science Mark fiction Bould’s and to con the- halfafraid of thatyou mightyou might decide find to theleave. joke disastrously un - The Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim tions from which we all have, and will continue, to Award was created in 1970 to honor lifetime con- tributions to our field as editor and writer, contribu
This year’s Pilgrim Award winner is Mark Bould. benefit. tributionsMark may to seem science too fiction young andto win fantasy the Pilgrim. scholarship. After Pilgrim Award Acceptance all, if he lives up to life expectancy predictions for Speech annual SFRA conferences. The Pilgrim, however, de- Mark Bould spitemen inthe the use UK, of hethat might word attend “lifetime,” another is not thirty-five an end- of-career encomium. It is a recognition of the pro- THANK1 YOU. I’m astonished, humbled and hon- in sf scholarship, and by that measure this award is oured and, to be honest, a little freaked out. nothingduction ofif nota substantial timely. and significant body of work Cory McAbee is currently touring a show, Small I am going to rattle off a less-than-comprehensive Star Seminar, in which he plays a singing motiva- list of Mark’s contributions for those of you who tional speaker who encourages us to recognise and 2 may not have noticed just how productive he’s been. embrace our limitations. Occasionally ,he breaks 3 es- He has co-edited Red Planets: Marxism and Science pecially transdimensionality, which is concerned Fiction (with China Mieville), The Routledge Concise withcharacter the way to talkwe often about slip the between ‘romantic multiple sciences’, parallel History of Science Fiction (with Sherryl Vint), The dimensions without necessarily realising it. He in- Routledge Companion to Science Fiction and Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction (both with Andrew But- ler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint). He’s written a 1 It was around this point that the recipient began to study of Solaris (BFI Film Classics), a Routledge Film speak through choked back emotion. [Ed.] Guidebook to Science Fiction, and dozens of articles, 2 All 17 songs are available at http://corymcabee. chapters, book reviews, keynotes and presentations. bandcamp.com/releases. He has guest edited a special edition of Paradoxa 3 He also mentions deep astronomy, emotional on Africa SF, and special editions of Science Fiction mathematics and blink time, but you can invent your Studies on the British SF Boom and Afrofuturism. He own romantic sciences. For example, psychogeology, is, along with Sherryl Vint, a founding co-editor of which is a lot like psychogeography, but slower and, the journal Science Fiction Film and Television, and well, deeper; or mountain-nearing, which is about serves as an advisory editor for at least half a doz- getting up real close to sublime objects in order to discover their mundanity, but that’s probably one to work. He frequently publishes and presents about talk to M John Harrison about. 10 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 en other journals. And that’s just his science fiction SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 11 troduces it by asking three simple questions. Have - you ever lost something and then later found it in a times she’s been mine, currently we’re both each place where you’ve already looked? Have you ever others,fifteen years;depending sometimes on what I’ve we’re been doing. her Our boss, research some continued an argument after the other person has left? Have you ever fallen in love with a cartoon char- best book on classical Hollywood romantic comedy acter? youis mostly will ever in differentread5 – but fields without – she her wrote constancy the single and genuinely terrifying organisational abilities, I would sceptical. Until, well, have you ever had an email not have survived the day job this long, let alone had fromDespite Craig answering Jacobsen insaying the affirmative,you’re being I remainedgiven the time to research or write or edit. Pilgrim Award? When that happens, you become aware of trans- (narrowly beating my good friend Andrew M Butler dimensional slippage, and it is profoundly disori- China Miéville, who was my first article editor entating, and now I seem to be stuck over here in to remonstrate with me over my inability to write this weird place with you guys… Don’t get me wrong, conclusionsto that dubious (and distinction), thus, albeit and inadvertently, thus the first the editor au- y’all are lovely people, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but as I said in my beautifully crafted re- - ply to Craig, it was really quite gracious and elegant: thor of the most quoted passage I’ve ever ‘written’). 4 myHe’s mate, also mythe comrade,first person a constant to recruit inspiration, me to an aedito huge There are so many people I need to thank who I’ve rial board, my first co-editor, my first fiction editor, ‘Fuck. Are you sure?’ of the occasional paying gig. He is currently engaged guided, helped and tolerated. So many people, from inpolitical a nautical and criticaladventure influence so secret – plus that a handynow I’ve source told Patrickworked Parrinder, with, and who by taught whom me I’ve as been an undergradu influenced,- you about it I will have to kill you. ate and then invited me back to do a PhD with him, Sherryl Vint, my main collaborator over the years, and foolishly one day entrusted to my care a visit- with whom I’ve co-written and co-edited so much. ing scholar called Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., through It’s not all been plain sailing. For example, she led to Gerry Canavan, who recently joined us as an edi- the revolt among my co-editors against the sugges- tor of Science Fiction Film and Television, or to Rhys tion that we dedicate Fifty Key Figures in Science Williams, then a cocky young postgrad who asked if Fiction he could borrow my name to help get funding for a symposium on M. John Harrison symposium – and have been to helping ‘all the me reviewers be my better incapable self, ofbut spotting as any- then discovered large pots of money he could apply onethe titlewho’s doesn’t read thecontain reviews a definite will agree, article’. I’m She the mayone for at his university, which enabled us to do the SF/F vindicated by history. None of the work we’ve done Now conference, the SF Now issue of Paradoxa, the together could I have done on my own, and that’s not MJH collection that is currently behind schedule but just about productivity. I have learned so much from we’re getting there, honest… her about science studies, animal studies, biopolitics But there are three people, for various reasons not here tonight, who I want to thank in particular – they I think what she has learned from me is to let Mark have been absolutely central to my life and work do– work the proof-reading, that is genuinely ’cos reshaping he gets cranky our field. about Mostly that shit. A huge piece of this award really belongs to her. later a fourth person, who is here tonight. Just three people out of so many. sinceKathrina that firstGlitre, article my friendfifteen andyears colleague ago – and in thenFilm Studies at UWE. We’ve worked together for about award is freaking me out so much. It’s not about get- tingBut old. realising6 It’s because that helped the awardme to figureis presented out why to this an 4 At this juncture, the recipient made what was individual. widely considered the best, and certainly the last, of the many Brexit jokes at SFRA 2016. It addressed 5 Hollywood Romantic Comedy: States of the Union, the insensitivity of serving as dessert another Eton 1934–1965. Manchester University Press, 2006. 6 The recipient is, after all, among the youngest appear in a meme in everyone’s FB feed. But the re- twenty per cent of Pilgrim winners. He should know. Mess. This joke has proven sufficiently popular to He did the maths. Twice, just to make sure. [Ed.] 12 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 13 cipient made it first. [Ed.] I cannot begin to calculate how many people have Not just for the people with whom I’ve worked di- edited my work or written reader’s reports on it or rectly or indirectly, one way or another, but for all of responded to it in some way, or the amount of peo- us. ple I’ve edited, reported on or responded to in some For most of us, most of the time, just as the calcu- way, let alone identify them. It’s even more impos- lation of labour-power does not care about actual sible to count the work I’ve read or heard delivered, labourers, so the job does not care about the work the conversations I’ve had, let alone the acts, large – whether that work is our students or our research. and small, of kindness, generosity, critique, support, But here, at moments like this, and whenever our care, compassion. Yet all of these things are collabo- community or parts of it gather together, the job rations. Whatever’s been achieved in the work that takes the backseat. This is about the work, about our has my name on it is a product of these co-operative, art – about the thing we build together. collective efforts, of this mutual aid. And we must make that work count. So this award is not just for me but for all of us (and It has to matter. that is not the lame platitude it sounds like now I’ve said it aloud). We also know that some worlds are more likely The neoliberal agenda is destroying universities thanIn this others: field, worldswe know of other unchecked worlds areanthropogenic possible. and learning, turning higher education into a ma- climate change; worlds in which a global economic system impoverishes, immiserates and kills people costly public universities in the world, funded in vast numbers every day; worlds in which new throughchine for a makingfees system profit. that The is moreUK now expensive has the to most the forms of bloody imperialism reign, and in which the tax-payer than free education would be, and that is right, misogyny, homophobia and racism are resur- deliberately creating indebtedness among students, gent. Unless we work to build better worlds – in our graduates and their families on an industrial – and imaginations and our art and our work, and in this our community, and in our jobs, and through our roughly sixty percent of what they were back when shoddy excuses for democracy, and in the streets, Ithus started, profitable with probably– scale. Academic 25,000 academics salaries are on worth zero and by whatever means necessary. hours contracts.7 At the same time, workloads have China ends his essay in the latest issue of Salvage increased to such an extent that we work on average with these words: two extra, unpaid days a week,8 and there is a mas- sive increase stress, anxiety, depression and other Is it better to hope or to despair? Do you want work-related health problems.9 There are universi- to create better art, or do you want a better ties whose workload model assigns a mere handful world in which to create? Are you an artist or of weeks for research activity, never mind that it is an activist? Yes.10 increasing teaching and administrative loads; and thereoften impossibleare managers actually who towould find those respond weeks to amongone of [Pause for an even more abrupt change of di- their managees receiving an accolade such as this rection than those which have thus far charac- terised this speech.] funding with it?’ notThis with is whycongratulations this award is but not with, for me, ‘does but it forbring us. any Finally, I want to thank Andrea Gibbons, author of the best book you will ever read on the ways in 7 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ which race and segregation continue to shape the 11 zero-hour-numbers-still-unclear-despite-year-long- ways our cities are developed. For her uncanny study. knack of picking up books I am trying to work on, 8 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ ucu-report-academics-work-two-days-week-un- 10 http://salvage.zone/in-print/from-choice-to-po- paid. larity-politics-of-in-and-and-art/. 9 https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education- 11 Land, Privilege, Race: One Hundred Years of Strug- network/2014/mar/06/mental-health-academics- gle Against Segregation in Los Angeles. Available growing-problem-pressure-university. from Verso in 2017. 12 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 13 thus relieving me of the burden of precise detail. For Gurl – have recently been exploring the representa- always being there to pointing out that once more tional challenges posed by phenomena and process- I forgot to do a conclusion. For persuading me that es (such as climate change) that occur at sizes and this is not the place to tear off my short and claim I scales that are radically alien to human perceptual am Chuck Tingle, expecting a Spartacus-like wave of frames of reference. McGurl, in particular, suggests No, I am Chuck Tingles to sweep the room. that literature can function as a kind of “scaling de- But mostly for reminding me that there is life out- vice” which enables readers to apprehend strange side of the job and even, sometimes, outside of the phenomena otherwise inaccessible to human per- work, for making me take days off and go out and ceptions. enjoy the world. And for repeatedly telling me that, Scott Selisker, the winner of this year’s Pioneer as well as being astonished, humbled and honoured Award, builds upon this work in his essay “Stutter- to receive the Pilgrim, I should also be happy about Stop Flash-Bulb Strange: GMOs and the Aesthet- it rather than just freaked out. ics of Scale in Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl," Which I am. published in the November 2015 issue of Science Finally. Fiction Studies Sort of. has a particular capacity to make weird and seem- Thank you. ingly remote .phenomena Selisker argues aesthetically that science accessible fiction to our senses: SF makes it possible to see and feel things that occur at scales and temporalities outside normal perception in a way that can catalyze a new PIONEER AWARD sense of immediacy and political agency. Selisker’s analysis demonstrates how The Windup Remarks for the Pioneer Award Girl makes sensible the ecological, cultural, environ- mental, and economic impact of genetically modi- Gerry Canavan, Siobhan Carroll, David Higgins (Chair) microscopically (beneath the range of human vi- fied organisms – an impact that otherwise occurs IT HAS BEEN an honor this year to serve on the Pio- from deep time (outside the range of individual hu- neer Award Committee (alongside fellow jurors Ger- mansion) temporality). and modifies From evolutionary a casual processeshuman perspective, emerging ry Canavan and Siobhan Carroll). Judging this award GMOs often look tasty -- the juicier the apple looks, has given me a special opportunity to not only read the more I am drawn to eat it. That's worth think- the breadth of peer-reviewed article-length scholar- ing about, because it means that aesthetics move us. Selisker draws on Bacigalupi to reveal how science (broadly conceived), but also to engage in rich and - meaningfulship published conversation in the field with of science my colleagues fiction studies about what it means to do groundbreaking work in our framesfiction canof referenceremediate outside our aesthetic typical sense human of howexperi ge- encesnetic modification of size and scale. looks and tastes, especially from What counts as groundbreaking will surely be dif- Why is this important? Why does this matter? In ferentfield. for many of us, but my view (which is shared one of his characteristically clever Facebook posts, by this year's committee) is that admirable, award- Gerry Canavan has recently said that "all criticism worthy scholarship makes a cutting edge interven- today collapses into one of two choices: the call to tion in the conversations that occupy our critical at- conversation and the injunction to stop talking." We tention: Great scholarship, in other words, changes need criticism that does both of these things, and the game by offering new methodologies and new we also need work that goes further and innovates perspectives that move our larger critical conversa- pathways toward new modes of action and praxis. tions forward in a meaningful and noteworthy way. During his SFRA conference keynote speech, An- This year's Pioneer Award winner offers a striking drew Millner asked us how art in an era of global example of such scholarship. Many contemporary warming can have the kind of wide reaching impact scholars – including Rob Nixon, Dipesh Chakrabarty, that Nevil Shute's novel On The Beach had for a his- Wai Chee Dimnock, Timothy Morton, and Mark Mc- torical moment dominated by concerns related to 14 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 15 nuclear proliferation. Timothy Morton has recently our desires to control and even own nature (as with said that thinking about climate change is the core of GMOs) both like and unlike our desires to control or the problem; if you see someone who is about to be own other people? The novel’s techniques seemed as innovative as its questions, and I hope others here will continue to think about the problem of scale in tohit kick by a in, car, and that Scott person Selisker needs proposes, your reflexes I think to quite kick in, not your thoughts. The world needs our reflexes I’d like to close by making some acknowledgments mobilize our feelings, and thus our actions, in ways thatSF, and I missed about thisthe chanceterrific tonovel. include in the article it- provocatively, that science fictional aesthetics can self. Thanks for comments from audiences at the that he is right -- and I also hope that you will read UCSB symposium on “Mediating the Nonhuman,” at histhat excellent science fictionalessay and thinking that you alone will cannot.join me nowI hope in the SFRA/Eaton Conference at UC Riverside in 2013, congratulating him on receiving this year's SFRA Pi- and at the University of Arizona “Convergences” se- oneer Award for excellence in scholarship. ries. Among those audiences, I’d particularly like to thank Rob Latham, Gerry Canavan, and Chris Coki- nos, for encouragement and helpful questions and comments. I can’t resist a “shout-out” to the DuPont Pioneer Award Acceptance PR employee who asked many questions after my Speech SFRA/Eaton presentation but pointedly refused to tell me his name. Since Pioneer Hi-Bred is a subsid- Scott Selisker iary of DuPont, that conversation felt like an episode straight out of the novel I was writing on. I’d like to I was doing research for turning my dissertation into give thanks, too, for helpful suggestions on drafts of - the article from Jennifer S. Rhee, Faith Harden, and grammable minds. The material for the book was Science Fiction Studies. At a book, and reading all the SF I could find about pro SFS, the article received excellent anonymous reader and political theorists since World War II have used reportsfrom the and editorial then Joan office Gordon’s of expert help in push- theabout image how Americanof the human writers, automaton filmmakers, to scientists,negotiate ing the essay closer to organizational clarity. I’d also the differences between freedom and unfreedom, like to thank the SFRA for the chance to be here, and democracy and totalitarianism, and more recently all of you here in Liverpool for an exciting, collegial, between multiculturalism and fundamentalism. If I and invigorating conference over the last few days. might steal the opportunity to bring it to your atten- tion as an ideal audience, it’s called Human Program- ming: Brainwashing, Automatons, and American Un- freedom, and it will be published next month by the CLARESON AWARD University of Minnesota Press. Doing this research, I came across Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, Remarks for the Clareson Award which uses the SF trope of human programming to address the unexpected topic of GMOs. Grace Dillon (Chair), DeWitt Kilgore, Rob The novel was wild and too complex to include in Latham my manuscript, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There followed an experience I’m sure many if not Named in honor of the founder of the SFRA, the - Thomas D. Clareson Award has been presented since ure out, and hopefully even to explain, why this book all of you have shared. I found myself trying to fig the teaching and study of SF, editing, reviewing, - editorial1996 for outstandingwriting, publishing, service toorganizing the field, meetings,including tionseemed could to fulfilldo. My the provisional promise of answer SF as a seems genre, clearerthat is, mentoring, and leadership in major organizations. nowhow itthat seemed article to has do comesomething out: The that Windup only science Girl uses fic Usually the award is given for excellence in a few of an overwhelming number of SF “scaling” techniques, these categories, but this year’s winner can legiti- borrowed from many different media, in order to ask mately claim to have established a very high stan- big questions about the nature of control: how are dard across all of them.
14 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 15 Farah Mendlesohn’s contributions to the teaching it is thus a pleasure to recognize her work with the 2016 Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished has developed curricula in SF and fantasy literature Service. and media study ofat SFMiddlesex are extensive University and and significant. now at SheAn- glia Ruskin University, where she has taught since 2012. Her scholarship, including such major works Clareson Award Acceptance as Rhetorics of Fantasy and The Inter-Galactic Play- ground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teen’s Sci- Speech ence Fiction, has greatly expanded our sense of the relationship between SF and fantasy, as well as the Farah Mendlesohn crucial importance of young-adult and children’s SF to the genre. Her editorial work has been equally THANK YOU for honouring me with this award. stellar, ranging from The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature and The Cambridge Companion a service award, what have I done to serve? Then I to Science Fiction to collections of essays honoring lookedWhen I at first the heard list of theactivities news andI was I thought… a bit baffled. I get It’s an such luminaries as Terry Pratchett, Joanna Russ, award for doing the things I really enjoyed doing and Ken MacLeod, and John Clute. She has served on the wanted do to? Seriously? There is something wrong editorial boards of a number of major journals and with that. And a bit of me does still think that. book series, including Foundation: The International I’ve been active in doing things since I was a kid. I Review of Science Fiction, Glyphi’s SF Storyworlds, and Liverpool’s Fantastic Texts and Studies, and her machine when I was about eight years old, although reviews have appeared in The Journal of the Fantas- itcome was from for the an Labouractivist partyfamily. not I used a fanzine. my first It’s gestetner awfully tic in the Arts and The New York Review of Science Fic- easy to recruit 8 year olds. They still think spend- tion, among many other outlets. ing an hour turning a handle is exciting. I joined a On top of these signal accomplishments, Farah choir, ended up on the committee, worked for the - Labour party, went to university, joined far too many ures in organizing conferences and symposia, and organisations, directed a play, ended up starting a generallyMendlesohn offering has been leadership one of the in major most importantorganizations fig newspaper (which lasted a decade) and basically did stuff that interested me. I don’t think I’ve ever done deserves particular praise, as she has served as one anything I didn’t want to do. And that is something I ofin the field.most Herimportant work withmediators numerous between WorldCons schol- want to emphasise today: do things you enjoy doing. ars and fans currently working in the academy. She There are all kinds of ways to serve the community. was the head of the academic track at the Glasgow Try everything, walk through open doors, but only WorldCon in 2005, Program Director for the Mon- treal WorldCon in 2009, and the Director of Exhibits I didn’t meet fandom until my twenties—you will for LonCon3 in 2014. She has also organized numer- havedo twice to ask what Edward you enjoyed James whydoing he the never first mentioned time. conventions to me until then—but I got involved including several at The University of Liverpool. She as typist for Foundation (we used to type up typed wasous eventsthe chair devoted of the SF to Foundation specific topics and andcontinues authors, to manuscripts), then was recruited by well known fan serve on its board of trustees, and was elected Vice- and fanzine writer Alison Scott to the Committee of President and then President of the International the Science Fiction Foundation, and eventually I end- Association of the Fantastic in the Arts, in which ca- pacity she oversaw major changes to the running of and journal editor. I’ve organised conventions and their annual conference. Indeed, her dedicated men- conferences,ed up as chair. published I’ve been books its chair, and startededucation a master officer- toring of up-and-coming scholars, her warm encour- class. We’ve done most of the list of everything else I’ve done in the introduction so I won’t go over that perspectives, making it as diverse, as inclusive, and again. asagement forward-looking of their work, at SF has literature opened itself. the field to new Gary Wolfe once asked me why I did all of this and Farah Mendlesohn has, for almost twenty years, most of it comes back to the realisation when I was about 20, that although I do like performing, I had
16 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 17 given selfless and tireless service to the field, and far more fun as a stage director than I ever had act- it is some of the highlights: If I am a good mentor ing. When you are directing the show you get to have it is because I have been well mentored, by Edward James, by John Clute, by Gary Wolfe among others. If We tend to think of service as something that is I have taught well it is because I saw brilliant teach- aparta finger from in all the the critical pies. conversation, and one of the ers teach, from my mother (I used to sit at the back best things about the Clareson Award is that it un- of her class when I was off school) through to some derstands that this is not the case. very special school teachers one of whom I lost this For all the reviews that someone writes, the article year). If I have been a good manager it is because that someone researches, the panel that they speak I was taught by good managers from convention on; the choices you as editor, director, curator get to chairs such as Vince Docherty and Colin Harris, and make shape the whole. These behind the scenes peo- academic Heads of Department such as Maggie Butt. ple shape the paradigm in which an activity is read If I have been a good editor and organiser it is be- and interacted with. Hopefully good, occasionally di- cause I’ve collaborated with fantastic people such sastrous. I’ve sat in audiences and watched twitter as Edward James, Andrew M. Butler, and now Niall feeds with pride as something I put together gets the Harrison and Mike Levy. At conventions I’ve worked approbation of the community. I have of course also with closely Simon Bradshaw, Cheryl Morgan, David watched as those feeds went pear shaped. Clements, Stu Segal, Laurie Mann and others. Laurie Much of the pride is in the ability to bring people deserves a special mention as being a brilliant ser- together to create interesting conversations. As we are all much more aware of now I think, conversa- Worldcon Programmer in 2009. tions get trapped in bubbles. Being a convention or geantSome major of these to apeople very terrifiedbecame secondmy closest Lieutenant friends conference organiser, a book editor or an exhibits as a consequence. Most recently, and who deserve a creator means you can introduce bubbles to each special mention, my Worldcon Exhibits team of Sha- na Worthen, Serena Culfeather, John Wilson, David in a lot of conversations in the past decade regarding Haddock, Phil Dyson, Edward James and most par- howother. to To create take one diversity specific on aspect, convention I’ve been panels involved from ticularly Joe Raftery, who died of Hodgkins Lympho- the ground up. The community has done some seri- ma earlier this year and who is terribly missed. ously good work on this and developed a real theo- I have been supported through all of this work by retical basis (although we don’t talk about it as a the- my managers, by colleagues, and in particular by ory). It involves avoiding certain traps (my favourite students, who are far more curious about what we person X really likes talking to W, Y, and Z, without do than many people seem to give credit for (around noticing that you are embedding the lack of diversity ten of my ex-undergrads turned out to help with the in X’s conversations or friendship group into your set up at Worldcon in 2014), and especially by my programming). It involves considering how to shape PhD students who have been both support and re- questions to direct conversation, selecting modera- source in many different ways (and I don’t just mean tors as active participants of a very particular kind, washing dishes at parties, although I am very grate- ful for that). Three in particular I want to thank for is and who is new and interesting. Editing books just their support, Tiffani Angus who is here tonight, and formaliseslooking back this. at One where of the the things conversation I’ve enjoyed in the is being field Audrey Taylor and Meg MacDonald who are not. As you probably know I’m working on a book about - Heinlein at the moment, a man who is often under- tion.able toI’ve put been people particularly on panels lucky for thein being first time,then helpable stood as a believer in rugged individualism. One of tothem convert develop all this papers, to my give professional them their life: first as publicasome of the things I will be arguing is that this is a complete you already know, I love being a head of department because I get to create a platform that supports my I think to end with a quote. amazing staff, and allows them to excel. misunderstandingAt the end of Starship of Heinlein’s Troopers world., Johnny So Rico it is says, fitting “I But what I want to remind you most of all is that guess my luck has always been people”. I have never done any of this alone. And I apolo- Thank you. gise because the next bit is a tad listy and you won’t recognise all the names. It isn’t a complete list but 16 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 17 MARY KAY BRAY AWARD -
Remarks for the Mary K. Bray anThus, award. it wasSo we not had easy to agree to bring on the our angle, lists toand the that fi Award becamenal three a combination names, let alone of appearance to the final on recipientall our lists of and consistency in producing excellent work for sev- Isiah Lavender III, Larisa Mikhaylova (Chair), eral years in a row – that is inclusion into all the lists Brittany Roberts of the previous two years on my term in this commit- tee. Thus the Mary Kay Bray Award for the best pub- THE AWARD COMMITTEE was reviewing the mate- lication in the SFRA Review of 2015 goes to – Amy J. Ransom. rials printed in the issues 311-314 of the SFRA Re- view. We should remark that it is becoming more and The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Her reviews of Sonya Fritzsche’s first in the series general scope and originality gets better and better. Films (SFRA Review #312) and a book - Blast, Cor- more difficult to single out individual entries, as the rupt, Dismantle, Erase: Contemporary North Ameri- angle which might allow us to bestow the distinction can Dystopian Literature, edited by Grubisic, Baxter ofSo thisin order award to upon choose, a particular one has toperson. look for a specific and Lee (#313), besides being “concise, clear, well- Some reviews could be called model ones for their organized, and immediately accessible”, make them compact outlining along with essential plotline of useful tools to scholars seeking a fair evaluation of the interesting turns connecting the work in ques- the volume's merits. A member of the committee tion with an author’s previous oeuvre and possible also noted: “I also appreciate her attention to the an- approaches to its study – such as Bill Dynes’ review thology's individual essays, … in addition to her thor- ough consideration of the volume's overall strengths of Leckie’s Ancillary Sword (#312). While others by necessity, as they cover more ground in describing and weaknesses”. I would add that her personal ap- SF of a whole country or area, are more extensive, proach was always characterized by a generous ten- but are well structured and help readers to see the dency to include in her comparisons works in French and Spanish, thus enlarging our circle of knowledge. unexplored ground, such as Hugh O'Connell’s review Amy J. Ransom’s high quality contribution to science ofstrong Paradoxa sides and#25 deficiencies Africa SF, edited of critique by Mark opening Bould up (#313), or Simon Spiegel’s review of Tom Moylan’s she has earned the Mary Kay Bray award this year. fiction research is varied, and we unanimously think classic new edition Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian imagination (#311). Besides, there was added a vibrant media sec- Mary Kay Bray Award tion to the Review, which produced its own jewels, such as Lars Schmeink’s excellent review of video Acceptance Speech games “SF-Worlds and the First-Person Perspective” Amy J. Ransom (#312). Several years in a row, we are also looking at an GREETINGS SFRA FRIENDS, impossible dilemma: how to compare an excellent I’m doubly sorry now that I couldn’t attend the review of a single book or an anthology to an entry in the 101 section. There is a world of wisdom, ob- fangirl on Andrew Milner for championing the “An- servation and useful advice in those publications. glo-FrenchEngland conference, origins of sf”, first and so second I could so have I could gone have all - accepted the Mary Kay Bray award in person. What egories, and that leaves all the other people who an honor to receive the award after what I realize contributeBut they are a lotdefinitely of their inexperience two different into reviewingweight cat a separate work at a disadvantage as to the possibility in the SFRA Review. I have reviews in every category has been a decade since my first review appeared there should be a special award added for 101 type of getting the award. Our committee firmly believes my past history, I realize for quite a while I seemed of publications, an accolade to their clarity and use- (fiction, non-fiction, and media), but looking over fulness as teaching tools. to say that my son has now grown out of seeing mov- to be the resident animated sf film reviewer. I’m sad 18 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 19 Dagmar positioned in the scope of a 20-minute pre- thanks to the committee for recognizing my reviews sentation these arguments within larger debates ies with mom, so I’ll have to find a new niche! Many about racial politics, feminism, and animal studies in longstanding efforts to raise the sf community’s SF scholarship. awarenessof “grown up”off non-fictionworks beyond books, the whichAnglo-American reflect my Please join the (absent) adjudication committee in canon. It’s certainly more pleasurable to review such congratulating Dagmar van Engen for this stimulat- quality books, so I want to acknowledge again Sonia ing research. Fritzsche’s Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Films and Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase: Contemporary North American Dystopian Literature edited by Bret Grubisic and Gisele Baxter. I also want Student Paper Award Acceptance Speech reviews, Chris Pak for his great work as editor, Lars Schmeinkto thank Dominick for doing Grace the nuts for andediting bolts my work non-fiction for the Dagmar Van Engen Review for several years now, Ritch Calvin for his long service as media reviews editor. I hope to work THANK YOU SO MUCH for this recognition; I apol- ogize for my absence in accepting this award. I am I am so lucky to be part of this organization and I honored to learn that my presentation was chosen thankwith the its newwonderful fiction peopleand media for all editors of the soon. support I’ve for the 2015 Student Paper Award, and I am grate- received from you over the years. See you in River- ful for the opportunity to share my work with such side! a generative and supportive audience, particularly in the context of last year’s conference theme, “The SF We Don’t (Usually) See: Suppressed Histories, Liminal Voices, Emerging Media.” I learned so much STUDENT PAPER AWARD from the imaginative scholarship shared last year on antiracist, queer, indigenous, feminist, and nonwest- Remarks for the Student Paper of so much recent violence against lives vulnerable Award toern racism, speculative colonialism, fictions. and After toxic Orlando, masculinities, in the wake the Shawn Malley (Chair), Hugh Charles marginalized imaginations celebrated in that meet- O'Connell, Taryne Taylor ing continue to be urgent for collective survival on this planet. My presentation on the Xenogenesis tril- ogy explored how gender and sexuality are the sites IT IS WITH GREAT PLEASURE that the Student Es- on which racism polices the category of the “human,” say Award Committee presents this year’s prize to deciding who will survive and who won’t. It feels even Dagmar Van Engen, for the paper entitled “The In- more crucial now to account for these intersecting terspecies Erotic Sex and the Nonhuman in Octavia - Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy.” cally queer Latino people who were targeted in the - Pulseforms nightclub,of violence although in SF scholarship: this was whitewashed it was specifi out livered at last year’s conference in Stony Brook, Dag- of American media coverage. As I am still struggling mar’sChosen submission from a very is competitivedistinguished field by ofits papers sensitive de to come to terms with what happened in Orlando negotiation of the complex relationships between and how it affects my work, I’d like to leave you with sexuality, gender and racial politics in Butler’s work. Samuel Delany’s words from Babel-17: “Imagination In the paper, Dagmar argues convincingly that should be used for something other than ponder- Butler dismantles binary gender politics by offer- ing murder, don’t you think?” Thank you for sharing ing the nonhuman as key to imagining more livable your imaginations with me in the generative conver- gendered and sexual worlds. The sexual dynamics in sations that happen at SFRA, and thank you again for Xenogenesis probe, Van Engen argues, the threshold this award. of the human patrolled by racist discourse through the SF trope of inter-species sex. The selection com- mittee was impressed with the facility with which 18 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 19 Feature Interview shortages on the Colorado River and how Las Vegas was handling those shortages politically. The other person was Michelle Nijhuis, who was reporting on An Interview with Paolo very early indicators of climate change in the region, Bacigalupi where you’re seeing certain species changing their Chris Pak movements and things like that – that were starting tohabitats, indicate you’re that maybe seeing therecertain was forest something fires and going beetle on that was measureable. I was trying to think of a way PAOLO BACIGALUPI is the award-winning author of to write a story that connected to those concepts. the highly acclaimed debut novel, The Windup Girl When I told the editor about it, I said “Oh I’m think- (2009), which won the 2010 Hugo, Nebula and Crook ing maybe about doing something where somebody awards, and the 2012 Seuin award for best trans- gets paid money to rip out any plant that sucks wa- lated long story. He has also written three works of ter out of the river so there’s more water in the basin Ship Breaker (2010) for the cities,” for California, who has the best rights and The Drowned Cities (2011); and The Doubt Fac- on the river. He asked, “Can you write that for the toryyoung adult fiction: the diptych - newspaper?” It was this weird experiment where I tion, Zombie Baseball Beatdown (2013). - On (2014),March 31stalong 2016, with Ia interviewedwork of middle-grade Bacigalupi fic at - Waterstones Liverpool One for the UK release of his tionwas goingat all, andto try yet to we’re write going fiction to for make a non-fiction it a lead story au The Water Knife (2015), anddience. you’re The going newspaper to be on had the never front publishedof the newspaper, any fic a near-future sf thriller that explores the personal essentially. So the front of the newspaper, instead of hardshipssecond adult and fiction the political, novel, economic and legal in- giving you the news, instead of giving you serious trigues that arise as a consequence of populations reportage, was going to give you a made-up science adapting to a new norm of severe water scarcity in the Southwestern United States. was a really interesting experiment for me in trying This interview has been edited for ease of reading tofictional write for story an aboutaudience future who droughtweren't instead.automatically So it in print. also deeply informed about the issues that you were CP: You’ve mentioned in some other interviews writingacclimatised about. to So reading it was science a fraught fiction experiment. and who were that this book grew out of a short story, “The After we did it, it was really quite successful, which Tamarisk Hunter” (2006), which is in your col- was interesting because it generated a lot of discus- lection Pump Six and Other Stories (2008). It has sion in the newspaper. Nobody was angry and no- been about ten years since that story was pub- body cancelled their subscription, which is always lished: why did you decide to write this book nice [laughter]. After we did it I really felt like we’d now? covered the topic. I like that about short stories. You can hit an idea, you go in and you just – it’s like a PB: When I wrote that short story I had been working hammerblow when you do it right. People will never for an environmental newspaper, High Country News forget the story, they never forget some visceral mo- [HCN]. I had been working as their online editor ment, and you’re done. You don’t have to write a nov- during a very early period in my career. I had actu- el. Novels are totally extraneous. Short stories are ally failed as a novelist at that point. I’d written four the best form ever. They’re terrible for supporting novels and none of them had sold, and I was a com- yourself, but they’re great for giving ideas. They’re plete failure. But I started writing short stories and little idea bombs. I sort of felt like I’d done the job. those started to have a little bit of success. I’d been For years I thought, “climate change, well, everyone talking with an editor at HCN about this new short knows about that, and drought.” It’s written about all story that I was thinking about, which was inspired the time. There’s no territory for me to explore that by some reporting that some of the science and en- somebody else won’t already have touched. So after vironment journalists were doing at the newspaper. I’d written The Windup Girl and actually had some One of them was Mat Jenkins, who was reporting on success as a novelist, there was this period where 20 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 21 we decide to engage in magical thinking about how what do I write about? What seems important or serious that is. For me that’s sort of like catnip. You worthwhile?I went churning If you’re around, going trying to spend to figure a few out, years well, of immediately start extrapolating and thinking, “if this your life doing a book, why do you choose this topic goes on, what does the world look like? If this be- to do it? comes a dominant trend for us, if this is how we be- The trip moment for me was in 2011, when I was have and the kinds of information coming out at us down in Texas during a massive drought that had is true, then what kind of world are we going to end been gripping that state. There were a whole bunch up in?” It just felt like it needed to be written, and of things that were happening there. Farming and that was the moment I sort of locked in the story and ranching were being devastated. They were having said, “okay, I’m going back to this world. I’m going to to put down all their cattle because the land couldn’t attack it again.” support it. All their crops were dying. There were Long answer to a short question, sorry. [laughs] towns that were pumping water from aquifers; those aquifers were drying up, and so those towns were CP: No, that’s great: there’s a lot we can pull out drying up as well. There were rolling brownouts in from there. I’m fascinated by this idea that Texas the state because some of their electricity was gen- showed us the future, now, as if it’s science fic- erated by hydroelectric power and the pumps were tion itself. too low, so they didn’t have enough hydraulic head to turn the turbines to generate the electricity at the PB: That was a really strange moment, actually, be- exact same moment that they were having record cause I did think “I’m time travelling. This is not a numbers of 100 degree days. Everybody’s trying to drought. I’m time travelling. Right now.” And you run air-conditioning, so it’s like this perfect storm of felt it viscerally. I think that’s the other thing. In that demand being super-high at the same time as, sud- moment, ninety percent of the time we discount denly, their electricity grid didn’t have any capacity. whatever the future holds for us because we can’t You saw all of these spots where water touched peo- experience it viscerally. One of the things I’m most ple’s lives and where too little of it screwed every- - thing up. But the thing that really pushed me over ple experience things viscerally that are otherwise the edge was at that exact same time the drought deeplyinterested abstract. in about You fiction can build is that empathy you can for help people peo was happening, the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who you’ve never met, from cultures you’ve never who was also a presidential candidate at the time, experienced, from situations you’ve never known. was going around and holding prayer circles and But in the same sense you can also build empathy praying for rain. for your future self, for your child’s future, because The moment I realised I wanted to write this book you can live inside that future for a second. was the moment where you think, “Oh look, we see In that moment in Texas suddenly I had the empa- something really important happening here. We thy and connection to what a genuinely scarce future have this terrible drought, and on top of that, we see would look like. “I can bring this home for people.” this drought actually matches what climate models That was part of it, too. say future Texas will look like.” So when you put on - CP: That does explain the Texans in the book. In ture, this is the future, right here. You just time-trav- the acknowledgements, one of the first groups of elled.your science Right now fictional in this glasses drought, and youyou lookhave at actually the fu people that you point to are environmental jour- entered future Texas. What does it look like? It looks nalists, and I found that really interesting. Espe- really scary. What is the leadership doing? They are cially because I wondered what that meant for praying for rain. And you think, “reality free-fall here how you conceive of writing a book, what your - this is not a good thing” [laughter]. goals are – That was the moment where I was like, “appar- ently this topic has not been covered enough. It PB: How much of an agenda I have. [laughter] hasn’t been talked about enough,” because you had this strong sense that – okay look: we know the data CP: More, whether you think fiction can do any- tells us bad things are coming, and at the same time thing over and above reporting that reporting 20 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 21 can’t itself do. doing. Something.”
PB: A lot of my friends are science and environment extrapolate outward far beyond where we are right journalists. Actually, one of the people who I sort of now.The But two the things other youthing can is you do can with actually fiction: suck you peo can- built my career with – simultaneous to my moving ple in with entertainment. I think there’s something - She was starting out as a freelance science writer at - aroundmy fiction the careersame time forward that I –was was trying Michelle to – still Nijhuis. try- really beautiful about that. To me, fiction has to func “ohtion yes, as storyI would first, like fiction to eat has my to gruel function today, as I’m enter go- We would set goals for one another. “Okay, have you ingtainment to read first. this I’ve because never it’s picked good up for a me.”book No. thinking, I read submitteding; continuing something to try –to to the break Magazine in as a offiction Science writer. Fic- books because they give me joy, they give me excite- tion and Fantasy yet?” “No I haven’t.” “Well why not?” ment, they give me some sort of visceral pleasure. And the same thing: “Have you written a proposal To me, there’s this amazing thing though where you for National Geographic yet? “No I haven’t.” “Well can have that excitement of reading something that’s why not?” We would set goals and push each other a gripping story, and at the same time illuminate an to keep trying to move our careers forward. entire set of concepts that otherwise we would want These reporters are doing phenomenal work. They to shy away from or avoid or not think about. So it’s tell stories. Lucy has this experience in the book as like you’re getting all your entertainment and you’re well. They tell stories that are profoundly important. getting a new perspective on the world. They are excavating our future. They are showing it to us. They’re showing us exactly what matters and CP: Great! The theme of water rights in The Wa- we ignore it and we ignore it and we ignore it. One ter Knife complements the themes of genetical- of the problems I think – and this is something that ly modified organisms and food scarcity in The came up a lot in conversations. Someone like Mi- Windup Girl. Did you see The Water Knife as a chelle, as a responsible reporter, she can report what natural continuation of your other works? As fill- we see right now. She is not allowed, in any responsi- ing in a gap that was there? Or did you see your- ble way, to say “oh, that’s what the future holds, it will self as doing something distinctively different? I can do that, though. I can be extremely irresponsible. I can create PB: You want to think as an author that you’re doing thatdefinitely distorted, go this terrible, way, here’s broken what future it is.” where all the things go wrong. And that’s not reportage anymore. out that you’re actually repeating yourself in weird But it’s powerful and visceral in a way that science ways.things Youthat startare different to see youreach time,own andfetishistic then you obses find- reporting isn’t. And this is the other problem we ran sions. One of the things that I notice a lot in my writ- into a lot at High Country News. When you report re- ing is the theme of who wins and who loses with any ality, a lot of times people are already too depressed given technological intervention, with any techno- by it to read any more of it. If you just covered ev- logical solution. So with the food security question, ery single extinction that is going on, you could be- come The Journal of Extinction [laughs]. Pretty soon don’t. There are people who are disenfranchised and your readership would also be extinct, because they therethere’s are people people who who profit.are massively There areempowered people whoby a would all start unsubscribing. [laughter] certain technology. I’m really interested in that, and We saw this a lot at High Country News, where it turns out that when I play around with something people would say, “we love what you do, it’s amaz- like the question of water, again it’s the same: I end ing. Here’s a donation for the paper. We’re cancel- up looking at these same lenses of who’s the winner, ling our subscription because we just can’t take who’s the loser, who’s getting disenfranchised, how does capitalism connect to those things. withdrawal that people have. Like the facts are actu- I’m really interested in how capitalism always en- being depressed anymore.” You saw that reflexive self-preservation thing. I do it myself. I don’t want to solution. So in the world of The Windup Girl, which is readally horrifying too much badand news.they have At some to flee point from I’m that. like It’s “No, a gages in the techno-fix, as opposed to a fundamental I want to read Vanity Fair. Tell me what the stars are “okay, we’re experiencing all these droughts. Now all about genetic engineering, the techno-fix is to say, 22 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 23 we need genetic engineering to make more drought resistant plants.” Okay. Then of course the reason why we’re doing this is because, yes, it feeds people, interestedthe profit model in “let’s for justthe verynot dorich.” this That’s global like warming none of thing.the population. Let’s not burnNone carbon.” of those Theretechno-fixes are very are simple at all the question is “who can afford it?” That’s the only marketbut of course we actually it’s profitable care about. is why We we don’t do it. really And thencare to the extent that we actually avert climate change. about – we’re not feeding the world. We’re feeding Butsocial that’s fixes, not which on the would table bein capitalism. for you to taxThere’s carbon no people who can buy our food. Similarly in The Water Knife there’s this moment again and again and again to the cascade of mistakes where drought is an issue and they start building thatdirect we profit made. model That’s built very around much within that, justthe capitalistadapting these things called arcologies. The arcologies are structure, and we’re very good at it. - In The Windup Girl it’s the same set of dynamics grated urban environments, basically. So there’s liv- where everybody’s adapting ahead. One solve leads ingthese and really there’s beautiful, business really and stuff, highly but efficient, there’s intealso to the next problem leads to the next problem leads vertical farms – they’re designed so that they always to the next solve, but nothing ever goes back to the take their nutrients in, so any river water that gets root problem. “Let’s not just go down this whole pumped into these systems gets re-used and re- chain.” Thematically, if there’s anything that I see re- cycled multiple times, and nothing ever comes out ally strongly – “Oh, look at that. I’m at it again” – I again. focus on this one thing. But these are highly engineered systems and they’re built for the people who can afford to buy- CP: That failure to recognise the situation we’re in. So if you can buy your condo inside one of the in and to adapt appropriately is a major theme in arcologies up in Las Vegas or whatever, or in the Tai- the book, not just on the management, capitalist yang arcology down in Phoenix, you’re kind of sitting level, but also the way in which individuals cope pretty. You’ve got a whole set of technological solu- with their change in circumstances, changes be- yond their ability to effect in any way. - ertions. you. You’ve You’ve got got good wonderful air filters, organic so of food course grown forest in PB: Yes. yourfires, aquaponicsmoke and vertical the dust farms. storms You’ve outside got don’tall of boththese things and then right outside there’s people like the CP: I wanted to ask about this notion of infra- Texans or other less fortunate people from Phoe- structure as being central to your works. With nix who can’t afford to get in. The solution for wa- the arcologies, with water systems, and the legal ter scarcity if you’re poor is the clear-sac [laughter]. and economic aspects that structure all of that. Which is basically a plastic bag that you can pee in, It’s as if you build the infrastructure and set the and when you squeeze it, it moves through the plas- characters in it to illuminate that world. Is the characters’ traversal of that world specifically own urine. They’re very cheap, they’re very dispos- what they’re there to do? able,tic and and it’s they filtered, last several so you times.can filter Because and re-filter Phoenix, your by the time this is happening in the story, has lost most - of its municipal services, people throw their plastic ally you as the reader don’t ever notice that’s what they’rePB: That doing is specifically [laughs], sowhat yeah, they’re this is there very to much do. Idepay caught on saguaro cacti, they get hung on billboards, no attention to the man behind the curtain while I sobags it becomesaway and a solidthese waste clear-sacs problem fly aroundas well. Butand thisget manipulate my marionette strings on all these pup- pets. A lot of times, the way I think about stories is that I come at them from this sort of “high” intellec- twentyis what uses,the poor and thencan afford.you need For to fifty buy cents another. you can haveBoth your of those own things urine filteringare essentially bag that’s the same useful kind for climate change, I want to write about drought. Okay, of idea: “Oh, water is scarce? Drought is terrible? Cli- howtual, theoreticaldo you make level this first. meaningful? So I want Okay. to write I want about to - talk about people who plan and people who don’t. el for the very poor” – most of the population. “Here’s Okay, how do I make that meaningful? Okay, I’m go- mate change has affected you. Here’s the profit mod 22 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 23 ing to talk about Las Vegas, a place that plans, and job? Oh, this is Maria trading water. How is Maria Phoenix, a place that doesn’t, and what’s that? But trading water? Oh, who are the gangsters she has to then within that, how do we explore that space? pay off for that water? Oh, that’s a detail I can use in The characters then are all there to – ideally your the novel. Oh, okay, well what’s her central problem, experience of them is that they are fully rounded, or parts of the problem?” I also want to get access to deeply realised people. But I choose someone like this whole idea, you know, of who can afford water Angel as the water knife so that he can create the and who can’t. So suddenly there’s a pump, and the structure of the thriller: the guy who goes out and price changes based on how full of water the aqui- gives people offers on their water rights they can’t fer below is. And Maria is stuck there watching the refuse, the guy who blows up other people’s water pump, and watching the price, and hoping that the treatment plants, that guy is on the hunt for water price will go down so that she can speculate on wa- rights. So this very dangerous person, this very hard- ter and buy in at a low price. Finally you get enough willed personality, is on the hunt for water rights. details so that suddenly Maria, she’s just there, and Someone like Lucy gives you this opportunity to look - at the political systems from an analytic perspec- tive because as a journalist she can interview many howfinally all I willthese be people there. That’sinteract. when You youkind have of believe story ac in different people, she can drop into many different eachtually, of that’s the characters the moment and when they’ve you all start been figuring built up. out kinds of viewpoints, so whether it’s talking to a wa- ter manager, whether it’s talking to a cop or whoever, CP: One of the reasons I’m so enthusiastic about you know suddenly you can get many voices brought that particular scene is because, despite all the into the narrative via the journalist that you couldn’t difficulty with making the legal and economic as- necessarily get access to otherwise. pects appealing to readers – because they’re too Then you’ve got someone like Maria, and here’s abstract, or they don’t understand how it actu- the person who’s the loser in the whole system, the ally works “in the flesh.” I think you do a great job of making that character represent that system, by Texas’ whole failure to plan. Now she has arrived and making us see how that system would actu- inperson a new who’s city that’sbeen completelyalready struggling disenfranchised, and that’s first in- ally work on an individual level. Was it difficult credibly hostile to these new displaced immigrants to bring the abstract and the personal into equi- from Texas. So what does it look like to be a climate librium? refugee? What does it look like to be a climate loser, basically? If you do it right, then you get empathy PB: One of the things is that there are all of these re- and connection with these many different layers of ally weird abstract legal and political frameworks society, you get many different access points. You that overlay water in the Western United States. get to see how the really wealthy live, you get to see There’s two things you’re trying to do: one is that in how the very poor live. You get to see these intellec- order to talk about these things you have to speak tual, wonky-kind of analysis moments, and all of that hopefully builds out the world in this rich way so it like climate change. In order to make it real enough feels real. youabout have a local, to bespecific down level on aof highlyimpact localised for something level. That’s where the visceral occurs. But the problem is strategic planning. It’s like, “where do I need access the more localised you become, the more you alien- points?”In the beginningThen the stagestrick is there’s to actually definitely make a thoselot of ate the outside world. I can talk about water rights people human. You know, “oh, great, intellectually I and anybody who grew up in the Southwestern know I need a journalist, or I know I need a climate Colorado Valley that I grew up in knows about wa- refugee. But I need to make this matter.” It’s a pro- ter rights. They know how they function, they know cess where that part is not very controlled at all. It’s who has good rights and who has bad rights. They not analytic. That’s like you feeling your way into the know where the water is diverted, they know who’s story again and again and again. So that scene with on Farmer’s Ditch versus the Fire Mountain Canal. Maria at the pump, I probably re-wrote ten different They know a whole bunch of things about water in- times. First it was just, “what does Maria do? Is this frastructure and that sort of closed system, a sort of Maria waking up in the morning? Is this Maria at a coded cultural system that then you need to break 24 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 25 out enough to make somebody who’s never felt wa- the top of an arcology looking down through all of ter scarcity at all suddenly think that these things the cascading waterfalls in this beautiful, lush, engi- matter. Junior rights? Senior rights? Whoever heard neered landscape. I needed that. It was a late addi- of these things? tion to the book: I realised I needed it because there Similarly, what are the dynamics of geography? If wasn’t enough of a sense of what the water winners’ you’ve never spent any time in the Western United lives might look like. I was like, “Oh, that’s missing, I States, you aren’t really interested in the Upper Basin States versus the Lower Basin States. You don’t even Many iterations. necessarily know where the Colorado River is. You need to find some sort of way to introduce it.” Yeah. don’t know how big it is, you can’t imagine it. There’s CP: One of the other themes that’s mentioned is so many of those things that you need to build out to linked to Zimbardo’s real-world prison experi- the point that they become real. You know them in ment. Taking the notion that our choices are de- - fined by the infrastructure we find ourselves in, versalised in some way. All of that is actually com- the setting, how important is that moral aspect? plicatedtheir specificity and it’s buta bit you of wantan experiment them to become where uniyou Choice, being able to shape our own destiny, be- ing trapped in the infrastructures that we find I did this,” and you sort of hold your breath and you ourselves in? wait.actually So rollwhat the you’re thing trying out, and to dofinally is take you all say, those “I think ab- stractions and trying to make them concrete in this PB: Okay, so this is really important to me, actually. One of the things when you’re writing a novel is that universal. it is supposed to be about something that has some specificThat’s space,what theand characters then drag canit out do again then: to if makeeach ofit big dramatic thing: climate change bad! [laughter] these characters in their moment – if Maria experi- Which sounds terrible – would you read that book? ences a certain aspect of water and pricing and aqui- Hell no I wouldn’t read that book! [laughter]. fers in Phoenix, and Angel in another moment, you with some sort of values concept in the back of your the Colorado River and you get to see it, and you get headOne is of that the you’re things very that quickly you find going when to youend writeup in tocan look have at athat moment and you where can sorthis helicopterof get a sense flies of over the this place that feels extremely didactic. It feels ex- ceedingly formulaic. You don’t want to end up there. It turns out if you build the world out – and I really Ocean,snow falling a thousand in the Rockiesmiles across that flowsmultiple down States, through and do believe this – then the characters simply occupy talkthis entireabout allsystem. of the It dams goes allthat the are way in theto the way. Pacific That the roles that world dictates to them. Suddenly those there’s Soldier Dam, and Glen Canyon Dam, and Lake characters are not puppets saying “I have the right Powell and Lake Mead. You’ve got Lake Havasu – this values. Those bad guys have the wrong values. Let’s chain of dams, this chain of engineering projects. do battle with the bad people who have bad values.” It doesn’t become like that. Instead you have this you get that physicality of landscape and why it mat- hugely complex world where some people are win- ters.Trying to find ways to describe all of these things so ners and some people are losers, some people have You attack at many, many times, and oftentimes the problem is that while you’re trying to attack it, people haven’t, and you just have to set them loose tofigured live their out somelives insideway to of get the ahead structure a little that bit, you’ve some chapters. Most of that has to be sorted out: you have - toyou introduce have to sort the it characters, out in about you the have first tothree introduce to five cally having no money, you’ve been put on the road, some sense of some sort of stakes, you have to intro- chasedalready built.out of Once or across you’ve Newdefined Mexico somebody or whatever, as basi duce this really alien world to most people and make been chased out of Texas, you’ve made it as far as it seem real. I end up spending a lot of time in the Phoenix, there’s border control laws that are keep- ing you from getting anywhere else, you have no attack points. money and your father is dead, what next? You don’t beginningIt’s interesting parts ofwhat the youbook end trying up discarding. to find different Origi- need to worry anymore about saying climate change nally in the opening scene I had Angel standing at bad because, boy, Maria’s experiencing it, you know? 24 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 25 and it’s college preparatory. Suddenly you’re sur- through the mess that our present world is creat- rounded by a whole bunch of really smart people ingNow for you her. just She have just tohas root to occupy for her her figuring heartfelt her role:way who are all going to college and expect that, and ev- “Wow, I’m hosed here. What do I do next to survive?” erybody values learning and suddenly there are no And similarly Angel, who’s the water knife, is com- disasters in anybody’s life, and suddenly your life is no longer a disaster either. It’s like, “Wait a second, supports him. Why are you a water knife for Cathe- I’m the same person, nothing changed except for rineing from Case? a spaceWell, becausewhere he’s I didn’t finally want found to geta niche shipped that my location, literally.” That’s fascinating to me. It’s down to be stuck like Maria, you know. There’s a still sort of troubling, and I have other friends who moved out of Pueblo and their lives became night of those characters, as they live in their naturally dic- and day different. When they got away - it was like tatedspecific sort reason of habitat, that makes I guess, pretty created good by sense.that world Each- that place was just a miasma. building that you’ve done, they become whole and real. I think this really is true: we have illusions of CP: How did you go about your research? I know free will, but so much of it is dictated by the circum- you mentioned environmental journalists, but stances that we’re born into, the circumstances that I’m also curious if there were any other avenues we grow up in. The roles that we are told we occupy for your research into water rights? If there were we tend to occupy. people who were turned on to these ideas and It’s actually incredibly hard, and it’s fascinating wanted to find out more, where would they go? what happens when you pull somebody out of one environment and drop them into another. I moved PB: The starting point for almost all things water in around a lot when I was a kid and so when you moved the Western United States would be Marc Reisner’s into a new school you could re-invent yourself and Cadillac Desert. I actually turned it into a piece of you could just become somebody new. I became the the plot in the book, because you sort of have to pay cool kid [laughter]. In the last town I was a dork, but homage to this book. He talks about how we created today I was the cool kid. One of the places I lived was and engineered a water utopia in the desert and also Pueblo, Colorado. I called the place “where hope goes how crazy that was. He wrote this book back in the to die.” It really was true. This is, of course, the clas- eighties just to describe the whole foolish experi- ment we were on and said that it was an unsustain- a friend of mine was shot in the head and died be- able experiment then, and it’s only become more so causesic American he and story,his friends right? were I was messing fifteen years around old with and now. So Cadillac Desert is without question the spot a gun that he owned. This happens in Pueblo. And that I start with when I think about these things. In terms of the research that I was doing, a lot of it was out how to help her not live at her home because her doing things like going to drought conferences and fatherthis other beats friend her, andof mine, so we’re well tryingwe’re tryingto help to her figure live listening to different experts talking about drought at everybody else’s home until he goes back on night and also watching how political leaders talked about shifts so he’s not at home anymore so she can go drought. Watching how there were these moments home. All these horrible, horrible things. where you could be at a drought conference – and I I lived there for a year and, as that world pressed crashed this one in Denver that was really interest- down on you, you felt more and more helpless. You ing – Colorado went through a drought in 2012, so made worse and worse decisions. Everything sort I went to their drought conferences. Drought just of felt hard. You could see the cascade of your own seems to move around – there’s always one some- bad decisions. Okay, why are you in this car driving where. It was actually really handy when the book drunk right now? Because apparently that’s what came out last year because California was in a mas- sive drought. It was like the marketing department had just organised weather control on my behalf. outyou itdo was when a terrible the trailer spot next to be door and got I applied lit on fire to –go and to Suddenly mine was the most relevant book ever. It aI’m private not making school. that I got up. to Ingo the to a next private moment school I figured for the was really dark [laughter]. last two years of my High School. You talk to people who are involved in water infra- It’s both wealthy and everybody values education, structure. I had this really interesting experience of 26 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 27 talking to a water manager from Denver about how ing used. They’re pumping water all the way from they planned for the future, how they think about the Colorado River, 300 miles across the desert to it and how they assess risk. The thing that was re- recharge their aquifers, and you start investigating ally interesting about that was that I asked him how all this water infrastructure. I actually drove down many droughts he thought Denver could survive that the Colorado River, then followed and sort of hunted were similar to our 2012 drought and how many down the Central Arizona Project, this giant canal years of drought we can survive. He said “well, you running through this vast desert. It’s just out there in the middle of nowhere, you know? There’s nothing asked him “so what are the chances that could hap- around you. There’s Ocotillo sticking out, you know, know, we could probably last about five years.” I that’s it. You’re out there in this concrete lined canal, would be dead, we’d be on massive water rationing, by this chain link fence, and there’s this massive man- youpen?” wouldn’t He said, have “you any know, more in commercial five years all uses the of trees wa- made river that’s being pumped uphill and across ter, so we’d probably cut off the Coca-Cola bottling this desert and they actually have a whole dedicated plant and a bunch of other things like that but we coal power plant to move this water from the Colo- could still be holding on.” So, “okay, how likely is that rado all the way to Phoenix. You go and investigate the infrastructure and nobody’s interested in it, but like this?” He says “well, it’s never happened before.” Google Maps, Youto happen? say “climate That wechange could effects have five the yearswhole of map. drought You and then you can go hunt it down on the ground, too. can’t look at your historical record in any way when Andit’s just so Ilying did things there. likeYou that,can findyou itknow. on It’s all sorts you’re planning for risk assessment.” He hemmed of stuff. and he hawed and it essentially came down to, “well, that’s really complicated and we don’t know.” You I would like to thank Paolo Bacigalupi for this fas- suddenly realise that one of the people who’s tasked cinating interview and for an evening of engaging with doing the risk assessment and doing the plan- conversation. A special thank you is also due to Glyn ning for a major municipality has no idea how much Morgan, who arranged this event, and to Gemma risk they’re involved in. The consequences are es- Conley-Smith from Orbit Books. sentially sky-high and the planning is zero. So when you see stuff like that you’re sort of dragging it into Bibliography the book, you’re turning up the volume on the book. So there are things like that. Bacigalupi, Paolo. Pump Six and Other Stories. San It’s a really interesting thing actually, because Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2008. some of it is sort of book learning stuff. How do aqui- --. Ship Breaker. New York: Little, Brown, 2010. fers work, and what’s aquifer pumping like and how --. The Doubt Factory. New York: Little, Brown, 2014. do they do aquifer management in Phoenix. You can --. The Drowned Cities. New York: Little, Brown, 2012. - --. The Water Knife. London: Orbit, 2015. ter pumping and where they’re pumping from, and --. The Windup Girl. San Francisco: Nightshade Books, wherefind these the reallylocalised cool zones maps ofof depressionhow they do are, their where wa 2009. they’ve pumped their aquifers so much that they’ve --. Zombie Baseball Beatdown. New York: Little, actually subsided some – the ground is actually sunk Brown, 2013. – but also where the Central Arizona Project is be-
26 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 27 Feature 101 etc. inevitably make us pause, wonder and reconsid- er. Indeed, it has been speculated that this universe Simulation Scenarios in the Star of ours is some form of computer simulation since Trek Universe Reject Solipsism forecasts by serious technologists and futur- ologists predict that enormous amounts of Victor Grech computing power will be available in the fu- ture [...] (t)hen it could be the case that [...] Introduction minds like ours do not belong to the original WE RARELY THINK to question the true nature of race but rather to people simulated by the reality, which seems unambiguous and clear to our advanced descendants of an original race. senses – a Materialist viewpoint. However, since (Bostrom 1) that which we sense and come to know comes about through a potentially fallible sensory interface, it The possibility of the mind being fooled into believ- may well be that the nature of reality is different ing in a false reality is an old SF trope, as famously to that which we perceive, experience, and take as depicted in Gunn’s The Joy Makers and more recently given. The Matrix Many thinkers have attempted to come to grips and Weir’s The Truman Show. with this contentious issue, and a short list includes inJones film suchet al haveas the posited Wachowski six hypothetical brothers’ simulation Plato, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Mill, Heidegger scenarios – that is, theoretical alternative constructs and many others. The essential questions are: what of simulated reality: physical presence, intercept, constitutes reality? Is reality comprised of objective matter and energy that are directly accessible to our In Star Trek (ST), reality can be altered in two ways: mind through our senses? Does this then provide throughavatar, android, non-Federation infinite regression, techniques and and monism. through an accurate description of the very quintessence of Federation holodeck technology. The former may be things rather than their possibly imperfect repre- further subdivided into procedures that deceive the sentation as offered to us through our senses? Or is mind and techniques that truly transform the very our perceived reality constructed of abstractions, fabric of reality. Examples of such simulations will - be investigated within the ST universe which has de- riences? Guba and Lincoln (104) have neatly sum- picted almost all of these scenarios. marisedwith thoughts and categorised reified as these subjective questions concrete as follows: expe The discussion will then focus on how mind may be duped through the senses and how the possibil- Ontologically: What is the nature and form of ity of humanity acquiring holodeck technology may reality, and what is there that can be discov- ered about it? Epistemologically: What is the nature of the Non-Federationhave both beneficial Techniques and harmful consequences. relationship between the knower and what Deliberate Mental Deception can be known? The Intercept Scenario proposes a situation where- Methodologically: How can the explorer dis- in although we are in complete control of our con- cover whatever it is believed can be discov- sciousness, the rest, including our bodies, are ar- ered? Matrix-type setting. Several schools of thought have endeavoured to an- tificialThis is constructs, precisely what existing happens solely to in Captain the mind, Picard a swer these questions, including idealism, existential- when an alien probe paralyses him and dumps his ism, pragmatism, phenomenology, logical positiv- consciouness into an alien setting, living out a life ism, metaphysical subjectivism, deconstructionism, in speed-up/acceleration as a member of an extinct and post-modernism (Stokes). Naturally, the very race. This process is an anachrony, one form of delib- characteristics of the arguments preclude any de- erate time distortion wherein narrative time is faster than time in the external world. After living out an finitive conclusions, but the increasing realism of 3D 28 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 29 high definition television and cinema, videogames, entire lifetime in twenty-five minutes of objective time, just before being returned to the Enterprise, of this. The inhabitants of this planet can read Picard is told, while still within the simulation, that our minds. They can create illusions out of a the aliens had person’s own thoughts, memories, and expe- riences, even out of a person’s own desires. hoped our probe would encounter some- Illusions just as real and solid as this table top one in the future. Someone who could be a and just as impossible to ignore. (Butler, “The teacher. Someone who could tell the others Cage”) about us. […] The rest of us have been gone for a thousand years. If you remember what The Original Series bridge crew also succumb to we were, and how we lived, then we’ll have - found life again. […] Now we live in you. Tell selves in the simulated western town of Tombstone them of us. (Lauritson, “The Inner Light”) (McEveety,aliens in a Monism“Spectre Scenario of the Gun”), when whereinthey find the them al- most voodoo-like belief that one has been shot by a An even subtler deception occurs when the Enter- pistol can be fatal, as happens to Enterprise naviga- prise is scanned by unknown technology and the memories of the entire ship’s crew are selectively acting the roles of Billy Clanton and the McLaury and partially erased. They retain practical skills and brotherstor Chekov. against The crewimaginary thus find Earp themselves brothers and forcibly Doc knowledge but expunged is all knowledge of per- sonal identity, the identities of anyone else, and the Fortunately, Spock realises the nature of their pre- ship’s mission. The ship’s computer is also affected dicament:Holliday in the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. in this discriminating way, and an alien joins the - A fact, Captain. Physical laws simply can- fest (including a false entry that adds the alien as a not be ignored. Existence cannot be with- high-rankingbridge crew. Aftercrew significantmember) effort,and an the altered crew maniship’s out them. [...] we are faced with a staggering mission are located within the computer. The false contradiction. The tranquilliser you created mission, spurred on by the alien, is an attack on an- should have been effective. [...] His mind other alien command and control centre while main- killed him. [...] Physical reality is consistent taining communications silence. However, the alien with universal laws. Where the laws do not defences are no match for the Enterprise which sails operate, there is no reality. All of this is un- into close proximity to the command centre against real. [...] We judge reality by the response completely ineffective resistance. It is at this point of our senses. Once we are convinced of the that the crew balks and refuses to carry out their reality of a given situation, we abide by its fraudulent order (Landau, “Conundrum”). rules. We judged the bullets to be solid, the Some alien species appear to be able to alter the guns to be real, therefore they can kill. [...] perception of the nature of reality by mental means Chekov is dead because he believed the bul- alone, thus producing the Monism Scenario, such lets would kill him. [...] I know the bullets are “that although we are in control of our own con- unreal, therefore they cannot harm me. [...] sciousness, our bodies and the material world that The smallest doubt would be enough to kill you. (McEveety, “Spectre of the Gun”) ST, the initial pilot, clear- lysurrounds demonstrates us are this an when artificial the construction”Enterprise crew (Jones en- Spock hypnotically convinces his colleagues of the counter2). The very aliens first with episode incredible of mental abilities. They unreality of the situation through a mind-meld, al- are able to create
a perfect illusion. They had us seeing just lowingThe the bullets crew areto survive unreal. the Without gunfight: body. They what we wanted to see, human beings who’d are illusions only. Shadows without sub- survived with dignity and bravery, everything stance. They will not pass through your body, entirely logical, right down to the building of for they do not exist. [...] Unreal. Appearances the camp, the tattered clothing, everything. only. [...] Nothing but ghosts of reality. They Now let’s be sure we understand the danger are lies. Falsehoods. Spectres without body. 28 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 29 They are to be ignored. (McEveety, “Spectre of the Gun”) “The Nexus,” a non-sentient natural phenomenon, an Both Kirk and Picard find themselves trapped in Deliberate Reworking of Reality energy ribbon [...] travelling through the uni- Reality may be refabricated through the use of vague- verse. It’s a doorway to another place [...] It’s ly described machinery resulting in a Physical Pres- a place that I’ve tried very, very hard to for- ence Scenario, as used by the Trelane in “The Squire get. [...] It was like being inside joy. As if joy of Gothos” (McDougall) and by Barash in “Future was something tangible [...] and you could Imperfect” (Landau). In both episodes, Trelane and wrap yourself in it like a blanket. And never Barash abuse their technology and it transpires that in my entire life have I been as content. [...] both are equivalent to immature, small children. The I would have done anything, [...] anything to latter is an even more complex scenario as Barash get back there. But once I realised that wasn’t and his devices bury Riker, the Enterprise - possible I learned to live without that. If you go, you’re not going to care about anything. totally different realities, which he has to individual’s first of- [...] All you’ll want is to stay in the Nexus. And lyficer, penetrate. in several The Matryoshka-like reason why Barash layers sought of nested to retain and you’re not going to want to come back. (Car- Riker is that although “(t)he neural scanners read son, Star Trek: Generations) my mind, give me everything I want. [...] the scan- ners to protect me, [...] give me anything I wanted” This is because the Nexus creates Physical Presence Scenarios that permit each individual trapped with- “It’s been so long. I just want somebody real.” This is in it to bring their imagination to life, an even more (Landau, “Future Imperfect”), this was insufficient: powerful ability than active dreaming (Carson, Star the possibility that existence may be an amalgam of Trek: Generations). severalan example nested of scenariosthe the Infinite as already Regression described Scenario, above, or others that are inconceivable, resulting in a set of Federation Techniques – The Holodeck “simulations within simulations” that have limitless The holodeck in ST is a device that combines sev- potential regarding the total number of worlds or eral individual and programmable ST technologies: universes that might be nested within each other. Alien beings may also be able to distort or change (Grech, “The Trick”). In this way, objects or living reality without any obvious reliance on equipment. creaturesreplication, and transportation reality itself are and simulated, shaped force deceiving fields In “Where Silence Has Lease” (Kolbe), Nagilum, an amorphous being in a self-enclosed universe, is ca- and immerses individuals “in a virtual environment pable of generating the illusion of sentient beings thatall five is sosenses. realistic This it is cannot a Physical be distinguished Presence Scenario from that mimic members of the Enterprise crew. the true physical environment” (Jones 2). Indeed, However, the ultimate manipulators of reality are this technology goes beyond simulation: the “Q” species who are literally supernatural, and hence best able to create Physical Presence Scenari- Riker: I didn’t believe these simulations could os. They are immortal and unbounded by space and be this real. time. The Q are also able to surmount all physical Data: Much of it is real, sir. If the transporters universal constraints including natural laws, such as can convert our bodies to an energy beam, the ability to create matter and energy. This allows then back to the original pattern again. (Co- ST the potential rey, “Encounter at Farpoint”) bethe played first Q on that humanity. is encountered Picard accuses in him: “you’re Holodecks can be used to fool individuals or even en- nextfor an of almost kin to infinitechaos.” numberTo which of Q Loki-like retorts: tricks“I add to a tire races when built to a large enough scale (Frakes, little excitement, a little spice to your lives, and all Star Trek: Insurrection). you do is complain. Where’s your adventurous spir- The holodeck itself also provides the possibility of it, your imagination. [...] Think of the possibilities” (Bowman, “Q Who”). and this is experienced when a being who reaches Indifferent Simulations sentiencethe recreation in the of holodeck the Infinite takes Regression control of the Scenario, Enter- 30 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 31 prise and the only way to terminate this control is would normally receive and process sensory inputs, to deceive him into a simulation within a simulation. which are then collated and witnessed by the con- Captain Picard then muses that “our reality may [...] scious mind. just be an elaborate simulation running inside a lit- Most sensory impressions (excluding olfaction) tle device sitting on someone’s table” (Singer, “Ship pass through a brain structure called the thalamus in a Bottle”). which is located under the cerebral cortex. The thal- Two other scenarios have not been mentioned, the Android and Avatar scenarios. to the appropriate part of the cerebral cortex. For ex- ample,amus selectively in the case filters of vision, these electrical signals and impulses relays themrelay The Android Scenario signals from the eyes to the thalamus and thence to This particular scenario exists ubiquitously in ST the occipital cortex at the back of the head where since Data and holograms are synthetic creations, visual processing is actually carried out and is then simulated individuals (rather than environments) viewed by the conscious mind which is located more who theoretically have limits and parameters that anteriorly in the cerebral coretex. are not only physical, but also mental and psycho- In some of the abovementioned narratives, only logical. However, a recurring theme associated with the illusion of the substance exists and such chime- these characters is their ability to transcend their programming and become more than the sum of of false data either directly to the senses, at the tha- their parts – an emergent property (Grech, “The Pin- lamicras may level, be createdor precisely by the to unspecifiedthe appropriate presentation locus in occhio Syndrome”). As the Emergency Medical Holo- the cerebral cortex. gram is told by his own creator, “You have exceeded To a greater or lesser extent, these possibilities also the sum of your programming. You’ve accomplished support the Cartesian tenet of doubt. The rational- far more than I would have ever predicted” (Kroeker ist philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) argued “Endgame”). that knowledge is gained from the senses, which may mislead even under ordinary circumstances. The Avatar Scenario The opportunity for error is therefore greatly multi- This is not depicted in ST, possibly because it is the plied by the possibilities shown in these narratives. antithesis of humanism, a strongly held belief of Moreover, simulations may encourage philosophic Gene Roddenberry, ST’s creator (Alexander 14). This solipsism, the conjecture that only the self exists, as scenario posits the possibility that our bodies are speculated by the presocratic Greek sophist, Gorgias extremely realistic avatars imperceptibly controlled of Leontini (c. 483–375 BC). This may, in turn, lead to by external beings. Thus, we have no consciousness vulgar solipsism, an extreme egoistic self-absorption other that of the contoller. Roddenberry was a hu- and self-indulgence of one’s feelings and desires. manist, believing both that we should assign prime Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1763) was an Irish importance to human rather than divine and super- philosopher, a contemporary of Newton and the natural matters and that the search for truth through father of philosophical idealism. Berkeley argues - against our inherent intuitions and contends that nario would completely contravene the ST ethos. objects we see are in reality immaterial, and that reason and the scientific method is central. This sce nothing exists outside of the mind and its observ- Discussion ing senses. This is known as Idealism, a philosophi- cal concept that states that reality as we percieve been the subject of protracted debate and include it is a mental construction. This notion dates back theThe possibilitytrue nature that of reality all is notand what its very it seems.definition This have ar- to ancient Grecian times. The pre-Socratic philoso- gument is strengthened by the abovementioned ST pher Anaxagoras (c. 500- 428 BC) argued that Nous episodes which emphasise the impermanence of (Mind) not only created the physical universe but seeming actuality and the ease with which the mind was also the ordering force behind it. More recently, may be deceived with objects that only appear to be Berkeley proposed an Inconceivability Argument authentic. As shown above, these strategies may in- which can be summarised as esse est percipi (to be volve false inputs through the senses or the direct is to be perceived). This is the view that the physical stimulation of the appropriate brain centres that universe is merely a perception since according to 30 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 31 Berkeley it is impossible to attempt to conceive of an In short, the attitude toward the holodeck is that object existing independent of anybody observing it. “(t)here’s nothing wrong with a healthy fantasy life, Berkeley further argued that our perceptions are as long as you don’t let it take over”, a Heinleinian at- produced for us by God, who is omnipotent and omnipresent and perceives everything at all times. 1873), who felt that we should lead lives as we see Hence, even objects unobserved by us maintain titude that was prefigured by John Stuart Mill (1806- their existence in our absence. The Supreme Being Indeed, “as far as I’m concerned what you do in the is therefore also directly responsible for our ideas. holodeckfit unless is we your impinge own business, on the happiness as long as ofit doesn’t others. This theistic organisational viewpoint is very infre- interfere with your work” (Bole, “Hollow Pursuits”). quently acknowledged in ST and is obliquely alluded This technology is therefore viewed as being ethical- to by Picard: ly neutral: “it was not the machine, but what one did with the machine that was its meaning or message” Considering the marvellous complexity of (McLuhan 7). our universe, its clockwork perfection, its The holodeck may also be used for educational and balances of this against that, matter, energy, research purposes, including meeting simulations of gravitation, time, dimension, I believe that famous minds such as Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein our existence must be more than either of and Steven Hawking (Singer, “Descent”). Moreover, these philosophies. That what we are goes recreations of individuals may also help solve sci- beyond Euclidian and other practical mea- suring systems and that our existence is part Trap”). of a reality beyond what we understand now entific/engineeringHowever, activity in difficulties the holodeck (Beaumont, appears “Booby to be as reality. (Kolbe, “Where Silence Has Lease”) controlled by inexplicit moral rules. For example, in Deep Space 9, in Quark’s bar, sexual holo-adventures Of all of the abovementioned tropes, the holodeck appear to be available for a price, but it is not al- is the only technology conceivably within human- lowed to duplicate real persons within the holodeck ity’s grasp. A common use for the holodeck is the for such activities as “(i)t is kind of unusual, recreat- Epicurean penchant for starship crews to relax sen- ing people you already know” (Frakes, “Meridian”). sibly. Epicurus (341-271 BC) advocated the pursuit However, a laudable exception is shown to be life of happiness and taught that temperance and pru- dence are crucial strictures that also apply inside the stranded starship Voyager enters pon farr, a physi- holodeck. ologicalsaving when condition a Vulcan that science occurs officerevery seven(Tuvok) years on thefor Thus, the holodeck permits individuals or groups males of this species wherein they must mate with of individuals to enter novels (Scanlan, “The Big their wife or die. Tom Paris, the ship’s helmsman, Goodbye”), recreate historical events such as the Bat- offers to program the holodeck to simulate Tuvok’s tle of the Alamo (Vejar, “The Changing Face of Evil”) wife: and the Battle of Britain (Livingston, “Homefront”), watch past famous baseball games (Lobl, “For The Tuvok: I am a married man. Uniform”), provide the opportunity for calisthenics Paris: It’s the holodeck, Tuvok. It doesn’t (Mayberry, “Code of Honour”) and set the stage for a count. romantic date (Beaumont, “Booby Trap”). Tuvok: Is that what you tell your wife? Individuals may even become strongly attracted to Paris: No, of course not. [...] You wouldn’t be completely simulated holographic characters who breaking your vows if it’s a hologram of your have no real life counterparts. Riker, for example, wife (McNeill, “Body and Soul”). is captivated by a holographic woman, who muses “A dream? Is that what this is? Is that what I am?” Moreover Voyager’s captain Janeway deems it inap- Riker confesses to his captain: “It’s uncanny. I could propriate to romantically and/or sexually consort develop feelings for Minuet, exactly as I would for with her subordinates, and she therefore programs any woman.” To which Picard replies “Doesn’t love a virtual lover. However, he is too compliant for her always begin that way? With the illusion being more wishes, so she locks herself out of the holodeck con- real than the woman?” (Lynch, “11001001”). trols, in essence giving the character a modicum of 32 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 33 free will. nial, claiming that “There is nothing wrong with me The comfortable simulations of the holodeck may [...] this isn’t a relapse of [...] holo-addiction” (ibid), also lead to holo-addiction, which is usually an es- cape mechanism that is symptomatic of deep psy- A common thread that runs through all of the chological problems wherein the addictee spends abovebefore is finally the presupposition acknowledging that his aproblem. simulation “(i)sn’t time in manufactured realities within the holodeck real [...] Nothing here is. [...] Nothing here matters,” in preference to the real external reality (Bole, “Hol- as opposed to the real world, outside of a simulation, low Pursuits”). because in the real world, “while you’re there, you In Star Trek: The Next Generation, a recurring char- can make a difference” (Carson, Star Trek: Genera- acter has severe issues with holo-addiction. The in- tions). dividual in question is a Lt. Barclay, whose name is almost certainly an allusion to Berkeley. Barclay’s challenge is inbuilt in the holodeck, which incorpo- addiction stems from his “history of seclusive ten- ratesIndeed, safety-protocols wish-fullfillment that are and designed a complete to protect lack of dencies [...] he’s always late. The man’s nervous. No- the users. Weapons therefore cannot wound or kill body wants to be around this guy”. This is because and falls are cushioned and so on (Scanlan, “The Big Goodbye”). However, ST’s Federation champions ex- and ultimately predictable simulated environment ploration, even at the cost of some risk, and like Kirk ofBarclay the holodeck is far more than confident in the rough inside and thetumble controlled of real ensconced within the Nexus, the removal of true ob- life. His superior observes: “[y]ou’re going to be able stacles and satisfaction guaranteed without effort is to write the book on holoaddiction” and he is forced regarded with contempt. to undergo psychological counselling after being Conversely, when holographic characters gain sen- caught programming the holodeck with droll simu- tience, they only appear real when they interact with lations of fellow crew members that the real-life ver- the real world and make a difference. For example, sions found objectionable (Star Trek: The Next Gen- the Emergency Medical Hologram (doctor) on Voy- eration). ager becomes a vital and actively contributing senior Barclay resurfaces in Voyager, where he reveals member of the crew when the human doctor dies. that he never fully unpacked and moved into his In conclusion, in the epicurean ST universe, simu- apartment, admitting that “(f)or some reason I nev- lations are seen as tolerable in small doses with ethi- er slept in my apartment as comfortably as I did in cal and suitable goals, such as reasonable recreation and for the purposes of work-related simulations, Fortunately, Barclay has some insight, confessing but abhorrent when overused and abused merely tomy his holographic psychologist quarters” “I’ve lost (Vejar, myself “Pathfinder”). [...] I wanted to, for the achievement of one’s self-satisfaction, there- by rejecting any solipsistic tendencies. to work. [...] I needed someone to, er bounce ideas offer, fineof. Someone tune my to plan, help so, focus I er, my just thoughts. went right [...] went back back to the Holodeck [...] They’re the only people Works Cited that I can talk to. [...] (T)hey help me with my work [...] If an obsession helps me to do my job better, it’s “11001001.” Dir. Paul Lynch. Star Trek: The Next Gen- eration. Paramount. February 1988. exchange [...] more important than my psychological “Body and Soul.” Dir. Robert Duncan McNeill. Star condition”a sacrifice I am willing to make. A little instability in Trek: Voyager. Paramount. November 2000. But the down side is that Barclay gets “the days “Booby Trap.” Dir. Gabrielle Beaumont. Star Trek: mixed up” and fails to complete assigned work and The Next Generation. Paramount October 1989. attend important appointments. His psychologist “Code of Honour.” Dir Russ Mayberry. Star Trek: The accuses him: “Poker? Massages? Sleeping in holo- Next Generation. Paramount May 1987. graphic quarters? Sounds more like escape than “Conundrum.” Dir. Les Landau. Star Trek: The Next work [...] Look at yourself. You’re experiencing acute Generation. Paramount. February 1992. anxiety, sleeplessness, paranoia. [...]We need to take “Descent.” Dir. Alexander Singer. Star Trek: The Next care of you.” Generation. Paramount. June 1993. However, almost to the very end, he remains in de- “Encounter at Farpoint.” Dir. Allen Corey. Star Trek: 32 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 33 The Next Generation. September 1987. Berkeley George. A Treatise Concerning the Princi- “Endgame.” Dir. Kroeker Allan. Star Trek: Voyager. ples of Human Knowledge. Dublin: Aaron Rhames, Paramount. May 2001. 1710. “For The Uniform.” Dir. Victor Lobl. Star Trek: Voy- Bostrom N. “Are You Living in a Computer Simula- ager. Paramount. February 1997. tion?” Philosophical Quarterly, 52.211 (2003): “Future Imperfect.” Dir. Les Landau. Star Trek: The 243–255. Next Generation. Paramount November 1990. Descartes René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Par- “Hollow Pursuits.” Dir. Cliff Bole. Star Trek: The Next is: Michaelem Soly, 1641. Generation. Paramount. April 1990. Eberl Jason T. and Kevin S. Decker. Star Trek and Phi- “Homefront.” Dir. David Livingston. Star Trek: Deep losophy. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co, 2008. Space 9. Paramount. January 1996. Grech Victor. “The Pinocchio Syndrome and the Pros- “Meridian.” Dir. Jonathan Frakes. Star Trek: Deep thetic Impulse in Science Fiction.” The New York Space 9. Paramount. November 1984. Review of Science Fiction, 24.8 (2012): 11–15. Star Trek: Voyager. Par- Grech Victor. “The Trick of Hard SF is to Minimize amount. December 1999. Cheating Not Just Disguise It With Fancy Foot- “Q“Pathfinder.” Who.” Dir. Dir.Rob Mike Bowman. Vejar. Star Trek: Voyager. Para- work: The Transporter in Star Trek: Can It Work?” mount. May 1989. Foundation, 111 (2011): 52–67. “Ship in a Bottle.” Dir. Singer Alexander. Star Trek: Guba, E.G. and Lincoln Y.S. “Competing paradigms in The Next Generation. Paramount. January 1993. qualitative research.” Handbook of Qualitative Re- “Spectre of the Gun.” Dir. Vincent McEveety. Star Trek: search. Ed. N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln, London: The Original Series. Paramount. October 1968. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 1994. 105–117. “The Big Goodbye.” Dir. Joseph L. Scanlan. Star Trek: Gunn James. The Joy Makers. New York: Bantam, The Next Generation. Paramount. January 1988. 1961. “The Cage.” Dir. George Butler. Star Trek: The Original Insurrection. Dir. Frakes Jonathon. Paramount. 1998. Series. Paramount. February 1965. Jones, Matthew T., Matthew Lombard and Joan Jasak. “The Changing Face of Evil.” Dir. Mike Vejar. Star Trek: “(Tele)Presence and Simulation: Questions of Deep Space 9. Paramount April 1999. Epistemology, Religion, Morality, and Mortality.” “The Inner Light.” Dir. Peter Lauritson. Star Trek: The PsychNology Journal, 9.3: 193–222. Next Generation. Paramount. June 1992. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Ex- “The Squire of Gothos.” Dir. Don McDougall. Star Trek: tensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. The Original Series. Paramount. January 1967. Star Trek: Generations. Dir. David Carson. Paramount. “Where Silence Has Lease.” Dir. Winrich Kolbe. Star 1994. Trek: The Next Generation. Paramount. Novem- Stokes Philip. Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers. ber 1988. New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2002. Alexander, David. “The Roddenberry Interview.” The The Matrix. Dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wa- Humanist, 51:2 (1991): 5–30, 38. chowski. Warner Bros., 1999. Barad Judith and Ed Robertson. The Ethics of Star The Truman Show. Dir. Peter Weir. Paramount, 1998. Trek. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
34 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 35 Nonfiction Reviews peared in Science Fiction Studies in 2012. Unlike Mys- tery, the new book is unlikely to be “fascinating from beginning to end,” since there is no special goal; his An Astounding War: Science research has collected a lot of information about the Fiction and World War II Astoundingreflections ofduring World that War period. II (the To period some extent from 1939each Bruce A. Beatie ofto the1945) ten inchapters the fiction can beand read nonfiction independently published of the in - Wysocki, Edward M., Jr. An Astounding War: Science ters,” Wysocki says in his “Summary,” was “to provide Fiction and World War II. North Charleston, SC: historicalothers. “The background primary purpose of the pulp of themagazines first four and chap sci- CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Astound- 2015. Paperback, 299 pages, $24.95, ISBN: 978- ing (War 1499647006, and available on Kindle. Energyence fiction” and Atomic during Bombs,”the war, “Theespecially Combat in Informa- tion Center,” 223). “The Chapters Naval Aircraft five through Factory,” nine, “Technical “Atomic Order option(s): Paper | Kindle | CreateSpace Suggestions,” and “Helping to Defeat the Kamikazes,” discuss, often in highly technical detail, special war- DR. WYSOCKI is a presumably retired electrical en- related topics, with particular concern for Heinlein’s gineer who earned his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins and stories—of the eighty-nine page references to him spent his working life with a major defense contrac- tor. He had been “reading the works of Heinlein and chapters. in the “Index,” only eighteen are from the first four third grade” but became “acquainted with magazine publication history of twenty-one pulp SF magazines other science fiction authors,” he says, “since the publishedThe first through chapter, 1945, “The Magazines,”from Amazing recounts Stories the to Analog” (War 3). At the 1983 WorldCon in Baltimore Weird Tales. The chapter was interesting to me be- hescience bought fiction” a book only on inHeinlein 1968, that“when led I himencountered to inten- cause I started reading SF in the late 1940s and, until sive studies of Heinlein, and in 1993 he published a I joined the Air Force in 1953, had collected a large note titled “The Great Heinlein Mystery” in Shipmate, number of issues of the magazines Wysocki discuss- the journal of the U. S Naval Academy Alumni Asso- es. His Table 1 (War 12) lists those twenty-one titles, ciation (Mystery 25). He began contributing short and he notes that “in early 1938 only four of the mag- articles to Heinlein Journal in 1999 and to Science azines…were in existence: Amazing Stories, Astound- Fiction Studies in 2010; he delivered a paper on “The ing Science Fiction, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Weird Tales,” and that “all of them survived through the 2008 SFRA conference, which was reprinted in World War II” (War 13). His comments on the twen- theCreation collection of Heinlein’s Practicing ‘Solution Science Fiction: Unsatisfactory’” Critical Es at- ty-one magazines include details of publication his- says on Reading and Teaching the Genre (McFarland tory, formats, changes of editor, and changes in mode 2010). In 2012 he published his own book on The of payment. Of the twenty-one magazines he discuss- Great Heinlein Mystery, which was reviewed favor- es, only Analog (originally Astounding Stories) has ably by Don Sakers in Analog’s “Reference Library.” been publishing without interruption, though with The “mystery,” at least to an engineer, came up in a changes in name and format, since 1930—a run of letter Heinlein wrote in 1941 to Astounding’s editor Amazing Stories, founded in 1926, which claimed that “a device in one of his stories had ceased publication in 2005 after eighty years. Weird Taleseighty-five, which years. Wysocki notes as “the oldest magazine” in 1955] used by the Navy in World War II” (Sakers). (War 13), ran from 1923 to 1954 (thirty-two years); Theinspired book a real-liferecounts device the story, [classified “fascinating then and from still be so- its revivals in 1970, 1981, and 1984 were brief, but ginning to end,” of Wysocki’s attempt to identify that a fourth revival in 1988 is still listed by Wikipedia as device (Sakers). “current,” though its last issue listed (number 362) Like Mystery, An Astounding War makes use of and appeared in Spring of 2014. expands some of Wysocki’s journal publications; For his second chapter, “The Authors,” Wysocki an article titled “Astounding and World War II” ap- uses The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase to 34 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 35 choose twenty-three authors who published fre- Sakers’s comment that Wysocki is “a normal science quently in Astounding during the war. In Tables 2 and 3 (War 36) he lists the authors who appeared scholars and critics who would undertake, or have respectively in the years 1939 to 1941 (before the undertaken,fiction reader the of nodecades-long real distinction.” research There on area very few United States entered the war), and 1942-1945 narrow subject evident in Wysocki’s two books. (when the war ended), with the number of appear- ances (including serial parts counted separately); he included only a few of the authors with smaller Works Cited counts “for reasons that should become clear”—pre- sumably because they were important post-1945 Sakers, Don. Review of The Great Heinlein Mystery, contributors to Astounding (War 35). The body by Edward M. Wysocki, Jr. “The Reference Li- of the chapter consists of an alphabetical series of brary.” Analog Science Fiction and Fact. 2012. short biographies of these authors with comments Web. https://www.analogsf.com/2013_01-02/ on their publications. Thirteen of the authors pub- .
reflib.shtml appearlished in in the the first second: period, Nathaniel twenty Schachnerin the second, (eleven and the lists overlap. Only three of the first set do not also Mondo Nano: Fun and Games in and Theodore Sturgeon (nine). Heinlein leads the the World of Digital Matter stories—his first in 1931), L. Sprague de Camp (ten), four in the second. Of those new to the second set, Andrew Hageman C.first L. listMoore with (twenty-six) twenty-two andappearances, Henry Kuttner but has (twen only- ty-four) appear most frequently (Wysocki’s biogra- Milburn, Colin. Mondo Nano: Fun and Games in the phy considers them together since they married in World of Digital Matter. Durham, N.C.: Duke Uni- 1940), but their totals are beaten by Malcom Jame- versity Press, 2015. Paperback, 418 pages, $28.95, son (a combined total of thirty in the two sets—his ISBN 978-0-8223-5743-8. Astounding in 1938). The grand champion, however, is the Canadian-born A. Order option(s): Hard | Paper | Kindle E.first van SF Vogt story (ten appeared and thirty in appearances in the two sets); he and his wife E. Mayne Hull (eight stories in IF YOU'RE AN Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left- the second set) share a single biography, since they Right-B-A-Start sort of reader, I recommend begin- married in 1939. ning Colin Milburn’s Mondo Nano: Fun and Games The third and fourth chapters consider references in the World of Digital Matter in Astounding to the war in two aspects. In “The War- These last pages pull back from the tunneling-micro- time Stories,” Table 4 (68) begins with Wysocki’s scope close readings throughout with the the book final to chapter. articu- late a concise and compelling two-part argument for component, (2) Stories that transpose WW II events studying nanotech in the social imaginary. On the one to“classification another time scheme”: or planet, (1) (3)War Stories stories referring with an SFto hand, Milburn synthesizes the chapters as analyses atomic research, and (4) Stories referring to tech- of nanotechnology itself; on the other hand, this con- nologies that can be connected with WW II. The clusion reframes this study of nanotechnology as a fourth chapter, “Opinions and Facts” discusses the grappling with how to be an educated and informed same sort of references in Campbell’s editorials and civic member in our current condition of data over- load in the digital world. What’s more, Milburn notes and others. that Mondo Nano was around ten years in the mak- in nonfiction articles related to the war by Campbell- nized, fairly concise, and provide much information, sustained insights within individual chapters and as Wysocki’sWhile the technological first two chaptersbackground are leads clearly him orgato be theing, chaptersand this bleedis reflected across in each the other. detailed At a depths time when and overly detailed in the remaining eight chapters— the prescience and popularity of nanotech critique probably “more about penguins” than the average can engender hurried work, Mondo Nano presents a SF reader would like. I cannot agree, however, with model of rigor and interdisciplinarity in its focus on 36 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 37 well as nanotech culture continue to advance, Mon- On Mondo Nano do Nano provides primary texts and approaches to therecursive book aredynamics outstanding. of science First, and each science chapter fiction. alone them that offer faculty ready to explore the territory and the relationship as model, among two them specific within elements a whole of useful points of entry. are engaging formal experiments. It’s like reading Amongst the diverse chapters, several are espe- a strange amalgamation of the form-reinforcing- cially outstanding. In one chapter, Milburn tracks a proposal from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- Hayles’s How We Became Posthuman (1999) and nology (MIT) to the U.S. Army to launch an Institute Fredricargument Jameson’s magnificence The Political of works Unconscious like N. Katherine (1981) for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN). Accompanying with the lively linguistic starbursts of Jacques Der- its text, the proposal included an image that very rida’s “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of clearly resembles Valerie Fiores from the graphic the Human Sciences” (1966), the latter of which Mil- novel Radix. Milburn quotes correspondence be- tween Ray and Ben Lai, the creators of Radix, and many forms, from the binary designation of chapter the MIT ISN to unpack the discourses and ideologies sequenceburn cites to as occasional influence. quotations Milburn’s presentedformal play in takes code at work and at stake in this case of science and sci- format like little nano-gear pivots between sections or, perhaps, rather, revealing that these apparent resonance across nanotech research discourse, The bordersence fiction are always bleeding already across highly each porous. others’ borders,Another Wizardof prose of toOz (1939), rapid-fire The juxtapositions Rocky Horror Picture to illustrate Show chapter follows the proposal for a Nano City to be (1975), and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s built in India—a place that Milburn describes as an Dream (1590s), for example (83). The forms of play amalgamation of Northern California/Silicon Val- shift with each chapter of Mondo Nano, offering com- ley values with a Himalayan foothills geography and plementary approaches to clusters of material from culture. Suggestively, the capacity to imagine techno- futures in this particular case is deeply challenged by subsequent levels rather than tiring of a single not by technological limits but rampant real estate shtick.science Second, and science Milburn fiction models and keeping innovative us intrigued ways of speculation whenever word spreads that a tract is imagining and conducting scholarly research and being scouted for the project. Finally, the most play- writing. To read Mondo Nano is simultaneously to ful and provocative chapter unfolds through a set of consider Milburn’s analyses of nanotech in labs and interactions between Milburn’s Second Life avatar, the social imaginary and to be inspired to devise re- Colin Dayafter, and someone whose avatar is named search that opens up new questions to ask in the Hu- PerkyPat Sorciere. They met at a lecture with Q&A manities. session given by Kim Stanley Robinson and subse- - quently met up in different Second Life venues to converse while exploring places from a Sri Ganesha ToScience be sure, fiction the usual scholars suspects may likebe particularly Neal Stephenson, inter Hindu Temple and the Cal Tech Jet Propulsion Lab Williamested in Gibson,the range and of David science Cronenberg fiction texts are included,engaged. to a cell (the image on the book’s cover) and some replicating genomes. While the Second Life element Theodore Sturgeon and Robert Heinlein amongst earlierbut there SF arewriters significant (some of ventures this developing into the new likes di of- rections since Milburn’s previous book, Nanovision conversationunderscores thepresents traffic Milburn’s between coredigital ideas and from analog, the bookscience in aand very science different fiction register, worlds, offering the two-personthem to the SF on Richard Feynman’s famous speech on the idea reader in a new way and at the same time clearly en- of(2008), nanotech), in which as wellhe studies as close at and/orlength the conversational influence of abling Milburn to explore them in a new way, with readings of more contemporary SF video games and another. I won’t spoil the chapter’s twist ending, but graphic novels. As such, Mondo Nano articulates new - lines and lineages of connection between Golden Age tively reframes the chapter, perhaps the book itself. SF, Cyberpunk, and subsequent Nanotech SF. A salu- Insuffice sum, it Mondoto say itNano is a provocativeis a radical play reading that retroacjourney tary secondary effect of this extensive treasure trove that can take us deeply and critically into nanotech of texts is inspiration for new materials to bring culture and inspire new modes of scholarship and into the classroom. As critical video game studies as pedagogy. 36 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 37 The Culture Series of Iain M. political theory across the long arc of the series. In Banks: A Critical Introduction thisvelops light, and Caroti modifies paves its a straightforwardvision of a fulfilled linear utopian path, with chapters devoted to analyses of grouped texts Hugh Charles O’Connell in the order of their publication. Building on the work of Nick Gevers, Caroti posits “a three-stage pro- Paul Roland, Steampunk: Back to the Future with the New Victorians, Harpenden, Hers, UK, Oldcastle Books, Ltd., 2014. Paperback, 192 pages, $17.95. thecess Culture’s of progressive creation refinement and setting parsed up, and by ittwo encom long- ISBN 1-978-184344-249-3. Kindle $8.23. ISBN passesperiods the of period reassessment. between The1974 first and stage1990,” involves includ- 9781843442516. ing Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, and Use of Weapons and The State of the Art (183). After a six Order option(s): Paper | Kindle year lull, the second period begins with three novels that form “an overarching narrative strategy aimed FOR MANY READERS of the SFRA Review, the un- at describing the Culture’s ethos – and the practice timely loss of Iain M. Banks still weighs heavy. The of this ethos – from three different power-related last Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, retroactive- viewpoints: Excession is the glimpse from greater ly reads like a wistful elegy, weaving moving rumina- power, Inversions from lesser power, and Look to tions on mortality through vast thickets of political Windward from equal power” (184). Another eight- intrigue and technological speculation. By returning Matter, to the origins of the Culture and its place amongst Surface Detail, and The Hydrogen Sonata appears. the other galactic-faring civilization that increas- Thisyear hiatuslast period follows is beforecharacterized the final by trilogy the placement of ingly occupied the later novels, The Hydrogen Sonata of the Culture into a more deeply considered social can’t help but feel like both a closing chapter and ret- and political context as just one galactically involved rospective on both the author and his works. Simone player amongst its peer and lesser socio-political or- Caroti’s The Culture Series of Iain M. Banks (2015) ganizations. enters this prematurely foreclosed world as an in- As an introductory critical evaluation, the book troduction to the now extant and completed series spends considerable time on synopses of the vari- of SF novels that reintroduced space opera as a so- ous novels that tease out the uniting themes of the phisticated vehicle for “smuggling large amounts of series, even as they are deployed in disparate and serious discourse under the guise of a romp through occasionally contradictory fashion. Chapter one con- space” (155). siders Banks’ development as an author, the failure Caroti’s book thus joins older works such as Iain of his early attempts at SF and the emergence of his Banks's Complicity: A Reader's Guide (2003), as well as a host of newer texts, including The Transgres- relationship to the later Culture novels. While Caro- sive Iain Banks: Essays on a Writer Beyond Borders tifirst does critically a good well-received job of teasing non-SF out the novels SF and and fantasy their (2013), covering both the sf and non-sf novels; Goth- ic Dimensions: Iain Banks, Timelord works as constituted by both realism and fantastika, to cover the entirety of Banks’ body of work; and Me- somemotifs of of the Banks’ thematic literary congruence fiction, presenting he draws thebetween early diating the World in the Novels of Iain (2013), Banks the(2014), first which offers a sustained argument across the en- little forced. This is especially true in his discussion tirety of the non-sf works. These will soon be joined ofthe The Culture Bridge and and early postscarcity. mainstream The fiction latter iscan integral feel a by at least two more volumes for the Gylphi Contem- for the utopian dimensions of the Culture series, porary Writers Critical Essays series, focused exclu- but it is hard to see how it applies in a meaningfully sively on the non-sf novels, and a volume slated for structural way to The Bridge. However, his assertion Indiana University Press’s Modern Masters of Sci- that the “industrial dystopias of the bridge and of ence Fiction Series. contemporary Britain would morph into similarly What sets this study apart from such works is Caroti’s exclusive critical focus on the Culture series. is astute (41). Caroti approaches the series as a closed set that de- structuredWhile the societies”chapter on of the the literary first era works Culture prior novels to the 38 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 39 Culture series is in keeping with the book’s premise, cies into reconstruction and their wrestling with the the chapters on the three movements of the Culture neoimperial, neoliberal auspices of intervention as series are the main attraction. Caroti devotes a chap- the critical spark that constantly reignites the work ter each to Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, of critical utopian politics. Key for Caroti is that “uto- and an intertextual analysis of Use of Weapons and The State of the Art, developing each novel’s struc- utopia is either self-sustaining through a dialectic turally thematic antimony as the hallmark of the processpia is first or and it ceases foremost to exist” – an argument(106, 112). [, …]Caroti because con- utopian-dystopian divide that animates each novel’s tinues, “[t]he ultimate goal, within and without the political stakes and the development of the Culture story, is to make the core argument of utopia survive series at large. The second movement with its inter- unscathed through all the pressures and critiques, its integrity validated by the society’s very willing- one devoted to a conceptual pairing of Excession (the ness to reassess and reevaluate itself without ever Culturenal self-critique as viewed and “from refinement above” by gets the AItwo Minds) chapters, and stopping” (123). Inversions (the Culture as viewed from below by one of the less advanced societies that Special Circum- in his middle chapters, devoted largely to the second stances are imbedded in), and a second devoted to period,The significance and especially of Caroti’s Look to utopian Windward argument. Here, lies he Look to Windward and the political imposition of the defends the utopian reconstructionist strain of the Culture series from what he sees as more nihilisti- own politics of contact and intervention. Between cally deconstructive and postmodern criticisms that thesefirst of two the sections, neoimperial Caroti wars provides in Iraq a for brief the critical Culture’s in- began to appear especially after the publication of terlude that focuses on Banks’s “A Few Notes on the Look to Windward. While there is much of merit in this redemptive, utopian reading, especially in the phase of the Culture as being in line with early aca- way that, after Clute, it takes the economic aspects demicCulture,” criticism which thathe links posits to the his Culture readings as aof new the formfirst of postscarcity as being the guiding force of Banks’ of what Tom Moylan has famously dubbed “critical utopian vision, some greater conceptual nuance be- utopias.” The concept of critical utopianism becomes tween the conditions of classical imperialism and central to the development and deployment of Caro- postmodern neoimperial Empire (as popularized ti’s critical stance. by Hardt and Negri) would make Caroti’s interven- The third period, comprising Matter, Surface De- tion even stronger and more convincing. Similarly, tail and The Hydrogen Sonata, is given one compara- for a text that purports to be comprehensive in its tively short chapter. This is a shame as these novels presentation of the critical material on the Culture, it have received the least amount of critical attention, would have been nice to see some engagement with and as a result, they would have provided ample op- - portunity for Caroti to develop his own original crit- en her work on the intersections of liberal human- ical stance and to set the terms for future analysis ism,the significant capitalism, essays and imperial by Sherryl intervention Vint, especially in Look giv to and debate. That this doesn’t happen illustrates one Windward. - While an introductory text can be forgiven for tory text: the critical impetus of the book is largely downplaying a strong critical intervention in favor deployedof the weaknesses reactively ofagainst this otherwise other, earlier fine introducreadings. of a more thoroughgoing and generalized over- This results in the unbalanced development and de- view, what is harder to overlook is the poor editing ployment of the critical apparatus, making the book that mars this book. There are far too many casual ultimately feel uneven by providing more of sum- line-editing typos (“in” for “on,” “he” for “the,” etc.). mary and response rather than an original unifying Moreover, the bibliography section it includes more argument. editing errors (Clute, for example, comes after Cole- However, this should not be taken to suggest that brook) and references that do not always have bib- Caroti’s employment of the critical utopian stance is liographic entries (a reference to “Brown 2004” car- - ries no corresponding bibliographic entry; there are tant strands of criticism together, arguing that the four authors with the surname of Brown in the bib- criticallyinsignificant. utopian Indeed, drive he of usesthe novels it to tie is thethree governing impor liography, but none with articles listed from 2004). ideology that recasts their deconstructive tenden- Hopefully, these errors will be corrected in any fu- 38 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 39 ture editions. was the groundbreaking SF epic 2001: A Space Odys- Iain Banks was possessed of an indomitable spirit sey (1968), and from then on until his death in 1999, and prodigious imagination; the greatest strength of the director seemed to play in a league entirely of his this book is its celebration of the scale and scope of own. This rise into the Olympus of cinema would not that spirit as it manifests itself in the Culture series. have been possible had it not been for the success – The fan in me reveled in the opportunity to relive the both critical and commercial – of Dr. Strangelove. Although the movie’s status seems of little dispute, carefully nuanced close readings. Indeed, Caroti’s George Case feels that time has not treated it kindly. consideredintricacies of intertextual these novels analysis as fleshed of Use out of by Weapons Caroti’s According to him, it has been “divorced from the so- and The State of the Art is enlightening, as is his ex- cial and historical context in which it originated, and cellent stylistic analysis of Excession. However, the its underlying themes and incidental details risk go- academic in me, very much interested in the British ing unrecognized by contemporary audiences” (2). Boom and socialist utopianism, wished for a more While some of its images, like the one of Slim Pick- developed and sustained critical drive. However, ens riding the atomic bomb at the end of the movie, while the book is a bit uneven, attempting not alto- This is the War Room!” have long since entered pop critical summary of the Culture’s phases of devel- or phrases like “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here.- opment,gether successfully an overview the of difficult the critical task ofand balancing academic a ground is lost to younger audiences. This assessment reception, and the author’s own particular critical mightculture, be Case true thinks to some that degree, its specific and a Coldproper War account back argument, all of the pieces are substantially present of the situation in which the movie was produced is – an admirable success in a single, short, and acces- certainly in order. However, Case’s other declared sible volume. As such, it provides a useful introduc- goal seems rather irritating. In his eyes, Dr. Strange- tion to Banks’ monumental series, and should be love does not get the credit it deserves because it is sought out by critics and readers. overshadowed by Kubrick’s later works. Saying this about a movie that regularly makes it into all kinds of “best of” lists seems odd. Even odder is Case’s effort to show that “judging as successful Calling Dr. Strangelove: The integrations of screenplay, acting, set design, pho- tography and editing, Dr. Strangelove stands above Anatomy and Influence of the one reason for the the movie’s unique quality is that Kubrick Masterpiece the restdirector [of Kubrick’s relied more films]” on the(3). contributions According to Case,from other artists than in any other production. In other Simon Spiegel words, Dr. Strangelove is Kubrick’s best movie be- cause it is not a proper Kubrick movie. George Case. Calling Dr. Strangelove. The Anatomy Case is, of course, entitled to value Dr. Strangelove and Influence of the Kubrick Masterpiece. Jef- more highly than other Kubrick movies. But his ap- ferson: McFarland & Co. 2014. Paperback, 212 proach to “prove” its superior quality by using its pages, $40.00, ISBN 978-0-7864-9449-1. Ebook director as a kind of evidence against itself is more ISBN: 978-1-4766-1848-7. than peculiar, especially given the fact that Kubrick always relied heavily on his collaborators. They Order option(s): Kindle | Paper might not always have received proper credit for their work, but one of Kubrick’s great strengths had THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT that Stanley Kubrick’s always been choosing highly capable contributors 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop whom he pushed to – and often beyond – their limits. Worrying and Love the Bomb is a classic. It is gener- Above all, Dr. Strangelove simply does not need such a rehabilitation. Case’s zeal to vindicate his subject - ally regarded as an iconic film and one of the very gives his study a completely unnecessary bent. The book tracks the movie’s genesis and its impact directorfew truly into successful a higher filmic sphere. satires. Kubrick’s Among next other project out comes, it was also the film that definitively lifted its 40 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 41 in five chapters. While the first is dedicated to its prehistory and the second to its production, chapter to MAD magazine, which mocked the prospect of a three is a detailed walkthrough of the actual movie nuclear war. The American writer Terry Southern, with background information for basically every coming from a Beat-infused New York background, scene. Chapter four then deals with the immediate reactions to the movie, while the last chapter is dedi- more. Equally important for Dr. Strangelove’s pecu- cated to the movie’s heritage and Kubrick’s later ca- intensified this ironic over-the-top attitude even reer. Kubrick had already worked on Lolita. Sellers was Calling Dr. Strangelove’s goal is an accessible ac- theliar flavorstar of of the comedy picture was who Peter not Sellers, only played with whom three count of how the movie came to be and of its major different characters – originally he was also meant themes, and not some highbrow interpretation. Ac- to act as Major Kong – but whose salary accounted cordingly, the emphasis is on facts. We get little to for almost half of the movie’s budget. His improvi- no theory, but instead short biographies of basically sations, which Kubrick strongly encouraged, shaped everyone who was important for the movie, from military strategist Herman Kahn to set designer Ken While there is nothing really earth-shattering in Adam and novelist Peter George. Among other goals, Callingthe movie Dr. inStrangelove significant, it ways. does contain many nuggets Case wants to redeem George’s novel Two Hours to of fascinating information. Case also debunks some Doom – published in the US as Red Alert – on which dearly beloved myths like the story of how Ronald the movie is based. He strongly emphasizes that Reagan supposedly asked to see the War Room when George’s thriller “portrayed the mechanics of nu- he became president. Apparently, there is no source clear brinkmanship as comprehensively and as ac- for this anecdote; rather, it seems to be an invention curately as any scholarly or journalistic study of its by some of Reagan’s opponents. time” (15). Indeed, one of Case’s main points – and Calling Dr. Strangelove lives up to its claim to give one that Kubrick himself was notoriously proud of a comprehensive account of Kubrick’s movie. Never- – is how realistic Dr. Strangelove is, even and espe- theless, Case’s curious insistence that Dr. Strangelove cially in its most absurd moments. is Kubrick’s underappreciated masterpiece infuses The story of how Kubrick, during the writing of the the whole book in a strangely unproductive way and screenplay, regularly came up with situations that leads to some completely pointless side blows; for example, when Case mocks the fact that Kubrick was married three times. This is really unfortunate: Call- isseemed part of too the grotesque folklore forsurrounding a serious film, Dr. Strangeloveand how he. ing Dr. Strangelove would have been a much better Casefinally cannot decided shed to turnnew thislight weakness on this part into of a thestrength, story, book if its author had not followed such a strange agenda. a general cultural trend, ranging from Tom Lehrer but he convincingly shows how this approach fitted
40 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 41 Fiction Reviews means. Belonging to this cluster are Giulia Abbate’s “Calendariothe whole of della society, semina”, redefining Donato alsoAltomare’s what legality “Mens Ma Gli Androidi Mangiano sana…”, Michele Piccolino’s “Caramelle da uno scon- osciuto”, and Roberto Vacca’s “Cambiano i tempi e Spaghetti Elettrici? noi cambiamo in essi”. Jana Vizmuller-Zocco The second cluster’s proposition concerns the manner in which alternate sources of food answer Grasso, Francesco, Minicangeli, Marco, and Mon- (or do not) the problems of hunger and social in- gai, Massimo (eds.). Ma Gli Androidi Mangiano which may, for example, affect human mutation, as Spaghetti Elettrici? [But Do Androids Eat Electric wellequality, as non-human as well as beings. ethical Stories and scientific focusing concerns on this Spaghetti?] Arese, MI: Edizioni Della Vigna, 2015. 330 Pages, paperback, Euros 15.00, ISBN 978-88- include Davide Camparsi’s “La pecora perduta”, Vit- 5276-136-9. torio Catani’s “Un gusto nuovo e forte”, Elena Di Fazio “Più uguali degli altri”, Francesca Garello’s “Future Food District”, Marco Minicangeli’s “L’ultima caccia”, Order option(s): Kindle Giuseppe Perciabosco’s “La carne degli dei”, Luigina THE PUBLICATION OF this anthology of 18 short Sgarro’s “Profumo di caffè”, and Alessandro Vietti’s stories belongs to the thematic tables of Expo Milan “Indovina chi viene a cena”. The third cluster revolves around the idea of two 2015: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life. All the au- thors are relatively well-known writers of science types of humans/other beings: those who control the production and distribution of food/water and those who are outside this circle; in other words, note,fiction explaining and other their genres personal as well. or Each professional short story rela is- those who have something to eat/drink and those tionshipbriefly introduced with the author. by one of the editors in a short who do not. The former are usually technologically savvy, ethically unconcerned, ready to defend their In lieu of an introduction, Roberto Paura’s Prefazi- turf and to invade the territories of the latter, who one (vii-xiv) sets the table for a gastronomic excur- sion into the future, underlying the human obsession are “less intelligent” but hungry on account of power with, need for, and tragic errors made regarding food. struggles which they have lost. This loss, however, may be the invaders’ salvation. Stories belonging to world endeavours to grapple with alternate ways of this thematic cluster include Francesco Grasso’s “La feedingMany science humans, fiction often stories as a result are aof reactionoverpopulation, to real- stirpe dei corvi”, Maico Morellini’s “La confraternita - dei Rabdomanti”, Errico Passaro’s “Il pasto invisi- troversies, unsustainable development, etc. The col- bile”, and Francesco Verso’s “Italianski, tikaj, tikaj”. lectiondisagreements of short on stories the safety illustrates of GMOs, this meat/fishtendency. con Two stories lie outside these three clusters. Andrea Although it would be truly worthwhile to analyze Angiolino’s “Ritorno a casa” has human descendants each story in depth, as they span more than one of return to an Earth devastated by a nuclear explosion, the themes mentioned, what follows aims to simply where their cooks experiment with the preparation capture the three principal clusters found within the of plants and animals for consumption. There is joy (in the sensual appreciation of certain foods), as well around alimentary regulations with concomitant as pain (tasting hot peppers), and unintended con- prohibitions.narrations. The The first question cluster’s to premise be answered is constructed is “What sequences (strange behaviour due to a fermented happens when food intake is strictly controlled: le- drink). And then there is a playful way of explaining gally, economically, socially, psychologically, whether on Earth or on a terraformed planet?” Stories within veramente inventato il tonkatsu? E gli spaghetti?”. ‘scientific gastronomy’ in Massimo Mongai’s “Chi ha this regulatory theme deal with the reactions to the This story is concerned with culinary traditions and prohibitions and the protagonists’ attempts to avoid their original sources. them (for example, once they taste the unregulated The volume closes with Mongai’s “Postfazione: In food). These regulatory controls have an effect on Cauda Venenum Ovvero: Perché Le Donne Non Leg- gono E Non Scrivono Fantascienza?” This afterword 42 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 43 - Sheep?: Egotism, Empathy, and the Ethics of Eating tion, but it contains the author’s reaction to the fact in the Work of Philip K. Dick”, Literature Interpreta- thathas nothing,only 23% in of truth, the contributors to do with food to the in volumescience arefic tion Theory, 24: 65-85, 2013). In this way, the idea of women. That women, in general, do not read science androids and electric spaghetti puts the reader on a mistaken interpretive path: no short story deals Italian statistics of readers (ISTAT 2000), and he with androids, and there is no mention of electric citesfiction, this states as one Mongai, of many seems other to bereasons borne why, out ofin thehis spaghetti. Instead, the stories deal with all-too-hu- - man societies variously developed in not-so-distant tion. It is clear that the topic is of broad and current as well as very far futures, and food is given as a clue interest,opinion, butwomen it does do not not furnish generally novel write interpretations science fic to understanding the workings of these societies. However, the collection has the merit of focusing, It must be said that the depth of the stories goes wellabout beyond food and thematic science clustersfiction. and for this reason food. It is interesting to note that “food” as a themat- the book is a welcome addition to the speculative icin itemone place, does notscience appear fiction in Neil narration Barron’s on Anatomythe topic of Wonder. A Critical Guide to Science Fiction (Fifth Edi- this perspective, the collection is of interest to those tion, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, fiction’s contribution to the field of nutrition. From 2004) and the entry “Food and drink” written by David Langford encompasses 2 pages in The Green- academic and practical fields which deal with the wood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (edited by Gary ofproblem what makes of world us human. hunger, the ethical and scientific Westfahl, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003). considerationsIn conclusion, of the eating, title butof theabove collection all, the definitionis catchy, Clearly, much scholarly work remains to be done in to be sure, and an obvious spoof on Philip K. Dick’s this area. And since gastronomy is a comparatively Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (a parodic use also appears in Josh Toth’s “Do Androids Eat Electric yet grow to be a strand in this endeavour. new academic field, speculative fiction and food may
42 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 43 Announcements at (sometimes specialized) readerships of popular literature, such as western and adventure, detective, fantastic (including the evolving genres of science Call for Papers—Conference -
Title: 2016-2017 Le Guin Science Fiction Fellow- magazinefiction, fantasy, The Golden and horror), Argosy, romance dated Dec and 2, sports 1882 and fic ship. thetion. last The of first the pulp “original” Argosy, pulps began was life Ranch as the Romances children’s Deadline: 2 September, 2016. and Adventures, Nov. 1971. Contact: [email protected]. The Pulp Studies area exists to support the aca- demic study of pulp writers, editors, readers, and The Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Research Fel- culture. It seeks to invigorate research by bringing lowships support travel for the purpose of conduct- together scholars from diverse areas including ro- ing research using the papers of feminist science - venture, detective, and more. Finally, the Pulp Stud- Collections and University Archives. For more infor- iesmance, area western, seeks to science promote fiction, the preservationfantasy, horror, of thead mationfiction authorson these housed collections, in the which UO Libraries include the Special pa- pulps through communication with libraries, muse- pers of Ursula K. Le Guin, visit: http://library.uore- ums, and collectors. gon.edu/node/3524. With this in mind, we are calling for papers and Applications for short-term research fellowships panels that discuss the pulps and their legacy. Sug- will be accepted from undergraduates, master’s and gested authors and topics: doctoral students, postdoctoral scholars, and college and university faculty at every rank, as well as inde- • Magazines: Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Wonder Stories, Fight Stories, All-Story, Argosy, Thrilling Up to $3,000 in fellowship support will be awarded Wonder Stories, Spicy Detective, Ranch Romances pendent scholars working in feminist science fiction. and Adventures, Oriental Stories/Magic Carpet For complete information and application require- Magazine, Love Story, Flying Aces, Black Mask, ments,for use visit:within http://csws.uoregon.edu/?p=20663 one year of award notification. . and Unknown, to name a few. • Editors and Owners: Street and Smith (Astound- Submission: submit applications to: csws@uore- ing), Munsey (Argosy), Farnsworth Wright gon.edu. (Weird Tales), Hugo Gernsback (Amazing Sto- The Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowships ries), Mencken and Nathan (Black Mask), John are sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Cen- Campbell (Astounding). ter for the Study of Women in Society, the Robert D. • Clark Honors College, and the UO Libraries Special A. E. Merritt, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, Fritz Collections and University Archives. Leiber,Influential Raymond Writers: Chandler, Robert Bloch, Dashiell H.P. Hammett,Lovecraft, Donald Wandrei, Clark Ashton Smith, and Henry Kuttner. Title: Popular Culture/American Culture Associa- • tion National Conference, Pulp Studies Area. Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, and Deadline: 1 October, 2016. Influences on Pulp Writers: H. G. Wells, H. Rider Conference Date: April 12-15, 2017, San Diego, CA. Contact: [email protected]; jeffrey_shanks@ BramEdgar Stoker,Rice Burroughs Mary Shelley, were Friedrichall influences, Nietzsche, along nps.gov. Edgarwith literary Allen Poe, and and philosophical Herbert Spencer. figures such as • Popular Characters: Conan of Cimmeria; Bulldog Pulp magazines were a series of mostly English-lan- Drummond; Doc Savage; Solomon Kane; Buck guage, predominantly American, magazines printed Rogers; The Domino Lady; Jiril of Jiory; Zorro; El on rough pulp paper. They were often illustrated Borak; The Shadow; The Spider; Nick Carter; The with highly stylized, full-page cover art and numer- Avenger; and Captain Future, among others. Also character types: the femme fatale, the he-man, They were sold for modest sums, and were targeted the trickster, racism and villainy (such as Charles 44ous SFRA line Review art illustrations 317 Summer of 2016 the fictional content. SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 45 Middleton’s Ming the Merciless), and more. pers on the work of: Guest of Honor Steven Erikson • Artists: Popular cover artists including Margaret (World Fantasy and Locus Award nominee), Guest of Brundage (Weird Tales), Frank R. Paul (Amazing Honor N.K. Jemisin (Hugo, Nebula, and World Fanta- Stories), Virgil Finlay (Weird Tales), and Edd Cart- sy Award nominee, Locus Award winner), and Guest ier (The Shadow, Astounding). Scholar Edward James (Pilgrim, Hugo, British Sci- • Theme and Styles: Masculinity, femininity, and ence Fiction Association, and Eaton Award winner). sex as related to the heroic in the pulps; the sav- The hero(ine)’s tale is as old as storytelling itself. We age as hero, the woman as hero, the trickster as trace our way from Gilgamesh to current practitio- hero, etc. ners of the art through routes that lead to – and be- • yond – other kingdoms, including those of Malazan television, comics, graphic novels and other and the cities of Gujaareh, Sky, and Shadow. Papers formsFilm, Television are especially and encouraged.Graphic Arts: Pulps in film, may tread the paths of Thomas the Unbeliever, Bren • Cyberculture: Cyberpulps such as Beneath Cease- Cameron, Sundiata Keita, and Boudica, or follow a less Skies dark road through Gondor, Camelot, or any valley of Age of Conan MMORPG or the Call of Cthulhu role-playing and game. pulp-influenced games such as the and in the rooms of Schaherazade. Examinations of • International Pulp Fiction: during the interwar modernshadow. epicsWe can might find include the Epic the in American the hall of west, Heorot the - Marvel Universe, or the world of Miyazaki. A jour- tion inspired native pulp traditions in Australia, ney, a quest, an awakening – all these and more are Britain,period and and after continental WWII American-style Europe. Submissions pulp fic part of Fantastic Epics. We also welcome proposals covering pulp magazines, paperbacks, and writ- for individual papers and for academic sessions and ers in languages other than English are especial- panels on any aspect of the fantastic in any media. ly encouraged. Submission: the deadline for proposals is October These are but suggestions for potential panels and 31, 2016. We encourage work from institutionally presentations. Proposals on other topics are wel- - come. tional scholars who work in languages other than For general information on the Pulp Studies area, English,affiliated and scholars, graduate independent students. scholars, interna please visit our website: http://pulpstudies.weebly. More information forthcoming at www.iafa.org. com/ For more information on the IAFA and its confer- ence, the ICFA, see http://www.fantastic-arts.org/. Submission: follow the instructions appearing on To submit a proposal, go to http://www.fantastic- this web page: http://pcaaca.org/national-confer- arts.org/icfa-submissions/. ence/proposing-a-presentation-at-the-conference/. To contact the Division Heads for help with sub- If you have any questions, please contact the Pulp missions, go to http://www.fantastic-arts.org/an- Studies area coordinators: nual-conference/division-heads. Justin Everett, University of the Sciences, j.everet@ usciences.edu. Jeffrey Shanks, Southeast Archaeological Center, [email protected]. Call for Papers—Articles
Title: Jamie Bishop Memorial Award. Title: ICFA Panel: "Fantastic Epics." Manuscript Deadline: 1 September, 2016. Deadline: October 31, 2016. Contact: Amy J. Ransom: [email protected]. Contact: for full information, go to Le Guin Funding Details: To submit a proposal, go to http://www. The International Association for the Fantastic in the fantastic-arts.org/icfa-submissions/. Arts Announces its 10th annual Jamie Bishop Memo- rial Award for a critical essay on the fantastic writ- Please join us for ICFA 38, March 22-26, 2017, when ten in a language other than English. The IAFA de- our theme will be “Fantastic Epics.” We welcome pa- 44 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 45 ity. As a part of this quest, the sacred often comes in seemingly nonreligious forms. Gary Laderman, a graphicfines the design, fantastic and to related include disciplines. science fiction, For morefolklore, in- scholar of religion asks in light of this situation: formationand related on genres the award in literature, and on past drama, winners, film, art please and “So what if the sacred is not only, or even primarily, see http://www.fantastic-arts.org/awards/jamie- tied to theology or religious identity labels like more, bishop-memorial-award/ (please note the updated less, and not religious? We might see how religious submission criteria, below). practices and commitments emanate from unlikely sources today…” Submission: essays should be of high schoarly qual- One of those unlike sources of the sacred is fantas- ity, as if for publication in an academic journal. genres are incredibly popular and have become mul- • We consider essays from 3,000-10,000 words timilliontic fan cultures. dollar facets Science of thefiction, entertainment fantasy, and industry. horror in length (including notes and bibliography). But there is more here than meets the eye. Fantastic • Essays may be unpublished scholarship sub- fandom has also spawned subcultures that include mitted by the author, or already published sacred aspects. work nominated either by the author or anoth- Fantastic Fan Cultures and the Sacred will be an er scholar (in which case the author’s permis- edited anthology that explores the sacred aspects of sion should be obtained before submission). fantastic fandom. Its content will be academically • Essays must have been written and (when ap- informed, but accessible to average readers so that plicable) published in the original language it appeals not only to scholars wanting to learn more within the last three years prior to submission. about pop culture and religion, but also to average • An abstract in English must accompany all sub- fans who will expand their understanding of their missions; an English translation of the title of fandom and culture. the essay should also be included. Possible topics for this volume include but are not • Only one essay per person may be submitted limited to: each year. • Submissions must be made electronically in • Buffyverse fandom and other genre “cult fan- Word format. doms” • Collecting and sacred relics – Of special inter- Prize: $250 U.S. and one year’s free membership in est is Guillermo del Toro’s and Bleak House, the IAFA to be awarded at the annual International and his connection of this to his unique form Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts held each of primal spirituality: “I’m not a collector. I’m a March. Winning essays may be posted on the IAFA religious man.” website in the original language and/or considered • Convention participation as religious pilgrim- for publication in the Journal of the Fantastic in the age Arts (http://www.fantastic-arts.org/jfa/) should • Cosplay as immersion in sacred narrative and they be translated into English. identity • Transformational Festivals (akin to Burning Title: Call for Submissions for an anthology volume: ManFantasy Festival) and science fiction conventions as Fantastic Fan Cultures and the Sacred. • Horror conventions as worlds “of gods and Proposal Deadline: 2nd September, 2016. monsters” Contact: John Morehead (johnwmorehead@msn. • Pop culture phrases as sacred wisdom teach- com). ings • The ways in which people pursue religion has narratives and mythology changed in America and the West. Traditional, in- • StarScience Trek fiction, fandom fantasy, as secular and civil horror religion/spiri as sacred- stitutional religions are in decline, and even among tuality those who claim “None” as their identity, an individ- ualized spirituality of seeking is growing in popular- Submission: this volume will be edited by John 46 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 47 Morehead. Morehead is the proprietor of TheoFan- tastique.com. He has contributed to various online ideas of genre to Fantastika? and print publications including Cinefantastique • Criticalrelation categories to Fantastika? and taxonomies. How significant What are is Online, the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and the value of constructing new terminologies Extrapolation. In addition, he is the co-editor of The - Undead and Theology, Joss Whedon and Religion, and tions or modes? What is the relative worth of the editor of The Supernatural Cinema of Guillermo anto encapsulateumbrella term given or category affects, as fields, opposed intersec to a del Toro. discrete one, and vice-versa? Those interested in being a part of this volume are • Fantastika and history. What is the relationship encouraged to send a 300 word proposal and your curriculum vitae by email. Both should be in MS- Word or PDF format. The deadline for submission is history?between Howattempts can historical at definition, contexts hermeneutics and stud- September 2, 2016. Materials and questions should iesor criticalconstitute reading a lens and through the fluctuating which new fieldcritical of be sent to John Morehead at johnwmorehead@msn. methods and perspectives become available? com. • - sess’Liminality certain and texts, ‘ownership’. authors and Why subgenres do distinct un- Title: Fantastika Journal. fields of study attempt to incorporate or ‘pos Manuscript Deadline: 15th September, 2016. Contact: [email protected]; http:// modesder their rather banners? than genres? What isHow the does significance reading www.fantastikajournal.com/1st-special-edition-is- of fields of study which could be considered- sue.html. nition change, enhance, or determine the read- ing?a text What within is orthe against relationship a generic between or modal the defium- “Fantastika” – a term appropriated from a range of Slavonic languages by John Clute – embraces the studied under it, especially when considering closebrella textual term and analysis? the specific texts that might be also include alternative histories, gothic, steampunk, • Developments and trajectories. What is (or genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, but can could be) the meaning of Fantastika – both imaginative narrative space. The goal of Fantastika as a set of literatures and discourses and as a Journalyoung adult is to bringdystopian together fiction, academics or any other and research radically- collective categorisation – in academia today? ers who share an interest in this diverse range of What are the most important trends and devel- opments in the study of Fantastika and how do productive controversies and collaborations. We in- they relate to the shifting position of academia vitefields discussion with the of aim all mediums of opening and up disciplines new dialogues, which in the 21st century? concern the Fantastika genres. - Submission: we invite articles of 5,000 - 7,000 rent research into Fantastika. As well as cataloguing length. Please submit articles in doc or docx format andThe challenging first issue establishedaims to explore critical and stances evaluate and cur re- to [email protected] by 15th Septem- cent developments, we are looking for approaches ber 2016 along with a 300 word abstract and short bionote in separate documents. Articles should be of speculative and fantastical texts. It is our position in accordance the MLA Style Manual. Submissions thatwhich to embrace ask questions the self-reflexivity about and latentwithin in Fantastika the study should be made under the subject line “First Special Edition.” Please note that all articles published with read or identify Fantastika as Fantastika is to probe Fantastika Journal will undergo peer-review before andstudies strengthen is also to our ask own‘what hermeneutics. is Fantastika?’ Research– that to publication. topics and questions which relate to our theme in- clude, but are not limited to, the following: Title: Bridging the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian • Parameters: the relation between genres and Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror. Manuscript Deadline: 1st January, 2017. 46 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 47 fields. What constitutes genre, and what is its Contact: [email protected] AND dgrace2@uwo. Nalo Hopkinson, Hiromi Goto, Larisa Lai, Stanley ca. Péan, and others hailing from a wide array of cul- tural communities who practice forms of genre writ- This call is to solicit chapter proposals for an edited ing that may sometimes appear alien themselves to volume of scholarly essays on Canadian science- old guard readers have challenged and expanded the - idea of the fantastic, making the term “speculative” ing accepted abstracts, will be submitted to the Pal- grave/Macmillanfiction, fantasy, and series horror. on StudiesA book proposal,in Global Scienceinclud - Fiction (series editors Anindita Banerjee, Rachel ers,fiction graphic more artists,appropriate and gamethan ever.designers Furthermore, like Eden a Haywood Ferreira, and Mark Bould). Robinson,growing number Tomson of Highway, First Nations and Jeffwriters, Barnaby filmmak have - put Indigenous Futurisms on the generic map. eratures imagine the nation—indeed, the world--as The editors seek proposals for chapters on an ar- otherCanadian, different science-fiction, than it is in fantasy,the here and and horror now. One lit ray of topics linked to the production of sf, fantasy, of the recurring dissatisfactions about Canada con- and horror in an array of media by Canadian writ- cerns two central metaphors that have been used - be in English, we are actively seeking contributions nication between French- and English-Canadians as thaters, filmmakers,address the work and artists. of French-language, Although essays First must Na- constructingto define the TheCanadian Two Solitudes nation: the described lack of commuin Hugh tions, and diasporic writers. Ideally, chapters will MacLennan’s 1945 novel, and the problem of envi- somehow address the metaphor of the bridge, con- sioning a multicultural Canada as a mosaic. The na- necting with the utopian desire to reach out to the tion’s genre literatures in French and English have other or conversely, the dystopian burning of such engaged with these issues from their very begin- bridges, understanding that Thomas More’s origi- nings in the nineteenth-century through the pres- nal utopia was “perfect” because isolated from cor- ent day. Indeed, when Judith Merril decided to edit a from perfect. Chapters may address the work of a English but including French-Canadian writers), she singlerupting author influences, or engage and, aof problem course, infound the end, in the was work far foundedvolume of the Canadian Tesseracts speculative series of fiction anthologies, (published whose in of several writers; single-text studies will need to be title references not only the four-dimensional image particularly rigorous or open out onto wider appli- of a cube, but which also includes the Greek tessera, cations in order to be considered. an individual tile in a mosaic. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: Since the publication of that foundational text, Ca- • Themes related to the volume concept, such as: has expanded exponentially. From its controversial • Bridge as metaphor/motif in Can SF & F relationshipnadian speculative with thefiction nation’s in both best-known French and Englishauthor • Trans/Canada: the queering of Canadian SF (in any genre), Margaret Atwood, to outspoken • Border crossings, in texts/by authors (US- - born writers who have become Canadian) ers of the French presence in Canada like Élisabeth • Regionalisms beyond Quebec/TROC divide Vonarburg,proponents tolike the Robert rise of J.Québec’s Sawyer, equivalentto fierce defend of Ste- • phen King, Patrick Senécal, in its maturity Canadian • Margaret Atwood (proposals must address Significantthe volume’s authors, aims such directly) as: and subgenres, literary styles, and so on. Although • Robert J. Sawyer; Robert Charles Wilson; divisionsspeculative certainly fiction spansexist, writersthe entire and gamut scholars of genres of Ca- Peter Watts • William Gibson (particularly the Bridge bridge the two solitudes in their works and activi- trilogy; proposals must address the “Cana- ties,nadian publishing speculative translations, fiction have attending frequently each worked other’s to dian”) cons, and so on. This task has become increasingly • Candas Jane Dorsey; Nalo Hopkinson; Eden - Robinson tions and evolved to embrace more fully the national • Élisabeth Vonarburg; Esther Rochon; Sylvie policycomplex of multiculturalismas the genre has andalso the expanded global realities its defini of Bérard cultural exchange. Thus, the success of writers like • 48 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 49 Jean-Louis Trudel ; Yves Meynard ; Joël Champetier • Female scriptwriters in sf. • • Gender and Mary Shelley’s legacy in sf’s imagina- Péan tion of created beings. • Patrick Senécal ; Éric Gauthier ; Stanley • Frankenstein remakes, adaptations, reboots and • Genre hybridity/ mash-up reinventions. •Genres or theory specific to Canada, including: • Gender and casting, and character arc in media sf • Transmedia texts • Gender in sf fandom and criticism. • CanadianWhat is Canadian comics and speculative the fantastic fiction? Submission: articles should be 7000 to 9000 Submission: submit chapter proposals by January words in length, including footnotes and bibliog- 1, 2017. raphy. Submissions (in word or rtf, following MLA style) should be made via our website at http:// • 500 Word abstract mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lup-sfftv. • Working bibliography • Brief author bio Title: Brumal: Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fan- Completed chapters for accepted manuscripts due tástico/ Brumal: Research Journal on the Fantastic. by September 1, 2017. Proposal Deadline: Ongoing. Contact: http://revistes.uab.cat/brumal/about/ submissions#authorGuidelines. Title: Science Fiction Film and Television Special Is- sue on Women and Media SF. Monographic Section: "The fantastic in comics" (co- Manuscript Deadline: 15th March 2017. ord. José Manuel Trabado). Contact: Mark Bould ([email protected]), Miscellaneous Section: this Miscellaneous section Gerry Canavan ([email protected]) and is open to any type of article on any of the diverse Sherryl Vint ([email protected]). artistic manifestations of the fantastic (narrative,
Science Fiction Film and Television is seeking articles games), whether theoretical, critical, historical or for a special issue on Women & Science Fiction Me- comparativetheater, film, in comics, nature, painting, concerning photography, the fantastic video in dia, intended to mark the 200th year anniversary of any language or from any country, from the nine- the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. teenth century to the present. Although sf was once stereotyped as a male genre, Submission: scholars who wish to contribute to ei- more recently women’s contributions as authors, ther of these two sections should send us their ar- fans, editors, and more have become more widely ticles registering as authors on our web page. The acknowledged. Central to this new understanding of Guidelines for Submissions may be found on the women’s contributions to sf has been the realization Submissions section of the web page. that women have always been a part of the genre, re- sisting another stereotype that links women’s emer- Title: World Science Fiction Studies. and 1970s. In recognition of the bicentenary of the Manuscript Deadline: Ongoing. publicationgence in the of field Frankenstein to the feminist (1818) fiction by Mary of the Shelley, 1960s Contact: Dr Laurel Plapp, Senior Commissioning - Editor: [email protected]. ognize, interrogate, respond to and celebrate wom- en’sarguably contributions the first sfto novel, media we sf. seekWe are essays interested that rec in The book series World Science Fiction Studies under- reviewing any work that explores this topic, but we are particularly interested in contributions on the and explores the various manifestations of the genre following topics: instands cultures science around fiction the toworld. be a It global recognizes phenomenon the im- portance of Anglo-American contributions to the • - • Female sf showrunners. tion in other national traditions, particularly Ger- Female directors of sf film and television. field but promotes the critical study of science fic 48 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 49 man-speaking. It also supports the investigation of transnational discourses that have shaped the sci- enceThe fiction Journal scholar of Science to send Fiction us their will be original published articles, on- of the series is not limited to one particular medium lineessays and or freely book accessiblereviews for to our everyone first issue.” -- no subscrip- andence encourages fiction tradition study sinceof the its genre inception. in both The print scope and tion or submission fees are required. The Museum’s - Journal of Science Fiction welcomes original work medial). Theoretical approaches (e.g. post-human, from writers around the world, with an emphasis on digital forms (e.g. literature, film, television, trans the interdisciplinary and innovative aspects of sci- withgender, a focus genre beyond theory) the and Anglo-American genre studies (e.g.tradition film year and each will feature between eight and twelve areshorts, also transgenrewelcome. such as science fiction comedy) peer-reviewedence fiction. Issues academic will be articles published as well three as timesseveral a book reviews and essays. Submission: Proposals for monographs and edited collections in either English or German are invited. Submission: submission information for the Jour- For more information, please contact Dr Laurel nal of Science Fiction can be found on the Journal’s Plapp, Senior Commissioning Editor, Peter Lang Ltd, homepage at the University of Maryland: http:// 52 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LU, UK. Email: L.PLAPP@ . peterlang.com. Tel: +44 (0) 1865 514160. Submissions for the Journal of Science Fiction can bepublish.lib.umd.edu/scifi/index sent to: submissions#authorGuidelines. Title: Museum of Science Fiction Call for Submis- Any Journal-relatedhttp://publish.lib.umd.edu/scifi/about/ questions can emailed to Mon- sions for New Triannual Journal of Science Fiction. ica Louzon, Managing Editor: journal@museumof- Manuscript Deadline: Ongoing. . Contact: Register on website: http://publish.lib.umd. More information about other activities are avail- . ablesciencefiction.org on the Museum’s website: www.museumof- . edu/scifi/about/submissions#authorGuidelines - Aboutsciencefiction.org the Museum of Science Fiction: the non- The Museum of Science Fiction, the world’s first Universitycomprehensive of Maryland’s science fiction journal museum, management will pubsys- - lish an academic journal of science fiction Journalusing the of eringprofit theMuseum history of Scienceof the genre Fiction across will be the the arts world’s and Science Fiction will be launched in January of 2016 providingfirst comprehensive a narrative scienceon its relationship fiction museum, to the covreal andtem. will The serve first issueas a forum of the for Museum’s scientists new and academ-
andworld. impacts The Museumsocieties. will Also show serving how as an science educational fiction theics frommodern around world, the andworld its to prognostications discuss science fiction,of the catalystcontinually to expand inspires interest individuals, in the influences science, technolo cultures,- future.including recent trends in the genre, its influence on gy, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) areas. The Greg Bear, member of Museum of Science Fiction’s Museum uses tools such as mobile applications and Board of Advisors and Hugo award-winning science - 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: fiction author said, “Science fiction as literature has . toreal understand staying power the andcultural has beenand mythica huge influenceroots of our on needour modern for anticipation, world. It’s adventure, only fitting and that imagination.” we attempt www.museumofsciencefiction.org/presspacket “We want readers everywhere to consider the sci- Title: Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. want them to ask questions and to have fun doing Manuscript Deadline: Ongoing. so,“ence said fiction Monica genre Louzon, they love managing from new editor angles. of the We Contact: Debbie Felton: [email protected]; Museum’s new Journal of Science Fiction. “We’re en- http://www.editorialmanager.com/preternature/. couraging anyone who considers themselves a sci- 50 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 51 The journal Preternature: Critical and Historical Stud- and cultures. Additionally, Preternature is pleased to ies on the Preternatural is currently seeking original consider original editions or translations of relevant submissions. Preternature is indexed by both JSTOR texts from contemporary or ancient languages that and Project MUSE. have not yet appeared in scholarly edition or been Preternature provides an interdisciplinary, inclu- made available in English. sive forum for the study of topics that stand in the liminal space between the known world and the Submission: contributions should be roughly inexplicable. The journal embraces a broad and dy- 8,000–12,000 words (with the possibility of longer - submissions in exceptional cases), including all doc- passes the weird and uncanny—magic, witchcraft, umentation and critical apparatus. If accepted for spiritualism,namic definition occultism, of the preternaturalesotericism, demonology, that encom publication, manuscripts will be required to adhere monstrophy, and more, recognizing that the areas of to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (style 1, employing footnotes). intersections should continue to be explored, con- textualized,magic, religion, and andchallenged. science are fluid and that their please visit http://www.editorialmanager.com/pre- A rigorously peer-reviewed journal, Preternature ternature/To submit a manuscript to the editorial office, welcomes submissions of original research in Eng- system will guide you through the steps to upload lish from any academic discipline and theoretical and create an author profile. The online Inquiries may be directed to the Editor, Debbie Fel- preternatural. The journal publishes scholarly ar- ton,your at: article [email protected] for submission to the editorial. office. ticles,approach notes, relating and reviews to the role covering and significance all time periods of the
50 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 SFRA Review 317 Summer 2016 51 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.
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