327 Winter 2019 January-February SFRA An Open Access Publication of the Science Fiction Research Association Editor Review Sean Guynes PhD Candidate Department of English In this issue ISSN 2641-2837 Michigan State University [email protected] SFRA Review Business Another One?!...... 3 Nonfiction Editor Dominick Grace SFRA Business Professor of English Winter Is Here...... 4 School of Humanities Incoming!...... 4 Brescia University College [email protected] SF Retrospectives Stan Lee ...... 5 Assistant Nonfiction Editor Kevin Pinkham Assistant Professor of English Features College of Arts and Sciences Historical Fantasy as SF in Osamu Tezuka's Muramasa...... 8 Nyack College The SF in Translation Universe...... 11 [email protected] Meet the Future...... 12

Fiction Editor Symposium: Worlding SF Jeremy Brett Symposium Introduction...... 14 Associate Professor and Curator Immersion and Fictionality in Westworld...... 14 Cushing Memorial Library and Queering the Wayfarer Universe...... 17 Archives, Texas A&M University [email protected] The Future, Wouldn't That Be Nice?...... 20 ...... 25 Building Reynolds's Revelation Space...... 29 Media Editor TheCyberpunk's Outerspace Commodification within Us in Villeneuve's of Bodies Arrival...... 33 Leimar Garcia-Siino Semiotic Concepts of Gravity in Solanas's Upside Down...... 37 Lecturer in English Atlantic University College The Otherworldly Self in Tarkovsky's Solaris...... 41 [email protected] Intersexuality in Heinlein's "'—All You Zombies—'"...... 45 Alternate History and Racial Capitalism in Shawl's Everfair...... 48 Eschatology in Star Trek...... 51 Submissions Novelty and Age in Butler's Fledgling...... 54 SFRA Review (ISSN 2641-2837) is Throw Grandma Out the Airlock...... 57 an Open Access review journal pub- Naturalism and the Ontological Complexity of SF Worlds...... 60 lished four times a year by the Sci- ence Fiction Research Association (SFRA). Nonfiction Reviews SFRA Review encourages submis- La ideología de Star Wars...... 65 sions of reviews, review essays, in- Essays on Gender and Identity in the Star Trek Universe...... 66 terviews, and feature articles. Sub- Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before...... 67 mission guidelines are available at http://www.sfra.org/ or by inquiry to Trekonomics...... 69 the appropriate editor. PB SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 1 The Doppelganger in 21st-Century Media...... 71

Fiction Reviews Hybrid Child...... 73 The Future Is Female!...... 74 Finding Baba Yaga...... 76

Media Reviews Venom...... 77 Altered Carbon ...... 79

CFP: SFRA Annual Conference 2019 SFRA 2019 will meet in Hawai‘i, a set of islands that Friday, 21 June - Monday, 24 June 2019 after two and a half centuries of Western contact has become the world leader in species extinction, Chaminade University, Honolulu, Hawai‘i while being transformed during the nineteenth century from a wholly self-sustaining civilization Conference Theme: Facing the Future, Facing the into a plantation economy dominated by export Past: Colonialism, Indigeneity, and SF crops and ravaged by epidemics that reduced the Native Hawaiian population by 80% or more, Keynote Speaker: Nalo Hopkinson and whose political sovereignty was stolen by the settler-controlled and US-military-aided overthrow The SFRA invites proposals for its 2019 annual of the monarchy in 1893. As we plan to meet on this conference, to be held on the campus of Chaminade occupied land with its long history of indigenous University, Honolulu, Hawai‘i. resistance to colonial incursion, we welcome papers

history and its ongoing effects, to the contemporary ecologicaland panels crisis,on the torelation issues of of science political fiction and toeconomic colonial or“I ka more wā mua,literally, ka wā“In ma what hope” is in is front a Hawaiian of you isproverb found justice, and to past and ongoing visions of the future. that can be translated, “In the past lies the future,” 300-500 word abstracts should be sent to what is behind you.” In the Native Hawaiian way of [email protected] or through the Abstract thinking, according to scholar Lilikalā Kame‘eleihiwa, past,“The Hawaiianseeking historical stands firmly answers in the for present, present-day with acceptance will occur by 8 April 2019. his back to the future, and his eyes fixed upon the Submission form by 1 March 2019. Notification of might be, you must face the past to prepare yourself Questions concerning this call for papers, fordilemmas.” the future. Another Thinking way about of interpreting this Hawaiian this proverb saying preconstituted panels, & roundtables can be directed to [email protected] with the subject about ways of knowing, ways of orienting ourselves line "CFP QUESTION," or to the conference’s local in thetime context and space, of science the relationfiction brings of our up notions questions of organizers, John Rieder ([email protected]) and the possible to our understanding of history, the Ida Yoshinaga ([email protected]) of the University of technological practice in relation to the past and the chaminade.edu) of Chaminade University. future,ethical and and our political expectations obligations of social of change our scientific- as well Hawai'i at Mānoa, and Justin Wyble (justin.wyble@ as our sense of how it comes about.

2 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 3 SFRA Review Business but rather reflect a new shift toward producing EDITOR'S MESSAGE That said, I want to invite all readers to submit shorter, in-progress scholarship and fiction.

Another One?! bearticles adding to meimages for the of “Features”book covers section! and media in the reviewMoving sections on, I wantin order to note to brieflyspruce thatup theI will visual now Sean Guynes learned how to incorporate images into InDesign WITH POLAR VORTICES and records temperatures appeal of the Review, and also because I finally lows freezing much of the nation, what better treat than a new issue of SFRA Review? The winter issue byfiles my (see editors the penultimate and they do page such of incredible SFRA Review work #326 for brings with it a few updates. thefor myReview first thatattempt I feel to obliged do so). to This make was their requested dreams For one, SFRA Review has a new ISSN. It occurred come true. Here’s to you, editors! to me as I was poking through serials databases for my Finally, you might have noticed that this issue job as journals coordinator at Michigan Publishing, is about double the typical length, if not longer. In that the ISSN the Review had been operating under December I attended the Worlding SF: Building, was for a solely print journal. Serials that appear Inhabiting, and Understanding Science Fiction Universes conference at the University of Graz in version, and since the Review no longer appears in Austria, organized by Stefan Rabitsch, Michael Fuchs, print,online the and lack in printof a proper require ISSN two causes ISSNs, some one concern.for each and Stefan Brandt. I’ve put together a symposium of So I have received a new ISSN for the Review from the Library of Congress and registered it with the and incredible new thoughts of just a few of the relevant databases. manyconference presenters. papers I’ve that never reflect had the such range, a fun diversity, time at a conference! Well, that’s all until next time. Be seeing you. makesNext, some the historical“Features sense 101” ifsection you look is changingthrough oldits name to simply “Features.” This change actually over the Review with the winter 2008 issue (which includedissues of thean update Review. in Before the typesetting Karen Hellekson design took to roughly what we currently use), the Review sported a bunch of occasional sections that sometimes

was instituted regularly and each issue featured (get contained essays. Under Karen, a “Features” section

it?) a state-of-the-field survey of some topic in sff. These were given names like “Science Studies 101” (Winter 2008), “Mundane SF 101” (Summer 2009), and “Feminist SF 101” (Fall 2010). Later, under Doug hadDavis, commissioned. the section changed In thinking to “Features about the 101” purpose to reflect of thewhat section Karen andhad thebeen architecture doing with ofthe the 101 Review essays as she it came to me and as I have made changes by adding some regular columns, it seems like the concept of

ofa “101” Buffalo section in 1929 no to longer identify fits. the The beginner-level number reflects focus a ofpopular a class; course the features title first we instituted have in atthe the section University now

are no longer introductory surveys (though Karen’s 2 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 innovation there was quite brilliant and necessary), SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 3 SFRA Business

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE VICE-PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Winter Is Here Incoming!

Keren Omry Sonja Fritzsche

2019 IS UPON US and with it I’d like to roll out the I AM THRILLED and honored to begin my term as welcoming mat for our newest Executive Committee Vice President of the SFRA and thankful for the trust members. In their new roles, Sonja Fritzsche, as placed in me to carry out the position. The society Vice President, and Hugh C. O’Connell, as Treasurer, has always been such a supportive and creative, round out the team of award-committee members, scholarly space and I am eager to help to continue conference hosts, Review editors, webmasters, and that tradition, particularly with an eye to the ongoing EC folk, who keep the SFRA running. All of fostering the careers of graduate students and pre- these jobs are volunteer positions and it is inspiring tenure faculty. and heartwarming to see the generosity and energy Outgoing VP Gerry Canavan worked hard to with which this team steps up to the plate. Warmest extend the outreach of the organization, particularly thanks go to Gerry Canavan and David Higgins for on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ their contributions and hard work over the past two sfresearchassociation/ and Twitter @sfranews. years! We’ve got an exciting conference coming up, and with its focus on colonialism and indigeneity, shareIf you or have retweet not already, the information please “like” posted this on page these on our hosts couldn’t have come up with a more timely pages.Facebook This and will “follow” help to us extend on Twitter. the reach Please of alsothe topic. While we realize that holding the conference society and also increase the success of what has been posted. A win-win. Please feel free to send me members, we trust that the attractions of the location a cfp or other information of interest to the society andin Hawaíi the promise presents of somea stellar difficulty conference for some will ofserve our membership. Contact me directly via the society’s as an incentive enough to overcome the obstacles. social media or contact me at [email protected] or Moreover, we welcome our new members and @sfritzsc. I know we are all excited about this summer’s may prove more convenient. Further details can conference at the Chaminade University, Honolulu, beattendees found on from the the SFRA Pacific, website for whomand we this hope location you’ll Hawai‘I from June 21-24, 2019. Its theme is “Facing consider sending in abstracts and proposals by the Future, Facing the Past: Colonialism, Indigeneity, March 1st. You should also be receiving reminders to renew your membership, if you have not yet done so. As it is a time for new beginnings, we have many Hopkinson.and SF” following More theinformation Hawaiian proverbcan be found “I ka wāat ideas and thoughts about directions and possibilities http://www.sfra.org/SFRA-Annual-Conference.mua, ka wā ma hope.” The keynote speaker is Nalo for the Association which we hope to be able to Be sure to submit your 300-500 word abstract to share with you by the next Issue. We welcome any [email protected] by the March 1, 2019 deadline. Thank you for John Rieder and Ida Yoshinaga for do not hesitate to contact any of us. In the meantime, hosting! Please pass this cfp on to scholars who you wishingideas or usrequests all a spectacular from our year.members and so please think would be interested! Each new location brings the promise of new contributions and members to SFRA! Propose a panel that includes someone who has never attended an SFRA before to bring them into a broader conversation.

4 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 5 SF Retrospectives 1939 debut of Superman and the jaw-breaking 1941 debut of Captain America. After Joe Simon and Jack

move to more lucrative National Comics, Lee’s uncle Stan Lee MartinKirby left Goodman, the editorial then reins managing at Timely Timely’s in late business 1941 to (Dec. 1922 –Nov. 2018) affairs, installed Lee as the comic line’s editor-in- chief despite the fact young Lee was only 19 years old. Apart from a short diversion while serving in Jason Sacks World War II, writing promotional material for the

military, Lee would hold that role until 1972. Stan Lee, born Stanley Martin Lieber on Decem- Though the super-heroes of the early 1940s rap- ber 28, 1922, and who died on November 12, 2018, idly declined in popularity after the war, the newly at the age of 95, was arguably the most important renamed Lee helped lead the company to embrace a tremendous diversity of genres unthinkable in to- years in the industry, Lee presided as editor-in-chief day’s comics industry. By 1948, Timely was releasing andfigure later in AmericanPublisher atcomic Marvel book Comics, history. overseeing Over his the75 rise of the Marvel line to become the premier comic such as crime, western, teen romance and funny ani- book company in America. After he was pushed out mals,some alongtwo dozen with a comics handful per of super-heromonth spanning comics. fields The of Marvel in 1998, Lee provided his name to several company developed a reputation throughout the late different startups, including Stan Lee Media, POW! 1940s and into the 1950s as a trend follower as Lee Entertainment and 1821 Comics. and staff embraced the hottest genres in the indus- Lee was primarily known for his essential role in try. When romance comics gained massive popular- shaping Marvel Comics in the 1960s. During a time of a budding comic book renaissance, fueled by ado- lescent baby boomers seeking entertainment that War,ity in Lee 1947, again Lee organized flooded the knockoff market anthologies. with knockoffs. And emphasized power fantasies, Lee co-created some whenWhen EC’swar comicshorror boomedcomics dominated in the wake the of industrythe Korean in of the most iconic characters of the era, including the early 1950s, Lee launched numerous similar se- the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Doctor ries. Throughout this era, Lee’s stories were average Strange and the Black Panther. In collaboration with for their time – neither as innovative as EC’s series nor as exploitative as those published by competi- Lee pioneered the idea of super-heroes with feet of tors Harvey or Avon. clay.his artists, Lee’s mostcharacters notably contrasted Steve Ditko with and those Jack ofKirby, his In this light Lee can be seen mainly as an oppor- competitors by having seemingly realistic problems. tunist, looking simply to maintain market share. But Peter Parker worried about his costume shrinking in that opportunism was coupled with compassion. the wash, Tony Stark worried about getting a heart Lee showed loyalty to the comics creators of the attack, and the X-Men were angst-ridden about pow- time, keeping Atlas Comics’s roster of artists em- ers thrust upon them during adolescence. ployed even while sales declined dramatically after Lee is properly lauded for those accomplish- the early 1950s US Congressional investigation into ments. Unfortunately, many obituaries of Lee begin comic books. In doing so, Lee created a serious cash- and end with them. To properly account for Stan Lee, one must reckon both with his undeniable achieve- ments and the more controversial and lesser-known soflow many crisis stories for the ahead company of their which need led, that ironically, he had to elements of his career. temporarilythe “Marvel lay recession” off nearly of all 1958, his creative when Lee staff. bought Com- Leiber began his comics career at the age of 17. ing out of this recession, Lee managed a truncated Always dreaming of becoming a professional writer, line of 16 bimonthly titles. That line featured art by Lee prevailed on his uncle Robbie Solomon to give some of Lee’s star artists, including Steve Ditko, Jack him a job at the family business, what then was - called Timely Comics port with all his artists of the time—especially Ditko - Kirby and Joe Maneely. Lee developed a strong rap Leiber published his first work, under the pseud 1941). Comics were booming after the explosive and Kirby, after Maneely’s tragic death. 4 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 onym Stan Lee, in Captain America Comics #3 (May SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 5 Debuting in 1961, Fantastic Four #1 was little noted by comic readers of the time. However, within vel’s greatness, but Lee’s role in that work has prov- - en to be the most controversial as well as the most roes had emerged as the hottest title on the market. a year, the story of a bickering quartet of super-he auteur theory of comic art credit the artists for their clever scripting, FF represented a radically different breakthroughsignificant aspect work of on his these career. series Proponents while down of the- takeDriven on by super-heroes Kirby’s bold as artwork compared and withLee’s National’s slick and playing Lee’s work providing a level of slickness to conservative takes on Superman, Batman, Green - Lantern and the Justice League of America. Where Justice League and their peers read at times like in- theorythe sometimes of Marvel awkward history claim, edges with Kirby some and merit, Ditko thatdis Leeplayed. would Indeed, downplay these the proponents work of his of collaboratorsthe “Satan Lee” as imbued the Fantastic Four with aggressively bold a way of boosting his own image and ego. personalitiessurance salesmen that with grabbed super-powers, the attention Lee and of Kirbyolder That claim is boosted somewhat by Lee’s dual readers. It seemed there might be a future with su- role at Marvel. Not only was he responsible for per-heroes at Marvel Comics. scripting a half-dozen series per month, Lee also was the public face of Marvel. Each comic included heroes who showed the future of Lee’s business. a page called the Bullpen Bulletins, full of breath- ThatIn single June month 1962 Marvel saw the debuted debuts of a icons quartet Thor, of Ant- new less commentary about each month’s new titles as Man, Iron Man and Spider-Man. While all were im- well as gossip about the comings and goings of staff portant to Marvel, it was Spider-Man who brought a monthly editorial whose subjects spanned such neurotic, complex Peter Parker struck many readers weightymembers. topics That pageas racism also includedand the “Stan’sVietnam Soapbox,” War as asthe the most most attention, realistic teen in Amazing hero of his Fantasy era, and #15. he was The well as such light subjects as the fun of Hallowe’en. the one who garnered the most attention from the While many latter-day commentators downplay that cognoscenti. rapport as simple savvy promotion, it nevertheless As these new heroes gained in popularity, joined helped drive a feeling of connection between Marvel by such luminaries as the Hulk, Daredevil and Sgt. and its readers that often was as important as the Fury (later to become Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.), comic stories themselves to his brand-building. Lee Lee found he had to develop a new method for pro- also coined the phrase House of Ideas for Marvel, an - than deliver a full script to his artists, Lee fell into trasted nicely with its more hidebound competitors. aducing method many in which comics he quicklywould simply each month. deliver Rathera plot appellationBy 1967, that Marvel fit the passed 1960s DC boom as theperiod sales and leader con (sometimes a very skeletal one) for each issue and in American comic books. Much of that triumph have his artists deliver a twenty-page story. In effect, was predicated on the relationship Lee built with Lee delegated the actual storytelling for each issue to his fans. To be fair, Marvel jumped to the top of the sales charts while industry sales in general were de- under the near-complete autonomy Lee granted clining as Baby Boomers grew older and color TV them.his artists. Others Some, chafed especially at the lack Ditko of andfocus Kirby, provided thrived in took deeper hold of America. Nevertheless, Lee’s triumph was unprecedented. Indeed, Spider-Man - survived the 1966 departure of Steve Ditko and even laborativea one-page creativity plot synopsis. unprecedented For Kirby inand the Ditko, industry. the achieved greater sales under longtime Marvel staffer so-called “Marvel Method” resulted in a level of col- John Romita, and the Marvel line continued to grow tastic Four grew to legendary levels as he introduced both in popularity and fan acclaim. By the time Lee titanicKirby’s creations storytelling such in as such the seriesBlack Panther,as Thor theand Inhu Fan- stepped away from his editor-in-chief role in 1972, mans and especially the Silver Surfer to stories Lee delegating the role to protégé Roy Thomas, Lee was perhaps the most popular and best-known name in Ditko orchestrated the adventures of Spider-Man - and Doctor Kirby producedStrange with in scant collaboration. input from Meanwhile, Lee, driv- tion to DC Comics in 1970 in a cloud of anger and re- ing each series to new levels of intensity and clever- American comics. This is despite Jack Kirby’s defec ness. inappropriately taking credit for his work. - criminationIndeed, Lee’s around legacy assertions is weakest by Kirby in the that area Lee of wascre- 6 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 7 Many critics find this era to be the peak of Mar ator ownership of intellectual properties. Whereas by his famous name. he essentially traded his proprietary interest in his In 1998, the Internet was in the height of the characters for a lucrative lifetime job at Marvel, his dotcom boom. Though Lee was a septuagenarian by artists received no such deals. None of Lee’s collabo- that time, he lent his name to one of the major dot- com companies of the day. Stan Lee Media was de- voted to the creation of new intellectual properties orrators, co-created. not even Some Kirby fans or Ditko, complained received that royalties Lee un or- for a new millennium, and main investor Peter Paul derplayedofficial credit the forcredit the due characters the artists they in eitherthe books created The was deeply involved in helping Lee deliver new char- Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins. This acters intended to recapture the Marvel lightning in sparseness of credit (and remuneration) caused a - great deal of acrimony, an issue complicated further ina bottle. early 2000, Lee’s evenfirst creationcrashing for the his servers eponymous for support com- ingpany, technology The 7th Portal, Macromedia was briefly Shockwave. massively That popular suc- vintageby Lee’s original silence whenart (worth Kirby hundreds and Marvel of thousands entered into of cess proved to be short-lived, however. By December dollarsa bitter ondispute the open about market) the return in the of early some 1980s. of Kirby’s 2000, Stan Lee Media had closed its doors, and Paul Lee was also often accused of promoting his own credit for characters he never worked on at all. It was an ignominious low point in Lee’s career, Many biographies of Lee claim he created or co-cre- thoughfled to Brazil Lee’s involvementto escape creditors. in the venture appeared to ated characters such as Captain America, Wolverine, Deadpool and the Punisher, all of which he had little or no stake in developing. Those mistakes, which Lee aroundbe quite variousshallow, companies,primarily a becomingmatter of lendingassociated his often didn’t correct, led to an inaccurate view that withname much-despised to the endeavor. characters Lee subsequently like Stripperella bounced Lee was the sole creator of these iconic characters. produced (with lesser talents) for companies like POW! Entertainment and 1821 Comics. Marvel in New York, having relocated to Hollywood Thankfully for Lee, new editors had taken over as aBy kind the oflate ambassador 1970s, Lee wasto Hollywood largely a figurehead studios. De at- Marvel by the mid-2000s. New editor-in-chief Joe spite Lee’s presence, Marvel was largely a nonentity Quesada ensured Lee received the credit he felt Lee - deserved. Lee was reinstated to Marvel’s payroll as ible Hulk TV series was a minor hit but did not touch a kind of roving ambassador. It became a running onin the stories film Leeand wroteTV realms or spearheaded. during that era. Other The shows Incred of in-joke that Lee would have a cameo in all movies produced by Marvel Films. As a result, Lee became live-action Spider-Man show lasted a handful of epi- sodesthe time and were 1978’s either Fantastic largely Four flops cartoon – for instance, embarrass the- legacy and prove the robustness of the characters he ingly replaced the Human Torch with a robot – or helpedpart of acreate. legacy of filmmaking that would validate his eminently forgettable (the cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends). In some ways this era can be Stan Lee’s reputation is complex. On the one hand, seen as the nadir of Lee’s career. As “minister with- he keptAs befits Marvel a man alive with in the a 75-year 1950s andcareer helped in comics, guide the company’s rise to unparalleled popularity in the 1960s. On the other hand, Lee was arguably an properties.out portfolio” to the Hollywood studios, Lee belly- exploiter of his collaborators, and can be seen as a floppedBy the in hislater attempts ‘90s, Lee to becamegain attention a voice-over for Marvel tal- huckster who favored hype over substance. Indeed, ent on new Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Spider- the cover to The Comics Journal 181 (October 1995), Man cartoons. However, that move also proved to painted by humorist Drew Friedman, presented Lee be short-lived as Lee found himself forced out of the as a kind of carnival barker, spreading endless hype very company he developed to its potential as Marvel hurtled into bankruptcy under the rapacious hands That attitude towards Lee’s career deliberately of investor Ron Perelman, who pushed Lee out of the downplaysand ignoring the true brilliance quality. of Lee at his peak. While it company – though with both a million-dollar golden Surfer and Ditko created the Green Goblin, it’s also is unquestionably true that Kirby created the Silver 6 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 parachute and with the tremendous equity brought SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 7 Features - port with readers helped build a relationship that propelledunquestionably Marvel true to become that Lee’s the biggest dialogue company and rap in Historical Fantasy as SF in Osamu the industry. Lee brought charisma and joy to comic Tezuka's Muramasa did so in a way that seemed to elevate his readers. The Past Is Prologue: Historical Fantasy as Spec- Leetitles always that frequently seemed happy appealed to be to playingintroverts, a game and he ulative Fiction in Osamu Tezuka's Muramasa had mastered, and fans always were pleased to be part of that game. That was as true of Fantastic Four Daniel Martin in 1961 as it was of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology 2008. [email protected] For all his abundant faults, Stan Lee was a JAPANESE ANIMATOR and manga artist Osamu Te- creations have become modern myths, embraced zuka is rightfully acknowledged as the master of his throughouttransformative the figureworld. inJust American as importantly, culture. Lee His was co- profession, and his works, from Astro Boy to Black - nearly the entire history of the medium. In losing ential and hugely popular. Tezuka was also known him,one of we the also final lose comics a crucial professionals link to comics’ to have past.spanned His forJack more and Kimbapersonal the and White experimental Lion, were works, widely and influ his death truly marks the end of an era.

andshort variety, film Muramasa this animation was one nonetheless of the last stands he made; out asin aunusually prolific career dark, characterisedand painfully byprofound. incredible Express depth- ing a fascinating variation on Tezuka’s typically hu- manistic—and ultimately optimistic—worldview,

judgment on contemporary society, offering a scath- the film draws on historical fantasy in order to pass of nuclear weapons. Muramasa tells a simple story, withoutingly pessimistic the aid of speculation dialogue or on intertitles, the consequences in a run-

as it begins, and proposes an inescapable cycle of violencening time and of lessself-destruction: than nine minutes. a wandering The film samurai ends discovers a powerful sword, but is driven insane and compelled to kill indiscriminately, leading to the loss

at which point the blade is discovered by another of his humanity (literally and figuratively) and death,- mations, entirely self-funded and produced without mainstreamwarrior. The commercialfilm is one of ambitions. Tezuka’s more Muramasa daring preani- miered at the 1987 Hiroshima International Anima- tion Festival and is understandably regarded as one

- plicity,of Tezuka’s it remains “minor” one productions of the director’s (McCarthy most revealing 211). Yet works,in spite illuminating of the film’s his short views length on the and perilous apparent nature sim of post-war society and the fundamental decency of humankind. This depiction of a pre-industrial so- ciety stands as a potent metaphor for the perils of

8 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 9 - because it made the drawn image more cinematic, tion disguised as fantasy. Muramasa is interesting for its strong resemblance technologyMuramasa and takes scientific its inspiration development: from science both myth fic - and history, drawing on the story of Sengo Murama- wise, Tezuka’s characters are cherished, typically, sa, a swordsmith in sixteenth century Japan, whose becauseto the flat, they drawn feel imageso alive rather in spite than of animation. their simplistic Like blades were highly prized for their sharpness and character design. Here, conversely, the characters beauty. Jonathan Clements notes that Muramasa’s seem not to connect with the viewer precisely be- historical notoriety, however, began 200 years lat- cause they belong to history. er, when his swords became the subject of myth, with reports that Muramasa “was half-mad, and the this point: often the animation/illustration does not weapons he made could impel their wielders into The formal style throughout the film emphasizes the bleakness of the world in which the story takes long dead when these myths formed around his life, fill the entire frame, with blank spaces left to signify andmurderous the origins rages” appear (271). to be Muramasa as mundane was as thereforesome su- feels ever more like a historical artefact damaged perstitious local governors; nonetheless, the legend byplace. time, The an effect oral historyof this visualwith parts style missingis that theor misfilm- became one of Japan’s most enduring supernatural remembered, or even a fragmented (if symbolically myths, and his swords “were associated with a whole precise) dream. Indeed, symbolism is the primary series of half-remembered macabre tales of murder method through which the story is told: without dialogue, subtitles, or intertitles, everything is com-

fromand betrayal” the late (Clementseighteenth 271). century, The andMuramasa by the storytime diegetic sound, and is instead accompanied by a con- Tezukahad been started fictionalized his career as the in subjectmanga, of it kabukiwas part plays of municated through visuals (the film also lacks any popular culture. This is where the second inspira- Buddhist chanting). Color communicates mood and tion for Tezuka’s 1987 version of the story comes atmosphere:stant musical the score, opening which shows only brieflya foreboding gives wayblood- to in: Tezuka himself had told the story before, twenty red sky, while later, the way color drains out of the years earlier, in the pages of his masterful manga series Dororo (1967). In chapter eight of the story, character with the cursed sword. the heroes encounter a samurai called Tanosuke frame signifies the feverish obsession of the central through this kind of visual symbolism. When the samurai explains that he kills unwillingly in order to The key points of the film’s plot are all conveyed- satiatewho wields the blade’s a possessed bloodlust, sword and he is calls defeated “Nihil.” by Thethe ly against a darker backdrop (Tezuka used the same heroic Hyakkimaru only after an intense psychic and visualswordsman cue in first Dororo, discovers where the the blade, blade it emittedglows bright light, physical duel. Though not explicitly described in the even in blackest night). Later, the swordsman’s eyes manga as a Muramasa blade, and given a different origin story, this is nonetheless an obvious variation on the same tale. andflash the and man’s flicker obsession. with eerie Though red highlights initially as disturbed, he gazes heupon appears the blade, to embrace confirming this both evil the power, weapon’s praying power to the myths not just of Japan’s past but of his own body of work,For Tezuka’s offering 1987a retelling short of film, the then,cursed he sword draws sto on- an insight into the mind of its central character as ry that is at once more realistic yet more poetic and heicons slips of demon-godsinto madness, with and the explains sword. Thewhat film compels offers him to kill. A straw man—used as a training dum- my among samurai to test the sharpness of blades ofdreamlike, the earliest and forms significantly of animation bleaker. in Japan—the The aesthetic kiri- and practice sword thrusts—is the central symbolic gamistyle ofstyle the of film cut also paper makes collage nostalgic animation. reference Muramasa to one - - plicablyimage of in the an film. isolated The swordarea in is a first forest. discovered Yet once pro the ofis andistance animated from film the that modern is frequently world. Frames barely animate.look like swordsmantruding from has the tested chest theof such blade a andstraw discovered figure, inex its Characters are stiff and static, giving the film a sense- incredible sharpness, he starts to see illusions of idly drawn. This represents an ironic departure for straw dummies everywhere. Only after they have Tezuka.they have Just been as his painted, manga or was etched, praised rather as innovative than flu been cut down do they then transform into reality: 8 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 9 the corpses of innocent, ordinary men. ence of the indiscriminate violence of the Second Muramasa has obvious visual and narrative con- - nections to the Japanese live-action period drama thy suggests that his traumatic memory of witness- World War that influenced him so strongly. McCar presents a fatalistic cycle of violence; a curse that later (24). Natsu Onoda Power also views World War can(jidai-geki) be escaped genre, only but in this death. is also The a horrorswordsman’s film. It Twoing the as firebombingthe central oftheme Osaka of haunted Tezuka’s him post-1960s for years demise begins when his willpower—his human- animation, and notes that Tezuka even claimed “his experiences of the war were his primary motivation ity—is sufficient to prevent him from slaying a child. been scornful of irresponsible scientists (most nota- encroaches—underscoredThis triggers a final physical by transformation the powerful, inemo the- for producing work” (36). Tezuka’s works have often tiveswordsman: sounds of he Buddhist flees back chanting—and into the forest collapses as dusk at genius inventor creates a robot son he cannot love). the foot of a tree. As the swordsman’s body begins a bly in his iconic science fiction Astro Boy, in which a his feelings on the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima to thrust the blade into his own chest. This cycle of andMore Nagasaki; specifically, surely Tezuka the single has depictedmost profound elsewhere im- murderhorrifying and transformation self-destruction into is straw,both inevitablehis final act and is age from all of Tezuka’s animation is the moment in inescapable: in a profoundly pessimistic—but poeti- - mushroom cloud transforms into a love heart, and ing warrior encounters the blade and the straw man. his short film Memories (1964), in which a nuclear callyThis justified—final ending is much mirror darker image, thananother is typicallywander a glass of beer, as the voiceover narration proposes found in Tezuka’s work. In his telling of this story thatthen even a woman’s these painful body and memories smiling might face, andeventually finally in the pages of Dororo in 1967, the cursed samurai heal. Muramasa’s commentary on the corrupting also triggered the destruction of the sword and the demonsacrificed that himself possessed in the it. The exact difference same way, in tone but and this evil spirit is visualised as a demonic samurai with meaning between these two works, separated by apower skeletal of weaponry face, offering is clear. the Indelusional the film, swordsmanthe sword’s twenty years, can be explained with the deepening a golden helm (topped with a skull). The promise of Tezuka’s thematic concerns and the increased of power—at the cost of humanity—is another of creative freedom he enjoyed later. The thematic and Tezuka’s consistent themes, but it has rarely been philosophical message at the heart of Muramasa is apparent to even those without knowledge of Tezu- message is that there can be no end to the cycle of ka’s career; viewed in the context of his strong anti- destructionexpressed in and such self-destruction stark terms. The while film’s the ultimateweapon war beliefs, its meaning is ever clearer. Helen Mc- exists, and it ends without any promise of redemp- Carthy argues that Tezuka intended Muramasa “as a warning of the fragility of the current peace, resting was fundamentally humanistic, and that he incor- - poratedtion or salvation.a message Kajii of peace Jun has into argued each of that his Tezukaworks, usually in a direct and didactic manner (Power 38). inscription:solely on nuclear “A man deterrence” with arms which(211). canThis kill interpre people Again, Tezuka’s own comments support this, and his liketation puppets is encouraged is not aware by thethat film’s he himself sombre has opening already - sion statement is this: “Love all the creatures. Love - everythingmost oft-quoted that hassummary life. I have of his tried own to thematic express misthis become a puppet.” This reading remains the most - threatpersuasive of nuclear interpretation war. It presents of the film. a warrior Muramasa who acre- marise the vast majority of Tezuka’s work, but the flects many of the specific anxieties surrounding the optimismmessage in inherent every one in ofhis my statement works.” This is missing might sumfrom is robbed of the ability to see the faces—or even to Muramasa. Here, Tezuka argues that violence begets comprehendquires a weapon the reality—ofmore powerful those than he hasany killed.other, Itand is violence, that the cycle of destruction is inescapable, only by dehumanizing his victims that the warrior is and that the tragedies of the past are a prologue of able to continue his killing spree; the parallels with weapons of mass destruction are obvious. - Scholars agree that it was Tezuka’s own experi- tionwhat onis toTezuka’s come. The experiences film is ultimately with animation elegiac; it’sand a celebration of Japan’s culture and history, a reflec 10 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 11 manga, and a warning that the best and most pre- cious aspects of humankind must be preserved and protected from its worst side. inspeculative the best fictionsense ofin English.the term: we have the second bookThe in first the quarterChinese of fantasy 2019 is series filled withLegends follow-ups of the Works Cited Condor Heroes by Jin Yong (tr. Gigi Chang), the sec- Clements, Jonathan. A Brief History of the Samurai: A ond book in English by Argentine surrealist Samanta New History of the Warrior Elite. Running Press, Schweblin (Mouthful of Birds, tr. Megan McDowell), 2010. the second anthology of Chinese SFT edited and McCarthy, Helen. The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga. Ilex, 2009. postapocalyptic narrative by Quebec native Chris- Muramasa, Directed by Osamu Tezuka, Tezuka Pro- translated by Ken Liu (Broken Stars), and the second ductions, 1987. Homel). Black Coat, too, continues to publish Brian Power, Natsu O. God of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and Stableford'stian Guay-Poliquin translations (The of Weight French of proto-sf Snow, (two tr. David col- the Creation of Post-World War II Manga. UP of lections each month). Mississippi, 2009. - Tezuka, Osamu. Dororo (Volumes 1-3). Translated perium (Book 1) (tr. Isabel Stainsby), which comes by Dawn T. Laabs, Vertical, 2008. out Czechin January, sf author adds Jan to theKotouč’s growing Frontiers list of Czechof the SFTIm that we have the great privilege to read, a list that

to the efforts of author, editor, and translator Julie The SF in Translation Universe Novakova.has grown Also quickly from over Eastern the past Europe few we years have thanks Bos-

Mars (tr. Jennifer Zoble). Like Schweblin’s collection, a regular column appearing in the Features sec- thisnian group author of Asja stories Bakić’s explores darkly the humorous strange and collection unset- tionEditor’s of SFRA Note: Review “The SF in Translation Universe” is tling simmering just beneath the surface of reality. Rachel (beginning Cordasco with issue #325). SFinTranslation.com From Korea we have The Nine Cloud Dream by [email protected] centuryKim Man-Jung Tang China, (tr. Heinz this InsuBuddhist Fenkl), journey, considered reminis the- centgreatest of Dante’s work Inferno, of classic troubles Korean the fiction. notion Set that in real 9th-- ANOTHER YEAR, another exciting crop of SFT com- ing our way. These next three months, in particular, new translation of the work in forty years. will bring us Chinese fantasy, Czech space opera, sur- ity andCollections dreams fromare separate Germany realms. and India This areis the of parfirst- realism from the Balkans, and much more. Get ready. ticular interest in March, given that we don’t often - see SFT from those countries. Viswanadha Saty- cation of 79 novels/collections/anthologies of SFT anarayana’s Ha Ha Hu Hu: A Horse-Headed God in (up Butfrom first, 52 thea brief previous look back.year) 2018and 68 saw short the stories publi (weirdly, the exact same number as the previous story of a creature with a horse’s head and human year). Books translated from Japanese, French, and bodyTrafalgar that Squaresuddenly (tr. appearsVelcheru in Narayana London andRao) speaks is the Spanish continued to dominate, as did short stories an unknown language. Satyanarayana was a re- from Chinese, French, and Spanish. We can thank century, and this collection will introduce Anglo- Black Coat Press; and magazines like Clarkesworld, phonenowned readers and prolific to his Telugu particular author blend of theof satire mid-20th and publishers like Haikasoru, Vertical, Kurodahan, and World Literature Today, and Latin American Litera- political commentary. From Germany, we get a book ture Today, for consistently publishing Japanese, of interlocking stories (Franz Fühmann's Science French, Spanish, and Chinese SFT. The number of Fiktion, tr. Andrew B.B. Hamilton and Claire van den SFT source languages being translated, however, is Broek) that tell a steampunk version of the Cold War growing each year, such that we now have, for exam- ple, Slovakian, Croatian, Catalan, and Montenegrin title is Fühmann’s deliberate attempt to write a dif- from the East German perspective. The “k” in the

10 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 11 ferent kind of science fiction, one that defies genre constraints even as it draws on those generic tropes. Why does sf matter to you? I’ve chosen to study sf because I feel like it’s the Croatian, and Japanese SFT freely-available on the most relevant genre of literature to dissect, criticize, In terms of short fiction, we already have Italian,- and reimagine current social issues. As a feminist and tion.com/?page_id=27). internet, so dive right in (https://www.sfintransla weird experiments with gender—what text can rep- part of 2019, but what we know about already is rea- licatea queer Ann scholar Leckie’s I get novels most withexcited basically by science no use fiction’s of the sonI enoughexpect toto hear celebrate. about evenAnd speakingmore SFT of in celebratthis first- pronouns he/his/him? (Not to mention hivemind AIs and genderless societies? Just read Ancillary Jus- and open to anyone who wants to recognize the sto- tice). Or Seth Dickinson’s polyamorous cultures and ries,ing, thetranslators, first “Favorite and publishers SF in Translation that have Poll” brought is live joy to their reading lives (https://www.surveymon- Baru Cormorant). I love the creativity with which sf key.com/r/MYSZ5WS). The poll closes on March 1. genderqueer characters? (See his new The Monster Until next time in the SFT Universe! Whatsays “screw brought it” you to all to formssf studies? of real-life constraints. When I was a fresh student in my MA program with little understanding of how American aca- Meet the Future demia worked (let alone grad school), my advisor told us that we should begin our studies with the Editor's Note: "Meet the Future" is a regular column kind of literature we read the most. I started mak- appearing in the Feature 101 section of SFRA Review ing a list of my favorite novels and a lot of them interview series were Utopias and dystopias—with a lot of sf and conducted by the SFRA Review editor that highlights horror in between. My MA thesis ended up being the(beginning work of with up-and-coming issue #326). It sf is anscholars, typically about representations of reproduction in dysto- graduate students, postdocs, and recent hires. - esis trilogy and the Alien franchise. When I began Amandine Faucheux mypian PhD fiction—especially work I thought I Octaviawas going Butler’s to do something Xenogen PhD in English and Women's and Gender Studies* radically different and I started exploring futurism English and Women's and Gender Studies movements—in particular Afrofuturism—but in the end my dissertation is still about utopian and *This interview was conducted in December 2018. In late Febru- dystopian stories (how does this always happen??). ary 2019, Amandine completed her dissertation and passed the defense. Congratulations, Dr. Dine! What project(s) are you working on now, and how did you get there? What question(s) really Hi, Dr. Faucheux, could you tell us a bit about drive your work? yourself? As much (or as little) as you’d like! Hi! I am an international student from France Carceral Dreams: Punishment in Contemporary Uto- and I’ve been living in the US for 7 years. I have an pianRight Fiction now. It I’m examines finishing punitive my dissertation institutions entitled and MA in Cultural Studies from the University of New practices in Utopias and dystopias from the 20th and 21st century. I argue that imaginary societies’ stance Mexico and I’m currently finishing my PhD at LSU in horror fan and if you don’t like the new IT, we can’t either texts on the utopian-to-dystopian spectrum. Baton Rouge, LA. Besides science fiction I am a huge be friends. My roller derby team calls me Feminasty. Readvis-a-vis my punishment essay on Orwell’s plays a pivotalNineteen role Eighty-Four in defining hopefully forthcoming somewhere soon! I think I How do you describe yourself professionally? started writing about punishment because the his- I’m still a graduate student but I would call tory behind modern prisons and the discourse - around them is fascinating to me. It simply boggles portant for grad students everywhere to see their myself a speculative fiction scholar. I think it’s im work as meaningful and exciting scholarship. their intended purposes (far from it—they’re actu- allymy mindmostly that counter-productive) prisons have essentially and yet never prison fulfilled abo- 12 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 13 litionism is an extremely marginal political position. ies and sf scholars? What do you want to see us accomplish? increased prison sentences is only matched by the I’d love to see less disputes about generic bound- wideThe fierce empirical passion evidence with whichthat prisons people simply will demand do not aries and more historical/archival work of little affect crime rates (except when they increase them), known writers, especially women and people of col- or. There are huge archives of unknown writers writ- little purpose to crime victims. I think in my research ing exciting works of sf out there in all parts of the atvastly large fail I’m in always “reforming” fascinated criminals, with obviousand serve contra very- world, and I want to know more about that. I would dictions like this. In Carceral Dreams I’m constantly also pay big money for a movie on Alice Sheldon. juxtaposing utopian planning of modern prisons to our most dystopian texts, which (surprise) resem- If you could write a dream book, or teach a ble prisons—and here Bentham’s Panopticon is the dream course, what would it/they be? key example as a project that was clearly intended My dream book and/or course explores the role as a Utopia but turned out to be the most powerful of non-monogamy in 20th and 21st century specu- symbol of dystopianism in the most famous dysto- - pia of all time (Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-Four). amory and any type of non-traditional marriage. lative fiction. I’m particularly interested in poly What do you envision for the future of sf stud- Thank you, Dr. Faucheux! Your labor and thoughts are valued and appreciated, and we look forward to seeing all the amazing things you will contribute to our growing community.

12 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 13 Symposium: Worlding SF 2018 respectively, revolve around the conception, construction, and eventual fall of Westworld, an Symposium Introduction innovative amusement park that offers its visitors the pleasures and enjoyment of a fully immersive Edited by Sean Guynes experience in a simulation of the American Old West. For the park’s guests—the human visitors who pay THE FOLLOWING PAPERS are from the World SF: Building, Inhabiting, and Understanding Science represents an opportunity to momentarily exit the Fiction Universes conference at the University of realto gain world, access as the to characters this artificial call it, world—Westworld and do what they Graz in Austria, December 6-8, 2018, organized by Stefan Rabitsch, Michael Fuchs, and Stefan Brandt. As it would be expected, though, things start getting The symposium was collected and edited by SFRA outplease of control.without Some fearing of theconsequences hosts—the or androids judgement. that inhabit the park and whose identities are programed sampling of the incredible range of scholarship into their code, and who can be repeatedly subjected Review editor Sean Guynes, and reflect a good presented at the conference. The papers are as close to the whims of the guests—become conscious of to the original papers as possible, with minor edits their nature and of the various horrors they suffer, made in collaboration with the authors for clarity, which eventually leads to their rebellion and self- grammar, and to make the shift from conference made emancipation. address to academic prose. Thematically and formally, Westworld is an In total, 14 papers were collected. They are intricate and rich text that elicits interpretations organized by date and time of presentation, and brief of contemporary social, political, and technological information about the panel is given before each concerns. Thinking about how Westworld dramatizes paper. For more information about the presenters, the panels the papers appeared on, and the communication, for instance, Ivan Lacko argues that conference itself, please see the conference website: inthe the tyrannical show “the influence underlying of technologyprinciple . . on . remains human http://worlding-sf.com/. unchanged—stories are the core of human existence and storytelling is the essence of the human capacity for rational thinking, emotional involvement and Immersion and Fictionality in elaborates on this principle to explain that “in the Westworld post-digitalstructural imagination environment and of Westworldperception” . .(36). . [t]he Lacko only

“Gratify the Desires of the People that Visit Your World”: Immersion and Fictionality in Westworld ataspect the .that . . dehumanizing changes is the effectform ofof storytelling” digital and post-(36), which nevertheless for him “raises a warning finger Maximiliano Jiménez discussion, what I am interested in highlighting University of Amsterdam, Netherlands heredigital is technology”also subordinated (38). Related to the tosupremacy this thematic that storytelling has in Westworld, but I approach the Day 1 | December 6, 2018 | 3pm show trying to pay attention to a concept that has Worldbuilding Beyond Storytelling been gaining more critical prominence in narrative

DIRECTLY BASED on Michael Crichton’s 1973 neglectedgenres—that by scholars is, the concept and critics; of fiction. she thinks After all,it is as a engaged from its very premise and title with the Catherine Gallagher puts it, fictionality is usually concepthomonymous of worlding. film, HBO’sWestworld Westworld is set in is a deeplyfuture (336). Here I do not want to focus, as Lacko does, onspecific the ways feature in ofwhich narrative new forms that needsof storytelling recovery of androids that are virtually indistinguishable affect our perception of the world, but rather on in which artificial intelligence allows the creation how certain narratives that demand a high degree of seasons of the show, which aired in 2016 and involvement or, actually, immersion, seem to stretch from humans and other life forms. The first two 14 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 15 park tells Westworld’s potential investors, “Everyone I argue that, in directly engaging with worlding is rushing to build the virtual world. We’re offering asthe part very of notion its plot, of Westworldfiction. draws attention to the increasing ease with which we literally access and other words, the world that Westworld constructs, evensomething though a it little is entirely more tangible”different to (“Reunion”). reality, is not In a place in a different realm or ontological plane, as alongsideinhabit fictional the exploration worlds of in identity the 21st and century. humanity As as a happens with the worlds projected in the novel and result of the interest in this fiction-reality dichotomy, TV series hints at a possible new conceptualization— even in The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), to present common science-fictional themes, I suggest that the somefilm adaptation well-known of Ready examples. Player The One Westworld (2011, 2018) park or how we are now relating to narrative in its various is indeed separated from the real world in that it or perhaps questioning—of fictionality in terms of occupies a large island somewhere, it seems, in the responds to the series’s depiction of a universe in forms. Since the critique of fictionality in Westworld there, put on a cowboy hat, and holster a couple of only blurred, but thematically addressed—which, Pacific Ocean, but the guests merely need to get moreover,which the boundary gains new between dimensions fiction in and relation reality to is notthe exploration of the human versus the non-human—I bodiesguns to behind.be fully However,“immersed” what in thisis clear other is reality—that the parkno need does to befunction plugged differently in and “leave” than theirthe world physical in and corporeality to ultimately wonder where lies the which the park exists, with its own logics and rules, focus particularly on notions of diegesis, fictionality, and that this space does change not the bodies of Espen Aarseth’s concept of cybertexts is helpful the guests, but what they can do with them. In this toconceptual get us started distinction because between Westworld fiction andcombines reality. in new world, the newcomers can venture into the an innovative way aspects that amount to a kind wilderness and kill Indians, hunt buffalo, rob trains, become sheriffs, rape and murder farm girls, and overall release their supposedly dormant murderous whoseof narrative structure that demands goes beyond the active more involvement “traditional” instincts and desires without having to worry about notions of storytelling. Defining cybertext as a text the things that would usually restrain them—legally, ethically, morally. In a way, and as many of the guests exploresof the reader the “aspossibility a more integratedof seeing figurethe readers than even of repeatedly comment, in Westworld people can cybetextsreader-response more as theorist users or would players claim” who (1),experiment Aarseth become whoever they want and pursue whatever with the process of storytelling. While I do not claim adventures they desire. It is like becoming one’s own that Westworld can be categorized as a cybertext, the show presents and theorizes the role of the park’s guests as players, readers, and even characters, avatar inhabiting a fictional space. which for me ultimately means the dramatization of Under this logic, it seems safe to affirm that contemporary reading and/or gaming practices in futuristicWestworld space constitutes in which two fictional such worldstechnological for us, developmentsthe viewers: on have the onemade hand, the thepark science-fictional possible and, It is important to explain how Westworld engages on the other, the simulated space that, while on the withthe context and, to of a fiction. certain extent, subverts the logic of same plane of reality and tangibility, works according to its own narrative elements. If we establish this As I mentioned before, the park which gives the distinction, though, and we think of what happens in showfictionality its name inside is explained the futuristic by its setting creators it portrays. and its such an understanding seems to bypass one of the lies beyond the so-called real world. What is most basicthe Westworld tenets of parkstorytelling: as another the reality—a construction fiction— of a striking,visitors, though,if not as and fictional, what for at me least already as a fantasydestabilizes that diegesis. I use this term diegesis in the sense that the narrative concepts I am interested in, is the fact Gérard Genette suggests, not in contrast to mimesis— that is, not as a Platonic mode of representation. no mediation or, rather, which is not on a different For Genette, the diegesis is “not the story but the that this “fictional world” is a place that requires premise: as one of the hosts pitching the idea of the a way, not a physical place which we can physically narrative plane. Even for sf this is quite an original universe in which the story takes place” (17); it is, in 14 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 15 visit, in which we can be physically immersed. In any on emphasizing, such desires are closely linked to case, it can be seen as a metaphysical place which corporeal pleasure, be it sexual or in whichever form is created through narrative discourse, be it literary of violent delight. or cinematographic, for example. In other words, it There seems to be a point, then, regarding the shared corporeality of hosts and guests: Westworld visualizedoes not it matter in our whether heads through we can textual see this discourse: fictional guarantees guests can directly interact with and ifuniverse, there is as storytelling, in film or theatre, the story or if has we constructto take place and haveis profitable power over because the hosts’ immersion bodies in and, this to diegesis some somewhere (even in our imagination), so there extent, their stories. It follows that, if the hosts can is always a diegesis. Although this concept is not be conceptualized as characters that populate the widely employed in narrative theory—at least not diegesis (they are, after all, designed and given a story, in Anglophone scholarship—thinking about it here physical features, drives, and ultimately are “not helps to underline the particular spin that Westworld gives to worlding: under the logic of the park, people and participate in the narrative also adopt some of have physical access to the diegesis, they inhabit and real”), then the human guests who share the space populate it. Thus, the immersion is literal. claims to sell to its guest, in the end, is the chance Yet, while it is clear for the audience, due tothe become qualities whoever of fictional they characters. want, which What can Westworld therefore to convention, that in the show there are two narrative realms—the futuristic framing narrative they become characters that are part of the stories and the inner, simulated fantasy of the Old West— developingmean that the in thehuman park, visitors but they acquire also remain a dual players,nature: it is also telling that the narrative potentiality of viewers, or even writers of those same stories. This the Westworld park is similarly understood by dual nature, while in Westworld, allows one of the the human characters in the series. The people human protagonists of the series to ask one of the in charge of running and managing the park, for example, perform tasks that revolve around the stories which the hosts are meant to follow. There briefhosts, exchange “Are you introduces real?” to whichto the show she replies, a notion “Well, that, is one character, for instance, the Head of Narrative givenif you thecan’t subversion tell, does ofit thematter?” diegesis, (“Chestnut”). signals further This and Design, who is in charge of writing the plots theorizations of narrative concepts—that is the and dialogues of the hosts. This also involves the design of the hosts’ personalities, their motivations, their backstories and the cornerstones which notion of the hosts as “not real,” which seems to refer determine how they behave and relate to the guests. both to their artificial life as manmade androids In turn, the Programming Division is responsible inand contrast to their to fictional reality, but nature in a assetting characters like the in one the for translating the hosts’ stories and identities into presentedpark. We are in actuallyWestworld, used what to thinking is and isn’tabout real? fiction Or code and ensuring that their attitudes and behavior remain within the parameters of what the hosts addresses this matter directly: when one of the hosts can and cannot do, including their not being able to whomore has accurately, fully gained what consciousness is really fictional? by the beginningThe show harm the guests in any way. Therefore, the people of season two is told by the Head of Narrative that her who visit Westworld can engage and participate in backstory is simply that, a story programmed into different narratives that develop in a constant loop real? But what about me? My dreams? My thoughts? them to improvise and adapt their predetermined Myher body?code, andAre thereforethey not real? not “real,” And what she answers,if I took these “Not pathsled by tothe the hosts, presence whose artificialand actions intelligences of the guests. allow The success of this immersive narrative experience as a business model is thus explained in the series unreal fingers and used them to decorate the walls as a capitalization on people’s desires. “[Y]ou and with your outsized personality? Would that be real?” everyone you know we built to gratify the desires (“Journey into Night”). people’sThe questionreach, where then stands:the diegesis in a is world shared where by fiction is no longer somewhere else, outside of hostof the during people a diagnostic who pay session; to visit youras the world” show insists (“The reality lie? If it cannot be seen in opposition to Original”), explains the Head of Programming to a characters and non-fictional entities, where does 16 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 17 written by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, directed investor, surrounded unexpectedly by hosts, asserts, by Richard J. Lewis, Warner Bros. Home “Nobodyfiction, what can do is this… reality? We Certainly,are not here as yet. a potential Nobody Entertainment, 2017. Cohn, Dorrit. The Distinction of Fiction. Johns technological developments of Westworld ground Hopkins UP, 1999. theiris” (“Reunion”). innovation on Nevertheless, the potential even corporeality when theof The Novel Vol. 1: History, Geography, and be nodding towards things that are already here, Gallagher,Culture, Catherine. edited by “The Franco Rise Moretti, of Fictionality.” pp. 336-363, suchfiction as beyond the so-called the virtual augmented world, reality.the TV seriesWhat ismight that Princeton UP, 2006. if not the addition of a fantasy element to the very Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse Revisited. physicality of our real world? Of course, we cannot Translated by Jane E. Lewin, Cornell UP, 1988. touch or really capture the Pokémon that started populating this plane of reality with the release of Door, written by Lisa Joy and Roberto Patino, “Journeydirected into by Night.” Richard Westworld—Season J. Lewis, Warner Bros. Two: Home The referring to the depiction of a dystopian videogame Entertainment, 2018. future,Pokémon GO in 2016, but as Alfie Bown explains Lacko, Ivan. “On the Path to Sentience—Post-digital we expected the importance of physical environment to recede in favor of the imaginary Studies, vol. 3, 2017, pp. 29-40. electronic world, but Pokémon GO shows that Narratives in ‘Westworld.’” World Literature such predictions were wrong. . . . We now live Maze, written by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, in a dystopia where Google and its subsidiaries “Thedirected Original.” by Westworld—SeasonJonathan Nolan, Warner One: Bros. The Home send us madly around the city in directions of Entertainment, 2017. its choosing in search of the objects of desire, whether that be a lover on Tinder, a bowl of written by Carly Wray and Jonathan Nolan, authentic Japanese ramen, or that elusive . . . “Reunion.”directed Westworld—Season by Vincenzo Natali, Two:Warner The Bros. Door, Home Pikachu. (22) Entertainment, 2018.

becoming like reality but of reality becoming like Simply put, “it is less a question of games Queering the Wayfarer Universe andgames” still (Bownreach the 8). Thesame way conclusion. I see it, Ultimately, we can even by Queering Human and Alien Cultures in the combiningsubstitute gamesthe logics with of the immersion, vague notion games, of desire, fiction Wayfarer Universe

inand reality, corporeality, Westworld and bynot framing only portrays it all in thea reflection ways in Jennifer Brown whichon fictionality we are becoming and its increasingly more like androids literal presence whose Boston College, USA drives and desires can be programmed by the tools we use to relate to the world. The show also Day 1 | December 6, 2018 | 5:30pm Sex and Gender while thinking that we still have agency, the world wesuggests inhabit that, and in construct becoming becomes android-like, much more“non-real,” like a future in which humans are only one sentient species inBECKY a diverse CHAMBERS'S universe. While Wayfarer it contains series hallmarks imagines of a shared fiction that cannot really be contained by our Worksflimsy notion Cited of reality. the focus of the series is undeniably on human (and science fiction such as spaceships and wormholes, Aarseth, Espen. Cybertexts: Perspectives on Ergodic alien) relationships and how we deal with that Literature. Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. which is Other—both in the present moment and in Becky Chamber’s imagined future. The series allows 2018. readers to confront the fact of diversity inherent in Bown, Alfie. The Playstation Dreamworld. Polity, such varied combination of races and cultures, but

16 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 17 “Chestnut.” Westworld—Season One: The Maze, more importantly allows readers to confront human alterity and its place in humanity’s future not only in thecharacter remainder switch of thefrom book. the gender neutral “they” to One central aspect to the multicultural future the Theremasculine are two“he,” potentialwith which readings he is referenced of this shift. for Beckyfiction, Chambers but beyond has the imagined, text in real in life. which disparate species have differing social norms, is that of what outside of gender norms, if the masculine/feminine binaryThe first is issimply that Ohan’sunderstood society but does unstated not truly because exist they feel that their unity with their alien symbiotes is we consider in the present moment to be queer more important to their construction of self-identity. identities. When talking about queer identities, it Even in this reading, where the masculine/feminine is important to define what is considered “queer.” As KristenQueer is Barber often used and as Danielle an umbrella Antoinette term to Hidalgo denote presented: what could be more important to our definesexual it, identity within a particular community. A binary is enforced, there is an interesting question shift is that Ohan, having abandoned his world and identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and culture,self-definition has begun than togender? adopt Aother second aliens’ reading (including of this queer community may be made up of people who such a large community. Labeling people whose difference, and allows them to refer to him as well sexualso on. Someidentities find queerfall outside an easy of wayheterosexuality to describe humans’) normative cultural definitions of gendered may create solidarity among people based on and adopt a new culture. This too reinforces the as refers to himself as a “he” in an attempt to fit in used to describe a particular gendered community. interpretation does not self-identify with the gender Thiscommonality… is a community Besides made sexuality, up of people queer who is also fall binaryquestion enough raised to by have the afirst preference reading, in as the Ohan pronouns in this outside society’s prescribed male/female and used to describe him; he can, in this way, be read as masculine/feminine dichotomies. Their gender existing simultaneously within and outside of the identities and the way they embody and perform gender binary. The second representation of non-normative biological notion of sex or societal notions of gender is in A Closed and Common Orbit (the gender.gender do not coincide with either the fixed second book), with the depiction of the Aeluons, and The Wayfarer series deals with both non-normative sexual identities and gender identities. This paper, have four genders, each corresponding to their written before the publication of the third book reproductivespecifically the function: Aeluon those character that Tak.are fertile,The Aeluons those that can fertilize eggs, those that are infertile, and those that switch between fertile and fertilizing. in thewhich series, the focusesthird book on themay presentation continue to ofdevelop queer He/She pronouns are still standard, but nonbinary identities in the first two books and anticipates ways pronouns are also added into the mix, such as Ze. Tak alien cultures. queerness in its representations of both human and books present the audience with examples of non- presenting.is a character While that I zir’swould character call genderfluid, is an interesting although There are two ways in which the first two explorationzir gender is of linked the way specifically in which personalityto the sex that remains ze is Long Way to a Small Angry Planet), we are presented withnormative the Sinait gender Pairs, identities. aliens In who the firstare bookactually (A gender as tied to sex continues to be less progressive symbiotic joinings of two species in one being. They fixed despite a fluid gender identity, the formulation of one would anticipate. It is also worth pointing out for a genderfluid character in Chambers’s series than butrefer rather to themselves by this symbiotic as “they” presentation throughout theof the series, self. narrative as something inherently alien, increasing Thepresenting gender-neutral a society thatpronoun is not influencedinitially excited by gender me thethat Othering this fluid of gender non-normative formulation gender is marked identities. by the when I read the series, because I was curious about There is a third, implicit representation of a species that existed seemingly outside of gender nonnormative gender in the series, seen through the constraints. However, when the Sinait Pair Ohan loses their alien other half, the pronouns for the lens of dysphoria. In a queer context, Gayle Rubin 18 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 19 defines gender dysphoria as “a technical term for and that there should not be societal pressure to which they were assigned (usually at birth) on the individuals who are dissatisfied with the gender to Switching to sexuality, there is one main case who takes on the name Sidra at the beginning of A ignore gender dysphoria in an effort to fit in. Closedbasis of and their Common anatomical Orbit, sex” experiences (472). The AIa great Lovelace, deal Small Angry Planet, that of the relationship that of dysphoria in the transition from being housed developsof queer sexualitybetween depictedthe human in Awoman, Long Way Rosemary, From a in the ship to being housed in what passes for a and the alien woman Sissix. Their relationship is human body. From the opening sentence of the book, this dysphoria is apparent: “Lovelace had cross-cultural/cross-species pairing. Sedgewick been in a body for twenty-eight minutes, and it queer in a multitude of ways, not least being their still felt every bit as wrong as it had the second she refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps,writes, “That’s dissonances one of and the resonances, things that ‘queer’lapses and can excesses of meaning when the constituent elements 262);woke upeven inside when it” she (location begins 251).to become She refers used to her of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made body as a “thing” in which she is “trapped” (location consciousness is housed, rather than feeling like Sissix and Rosemary hit many points on Sedgewick’s itbody, is a shebody still that refers belongs to it to as her “the (Location kit” in which 491). herYet suggested(or can’t belist made)of what to is signifyconsidered monolithically” out of the norm (8). she does not have this problem with claiming other in our society: most notably, the idea of having a self- things as hers; upon her introduction to her room in Pepper’s home, she muses, “How did one place merely are as they are. When their relationship is value on a room? She couldn’t say if the room was perception of being “gay or straight” is absent; they that we think of the word, but because it is cross- insistence upon distancing herself from her human speciesquestioned, with it culturesis not because whose it sexual is queer norms in the do sense not bodygood isor an not, intentional but it was effort, hers” one (location that is 470).indicative So her of the dysphoria she feels associated with personhood “The legitimate couple, with its regular sexuality, had and the ability to pass as a naturally born rather than aspecifically right to more align. discretion. Furthermore, It tended Foucault to functionargues that as constructed intelligence. This pervasive dysphoria that controls Sidra’s progress and development throughout A Closed and a norm, one that was stricter, perhaps, but quieter” Common Orbit makes the lack of a gendered element embedded(qtd. in Sedgwick in the cultural9). For humanity norms of intoday. The However,Wayfarer to her dysphoria all the more apparent. The dysphoria theseries, acceptance this norm of has alterity not shifted; has increased, they are still allowing firmly functions necessarily as a metaphor for the gender relationships. for moreThe open Wayfarer expression series of (so non-normative, far) at times fails queer to becausedysphoria gender some dysphoria queer individualsis the primary experience, form of contemplate the ways in which contact with other dysphoriabecause the discussed series is soin openour present to queer day, identities, real world and predominant alien cultures may affect the way that society. The fact that gender dysphoria is never humanity’s social norms develop and progress, discussed in the text allows it to be metaphorically but there are instances in which we see this idea implied instead through the body dysphoria Sidra being broached. Sedgewick cites the norm of our experiences. However, the metaphorical link between body dysphoria and gender dysphoria is directly contrasted by the way in which Rosemary problematized by Sidra’s eventual acceptance of andsociety Sissix as “heterosexual are both female-identifying monogamy” (9); and this engage idea is her body, which communicates an expectation that in a relationship that is polyamorous, in direct gender dysphoria must also fade with time or that the opposition to the standard of monogamy. However, symptoms must be ignored until they are no longer even here monogamy is reinforced as the human severe or noticeable. It would have been better standard; Sissix explicitly states that she is hesitant for Becky Chambers to discuss gender dysphoria, to enter a relationship knowing she may not be either as similar or different to the dysphoria Sidra able to provide what Rosemary needs or expects. experiences, so that it could be made clear that This reinforcement of one half of our binary norm gender dysphoria does not go away in most cases, implicitly lends a credible reinforcement to the 18 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 19 The Future, Wouldn't That Be despite the popular acceptance of same-sex pairings. otherIn half,the whichseries labels Becky their Chambers relationship explores as “queer” non- Nice? normative sexuality and sociological family groupings but does so in a way that is carefully removed from Erin Horáková what is human, making them examples instead how University of Glasgow, UK

Day 2 | December 7, 2018 | 9:15am relationshipsalien cultures are function, not essentially raising the alien, question: and howcan Scarcity and Abundance insteaddo we bridge be understood the gap and as humanshow that and these experienced “queer” by humans? However, the series is young yet, and WHY DISCUSS popular SF television’s economic with the third book set to focus on humanity and its modeling? That time and energy could arguably place in the alien diversity of the Wayfarer universe, be better devoted to exploring the socioeconomic dreaming of SF books interested in making perhaps be developed and a socially progressive future in more intentional and sophisticated contributions to there is hope that queer identities will continue to thinking about the future of labor. Yet I think there of, the norms of society can be realized. are two excellent reasons to pay attention to series which queer people exist within, rather than outside like Doctor Who and Star Trek’s depictions of post- Works Cited scarcity. First, more people have seen them than have taken up the invitation to consider Phlebas, or read anything else from Ian Banks’s Culture series Barber,Britannica, Kristen, 2016, and Danielle https://academic.eb.com/ Antoinette Hidalgo. (or engaged with Asimov’s robotics-predicated “Queer.” Britannica Academic, Encyclopedia abundance, etc.). The very fact of these shows’ Chambers, Becky. A Closed and Common Orbit. outsized, international reception gives weight to levels/collegiate/article/queer/607850. their economic depictions, which millions—largely ---. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Harper mainstream, non-fannish audiences, in themselves Voyager,Harper Voyager, 2016. 2017. Kindle version. divergent economies—have engaged with over decades. SF is one of the few forms of cultural The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign production interested in addressing how people La Flaur,Terms Mark, in English, and Jennifer Oxford Speake. UP, 2002. “Dysphoria.” and societies might operate beyond paradigms of scarcity. Conceptualising potentialities is a vital

Rubin,Transgender Gayle. “Of StudiesCatamites Reader, and Kings: ed. Susan Reflections Stryker potentialities best enter public consciousness andon Butch, Stephen Gender, Whittle, and Routledge, Boundaries.” 2006, The pp. 471- throughprerequisite wide todissemination. reaching towards them, and such 481. Second, television series’ medium-dependent

Queer Studies Reader, ed. Donald E. Hall, vehicles for economic thinking. Shows’ lengths Sedgewick,Annamarie Eve. Jagose, “Queer Andrea and Now.” Bell, The and Routledge Susan allowqualities their make worlds them and particularlyparadigms to interesting play out Potter, Routledge, 2013, pp. 3-17. in a variety of sometimes jangling and mutually unintelligible ways. Many hands are involved in their writing and realization, which gives rise to both friction and polyphony. If we think of televisual texts as developing Bakhtin’s dialogic theory of the novel, we can appreciate the rich juxtapositions of opinion and complications on stated socioeconomic premises that heteroglossia can offer. Shows also

about their storyworlds via aesthetic, acting, and directionprovide conflictingdecisions. Television and generative series’ duration information and the multivocality of every stage of their production 20 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 21 processes combine to make them unusual and he meets rather than Gallifrey, and often at those potentially rewarding sites of economic dreaming. people’s express invitation. It’s a full time job, but Doctor Who and Star Trek depict life beyond luckily the Doctor is a free agent, almost entirely the constraints of scarcity in rather different ways, beyond reliance on resources. He did initially steal the TARDIS, but it’s not clear whether he even could protagonist(s) to work to live, their lead characters have bought such a thing, any more than Picard nonethelessand yet while choose neither’s to perform storyworld intensive, requires vocational its could have bought the Enterprise. We don’t know work to give their lives meaning. In some ways it’s work, but in what can most easily be understood as from in any detail, because he (and for the purposes athat vicious “buying” prestige-based is something social Time system Lords that do. operatesThey all ofdifficult this particular to conceptualize pre-2005 the reboot world theor ‘Classic’ Doctor comes Who- under a strong, coercive state; the whole planet predicated analysis, that’s the pronoun I want) might be essentially an Oxbridge college. Very detaches himself, or is forcibly exiled (depending on who’s telling the story and when), from his accomplishment, or is merely temporarily granted homeworld, Gallifrey. The planet is most important bylikely the a Academy TARDIS mustor President be earned for throughresearch scientific or state to the narrative after it’s gone (or is it?, etc.). Yet purposes. it’s clear that Time Lords are so technologically In leaving his civilization, the Doctor doesn’t sophisticated that at least materially, they want for nothing. Unlike the peoples of the Federation, who for us to read him against. He dips into various by and large are a little more robust and live a little situationsnecessarily to acquire perform any labour fixed or new skim social experiences context longer than contemporary humans, Time Lords and materials, but does not lastingly enter into even enjoy something within spitting distance of immortality. places and times. In most of the show’s eras, he There isn’t one singular, replicator-ish secret to doesn’tthe chain have of to consequences stick around for associated the aftermath with of given his the Time Lords’ apparent prosperity. Even in the interventions. Even when he’s marooned in time introductory Hartnell era (1963-1966), Gallifrey nominally working for UNIT (1970-1972) in Three- has sophisticated food machine technology (this doesn’t come up much: it could be anything from a replicator to an advanced ration rehydrator). A theera (-1974),Brigadier the work Doctor out finds a barter the prospectsystem whereby of earning the a whole bevy of inventions appears to sustain the wage unattractive (“Spearhead from Space”). He and planet as a galactic power. Time Lords are practically in exchange for regularly saving the world. Given invulnerable behind their planetary shield, and until thatDoctor he ispresumably given a flash can’t car entirely and even sustain flashier himself clothes off the sandwiches we sometimes see him steal from his is Andred’s rather decorative Chancellery Guard. assistant Jo Grant and the offerings of the UNIT tea Ifthe any Time single War, thingthe only could military be said they toseem ensure to require their lady he initially confuses Jo with (or can he, like a prosperity, the clue’s in the name. Taking anything soldier on rations?), how does the Doctor eat? The from anywhen is as good as making it. But unless whether he can access a truly surprising variety of Time Lords are largely non-interventionist. True, velvetquestion suits. seems markedly less important to him than theirwe’re Celestial discussing Intervention “Trial of aAgency Time Lord”,is very ‘modern’ willing Though the Doctor largely lives in post-scarcity to dip into the rest of the universe and keep it security and hails from a society that enjoys similar ticking along according to Gallifrey’s prescriptive prosperity, it’s awkward to characterize him as as views of the timeline. But they don’t use time-travel extra-economic in any sense; he too neatly slots into

the road with a van full of meat about to go off and proto-capitalist regimes. Romance and its inheritors gettechnology a really togreat find deal—nor a trucker strandeddo they goon backthe side a day of typicallygeneric figurations relegate the developed responsibilities under capitalist involved and in earlier and pour sugar in the motor to strand said their protagonists’ aristocratic positions to the trucker. background in favour of presenting their characters The title character’s political leanings tend as agents with limitless opportunities for movement and intervention. Doctor Who is, among many other 20 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 21 towards active intervention for the benefit of those things, a classic swashbuckler narrative about a experiments. The Death Zone is a source of historic privileged aristocrat—the Scarlet Pimpernel, but shame, to the Doctor at least, but this doesn’t stop less reactionary. The Doctor isn’t obviously reliant a contemporary Gallifreyan politician from using it on inherited wealth or the present labor of serfs; but once more to advance his personal agenda. Without consciously articulating the point, becomes, is Doctor Who best read as an individualist in mirroring British society Doctor Who says treatmentwhat would of changepost-scarcity, if he were? or does The Gallifrey’s question post- then something poignant about where the post-scarcity scarcity derive from the Time Lords’ inherited wealth? drawing our attention to the probability of present Until its very recent break into American prosperityof science-fictional and future fantasies post-scarcity’s might comereliance from, on other societies not sharing that wealth. Within and and secondarily to the commonwealth (earlier in its without the literal bubble that surrounds the Time runaudiences, this was Doctor arguably Who a spokefour-tier primarily system: to England, the UK Lords’ citadel, being post-scarcity doesn’t guarantee of the commonwealth) (Horáková). Global leftist to be paid to be mercilessly over-achieving and the rest of the UK, the “White Dominions,” the rest being “post social problems.” Romana doesn’t need abandon its current disastrous austerity policies andthinkers build have on itsobserved post-war that welfare even if state the UKto becomewere to Borusaconservative is nigh-immortal, when we first but meet that’s her, not because enough herfor a socialist paradise, such progressive achievements him.whole He society re-opens apparently the Death prioritises Zone inthese an qualities.effort to would be, as those of the past have been, predicated capture even greater rewards. Gallifrey is prosperous on its historic and ongoing exploitation of the Global and, not unrelatedly, immensely self-interested and South. Walking through London, you navigate a repressive. It’s tempting to think of abundance as the rising tide that lifts all boats, but evidently a society monuments made possible by the slave trade, the subjugationseries of definitively of India, Britishor some grand similar buildings repressed and hippies) live together in a massive citadel, safe and atrocity. The line of descent is so direct one almost replete,can end andwealth still stratificationhave a lot to workand (barring through. Outsider wonders whether if you put your ear to the well-cut The more communally-focused Star Trek stone you could still hear screaming. Nothing is as presents an economy that transitions beyond the British as tea, and nothing is so directly a precipitate use of currency after TOS. The Federation remains of empire. Because Doctor Who functions as a modern Energyreliant onis energyabundant, and true,dependent but many on the plots acquisition center ancestral prosperity of the Time Lords is a science- aroundof difficult dilithium or impractical crystals. This to is replicate clearly a materials.narrative British national epic, perhaps the defining and contrivance, but crystal-sourcing also stands as a repressed memories of empire, which bubble up facet of Star Fleet’s work. Replicator use is rationed infictional this refracted way of form. talking Gallifrey about Britain’swasn’t always brutally as in emergency situations, and there may always be uninvolved in the wider storyworld universe as it limits on personal energy consumption. It’s not is in Classic Who. Rassilon, the father of Time Lord clear whether a Federation citizen can temporarily or permanently opt out of pursuing some socially terriblesociety asEternal we know War it,against was not the a Great pacifist. Vampires, In “State a that this society could support its citizens’ basic of Decay” (1980) the Doctor alludes to a vast and subsistencebeneficial employment,with negligible but labor. it’s The fairly Federation evident place at least in part during Rassilon’s reign. Even Gallifrey'ssort of precursor present to ‘noninvolvement’the Dalek conflict, can which be tookself- of its inhabitants, possibly to ensure they remain serving, absolutist and devastating. In “The War secure“makes inwork” a not for necessarilyitself: possibly benign for the universe satisfaction that positions them in an ongoing arms race, and possibly another species to planet-wide permanent exclusion so that whoever does the minimal work necessary fromGames” history (1969) for therunning Time temporal Lords casually experiments sentence the to ensure collective subsistence doesn’t feel they’re Time Lords decide were unethical. Yet Gallifrey’s own being freeloaded off of. Death Zone bears a striking similarity to these very In contrast to Doctor Who, which has attracted 22 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 23 both wonderfully thorough production archeology psychological need to defend capitalism as necessary and a startling dearth of theoretical engagement, as it’s possible for a person to be. Star Trek has provoked several essays about its Economist Joshua Gans also exhibits an emotional desire to keep Star Trek a market economy. No one highly variable. Most choose to engage with the is simultaneously more committed to ideology and series’economic American system. production The quality and of these preoccupations analyses is more convinced that only they are free of such vice by recapitulating an enthusiastically propagandist than a Hayek-stan. Manu Saadia’s Trekonomics is stance worthy of Radio Free Europe. Rick Webb’s well-received article “The Economics of Star Trek: circumscribed by capitalist and colonial conceptions ofless the frantically possible. committed Saadia is toalso markets, involved but in equally tech anxious about the future of the market economy. company startups. Victor and Peter Grech, who WebbThe Proto-Post repeats pearl-clutching Scarcity Economy” Cold War is particularly American ideas that bear only a limited resemblance to either communism, the theory, or Communism, the fractal soquote intent Saadia on significantly speaking about in their the article trans-historical, “Star Trek’s lived practice of several countries. Even though Federation: A Keynesian Post-Scarcity Utopia,” are they have nothing whatever to do with the means commodity that they misread A Christmas Carol to of production, Webb asserts that since personal, maketrans-cultural their case, “nature proving of that man” for everyone in relationship who says to sentimental, heritage, and artisanal property exist Dickens is too didactic, there’s someone who’s failed in the Federation, its economy can have nothing to grasp even his most instrumental work. As this whatever to do with communism. He’s similarly haphazard treatment of historical materialism might insistent that any degree of input into your work is indicate, the Greches, while far more interested in also incompatible: space communism is coming to economics than Saadia, are almost as constrained by take your grandma’s wedding photos and make you capitalism’s ideological framework. keep bees against your will. Webb positions capitalism, communism, and Webb has an admirable facility with the details of modern Western economic hobbyist thought various iterations of the series, but an odd inability to experiments as the only possible economic inter-relate or read those details. He uses instances realities. But extra-capitalist societies beyond those of trade in the Federation to argue that its society parameters exist right now. Resource-sharing tribal must operate according to contemporarily-styled groups struggle to maintain their non-participatory independence from expansionist capitalism. India also present in the agrarian capitalism of the 16th centurymarkets. and However even inan pre-existingequivalent degree feudal of structures, trade was dispossessis engaged inthem a longof internaltheir resource-rich martial conflict lands. to our late-stage capitalism than I am with my great According“civilize” Adivasito postcolonial people scholar in Bastar, Samira primarily Nadkarni, to grandmother.and these are noCorrelation more meaningfully isn’t causation. coequal Webb with “Adivasi activists like Gladson Dungdung have refuses to understand that way language works as a protested at the idea that Adivasis are unskilled and patchwork of nonliteral survivals that bear semantic uneducated because they do not conform to colonial weight. Because Federation personnel sometimes ideas of modern enlightenment in capitalism. Their coexistence with the forest is both skillful must mean they are paid exactly as we are—just asuse I contemporarymight say someone monetary took figures forty piecesof speech, of silver that pains to explain what work could look like beyond because we still use silver coins. Ultimately Webb capitalism,and educated but by theytradition.” reinvent Webb the and wheel Saadia crudely are at and to no purpose. People work in extra-capitalist group of writers (and audiences!) to think outside communities today! People also work in ways ahas present no sympathy moment with constructed how difficult by capitalismit is to get a and large a not directly related to compensation even within hundred other contingent ideological structures. capitalist economies: undervalued female domestic Webb’s stubbornly defensive position derives, in and reproductive labour, centuries of hobbyist all probability, from his being an occasional angel science and philosophy, modern academia, fandom, investor for tech companies. This must render the third sector. Even in the midst of capitalism, we him about as steeped in the professional and live with the economic realities Webb and Saadia 22 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 23 position of the disabled, the elderly, or others less Peter Frase’s short essay “Anti-Star Trek: able to work. The dialogic and distended storytelling find so at odds with “human nature.” native to television presses many such fault lines. communismA Theory of as Posterity” post-scarcity. describes This 2010 Star essay Trek on as We don’t get much insight into how the Federation “basically communist,” but Frase here understands sourcesWe briefly its delivery see punitive men, such prison as the labour one inQ pretends Voyager. zombie-like, even in a post-scarcity world, has since to be to taunt Picard. We don’t know how people how wealth stratification might be made to function, gain or lose the right to live on Earth itself, which Four Futures. Matthew Yglesias lets some light in by seems as though it might well be coveted beyond the hypothesizingdeveloped into that Frase’s the Federation social-science-(non)fiction, operates as a gift capacity of the planet’s resources to support, or what economy, with fairly nominal credits. motivates colonial settlement after the post-original Jeff Ewing’s “Federation Trekonomics: Marx, the series abolition of currency. As per Doctor Who, post-scarcity does not necessarily mean post social is the most serious scholarship on the matter thus problems. Utopia is a process of eternal becoming. far.Federation, Ewing elucidates and the Shift the fromdifference Necessity between to Freedom” private There are still logistical, cultural, and political property and means of production, putting to bed tensions to negotiate. It is interesting, even useful, the tedious insistence that the Picard winery’s to consider how this text, or even a society, might existence obviously indicates that the Federation still approach such issues in the absence of capital as a has a stock market. He also meaningfully contests Webb’s assertion that the Star Trek universe is mechanism. (deeplyThe flawedoriginal and Star largely Trek inequitable) chose the resolution most natural disasters: “The fact that famines and natural comprehensible, conservative structure within its disastersnot “post are scarcity” possible—such because as it the experiences fungus-caused some new world order, the pseudo-military, as a window food shortage on Tarsus IV in ‘The Conscience of the into its unusual vision of the future. While DS9 pushed at this formula, we’ve since circled back around. New real crises can and do happen. Postscarcity economic Star Trek expansions could show us the problems and systemsKing’ (TOS)—[...] don’t render stands accidents in acknowledgment impossible, thatbut lives of people outside the pseudo-military, playing instead improve the ability to respond to them in a more with what this story-world can do, but instead they generally make more conservative creative and its successors respond effectively to various decisions than the original series. These decisions quick, egalitarian manner—as we see the Enterprise are symptomatic. The circumstances of Star Trek’s It’s reasonable to assume, as Ewing does, that production have changed dramatically over the disease outbreaks or other disasters”. decades; the ‘property’ is now an over-invested- something like this: in behemoth, tasked by its corporate masters with whenWe post-fiat can imagine Star Trek that speaks Federation of credits, Credits they meanexist bearing too much weight for anyone involved in it to primarily to let people consume government- be genuinely reckless. To say something politically provided by scarce resources. Housing, exploratory or meaningful, creatives might need to interstellar transportation, child and elder care, abandon Star Trek as a framework. energy-intensive capital goods for your hobby/ Yet such an abandonment would necessitate business. This is not a currency per se. It exists jettisoning or ceding a highly cathected, to ensure that there isn’t wild overconsumption internationally effective semantic network. It’d of goods that are nevertheless intended to be be a huge loss of emotional-capital, of a history generally available. The Federation probably also uses them to facilitate transactions with there’s little guarantee that fresh properties made other cultures. A non-Federation individual or inthat contemporary amounts to circumstances, more than “sunk under costs.” the regime Besides, of organization who performs some useful service knowing and adaptive late capital, would enjoy what

energy or logistical services in the future. that enables new thinking. The situation might call gets “Credits” entitling him to claim Federation forOlga a Goriunovamulti-pronged has approach—for called a “moment people of rupture”working regarding the social valuation of labour and the both within and alongside these established Ewing’s suggestion of course raises questions 24 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 25 Cyberpunk's Commodification of the deranging corporate processes that threaten to rendernetworks narratives of significance the ever-less-resistant to meaningfully tools subvert of the Bodies

Capitalism is dedicated to its own narrative, an A Future of Exterminism: endlessly-reiteratedpeople financing them. story about how we need it. It Cyberpunk’s Commodification of Bodies also tells a somewhat contradictory story: that there is and can be nothing else. But there are many extra- Lars Schmeink capitalist relations between people, their labour, HafenCity Universität, Germany and the world—historically, in the present, and yet-undreamed. Popular television offers us a wide- Day 2 | December 7, 2018 | 9:15am reaching and ripe opportunity to begin dreaming a Scarcity and Abundance future of such bright possibility together.

Works Cited source for predicting the future. And yet, when one Bakhtin, Michail M. The Dialogic Imagination Four engagesTHE GENRE in prophecy, OF science be fiction it political, is not social, the most ecological, reliable

Texas P, 2014. the visualization of one’s prognostication. In fact, Essays. Translated by Michael Holquist, U of or economic, science fiction seems to be a staple for Philosophy: The Search for Socrates. Wiley, most reliable resource to drive home the point that Decker,2016. Kevin S., et al. The Ultimate Star Trek and purelyculturally statistical speaking predictions science fiction are unable seems to totransport be our to mainstream audiences. Peter Frase, 19 July 2011, www.peterfrase. Take for example, the two degrees of global Frase,com/2010/12/anti-star-trek-a-theory-of- Peter. “Anti-Star Trek: A Theory of Posterity.” warming that we have all been warned will have posterity/. massive effects on weather patterns, threatening, Frase, Peter. Four Futures: Visions of the World for example, more intensity in rainfall and storms. After Capitalism. Verso, 2016. to package this, so that it hits home. Films such as Digitopoly, 19 Nov. 2013, digitopoly. GeostormBut only theor The science Day fictionalafter Tomorrow imagination are isdrastic able Gans,org/2013/11/19/that-star-trek-economy- Joshua. “That Star Trek Economy Thing.” representations of climate effects and will produce thing/. more debate and interest in climate science than any Goriunova, Olga. Art Platforms and Cultural reporting on the Paris Agreement. It seems then, Production on the Internet. Routledge, 2012. that the sf imagination is a pretty good indicator of both the challenges we will face and the solutions that might be possible. Horáková,Presentation, Erin K. Goldsmiths “‘Do You Speak University, For This 2011. Planet?’: This is, of course, not only true of climate change Saadia,Doctor Manu. Who Trekonomics. as a Dialogic Thomas National Allen, Epic.” 2016. but also of other pressing issues such as globalization, Webb, Rick, and Rick Webb. “The Economics of topics, including climate change and its results, 6 Nov. 2013, medium.com/@RickWebb/the- areautomatization, touched upon or by social the thought inequality—all experiments of these that economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50.Star Trek – Rick Webb – Medium.” Medium, sociologist Peter Frase presents in his book Four Yglesias, Matthew. “How The Star Trek Economy Futures. Frase describes the possible future world shaped by automatization—his (only in its extremity business/2013/11/star-trek-economy- federation-is-only-mostly-post-scarcity.html.Works.” Slate, 18 Nov. 2013, slate.com/ capitalism as we know it will no longer exists, mostly becausesomewhat we will science-fictional) automate work and premise thus potentially is that free humans from labor. He then continues by arguing that our future will be determined by two factors:

capitalist future, while the second pertains to the “the first axis dictates the economic base of the post- 24 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 25 Sickness is ever-present and neither medical nor On the one hand, then, our future will be determined social services are functioning anymore. The ruling bysocio-political our continued superstructure” access to natural (“Four resources, Futures” to n.p.). the elite, though, have escaped to the eponymous orbital Earth’s ability to sustain our need for raw materials. station of Elysium and live there, served and secured On the other hand, our future will be determined by robots. by our determination to keep or to eradicate social In the mindset of the Elysian elites, the population of Earth is considered somewhere however these are constituted. He sums up that we between a nuisance and a threat—echoing the willinequality—the have the choice question of four of ourfutures division determined by classes, by these two axes: “Two possible futures are socialisms populationTrumpian rhetoric of Earth, of theopportunities so-called “migrant are few caravan” and far between.or the “bad Existing hombres” jobs (outside from Latin of crime America. or the For very the . . . Now, while taking the other into twoconsideration are contrasting the depiction flavors of exclusive specialized jobs, such as nurses or doctors) barbarism” (“Four Futures” n.p.). cyberpunk, one could argue that an oft depicted and futures in science fiction, especially in the subgenre of Workersare mainly become unlearned exchangeable and unqualified, biomass, thus cheaper can be thanfulfilled automated by anybody production (maybe because even: they any are “body”). more longernot quite needed, so unlikely as they scenario are replaced is the oneby automated described processes.by Frase as But “exterminism,” since the scarcity in which of resources workers are limits no painfully clear: Max (Matt Damon) is an ex-con and the ability for all humans to be wealthy, those with worksexpendable. in such A an scene unskilled early job in theat a filmfactory makes building this money will face more and more people that cannot robots—the irony of manually producing automated participate in society. Frase poignantly calls these labor is not lost on the viewer here. When the production is halted because of a blocked piece of

peopleIn this, “superfluous he echoes from Zygmunt the standpoint Bauman, of who the allow him to refuse an order retrieve the piece from arguedruling elite” that (“Four the Futures”progression n.p.). of the capitalist theequipment, radiation his chamber. precarious He goes job in, position gets locked does in notthe economy—meaning, for example, automatization mechanism and receives a fatal dose of radiation. When he wakes up, a robot is standing over him, (37), people that are no longer needed in economic informing him in a mechanical voice that he has production.and globalization—produces Because they produce “surplus no labor population” and thus earn no money in a “society of consumers, they are boss John Carlyle (William Fichtner) is called, upset aboutbeen lethally the production poisoned halt and and will detachedly die in five discussesdays. His that would allow them to stretch the capacity of the Max’s accident with a foreman. The shot takes Max’s 'flawed consumers'—people lacking the money perspective, Carlyle shown through the secure glass society of exterminism, Bauman would see these barrier, talking about Max and deciding his fate consumer market” (39). Within the hypercapitalist without any consideration for his imminent death. that expresses the cynical tendency of our society Carlyle shakes his head, looks mildly frustrated at toflawed determine beings anyas “humanobject according waste” (39), to itsa descriptoreconomic the loss of production time. When the scene cuts production value. We are what we earn and consume. back to him, Carlyle asks about Max’s state and whether he will bleed or his skin might fall off. But cyberpunk imaginary, one could see such an economy Turning to the science-fictional and especially the order,not compassion before he turnsis driving back this to managing query: “I don’this company. want to recapof exterminism of the setup exemplified might help: in Neil The Bloomkamp’s future sees filmthe Maxreplace is then the beddinghanded ain release there, justform get to himsign out!”(for which is his planetElysium. destroyed For those by who pollution don’t knowand overpopulation— the film, a short he barely manages a scribble) and some heavy Los Angeles has become dusty, hot, and decrepit (in pharmaceuticals that will keep him functioning until terms of production, it looks like Mexico City, where shut down. his deathWhat inis fiveinteresting days—when about ultimately work and his automation body will isthe rampant film was and shot). people Most barely humans manage live to in survive. poverty and fight over the scraps of jobs and food. Crime 26 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 27 in the film is its insight into the economics of exterminism. Max is an unskilled worker, doing a What Frase does not make explicit, but what job that is repetitive, has little complexity, and is informs this logic of exterminism is a central theme in a hazardous environment—a job that in today’s economy seems destined to be automated. Yet, in bodies. For the necropolitical logic of exterminism to the future of Elysium, the economy clearly says it function,of cyberpunk human narratives—the beings need to commodificationmove from a status of is more productive to use human labor than cost of personhood to that of commodity (or worse even, intensive automation. Peter Frase links automation that of biomass). As the scene before shows, Max to workers’ rights and organizational structures: has value only insofar as he impacts the bottom line “This development illustrates a recurrent capitalist of his employer Armadyne and its CEO Carlyle— dynamic: as workers become more powerful and cynically this means that his death is not a loss in better paid, the pressure on capitalists to automate terms of labor, as that can be easily be replaced, but increases. When there is a huge pool of low wage his sickness threatens to cause cleaning and medical migrant farm labor, a $100,000 fruit picker looks fees. But Armadyne is not the only institution that like a wasteful indulgence. But when workers are scarce and can command better wages, the incentive and wanna-be-revolutionary Spider similarly only seescommodifies the value Max’sthat Max body. provides The human as a commodity. trafficker (Four Futures 8). So, ironically, the fact that human His dying is the necessary motivation for the workersto replace can them be exploited with machinery and exchanged is intensified“ at will, extreme transformation of Max into a weapon and without issues of work conditions or human rights interfering, actually secures these jobs for humans. technology invading his dying body, an exoskeleton On the other end of the spectrum, jobs that anddata a storage data port tool. in Maxhis head. is forced Ironically, to be through fitted with his involve an understanding of human interactions, jobs that rely on emotional involvement, are today ending, he becomes the savior of the disenfranchised considered relatively safe from automation. But commodification, and in rather weak Hollywoodian Elysium reveals the logic of exterminism and of healing, by installing a computer routine that challenges this idea. Here, police and security forces changeson Earth. theHe sacrificesstatus of himself,anyone foregoingon Earth anyto thatchance of as well as social caretakers such as Max’s probation citizen of Elysium, thus reinstating their humanity and personhood. conclusion as the “impoverished, economically officer are automated. For Frase, this is a logical Elysium is not the only cyberpunk film that deals besuperfluous beaten into rabble submission poses a(as great is literally danger done to the to bodies.with how The work, Mexican automation, independent scarcity, production and inequality Sleep ruling class“ (“Four Futures” n.p.) and will need to Dealerintersect similarly to produce addresses the commodification this complex topic, of human and, control the multitudes is a logical conclusion. And just as Elysium, imagines work not automated to Max in the film)—the automation of the forces that the fullest extent possible. Instead, in Mexico, as a representation of the Global South, there are Bauman’sshould suppression term) must notbe the suffice ultimate any endpoint. longer, then multitudes of workers willing to commodify their exterminating this type of “human waste” (to use bodies and sell their labor to the Global North, logically represented by the US. whatIn Frase between in reference policing to the Bryan poor Turner as a first calls step “enclave and exterminating them as the final step, stands the idea of zone, patrolled by drone technology and thus heavilyIn the defended. film, the The border US shootshas become migrants a militarized on sight. andsociety” services’ (“Four by means Futures” of n.p.).‘enclosure, Enclave bureaucratic societies But their sovereignty goes further, as they also restrict and regulate “’the flows of people, goods control the economy of their southern neighbor, for example restricting access to water and basically isbarriers, such anlegal enclave—literally exclusions and registrations” reigning from (qtd. high in providing all of the industrial work available to above“Four Futures”the Earth—enacting n.p.). In the film,restrictions the Elysium to migrants station unskilled workers. Through so-called Sleep Dealer seeking refuge and medical aid, but also regulating factories, workers can remote control automated systems in the US—“all the work from Mexico, none zone and jamming communication signals. the movement of Earth’s citizens by forcing a no-fly 26 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 27 of the workers” is how one of the foremen puts it in wealth is, as Sherryl Vint argues, “via the very rooted the film. Access to the global economy and thus to bodiesand artificial and stack bodies, backups so-called to effectively sleeves. In live the forever. show, Inmoney terms affords of economics, the possibility this means via cloning, that privileges artificial embodiment of the construction robot” and remains thus“marginalized become anin enclaveboth material society, and restricting virtual realms” access (“Cyberwar” 265). In effect, then, all of the US has traitsand inequalities of exterminism are nevercan be challenged, found in many but aspects instead border security to suppress the poor. Ultimately, the ofget the deeply series. entrenched For one, the into rich—here society. called Consequently, Meths or and flow of people and services, automating their Methuselahs, for their biblical age—have founded as mere operators of automation—the risk, both enclaves to secure access to their wealth. They film shows how human bodies become commodified literally removed themselves from earth-bound life in their bodies is left to the workers. Malfunction and reside in gate communities above the clouds. orfinancially accidents and are physically, handled ofby installing merely replacingthe hardware the These are heavily patrolled and secured and use operating body. automatization to run their day-to-day. In its resolution, Sleep Dealer is more complicated What differs from the representations of than Elysium. The security used to enforce the exterminism in Elysium or Sleep Dealer is that in Altered Carbon natural resources are not scarce, as human bodies. The drone pilot is similarly enmeshed space travel is possible and other planets provide withenclave the isweaponry similarly that part he of uses the tocommodification secure the border. of energy and raw materials for production. Scarcity In an intradiegetic TV segment, he is portrayed as a is a concept that is—given the intersection of loyal US citizen, whose parents immigrated to the US from Mexico before the border restrictions were and sleeve technology. Bodies are used by the Meths totechnology secure their and immortality, power—upheld as well artificially as put on for display stack enclave society produces both compliance and guilt, and used for any and all kinds of entertainment. applied. The film here shows, how conformity with Bodies are thus the real resource that is scarce (for with unskilled labor. Realizing his position in this the multitude). In the series, bodies are used as a systembut it also of showsoppression, that commodification the pilot turns doeshis weapons not stop living commodity in contact sports, abusive violence, against the system and teams up with the workers and sexual deviancy. Throughout the show, the rich in Mexico, forcing a change. This is remarkable, as use human bodies as replaceable things to consume, it shows that solidarity of disparate social groups is either as objects to manipulate and discard, or as central to overthrowing oppression. The differences accessories to wear and exchange at a whim. we need to overcome are not just found along lines As Vint has pointed out, “capitalism expands to such as national borders, languages, or cultures, but strongly intersect with our positions within the socio-economic system. And, as Vint has pointed thefill all human previously body non-commodified under what Steven spaces Shaviro in private calls out, there is a strong link between economics, life” (“Afterword” 231), in this case even placing digitalization, and power distribution: it determines “Everything without exception is subordinated to an the “restructuring of our work lives and prospects economic“real subsumption,” logic, an economic which he rationality. defines asEverything follows: must be measured, and made commensurable, globally while we have remained immured in the through the mediation of some sort of ‘universal as we find that capital has been able to take flight This effect of digital technologies on our bodies all objects, processes and goals are placed within asbody much and as in onlocal our time social-economic and space” (“Afterword” status is deeply 231). thisequivalent’: framework money of economics. or information” A cyberpunk (29). Any show, and ingrained into our systems of oppression. And it is such as Altered Carbon, thus directly relates to “real one of the main themes of the cyberpunk television series Altered Carbon. In the show, consciousness this exterminist reality. is separated from the body via the technology of subsumption”All three examplesand provides show, the howideal digitizedimaginary and for cortical stacks, which house personality traits and automated sovereign systems remain rooted in memory. Embodiment can be exchanged at will (given that one has the money) via both biological ideals, automatization does simply free up human inequality. Contrary to Silicon Valley’s utopian 28 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 29 labor, but further entrenches the socio-economic all connected and why they are all pursuing Dan disparity of social class. Access to technology Sylveste. To add to the confusion, the narrative is not becomes a valuable resource that the elite will wield told chronologically and relies heavily on ellipses. as a weapon. Peter Frase’s concept of exterminism Just like in a whodunit, the reader is after some thus is not as far-fetched as it might seem. Instead, it revelations, which will be granted belatedly and in provides a valuable extrapolation of how technology pieces, through clues and parts of the whole story can be used to secure social strata and move along that each character knows already or discovers with time. ultimately lose all value except for their value as biomass—whichthe commodification would of humanultimately bodies leave until us with they another cyberpunk future. be enoughAt the to beginning, sustain an the entire questions novel, but the they reader are doubledwants answers up by forunexpected are quite numerous.developments, They whichcould Works Cited took place before the diegesis, are impossible to Bauman, Zygmunt. Wasted Lives. Verso, 2004. guess, and yet are means to make sense of it all. The gaps in the diegesis are characteristic of the 2011, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/ novel’s overall approach (a detective or detection Frase,four-futures/. Peter. “Four Futures.” Jacobin, 13 December story to uncover what Sylveste initially did and ---. Four Futures. Verso, 2017. what initially happened to the Amarantin). They are Shaviro, Steven. No Speed Limit: Three Essays on also typical of the Big Dumb Object trope in science Acceleration. U of Minnesota P, 2013.

Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives, linked)fiction. but Lastly, as wellthey of are the typical sf genre of in the the choice way it builds of the Vint,edited Sherryl. by Graham“Afterword: J. Murphy The World and SherrylGibson Vint,Made.” and“ensemble” presents form its universe. (in what way are the characters all pp. 228-233, Routledge, 2010. There is nothing much original in this. Yet the ---. “Cyberwar: The Convergence of Virtual and effect is heightened because somehow all these narrative choices add a layer of discontinuity to Cyberpunk and Visual Culture, edited by GrahamMaterial J.Battlefields Murphy and in LarsCyberpunk Schmeink, Cinema.” pp.253- literature of discontinuity or even of change. He 275, Routledge, 2018. wrotethe other. in his James introduction Gunn defined to Speculation science fiction on Science as the Fiction:

Building Reynolds's Revelation Whatever the situation, it is continuous with Space everydayTraditional experience fiction . . . is . .the . The literature moment of continuity.characters

How the World of Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation attempt new solutions to traditional situations, Space Is Being Built: Revealing What the Story in any kind of fiction encounter new situations or Does Not Say the story begins to feel like science fiction. . . . Aurélie Villers science fiction is the literature of discontinuity . . University of Picardy, France accumulation. We only recognize of change the work that as scienceis, in actuality, fiction if discontinuous.the extrapolation (8) produces a significant enough Day 2 | December 7, 2018 | 9:15am Here then, the reader is constantly looking for what Scarcity and Abundance the story doesn’t say to try and build a coherent world (or a world that would have coherently ALASTAIR REYNOLDS'S Revelation Space (2000), changed from hers) and reestablish a continuous timeline. The reader is therefore constantly running focusing on three main characters in alternating after the story. Indeed, as Samuelson writes, “Good chaptersthe first novel and ofat athe series, beginning, is an “ensemble” they seem narrative, totally Science Fiction must exert continuous effort to stay ahead of itself, predicting, asking and unveiling, for however, before the reader gets to see how they are (t)he cutting edge is always somewhere between 28 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 estranged from one another. It is quite long, SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 29 the known and the unknown, the proven and the unproven . . . always threatening to resolve into the the book—the characters entering the Inhibitors’ Device—insteadto some problematic of restarting past. Then, chronology, the final eventappears in The diegesis presents the key events in a reverse to bring it to a halt since they all died and now live in mundane or the marvelous” (149). some no-place or parallel space out of time, or maybe, timeless. Nevertheless, he novel is itself calling for a revelationsorder, suggesting are piled that up reading in the last science fourth fiction of the means book. Moredigging remarkable, up our own the apparent distant missing past. The time final (linking key with metatextual overtones. Ilia Volyova is musing: the reader’s world to the novel’s), our known history, cyclicPerhaps approach . . . toin time,a few in million a dizzying years “abyme other beingseffect” would arrive on Resurgam, sharing something novel’s timeline. The missing time also represents of humanity’s curiosity. They would want to ais missingquite difficult space, tothe place spatial precisely link between in relation the toEarth the learn of the planet’s history, and in doing so they and the Solar System as we know them, and the would take core samples, reaching far back into precise location of Resurgam, Yellowstone, the Resurgam’s past. Doubtless that deposited layer Shrouders and the Inhibitors’ device. The novel only of dust would not be the only mystery they had to solve . . . . And she had no doubt that those the Amarantin (i.e. the Shrouders) had reached “the hypothetical future investigators would come to “innocently” mentions that the “Banished” branch of a totally wrong conclusion regarding the layer’s origin. It would never occur to them that it had edge of the Solar system.” been put there by an act of conscious volition novel,There except is afor first one paradox element: here. the Thelink between entire chain the (Reynolds 11) reader’sof events world finally and makes the novel’s—that sense at the is endone part of the of The perfect form of the cycle is misleading since the diegesis’s past: how did humans get to the stars? some gaps remain. The novel is here explaining This is the major breach to continuity, to refer to its present world through conjectures about its James Gunn. Quite like in Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body future. As the extract hints to, the layers of the past Problem, we are given here a dizzying picture of the evolution of life in the universe, but the one big (‘dust’) and far-reaching (‘core samples’). This is mystery, for the human reader, remains humanity. programmatic.accessible to theAlthough characters the reader are both is focused, superficial just The diegesis grants some clues: The Conjoiners like the characters, on a recent past, he will have to are a branch of humanity living on Mars (Reynolds dig deeper towards a more distant origin that had 83), the Captain was born in the solar system (169), been placed here to trap him. Funnily, the passive the Yellowstone settlers have Franco-Sino genes not to name the author (of the act). The world, here, hasvoice been (“it builthad beento be aput trap. there”) allows the narrator (267), the past “Amerikano era” is mentioned (409), On a more microscopic scale, the reader is also as wellInterestingly, as the “23rd however, century” the and most the puzzling “first European element taught lessons to get to understand the world and the Demarchy” (473; the term is never defined). reminisces about the sculptures the Mademoiselle learn,in the roughly,book is the was spaceship, that it was a built “lighthugger” by the Conjoiners bearing hadway inthe her narrative apartment. works. “She Ana had Khouri, these jaggedfor example, metal (sothe itenigmatic is of human name origin) of Nostalgia and yet seemsfor Infinity. totally All alien we sculptures, too—at least I thought they were to its own current human crew: “after eighteen sculptures to start with. Later they began to look like hours in consultation with various simulations of parts of a wrecked spaceship. Like she was keeping

had been trying to catch them out, hoping one or The past has to be revisited to be made sense of, then. moreonce livingof them figures would from disclose the ship’s some distant revealing past. factShe Morethem aroundpuzzling her here as a is reminder the use ofof something” the simile (378).(“look

illustrates the evasive nature of the characters’ past, The Mademoiselle surrounding herself with pieces andabout in theparticular, origin of of the its articulationcache” (17). withThis, ours. by the way, oflike”) her sincewrecked precisely ship should it is not put a thesimile reader but onthe the reality. way This shows on a small scale that the characters to revelation: she is Carine Lefebvre who, according and readers seem to be constantly brought back to Dan Sylveste, died—or at least was harmed— 30 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 31 when she accompanied him in the Shroud and was and yet does not tell much. sent back to their ship. The play on the comparison (“Eighteen months since Nils Giradieau had shown a means of description that “relates the unfamiliar himBeyond the buried “innocent” city; a year ellipses since their such wedding as thishad is quite intelligent here. A comparison or simile is who adds that the comparison is “also used as an of lying that has been developed in the novel. Mostly, auxiliaryback to the support known forworld,” the reader’swrites Thomas imagination Van Parys, and been mooted” [Reynolds 141]), it is a global system

the sculptures, while the known world is the ship. they are lies by omission. The first liar is the narrator Herevisualization” is one more (294). means Then, to the play unfamiliar with the wouldreader, be a importantthrough a action narrative or thought means from called the “paralipsis” focalized hero, and whichdefined neither by Gérard the heroGenette nor asthe “the narrator omission can ofignore, such comparison. It looks like it, therefore it can’t be it exactly;first from except of lie: that hiding here, reality it is. under the guise of a (Genette 212) The examples are numerous, but here Info-dump passages are a classic means of onebut that explicit the narrator example: chooses “Sun toStealer hide from waited the reader.”silently bridging the readers’ and the characters’ worlds in

notand giventhen continuedthese answers. to answer all the questions she diegeticscience fiction, past can and account are therefore for their a trait relative of the absence genre, hadOn for rare it” (Reynolds occasions 485), in the except novel, that the theparalipsis reader is inthough this notnovel specific whose to highlyit. The importancedeveloped technologyof the pre- reversed and the reader happens to know more than would yet be calling for them. Info-gaps are here as the reader. For instance, Dan Sylveste learns that he is his own father’s clone, which the reader has been Volyovna calls visitors who will come after Sylveste knowing for hundreds of pages. Then, the reader gets onessential Resurgam—interested. to keep the readers—or In this “investigators,” novel, with the as ahead of one character, in a narrative which rarely info-gaps taking the place of the former info-dumps gives him the impression of getting the big picture. as a constitutive trait of the genre, it is as if science Seeming to mix both paralispes and the reader’s advance on the characters, there are strange and changed or modernized into its opposite. moments of delayed information in the narrative. fictionIt remains was revisiting so far its that own thepast narrative,way of being through made, Here, Ilia reveals what she learned that disturbed discontinuity, seems not only to keep ahead of the her so much: reader, but also to mislead them, and (temporarily) What she was about to tell [Sylveste] not only work against them. To that end, the novel is teeming with means to play the reader. The info-gaps are not dangerous, but it also touched on something of confirmed that they were approaching something The narrator is extradiegetic and omniscient; whichspecific is to probably the chronology. why the narrator can so easily deep“Then personal it’s significancesomething forhuman him. . that. . you’ve play with chronology. It is obvious in sentences such “I found something,” she said . . . .

(440); “What she was about to tell him not only found out there?” Pascale said. . . . as these: “Except none of that was going to happen” Pascale“A Conjoiner said. drive,” Hegazi said . . . . dangerous but it also touched on something of deep “Then there’s another ship out there?” confirmed that they were approaching something But she had studied the object orbiting to free indirect speech: “The decision had not been Cerberus“It was in my considerably first thought,” greater Volyova detail. said . . . . onepersonal of the significance simpler ones for in him” his life. (368). Now He he even knew resorts that, for all or part of this, he had been manipulated. How just a slightly elongated whitish-grey smudge, deep had that manipulation gone? Had it extended to backdroppedShe zoomed by stars in on . . it. . now.That was At first how itit washad his very powers of reason? Had his thought processes looked to her days ago . . . . But even then she had been subjugated towards this one end for most of found it hard to ignore her suspicions. As more details appeared, it became harder still.

narratorhis life, sincemakes returning a sadistic point from in Lascaille’s showing he Shroud?” knows solidity and form now. It was a vaguely conic (531-532), to quote a small extract. This all-knowing The smudge took on definite attributes of 30 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 31 shape, like a splinter of glass. Volyova made a dimensional grid envelop the object, showing be all the more struck by the revelation. Once again, its approximate size. It was clearly several heemission,” was lied the to, byreader omission is expected or erring to (bybe atcachotterie a loss, to kilometers from end to end . . . . (secretiveness) and tricherie (cheating), as Genette calls them).

showed“At this them: resolution,” grey-green Volyova blurs said, spaced “the neutrino either characters are also obviously lying to one another. sideemission of the resolved thickened into end two of distinct the conic sources.” shape. She As AtAs times, can be the quite reader expected, knows it within beforehand, the diegesis, like in this the more detailed phases in, the blurs could be seen to be attached to the body of the splinter by elegant black-swept spars. longcase: ago“Khouri primed had toldher forVolyova that theparticular lie about little being chat an andinfiltrator it seemed for anotherto have workedcrew. The perfectly Mademoiselle . . . . Volyova had were looking at was another ship, much like their had also accepted the story about Sun Stealer being own.“A (368-369) lighthugger,” Hegazi said. . . . What they Ilia chooses to tell her discovery in the chronological (280). order of its revelation – a rare case in the novel— a piece of human-designed infiltration software” for suspense’s sake. Besides justifying belatedly why suspicious of one another: “Volyova reminded Ultimately, the characters often end up being quite never described from the outside (so the description the team’s lighthugger, Nostalgia for Infinity, was necessarilyherself that be she complete, was being or even told reliable. events as . . filtered. But at cannot be made), this passage is hugely misleading theby Khouri’send it seemed perception unlikely of that things, any which large portion might not of given here remains enigmatic and the identification for everyone, reader included, that it could not be anothersince Ilia’s ship, remark then. (“It was my first thought”) implies the truth had not been related, whether Khouri knew portionit or not” of (364). truth Thehad litotebeen livesrelated), room as for to athat. little more Thus,doubt thisthan all an makes affirmation for a paranoiac (it was likely narrative that awhere large Among this vague lexical field used to describe neither the characters—any of them—nor the the ship (the “object” becomes an “it,” and then a narrator can be trusted, making everyone suspicious “smudge” and “blurs,” all references mixing with a (see Sajaki for instance: “Alicia’s story could have “vaguely conic shape” often described through the been faked. . . . I shan’t believe things entirely until merging of three adjectives—“whitish-grey,” “grey- something jumps out of Cerberus and starts attacking unfamiliargreen,” “clack-swept”), way. It meets the the simile aim of “like a simile a splinter and apparentlyof glass” stands ends out.up beingThe figure like theis again previous used simile in an form of psychosis developed through a systematic we studied: it is the real thing, actually, since in andus” [Reynoldscoherent 386]).delirium, Paranoia which can is bepredominantly defined as a referential and interpretative. More precisely even, some characters, like Sylveste or Volyova, are the itthe does second not soundmention like (“the a metaphor. body of Yetthe bysplinter”), comparing all themeans lighthugger of explicit to comparison something (“like”)smaller disappears and somewhat and deceptions,subjects of painful sensitive circumstances paranoia, defined in highly as sensitive a set of glass), it makes more sense for the reader than for anddelirious emotional interpretations subjects. To get generated back to the by paralipsis conflicts, theinadequate characters. in theAnd characters’just like Ilia’s world remark (a piece(“It was of we mentioned earlier: “what she learned disturbed her enormously. But she decided to wait until they track of interpretation. Like with the Mademoiselle’s sculptures,my first thought”), the simile it putsthrough everyone a smaller on the image wrong (a splinter or a sculpture for a ship, or a part of it) is Thewere cause, closer the before revelation, announcing is then her replaced, fears” (365). or even Her counterproductive—not to say it is a lie—since it bypassed,“fears” here by stand its (emotional)for the truth effect.she had Sylveste discovered. also leads everyone away from the initial object. Hegazi’s combines excessive sensitivity and emotion, and a tendency to doubt and (over?)interpretation. For example, his reaction to the discovery of the other Addedfinal conclusion to the techno-babble that this ship looksabout “much the “neutrino like their lighthugger is this, proving once more his facility for own” is then the most unexpected one possible. 32 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 33 lying: “Sylveste tried to keep his voice completely calm, allowing only natural curiosity to show, purging it of the emotions he really felt, which were The Outerspace within Us in Villeneuve's Arrival afterwards, he doubts, retrospectively, what might havelargely been variations done to on him pure in the dread” past. (271). About A the few woman pages A World within Us: Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival who abducted him on Resuragm, he wonders: “[ha] Opens an Outerspace of New Experience d she really neglected to mention this detail – or had she spared it, disclosing the facts in a manner Janin Tscheschel University of Bonn (276). The liar could have been lied to... Accordingly, thecalculated reader is to bound keep to him indulge permanently in a paranoiac disoriented?” reading, Day 2 | December 7, 2018 | 9:15am Rogues One overtones. And he is made to give, retrospectively, a newas most meaning elements to the in variousthe diegesis doubtful have elements. metafictional “LANGUAGE IS the foundation of civilization. It is In Revelation Space, the knowledge needed to build a coherent world is disseminated throughout the story, mostly in its hidden past and in its many (Amythe glue Adams), that holds linguist a people and together.protagonist It is of the Denis first characters. Lies (real or by omission, through weapon drawn in a conflict,” postulates Louise ellipses, gaps, or paralipses) seem to be the only And Villeneuve’s character knows well how to common elements between all of them. So once masterVilleneuve’s and use science-fiction these unifying movie as well Arrival as separating (2016). (s)words. when she said to Ilia Volyova: “you know you don’t The starting point of the movie is the arrival of again Ana Khouri was right, and even programmatic, twelve spaceships on Earth in different countries. inciting her to lie. Common knowledge, revelation, They carry octopus-like extraterrestrial creatures meanswant that the end to become of the story. common As long knowledge” as the narrative (261), which are named heptapods based on the number keeps lying or emitting paranoiac interpretations, as of their feet. The story follows an American research long as it keeps pointing to a more and more distant team that regularly enters one of the ships in past, as long as the novel’s world keeps being built, Montana to study the aliens. Among the researchers is the linguist Louise Banks, who is supposed to communicate with the heptapods by translating did.it is Liesstraying and parcelingfrom the closure keep the of revelation the final revelation, space, the their language, which differs strongly from human novel,pretty and much its fightingworld open. for survival as the Shrouders writing and sound systems. First, the earthly nations work together in the study of the extraterrestrials Works Cited and exchange their research results. But after some Genette, Gérard. Figure III. Seuil, 1972. time, there are discrepancies when the reason why Gunn, James. Speculations on Speculation: Theories the heptapods landed on earth remains unclear, of Science Fiction. Scarecrow Press, 2004. due in part to issues of translation. Some countries Liu, Cixin. The Three Body Problem. 2016. feel threatened by the aliens and start to carry out

Reynolds, Alastair. Revelation Space. Gollancz 2000, manages to communicate with the heptapods and 2008.Translated by Ken Liu, Tor, 2016. a military strike against them. But Louise finally new gift of foreseeing the future that comes from Science Fiction Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, Jul. 1993, learningfinds out the that heptapodic they come language, in peace. she Thanks is able to to stop her Samuelson,pp. 145-149. David N. “On Hard Science Fiction.” the hostilities between human nations. Van Parys, Thomas. “A Fantastic Voyage to Without doubt, Arrival as sf in general contains Inner Space: Description in Science-Fiction novelties (such as technical innovations, overrides of known physical laws, new perspectives on no. 2, Jul. 2011, pp. 288-303. (world) events, etc.) but presents at the same time Novelizations.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 38, a reality-compatible world whose realization may 32 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 33 be possible in the future. Hence, we can say that sf often represents a process of historicization by a leitmotif in Arrival: The logographic ink circles transforming the audience’s world into a yesterday have‘nonlinear neither orthography’.” a temporality Circularity nor a beginning becomes or thusend of the sf-universe shown on screen. Thus, sf movies as the narrative itself does not seem to have. In this serve as an experimental space of vision of the future, way, past, present, and future are no longer in a

which we can try out different possible constellations. are linked by causality and this also means that Although,they are athe modification sf novelties of often our remove reference the world diegetic in fixed order according to a linear time stream. They narration from our extradiegetic world, sf can be a learningthe future heptapod, can influence the experience the past just of temporality as the past and is thus a call for re-evaluation of the existing iscan restructured. influence the The present. borders It becomesof temporal clear concepts that by worldreflective structure. platform, In this serving context, as a sfmirror can be of understood our reality dissolve and intertwine and the readers of the signs as a knowledge-enhancing mode (cf. Spiegel 243). In Arrival these novelties are not only localized So Louise does, although her physical life on earth in the exterior: obviously they consist on the one remainsare able linear. to “foresee” She remembers the future the future like “memories.” and moves hand of the heptapods, who land on earth, and of therefore mentally but not physically through time everything around them, including their spaceships, as it is the case in a classical time travel. When the the matter the ship is made of, new physical laws at protagonist recognizes this new gift, her vocabulary work within the spaceships, and their language. On the other hand, the movie is not all about the aliens; it is also about humanity and the change of human sheis no expresses, longer sufficient confused. to explain With thewhat recognition is happening of perception as well as the expansions of human herto her. ability, “I’m the not future sure it’sevents something (as a product I can explain,”of their consciousness through the faculty of language. This is why we locate the novelties not only in the outer for example, foresees that her research colleague Ian world, but also within humans themselves. Simon willpast) one begin day tobe influencethe father her of her present. daughter, Since she Louise, feels Spiegel refers to this phenomenon in particular when more attracted to him in the present. Present and he states that the spectator’s urge for knowledge future are thus mutually dependent and follow the leitmotif of circularity. boundaries and reach a higher level of consciousness Within Arrival, the new way of non-temporal (Spiegelflows smoothly 248). This into happens the desire with to overcomethe characters human in thinking and thus the expansion of consciousness Arrival as they learn to speak heptapodic and thus to think heptapodically. Louise’s task as a linguist is to ask the heptapods byis Benjamin justified Sapir by in the the controversial 1920s, and later Sapir-Whorf developed byhypothesis. Edward AccordingWhorf in theto this 1950s, hypothesis, a person’s first positedway of thinking is determined by the linguistic structures linguisticthe decisive sign question: system of “What the extraterrestrials is your purpose which on of their mother tongue, and is often referred to isearth?” characterized In order toby do teaspot-like this, she tries ink to circles understand produced the as linguistic relativity. Under this hypothesis, the by their tentacles. Since these are circular logograms, extralinguistic reality is evaluated differently by the the signs transmit a meaning rather than a sound. speakers of different languages. Moreover, Sapir- A logogram instead consists of several logographic Whorf suggests that the semantics of a language characters that are assigned to a morphological determines the possibilities of conceptualizing the world, a concept known as linguistic determinism. and other languages that use logographic writing Thus, some use the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to argue unit. We know that from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, that a language determines its speaker’s perception of the world. Taking this hypothesis seriously, Louise tearsystems = water (the sign in the for “tear”eye). Furthermore,in Chinese is for the example movie is able to change her way of thinking detached from itselfa combination explains the of thenon-existent signs of “water”temporality and of “eye”; the any kind of temporality when learning heptapod. heptapodic logograms: “unlike speech a logogram Today's linguists do not agree on the validity of the is free of time . . . their written language has no hypothesis, since there is no empirical evidence, but forward or backward direction. Linguist call this the cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky is convinced 34 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 35 that the 7000 different languages on earth shape always a confrontation with something different that their speaker’s universe and their ways of thinking has to be interpreted by the spectator comparable differently to at least some degree. to Villeneuve’s character who has to decode the In addition, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis underlines the dilemma of untranslatability, serves as the interface between Louise and the aliens which is also a problem in Arrival. An example: In asmeaning well as of analogously the heptapodic between logograms. spectator The and “screen” movie. In today’s world (touch-)screens are common communication interfaces (smart phones, computer, whenEnglish you there are is surrounded no equivalent by forloved the ones. German Hence, word a tablets etc.) that encompass physical distances on German“Geborgenheit,” speaker which would describes not be able the feelingto express of safety this the one hand but also the possibility to bridge those feeling with an English expression. Maurice Merleau- Ponty notices in this context: “We may speak several exchange of communication and, by laying on hands, languages, but one of them always remains the one alsodistances. leads Into Arrival,a physical the experience. “screen” is David used Richard for this in which we live . . . to [completely] assimilate a comments on this analogism of a movie in the movie language, it would be necessary to make the world which expresses one’s own, and one never belongs as follows: representedThe multiplicity by the cinemascopeof screens in “heptapod its mise-en-scène screen” translation of the heptapodic answer to the decisive not only provides a vivid illustration of the to two worlds at once.” (218) Louise’s inaccurate screen-sphere, but also, through Arrival’s appeal to the sensorium, it serves as a vital reminder question “What is your purpose on earth?” confirms refersthis point obviously of view. to Her the translation unifying and fluctuates dividing between nature ofthe languagemeanings itself “offer as weapon” the foundation or “offer tool,”of complex which spectatorthat film language and the screen.necessitates (42) an intersubjective and embodied ‘fleshly dialogue’ between the of the movie claims) but which also emphasizes the screen: the movie communicates with the viewers facthuman that societies there must (or be “civilizations,” a common understanding as the beginning and Consequently, a movie screen is also a communication system of perception when teaching and learning a this communication seems to be one-sided and also foreign language. Louise tries to create this level of because it conveys a message. On the first glance, understanding between herself and the heptapods, But the movie as well as the heptapods develop a but she also admits at the same time: “Our language, certainthe heptapods kind of productivityjust reacts but because do not they ask changequestions. the like our culture, is messy and sometimes one [a perception of the researchers and of the (researching) audience. Louise merges with the space behind the Arrival the linguist is not only confronted with an undiscoveredweapon or a tool]human can tribe be both.” but withAnd inthe the linguistic case of by overcoming at the same time the enemy image. cosmos of an extraterrestrial species. She“screen” immerses by crossing in the heptapodic the separating atmosphere window like and a At the latest when the protagonist crosses the spectator can be completely immersed in a movie. border to the spaceship the spectator also exits the Arrival let the audience be part of its action on extradiegetic frame. Earthly rules are turned upside one hand through its synthetic transmission, on down even gravitation and the logic of the cadrage the other hand through the narrative structure that which is reversed. A new perspective begins, not follows the circular leitmotif. In this context, close only for the researchers but also for the audience. ups of hands are prominently used throughout the But when Louise drives to the middle of nowhere, movie. The protagonist, for example, takes off her enters a spacious dark room—the spaceship—by protective suit, puts her hand on the window, and

in front of a huge illuminated screen-like window sense of touch is not only focused on the image level. behindpassing which a dimly the lit aliens tunnel, appear, and finds the herselfexperience finally of Theproduces purely heptapodic organic sound signs also with transmits her fingers. a perceptible But the the unknown seems to take place in a well-known experience through the powerful bass used in setting for the spectator, one not unlike cinema. Like the scene’s score. Thus, sounds become audible, Louise’s meeting with the heptapods, cinema can be frightening, involve sometimes physical effort, and is diagrams. In this context, Louise’s breathing sound perceptible, and even visible through frequency 34 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 35 also plays an important role. It is engaging, creates play due to her simultaneous consciousness. At tension, and is additionally an indicator of earthly the same time, she is the ideal spectator: the aliens life. These sounds stand in contrast to moments of produce logograms (a visual language, like movies silence, which, according to sound designer Sylvain use the potential of imagery) and Louise interprets these signs. Simultaneously she shows that the (Patton). misinterpretation of signs could have serious BellemareMoreover, are the actually movie “the integrates most powerful the viewer sound[s]” into its circular structure through its unreliable narration. problematization. Due to this reason, we can say In this way, Arrival itself seems to have no beginning thatconsequences, Arrival can as also in is be the read case as of a theschool weapon/tool of seeing, analyzing, and interpreting. that is underlined by Louise’s retrospective view on theand events no end, she an tellsaspect from of the the film’s chronological narrative beginning structure current socio-political conditions. The appeal is: “Do not Arrivaluse weapons, becomes use on language the one ashand a tool a reflection to peaceful of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn’t work likeof the I thought film: “I usedit did. to We think are this so boundwas the by beginning time, by itsof language of the heptapods, communication between order. . . . I remember moments in the middle. And communication.” Once Louise has learned the this was the end. . . . But now I’m not sure I believe than between humans and extraterrestrials. On the the individual earthly nations seems far more difficult conditions, but opens up a universe of new levels daughterin beginnings Hannah and grows endings.” up and This succumbs statement to aoverlays serious ofother consciousness hand, the moviefor humanity not only itself. reflects The on viewer social illnessthe first in scenes her youth. of the Not movie, only throughduring which the in Louise's medias is included in this process through the narrative res structure, but also through their mise-en-scène, structure and the synaesthetic mediation. His visit to these scenes let the viewer assume that they are a the cinema is a confrontation with the unknown as it mental metadiegesis of memory. These prolepses cinematic medium and its artwork. It portrays the determined by a large depth blur, graded in sepia interactionis shown in theand movie. confrontation Moreover, between Arrival reflectsthe viewer the tones,are presented and the camera like memory work is sequences: reminiscent They of home are and the medium as a carrier of meaning. video recordings using a hand-held camcorder. The viewer is convinced until the dissolution that Louise Works Cited has to live with a trauma caused by the death of her Boroditsky, Lera. “How language shape the way daughter and that the protagonist remembers this ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_ even though her daughter was not yet born. The we think.” TEDWomen 2017, https://www. maindifficult plot fate of over the movieand over shows again only during the her story research, of the Patton, Bryant. “Arrival – Acoustic Signatures: The two parents getting to know each other. So the movie shapes_the_way_we_think/transcript#t-840510. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5t9h9nG2BQ. it shows prolepsis. In addition, various episodes Richard,Sound David Design.” Evan. YouTube, “Film Phenomenology 15 Mar. 2017, https:// and fromseems the at futurefirst to and tell presentthe story are analeptically, cut into another although in a parallel montage. The events of the different scenes are linked by causal connections: Louise tells her 47.the ‘Eloquent Gestures’ of Denis Villeneuve’s colleague Ian after a vision she had, “I just realized Arrival.” Cinephile, vol. 12, no. 1, 2018, pp. 41- Zu Poetik des Science-Fiction. Schüren, 2007. point that he is going to be that husband one day. In Merleau-Ponty,Spiegel, Simon. DieMaurice. Konstitution Phenomenology des Wunderbaren. of thiswhy way,my husband future and left past me.” appear He does interchangeable not know at this or Perception. Routledge, 2002. merely causally, but not linearly, connected. Arrival plays with its viewers and puts them in an analogous confusing situation with its protagonist. Villeneuve, Denis. “Arrival.” Sony Pictures, 2016. In the diegetic world Louise can be seen as a spectator who watches the movie for the second time because she can foresee the future like a scripted 36 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 37 Semiotic Concepts of Gravity in the mountains. The harvest area is fence protected, as here the mountains rise so high that the planets Solanas's Upside Down almost touch each other and people from both worlds could make physical contact, which is forbidden. The Semiotic Concepts of Gravity: pink pollen and the bees are in contrast with the Simulation vs. Representation in Upside Down metaphoric darkness of Down Below (clad in matte dark gray and black hues) and the brightness of Up Norbert Gyuris Top (depicted by white and sparkling colors). The University of Pécs binary opposition of the two planets is based on the gap between the technologically advanced Up Top Day 2 | December 7, 2018 | 11:45am exploiting the natural and human resources of Down Rogues Two Below and the organic magic of the miraculous bees, which is the marker of untouched nature in a sealed area. Upside Down (dir. Juan Solanas, 2012) demonstrates howTHE the FRENCH-CANADIAN boundaries of binary science logic can fiction be permeated movie fantasy, Upside Down is founded on a distinctive Balancing on the border of science fiction and divided nature of binary oppositions is eventually before they are finally erased and how the idea. The film starts with the narrator explaining observing the semiotic model of representation that becausehis world Up as Top an and untypical Down Below, science the fiction twin novelty:planets superseded. The film offers the possibility of orbitinghe refers the to hiscentral home star solar are system singularly as a “miracle,” bound together by double but opposed gravitational pulls. components.artificially separates Simulation the in components this context ofis understoodany binary asopposition, the strategy and, of shows creating how reality simulation based unifies on already these existing models (Baudrillard 170). The binary haveIt is “possible the same to mass fall upbesides and rise sharing down” an inatmosphere this “very semiotic structure of representation is gradually becausemysterious of their and proximity. unique place,” As a asresult the of two their planets joint supplanted by simulation not only in Upside orbit, there are three principles of physics that all of Down, but in the existing theories of gravity, as the the living and nonliving matter must obey. First, “all representational model of the prevailing physical matter is pulled by the gravity of the planet that it notions of gravity are progressively replaced by the

comes from.” Second, “an object’s weight could be quantum gravity model founded on simulation. The afteroffset a by few using hours. matter Although of the the opposite worlds world.”of Up Top Third, and etymologyproblematic of nature this word of the offers binary a ismetaphor reflected of by how the any “matter in contact with inverse matter burns” binaryvery first logic word turns uttered into simulated in the film: oneness, “universe”. unity The or experienced on Earth, they extrapolate the mutual singularity, conjoining the Latin roots unus (one) and gravitationalDown Below significantlypull of Earth differ and Moon,from the and conditions open up the past participle (versus) of the Latin verb vertere a new perspective from which the bipolar nature of (to turn). Even the etymology of the word proposes gravity can be examined from two different vantage points at the same time. This binary gravitation is basic metaphor of how the replacement of the notion integrated when the gravitational sum of Up Top and ofthe representation process of fusion, by simulationthus “universe” is an turnsevolutionary to be a Down Below is observed in its relation to the central necessity. Upside Down depicts a utopian universe, of the centralized solar position, Upside Down exploressun. However, how insteadbinary ofopposition pursuing thecan consequencesbe inspected supersededwhich is fundamentally binaries. the menagerie of “miracles,” in the controversy of the two planets and how this the In “mysterious Upside Down, stars” the and magic life element forms thatis pollen have binary pair exerts a joint effect on the universe. collected by special pink bees from plants growing Gravity sustains and stabilizes the two planets; on both Up Top and Down Below, twin planets it is gravitational pull that forms an interdependent orbiting each other at a very small distance. The male Up Top and Down Below. As the sum of the binary protagonist, Adam, regularly gathers pink pollen in poles of the twin worlds is zero, the opposite 36 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 37 forces are balanced. The novum—using Suvin’s objects or particles in the formula (F=Gm1m2/ understanding of the term as the foundation for an d2) through their respective mass (m1 and m2). Too many factors, a system consisting of an array the lack of a consistent theory of gravity that could “alternate reality”—in Upside Down is founded on would immeasurably extend the studied problem, whichof variables, would or be an thus infinite rendered number incalculable of binary within pairs, theoriesbe verified of by Isaac scientific Newton, means Albert (Suvin Einstein, 71). There Nicola are a practical approach. For the sake of simplicity, several scientific models of gravity including the classical mechanics takes into account two objects at a given moment, thus the representation of gravity Tesla, and quantum mechanics, however, insofar as backgroundno scientific of theory any—natural—phenomenon can ever be “proven,” there is not is available,no proven thescientific Cartesian theory self of tends gravity. to Ifmake the rational up for in these definitions is built on a basic binary and Upsidethe consequent Down also difference marginalizes of the giventhe representation pairs. Similar construct a seemingly coherent theory describing ofto the the central definition reference of the point, notion the of star classical of the system. gravity, thethis phenomenon.lack by inventing In the fictitious pseudo-epilogue (meta)narratives sentences, to the time periods before and after the united of Up Top and Down Below is founded on a virtual binaryThe opposition,artificially created which socioeconomicis fostered by theseparation lack of the allegory of two profoundly different theories of access, as the political and economic establishment gravity.gravitational fields are contrasted, and they offer denies access for the citizens to surpass the enforced The symbiotic ontology of Up Top and Down based on a natural given, the basic dissimilarity Isaac Newton’s binary model of gravitation, which betweenbinaries. matter This artificial and inverse sociopolitical matter, which boundary separates is isBelow based and on the the resulting principle geopolitical of mutual effect division described reflect the two planets socially, politically, economically, in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica and culturally, as well. The protagonists’ love (1687), Newton’s seminal text of classical mechanics, transgresses this set of binary differences, when wherein he notes, “To every action there is always Adam lines his shoes and clothes with inverse matter in order to meet his love, Eden. Adam uses a former colleague’s access card to simulate an andopposed directed an equal to contrary reaction: parts. or, the Whatever mutual actionsdraws orof twopresses bodies another upon is each as much other drawn are always or pressed equal, emotionally and intellectually unchanged behind the electronicallyidentity to infiltrate disguised Up identity. Top, however, Adam’s he simulated remains biographer and friend, straightforwardly sums up in identity is different from those of the traditionally hisby Memoirs that other” of Sir (13). Isaac William Newton’s Stukeley, Life (1752) Newton’s “that disguised or masked heroes (Superman, Batman, there is a power like that we here call gravity which etc.), as he needs to simulate access, i.e. a virtual identity that illegally manipulates and permeates Newton’s law of universal gravitation the border of the two worlds, while he in parallel has concentratesextends its self on thro' a thebinary universe” relationship (14). between to keep his own default corporeal, intellectual and separated and distinct physical objects. The theory emotional identity. Adam needs inverse matter to enable his body the difference in the mass of two physical bodies, to get access to Up Top, therefore he has to mask proposes a specifically binary opposition based on Down Below gravity in such a way that his body, motion. Newton asserts that “all bodies whatsoever from an outsider point of view, would seem to be whose gravitational pull defines their respective pulled by Up Top gravity. In other words, Adam has (399), and the present form of Newton’s law of to conceal the lack of Up Top gravity that would universalare endowed gravitation with a principle states that of mutual“a particle gravitation” attracts pull his body towards the planet. Thus, Adam every other particle in the universe using a force dissimulates his Down Below gravitational identity: that is directly proportional to the product of their has an Up Top body pulled by gravity belonging to thisrepresentation, planet, is suspended which seemingly by a completely signifies that different Adam masses and inversely proportional to the square of signifying system that would correspond to the the distance between them.” However, this mutual 38 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 39 attraction of “all bodies” is reduced to merely two second and third order of Baudrillard’s typology thus Adam also becomes the perfect simulacrum, of simulation. Baudrillard exposes the difference between Saussurean representation and the system is inaccessible for Up Top. of simulation with the introduction of the four whoseSecond representational and third order “secret,” simulation the “real” still identity apply to the reference system of representation, and this connection can be revealed if the necessary level andphases representation, of the image. Inwhich this system,enable the firstdepiction phase ofis of access is available. When the inverse matter, reality.the realm The of next mirroring, three phases mimesis, are signifier/signified informed by the which simulates Adam’s weight Up Top, burns, the appearance built on simulation and dissimulation collapses and devolves into the original binary simulatethree levels the lack of simulation:of reality and first third order order simulacra representation and Adam’s identity, which is “mask and pervert” reality, second order simulacra

formerestablish representation; the self-referential this is and the self-reflexive pure or essential sign, founded on the signifier (Adam’s planetary origin) simulacrumwhich is no longer(Baudrillard related 170). to reality signified by the isand placed the signified on the fact (the that gravity simulated of Down gravity Below). cannot In Adam has to manipulate both dissimulation and bethe sustained fictitious ontologyfor a longer of theperiod film, of special time. Whenemphasis the effect of the inverse matter vanes, he is endowed identity is based on his bodily cells that are pulled with supernatural abilities. All these incredible bysimulation the gravity while of fighting Down forBelow. Eden’s This love. gravitational His bodily powers are supernatural only on the surface, and identity needs to be masked, and Adam achieves the authorities have him on a wanted warrant as this by dissimulation, which is “to feign not to they get to know that he originates from Down Below. However, the technological breakthrough is unknowing beholder sees Adam as if he belonged to imminent, and after Adam and Bob team up their thehave people what of one Up has”Top. This (Baudrillard effect is 168).achieved Thus by the bootleg inverse matter, which serves the purpose of create a mutual and universal gravity, which is void dissimulation as well as that of simulation, which ofintellectual binaries andand harmonizesfinancial resources, the gravitational they are ablepull toof is also indispensable for Adam to mix unnoticeably both planets. with the Up Top citizens. His gravitational The gravitational model of this unity follows the

planet, as the viewer is constantly reminded of to gravity. As Daniele Oriti argues, thecamouflage fabricated can nature only deceive of his the gravitational people of the identity: upper notionThis of yet-to-be-found the basic logic oftheory quantum promises theory toapplied be a more comprehensive and complete description of the gravitational interaction, a description theAdam restroom is frequently scenes, in seen which hiding he tries when to cool arranging down that goes beyond Einstein’s General Relativity in the smoking equipment hot crucial inverse for matter simulation, inlays of or his in clothes one of being possibly valid at all scales of distances and with water. Because of the seemingly natural, Up Top energy; at the same time it promises to provide gravitational pull on Adam’s body, the citizens do not a new and deeper understanding of the nature of space, time and matter. (xv) are unable to come up with a reading of the situation thateven the think viewers of questioning and Adam Adam’s have. While identity, Adam thus masks they binary approach and explains gravity by introducing or dissimulates the Down Below gravitational force Accordingly, quantum gravity departs the Newtonian exerted on his body, and pretends or simulates that he originates gravitational pull from this—still purely hypothetical—particle,a new particle, the graviton. which Quantumplays a crucial field theoryrole in of binary logic that informs representation and the is influenced by Up Top gravity, he is stuck in the world M-theory, general relativity, supersymmetry etc.) in veryan array different of theories ways (Morrison (string theory, xiii). However, quantum classical gravity, forceNewtonian vs. counter notion force) of gravitation. can most Asprecisely a consequence, describe mechanics took gravitational force down to a force hisfundamentally special position. binary However, systems (signifierfrom the vs.perspective signified, of the Up Top citizens, Adam is one of them, his gravitational identity is—seemingly—the same, mechanicsfield (e.g. Newton),on the phenomenon but the theoretical of gravitation, approach holds of quantum gravity, the extension of quantum 38 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 39 the simulacrum. Therefore two distinct, although However, gravitons are generally considered having a integrated worlds seem to unite in a utopian oneness, massgravitons of zero responsible (see Scherk), for therefore gravitational these forceelementary fields. particles have not been discovered yet, still, the forces (electromagnetic, gravitational, strong and graviton waves would theoretically offer an ample which is the state that unifies the four basic natural solution for the gravitational force (Gribbin 270). Many physicists believe that all four forces were The graviton has the properties of both waves and weak nuclear) and quantum theory seeks to explore: particles (particle-wave duality) like the photon (Zee universe reduced into a lower-energy state, the inherentonce unified symmetry at high between energy the levels, forces but began as the to by mass and energy instead of electromagnetic break down. This broken symmetry caused the force.420), butAs gravitons the graviton mediate is hypothetically gravitational influencedforce that creation of four distinct forces of nature. The goal

other bosons, as they carry energy thus they have attempt to look back in time, to when these four theinfluences capability mass, of theself-gravitation gravitons are (Gubser different 51-52). from of a theory of quantum gravity is, in a sense, an Upside Down places this moment, which scientists a hypothetical elementary particle, because its believeforces to werehave existedunified asjust one. in the(Jones instant 37) before the veryThis existence self-reflexive leads quality to renormalization renders the graviton problems, as Big Bang, into the present, and while contemporary because the already existing models that can be applied to bosons is impossible to apply to gravitons. Thus, the graviton is mostly seen as the main cause whichphysics is often cannot referred find the to as common the Theory denominator of Everything, of of the incompatibility of classical general relativity quantum theory and general relativity (Sachs 19), this utopian harmony serves as a solution to all the mechanics that describes extremely small-scale socialthe final and answer economic to all tensions of the questions in the ontology of physicists, of the phenomena.that is based on Newtonian physics and quantum As the graviton at present is an elusive particle to account for gravitation, Upside Down explores a film. This unity is represented by the pink, liquid laboratorysphere floating scene. in Thethe air,disconnected which is merged worlds by that Adam are basedwith a on “magic” twoness touch and before representation the amazed (i.e. Bob simulated in the scientifically uncharted, highly controversial and thetheoretical particular gap frame that enablesof rules the and fictitious logical ontologylimits of simulacrum. this(i.e. theworld. science The fictionnovum element) of Upside to Down be credible is generated within signs) are unified in the semiotic universe of the by the contrast of a background dependent theory Works Cited (classical or Newtonian physics) and a background Selected Writings, edited by Mark Poster, pp. substance synthesized from the pink pollen Baudrillard,166-184, Jean. Stanford “Simulacra UP, 1988. and Simulations.” sensitiveindependent to mutual theory gravity (quantum reveals that gravity). the available The Gribbin, John. In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat: spatial conditions (Up Top and Down Below) can Quantum Physics and Reality. Bantam Books, be formed, altered and organized into a whole. 1984. Adam’s invention integrates the two, antagonistic Gubser, Steven S. The Little Book of String Theory. Princeton UP, 2010. to the asymmetric space that prevailed before Jones, Andrew Zimmerman. String Theory for thebut equaltechnological gravitational breakthrough. pulls and bringsAny material— symmetry Dummies. Wiley, 2010. including living matter—can harmonize the gravity Morrison, John C. Modern Physics: for Scientists and of Up Top and Down Below if the pollen is applied to Engineers. Academic Press, 2010. it, thus the earlier separation of the worlds, which Newton, Isaac. Newton’s Principia. The could have been circumvented or permeated only Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, by simulation, changes into a utopia, in which the Vol. I-II. Translated by Andrew Motte. Daniel former binary pair divided by a politico-economic Adee, n.d.

Gravity: Toward a New Understanding of Space, borderline of representation (the duality of signifier Oriti, Daniele. “Preface.” Approaches to Quantum 40 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 41 and signified) implodes into the undivided whole of Time and Matter, edited by Daniele Oriti, pp. xv- companions that were created by the planet in its xix, Cambridge UP, 2009. engagements with their memories and desires. Sachs, Mendel. Quantum Mechanics from General Relativity. D. Reidel Publishing, 1986. Scherk J., J. H. Schwarz. “Dual Models for Non- of,Soon, and Kelvin then isre-forges greeted asa relationshipwell by the manifestation with, before of his late wife Hari, whom he first tries to get rid pp. 118-44. Snaut and Sartorius. As Snaut says during a speech Stukeley,Hadrons.” William. Nuclear Memoirs Physics of SirB, vol. Isaac 81, Newton’s no. 1, 1974, inshe the finds space a waystation’s of killing library, herself “We don’t with theneed help other of life. Manuscript, 1752. Online Culture, n.d., http://rs.onlineculture.co.uk/accessible/ SpreadDetails.aspx?OrgID=19&LangID=1& planet’sworlds. Wesurface, need provides a mirror.” that Solaris, mirror, as one a planet, by which or o=1&BookID=1807da00-909a-4abf-b9c1- more accurately as the liquid body that covers the 0279a08e4bf2¶ms=21. capable of seeing themselves in new ways. Solaris Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On dramatizesthe film’s characters—and that the process its of spectators—are becoming a self—of made the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. Yale worlding our selves—happens in the space of the UP, 1979. Zee, A. Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell. we become at home in ourselves, yet also realize Princeton UP, 2003. thatother, the that self it isrequires and remains taking unknown, that place. and In thisthat wayour ontological sovereignty is always already entangled The Otherworldly Self in with the other. The human is nonhuman, and the Tarkovsky's Solaris outcome of which is unknown and ambivalent. self is an unfinished becoming in collaboration, the Tarkovsky’s Solaris: a partial, forced re-entry into the Lacanian mirror Settling the Otherworldly Self I frame Kelvin’s encounter with Solaris here as

Chris Hall Lacanstage, thatdescribes state ofit, athe child’s mirror selfhood stage is when “the symbolicthe child University of Kansas, USA matrixidentifies in which themselves the I is with precipitated their surroundings. in a primordial As

Day 2 | December 7, 2018 | 11:45am SF from the Former Eastern Bloc II form, before it is objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before language IN THE CLOSING moments of Andrei Tarkovsky’s surroundingsrestores to it, in take the universal,on the capacity its function of asphysically subject” (2). Aboard the Solaris station, all of Kelvin’s Solaris’ creations are called by the crew, do not have who1972 had film spent Solaris, a traumatic the camera and risesinterminable from a scene portion of manifesting his self; the “visitors” or “guests,” as apparent homecoming for protagonist Kris Kelvin, or arise from samples of the ocean. They seem to comean identifiable from nowhere, origin—they insofar asdo they not mustboard come the fromship, of the film aboard a space station based at the planet a planetary force the extension and impact of which butSolaris. has Asin thisfact final entered shot retreatsa replication into the of atmosphere,his memory is beyond measure. it becomes clear that Kelvin has not returned to earth, surroundings—from his dreams, apparently. Her memoriesof home, one and produced the planet’s upon capacity the liquid for materially surface of Hari simply materializes out of Kelvin’s manifestingthe planet through human a collaborationremembrance. between Leading Kelvin’s up to embryonic form—it demonstrates that his self is yet toarrival be created, signals that the itreturn holds of within Kelvin’s it the selfhood capacity to foran Solaris, has been sent to the station to determine its the production of its past as future. When Hari arrives continuedthis point, viability, Kelvin, given as a some psychologist strange reports who studies from those who have been working there. as memory and radically alien as a production with When he arrives, he encounters scientists Snaut andas part by ofthe Kelvin’s alien self—aplanet partand bothas a intimatelybeing with known a self and Sartorius, both of whom have mysterious herself, in the process of becoming—in this arrival 40 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 41 the dialectic of self and other loses all meaning; it of the non-ipseity—the non-self-identity—of the self. This is to say that the mirror that Solaris is to

discursivebecomes increasingly tools of knowing difficult and describing to distinguish lose whattheir repetition of its subject, but it does not thereby create grounding,and who Kelvin and theis. At self this is point,revealed language as unknown. fails, as the athose copy. aboard Instead, the Tarkovsky station offers presents a reflection the encounter that is of a a subject with itself as non-self via the intervention worlding in two senses, as I understand the term. of the alien other; the subject has all along harbored Worlding,Kelvin’s as experiencesI apply it, is on the Solaris process constitute of creating a an otherness that Solaris calls forth. worlds—temporary but meaningfully structured To return to a Lacanian conceptualization of situations—that makes possible the further creation the self, we might consider here the notion of the

as the creation of new, unknown situations—here Alain Miller. As Miller demonstrates, it is by no means of worlds,the self ad or infinitum. of space—that My understanding present the ofground worlding for necessary“suture” developed that there from be Lacan’sa spectacular thought intervention by Jacques- further creation, draws on the work of Jean-Luc of radical otherness (e.g. by a force like Solaris) in Nancy, and on his concept of the “creation of the order to point out the ways in which our selves are never self-same. This is present in language itself; “it is the exact opposite of any form of production the intrusion of Solaris on the selves of the Solarists inworld.” the sense “If ‘creation’ of a fabrication means anything,” that supposes Nancy a given, writes, a offers an event-level materialization that makes

says, of ipseity. timeproject, on Solarisand a producer.” offers worldings In this thatway, areNancy spatial argues, and unavoidableMiller writes a confrontation that “the withtrait the of “lack,” the identicalas Miller “The world is created from nothing.” (51). Kelvin’s represents the non-identical, whence is deduced circumstance where his being is being created in the the impossibility of its redoubling, and from that spaceontological, around as him, Kelvin both finds in the himself appearance thrown of into Hari a impossibility the structure of repetition, as the and in the topological re-creation of his home on subject is sutured in the experiences of language—it This worlding is radically unknown; what Solaris isprocess made toof confrontdifferentiation its own of non-ipseity the identical” as it (46). becomes The willearth, manifest in the final for scene.each individual cannot be known beforehand—Snaut’s and Sartorius’s visitors appear aware of the signifier’s lack of identicalness with respectively, and their relationship to the scientists is the signified.subject comes The self, down as sutured,to the possibility is incomplete; of one it neverto be explained. a child and The appearance an individual of the with visitors dwarfism, seems is always to come; as Miller says, “the definition of

the planet that produces them. As a creation from signifierLanguage more” is (48). also Hari the is themeans appearance by which of thisan eachto lack character’s any definable mind—characters purpose or intentionality who themselves, from individualconstitutive departs lack in from Kelvin’s the mirrorbeing. stage; in entering into language an individual becomes an individual, a

of course, are “visitors” to Solaris—the appearance mirror stage. This is a Lacanian worlding of the self. of the visitors reacquaints the characters with their Inprocess the mirror that begins stage, thein the world self-definition is the ontological of the andlate case—anddesires and encountered pasts through as entirelya mirroring alien. that reflects spatial totality of the self and the surroundings into a self that is both recognized—at least in Kelvin’s which it extends and with which it believes it is self- same; in emerging from the mirror stage, the subject process—re-creatingIn this way Solaris his brings being to thein collaboration fore Kelvin’s withexperience Solaris of via worlding a bringing-forth his self asof anmemory unfinished into In this process of the emergence of the subject, an undetermined openness. This is an alienation of Thefinds World—as itself sutured the singular into language unity asof its a divisible being—is I.

instead in a process of worlding its self, a process of somethingthe self even that as he it hasis an been identification, carrying within a process himself. by realizingshattered, that and one’s the being-world subject finds is itselfnot only caught not the up Thiswhich, paradoxical in his encounter experience with is Hari, one we Kelvin might recognizes describe, only world, but also that the world of the self never to use a Derridean terminology, as the manifestation 42 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 43 teleologically coalesces into any final knowable form. the worlding of his Dasein. As Being in the world, negotiation in language, although not only in Dasein is the construction of Being as it relates to language.Selfhood To emerge is, in this as a sense,subject alwaysis to recognize a slippery the the mystery of its essence, an essence that Solaris’ self as distinct from the other—to become a subject uncanny co-creations bring to presence. As Derrida and form an I—but also to recognize that that self has argued, working through Heidegger, this creation is other. And the means by which we attempt to of being as the process of circumscribing a world that never remains contained is itself uncanny. Derrida articulates this in his reading of Paul Celan—“There nothing.finish creating This could the hardly self—and be more which apparent we can than never it finish with—are by worlding it, by creating it out of response to Celan’s line “the world has gone…I must visitors from nowhere and everywhere which—in is no world, there are only islands,” Derrida writes in Hari’sis in Tarkovsky’s case—emerge film, as and fully-formed in the appearance memories of into its discourse with the self from which they issue, born carry you” (9). thatThe Lacan’s World, infant as single experiences ubiquitous and container,which begins as a he has already formed his self, and in so doing touniversal fragment identification in the mirror of stage, environment is experienced with self as interrogatinginto a new mirror to what stage extent in which one ever Kelvin leaves believes the a fragmentation into islands in language—into a mirror stage, and to what extent one’s self as an plurality of worlds that we must know and create in independent subject is ever truly established. and as our selves. We do so by traveling in uncanny, What Lacan and Tarkovsky serve to point out circular paths, making, as Derrida writes, “a circular together here is that the self, as the stable and purely movement in which the step that distances us from human subject separate from and sovereign to any our starting point is also the step that brings us Other—particularly any nonhuman other—is a aboard a circular space station with circular rooms, is created in a worlding process by which it asserts closer to it” (74). For Kelvin, this takes place first anfiction. ipseity If the that self is alwaysinstead already is essentially a non-ipseity, other, and then it that is itself an island. the self is essentially uncanny, unheimlich, as Freud andDerrida subsequently describes on an the island circularity on an isolated of worlding planet writes. The self is both home (heim) and not-home through a reading of Heidegger together with Defoe’s (un-heim) to being, the uncanny arising at the point Robinson Crusoe, whose protagonist encounters of a doubling experienced as terror and lack—an a footprint on the beach of his island and does not know whether it was made by him or by another, familiar. leading to an uncanny pursuit of the trace of one who experience with which Kelvin becomes intimately recognize as our own—the memories from which Derrida writes, “the step of the other man—is it not HariIt arisesis, as Kelvinthat he demonstrates, knows as he theknows being himself— that we memay again, be himself, me alone yet who, remains returning other: like “The a revenantother man,” on and the simultaneous otherness of this being, that the circular path of the island, become an apparition for myself, a specular phantom…who does not know touches, and speaks with a creation that is him-self, thatrenders is to ourselves some extent uncanny. a trace Kelvin of Hari uncannily her-self, sees, and whichif he is always himself, exceeds ipse” (49). them. This is our experience as we attemptAt one point, to trace Snaut the limits describes of a world the experience of a selfhood of is Solaris its-self, and each of these flows together, the scientists by remarking that the ocean “probed rendering Kelvin quite unsure of himself. So what our minds and extracted something like islands hisKelvin uncanny does, inself the prompts film’s ending, him to is createmake aan new uncanny home, home—toin the ocean settle of Solaris.both the Kelvin’s planet andconfrontation his self in theirwith beamed down on Solaris, Snaut notes that islands pluralization. of memory,” and after Kelvin’s encephalogram is

space, as he attempts to make a home amidst un- ashave he sprung colonizes up onone the of planet.these islands At the endand ofmakes the film his In this way Kelvin worlds, both in being and in homeKelvin on himself an island-world becomes a thatkind is of a Robinsonreplication Crusoe of his attempting to make a new life with Hari aboard the home on earth, itself a replication of an older home stationhome. To and watch then him to settledo so throughoutits surface—is the tofilm—first witness 42 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 43 in his family. In this way Kelvin colonizes Solaris and colonizes himself, capturing a space of his self in But we might also consider how worlding from the space of the other. And this space, of course, is a nothing is something we share between us, as Nancy describes—a necessity of creative Being-together—

replication of the space on earth that begins the film, thatmaking yet theleaves film him itself far an from uncanny, where circular he began. worlding. as well as the anxiety which “reveals the nothing,” as Kelvin’sWorlding, journey of incourse, the film can is be an an entirely imperial circular practice, one uncannyHeidegger glimpse puts it (“Whatof the self Is Metaphysics?” becoming other, 101). is Thisalso one that circumscribes the space and knowledge of aanxiety—reflected glimpse into Being in and the into anxiety the abyssal provoked otherness by an of the self, and it is powerfully generative. And yet it of a team tasked with penetrating, exploring, and can also be powerfully oppressive. extractingthe other. This knowledge is a practice from that a Kelvin, being as and a member place This is the mirror that Tarkovsky’s Solaris reluctant of giving it up, is eminently concerned with. provides. In Snaut’s speech in the library, he says, “We

the ocean to communicate with them in a method to extend the earth to the borders of the cosmos. We thatIn the aligns efforts with of the anthropocentric Solarists to “make ways contact,” of knowing, to get have no interest in conquering any cosmos. We want we might even detect an element of the classic civilizing mission. Gayatri Spivak has described the indon’t the know novel) what also to says do with that other“We areworlds.” only Inseeking a line way in which the western colonialist “is actually from a similar speech in the book, Snaut (“Snow” engaged in consolidating the self of Europe by obliging the native to cathect the space of the Other “ItMan” seems (72), asa sentiment though man that everywheremight recall Heidegger’sand always on his home ground. He is worlding their own world, line, in “The Question Concerning Technology,” that In this sense the interplanetary imperialism of encounters only himself” (27). which is far from mere uninscribed earth” (253). And strategy of attack upon an outside that remains other, physicalthis is exactly space what of the Kelvin other and by his blasting fellow invadershis waking do isthe rather film, whichan annexation as Snaut bypoints which out the is nevermaterial simply earth a thoughtsto Solaris, into extending a being-world Kelvin’s that very clearly selfhood already into hasthe and its standing-reserve of pre-determined knowing thoughts of its own. and being is made to encapsulate whatever could As Alan Lawson has pointed out, the relationship provide it with an alterity capable of producing new knowing and being. Imperialism here is predicated upon the assumption that the cosmos can and will between settled and settler—both of which Kelvin provide only a tautological mirroring to a dominant fearsbecomes of “being at the film’sconsumed close—is by fraughtindigeneity; with “anxiousof being human subjectivity. This imperialism operates as lostproximities.” in the space The of processes the other; of of colonization the unheimlichkeit involve if the mirror stage never fragmented the self and revealed that radical alterity exists, as if it could re- thoroughly occupied with each of these fears. For appropriate everything in the universe and recover theof home”settler, making (Lawson a home 1214). on And top of the the Solarists home of the are other in an attempt to replicate the original home by of The World. When Solaris enacts its mirroring, putting in place the relevant ontologies, hierarchies, however,the safety ofas self-identification an enframing through with the creation, all, the safety the and epistemologies, the process of settling unsettles alterity that is the essence of being, the uncanny itself, provoking the anxieties of nonidentity. This is to say nothing of the anxieties provoked for the Worlding, as I have used the term here, is a processquality of of our radical own ambivalence,selves is called a makingforth. of a home in self and space with the other and as an other. inhabitantssettled, who of find the places that their in which homes they are live. no Perhaps longer This takes us beyond Lacan—beyond the privileged Solaristheirs, andharbors that theyanxieties are not of itsin factown the that “authentic” intersect creation of a human subject in human language— with this. We might think again here of worlds created from nothing, worlds that pretend to be grounded truthand intothat is a outside nonhuman the modern self-creation. construction The poiēsis of the in purpose and progress but that truly arise from sovereignthat is Tarkovsky’s human self—that film reveals as we this make un-truth—this our homes the void of redundant, self-referential imperialism. in self and space we also unmake them. Solaris is a 44 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 45 Intersexuality in Heinlein's "'— inhabit come into view. We become-with the alterity mirror by which the “other” worlds that we already All You Zombies—'" that that alterity and our place with and within it remainaround forever and within unknowable, us. Knowing opens this, us up and to worlding knowing A Queering that is None: Intersexuality in our selves and our spaces as unending collaborative Robert A. Heinlein’s “‘—All You Zombies—’” practices that can be simultaneously liberating and Elisabeth Schneider University of Graz, Austria Worksoppressive, Cited and that must always be put to question. Day 2 | December 7, 2018 | 3pm Edited by Michel Lisse, Marie-Louise Mallet, Imagining Non-Binary Futures Derrida,and Ginette Jacques. Michaud, The Beast translated & the Sovereign. by Geoffrey Bennington, vol. 2, U of Chicago P, 2011 AT THE CENTER of Heinlein's “‘ Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning is something called a bootstrap paradox that creates, Technology and Other Essays. Translated by in its essence, an eternal time-loop.—All You The Zombies—’” concept William Lovitt, Harper Perennial, 2013 of this paradox may be best explained by simply recounting the plot of Heinlein’s short story: the protagonist, a woman, meets a man at a bar and gets ---. “WhatPerennial, Is Metaphysics?” 2008, pp. 93-110. Basic Writings, edited pregnant; he disappears, she has a daughter; during and translated by David Farrell Krell, Harper the C-section the surgeons discover that she has An Anthology, 2nd ed., edited by Julie Rivkin and Freud,Michael Sigmund. Ryan, “The Blackwell, Uncanny.” 2004, Literary pp. 418-430. Theory: during“an unusual the C-section, glandular the set-up”; doctors since decide her (without “female” the I Function, as Revealed in Psychoanalytic reproductive organs are “irreparably” damaged Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of Bruce Fink, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. travelsher consent) back in to time “make” and meets her into himself a man as since a woman that 3-9.Experience.” Écrits: A Selection, translated by andpart fathersof her organs a daughter; still “works”; a daughter as a man,that willhe (now) grow Lawson, Alan.. “The Anxious Proximities of Settler up to become a woman who meets a man and gets pregnant, making the protagonist her/his own Anthology, 2nd ed., edited by Julie Rivkin and mother, father, and child. Michael(Post)colonial Ryan, Blackwell,Relations.” 2004, Literary pp. Theory: 1210-1223. An See where the bootstrap paradox comes in? Connected to that particular paradox is a very

Lem., Stanisław. Solaris. Translated by Joanna that enables the paradox to come into being in the Kilmartin and Steve Cox, Harvest, 1987. particular understanding of “biological” sex, one Miller,Screen, Jacques-Alain. vol. 18, no. “Suture 4, 1977-8, (Elements pp. 37-49. of the Logic anatomical/biological ways in which our bodies Nancy,of the Jean-Luc. Signifier).” The TranslatedCreation of by the Jacqueline World or Rose, supposedlyfirst place. Whenstructured. I say “biological” Through sex,the I meanarbitrary the Globalization. Translated by François Raffoul assignment of gendered markers, a whole system and David Pettigrew, State U of New York P, of norms and regulations is created. That system 2007. divides us (and our bodies) into a binary of sex. A binary that is assumed to be natural and normal. But 1972. sex is neither normal, nor natural—it is normative Spivak,Solaris. GayatriDirected Chakravorty. by Andrei Tarkovsky, “The Rani Mosfilm, of Sirmur: and naturalized. In short: sex is very much constructed by socio-cultural norms. It becomes Theory, vol. 24, no. 3, 1985, pp. 247-272. naturalized through a discourse that centers on An Essay in Reading the Archives.” History and bodies (Holmes 148), but it is still a construct that is anchored within a historical and cultural context. If

then intersexuality is the abject Other, hovering “male” and “female” are the two ends of that binary, 44 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 45 around the edges and margins. It is the offset of a mess. You had two full sets of organs, both immature, but with the female set well enough

purposefullythe binary, because open at in this order point, to becausedefine it, (as one opposed needs He put a hand on me. “Don’t worry. You’re to define what it isn’t. I want to leave intersexuality young,developed your for bones you towill have readjust, a baby.” we’ll watch your set of characteristics. to the sex binary) it is definable by a neatly packed published, intersexuality as a topic was strictly Thisglandular exchange balance—and between the protagonist make a fine and young a doctor man relegatedIn 1959, to the when realm of Heinlein’s the medical story and it was is telling first takesout place of you.” shortly (Heinlein after 40-41)the protagonist went into that in the text itself, the word is never mentioned. labor and was admitted to the hospital. Waking Instead, the protagonist seems to transition smoothly up from anesthesia, the protagonist is confronted from one sex to the other. That transition, however, with having had additional, life- and body-altering occurs without the protagonist's consent or even surgery without her/his knowledge or consent. The knowledge; she/he is informed of the violence done to his/her only after the fact. The transition and“revelation” the protagonist of the protagonist’sis primed to receive intersexuality those bad is medical procedure is currently not possible. But in newstreated through by the doctorthe doctor's quite literallyproclamation as “bad that news” the orderitself becomes for the protagonist an artifact ofto (science) be her/his fiction: own suchfather, a mother, and child a reality has to be created in which to be sedated. the protagonist can be both mother and father to protagonistThe doctor will get presents“jitters” and the will possiblyprotagonist’s need him-/herself. This use of intersexuality as a plot intersexuality as an abnormality from the offset device effectively banishes intersexual individuals to upon the information presented to him/her. During While the protagonist's transition may be based theand exchange,never allows the the doctor protagonist holds allto reflectthe power critically and the realm of the fictional and the fantastical. speaks from a (patronizing) position of authority. she/he has to go through are all too real. First, being The protagonist, on the other hand, is relegated to operatedon a fictional upon during premise, her/his the medicalC-Section interventions without her/ his consent, the protagonist has to undergo further over her/his unconscious body, a consultation that she/hethe abject (although realm. Two ironically surgeons present) held acould “consultation” in no way following passage from the short story highlights participate in to voice her/his opinion. Instead, the medical “treatments” in order to fully transition. The doctors made the choice for her/him. This is typical in our culture’s engagement with intersexuality: the how the discourse on intersex is all too often defined power is placed solely in the hands of the medical normal:and dominated by the biomedical field and so-called experts and, sometimes, the parents, and taken away medicalBut the “experts” surgeon who was decide talking. what “Tell is me, to be uh seen . . . did as from the individuals whose bodies are being altered

I said, “Huh? Of course not. What are you you ever think your glandular setup was odd?” performedto fit normative without aesthetic the individual’s standards consent. (Hausmann With 73). the He hesitated. “I'll give you this in one dose, doctorsSuch medical holding “interventions” all the power, they are also acts get of to violence decide thendriving a hypo at?” to let you sleep off your jitters. You’ll what is important and what is not—in this case the

deemed not important because “they could never be Scottishhave’em.” physician who was female until she protagonist’s “female set of reproductive organs” is “Why?” I demanded. “Ever hear of that Reproduction as the be all, end all of what female legally and medically a man? Got married. All seemsany use to to mean—without [her/him] again” that (Heinlein ability, 40). the female is was thirty five?—then had surgery and became inhuman. Rather than being treated like a person, okay.” thesupposedly protagonist lost, theand body her/his becomes body “lessare presented than,” abject, as “What’s that got to do with me?” “Take“That’s it what easy. I’m When saying. I opened You’re ayou, man.” I found I tried to sit up. “What?” a problem that needs “fixing,” emblematic of how 46 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 47 our culture views intersexual individuals. The “cure” to the problem often involves surgical corrections essentially nameless within in the story—even that serve no other purpose than to make bodies unambiguously conform to binary distinctions (Barrett 32) and create “norm-abiding gendered when her/his biology is within “norms” again, only descriptions such as “the Bartender” or “the reality does “not mesh with cultural ideology, the theUnmarried protagonist Mother” learns are to usedbe a toman refer and to sheds him/her. his/ subjects” (Karkazis 13). Thus, where the biological Through surgery and lessons in “male etiquette” and the individual is left powerless (Barrett 32). In transitioning from one gender to another, a transition biological is changed . . . to meet cultural expectations” thather femaleis accepted identity, by both effectively the protagonist (and “successfully”) and his/her

their effort to “restore” the protagonist's health, the started to grow a beard . . . and no longer doubted heteronormativedoctor's go far “above standards. and beyond”—they “correct” environment without question: “In four months I whatThe they protagonist perceive to him-/herself, be an abnormality in turn, that loses defies all identity seems to hinge entirely on biology; through surgicalI was male” alterations, (Heinlein not 41). only The the protagonist’s protagonist’s gender body separate from its owner. This is emphasized by the but also his/her gender identity has changed—and languageagency over the her/his doctor body, uses whichto describe is treated the procedure:as a “thing” his/her sexuality as well: after growing the beard,

of parts of the body. These are not terms commonly The fact that the protagonist’s sexuality seems to associatedhe speaks with about human the “salvaging” bodies, but and rather “rearranging” inanimate haveshe/he been “was changed staring through down nurse’s the alterations necklines” made (41). to objects: you salvage a ship, you rearrange furniture; her/his body plays into the “assumed concordance not people. The protagonist becomes an object. At no point in the story is the protagonist’s gender identity constructed by the protagonist her-/himself, instead among bodies, gender, and sexuality” that needs it is constructed by the medical experts surrounding Instead,cohere in he/she a heteronormative always conforms system to (Karkazisits standards 12). her/him. The protagonist therefore does not queer the binary. What is more, the protagonist is never even given and the status quo is never questioned or troubled. heteronormativeDespite the seeminglybinary. Instead, queer the nature protagonist of the nor by the narrative. (albeitprotagonists unwillingly) never reallytransitions queers, from nor one troubles gender the to the Discoursesoption of queering—not on intersexuality by the are other dominated characters, by a another within the binary male/female system. In focus on medical interventions and such discourses most commonly present intersexuality as a problem have to conform to a rather strict heteronormative genderthe world system. of “‘—All This You gender Zombies—’,” system is it put seems in jeopardy that you story. This is due to the fact that intersexual bodies challengethat needs the to two-sex be “fixed” binary as happens model inprevalent Heinlein’s in by a doctor, yet never actually transgressed because Western society. Intersexuality “makes explicit the when the protagonist’s intersexuality is “discovered” surgery. for what it is—not natural, but socially constructed. the As “conflict” long as the is resolvedprotagonist through remains “corrective” in an “in- cultural rules of gender” (Karkazis 9), exposing sex

and othered. This othering takes several forms, Especially in science-fiction, intersexuality mostbetween” notably state, in he/shethe doctor is put not into being the able abject to assignrealm itis is banished discovered to that the the realm protagonist’s of the body “freaky” does andnot labels to the protagonist: “He shrugged. ‘The choice “monstrous.” In “‘—All You Zombies—’,” as soon as her/his humanity and even his/her name. Instead (Heinlein 41). By being put into the abject realm, the offit thea living, binary, breathing she/he relinquishesorganism, her any body agency, becomes loses protagonistis yours; you’re becomes her a mother—well, genderless being her stripped parent’” of all identifying markers (and such markers go far by doctors. Through invasive and violent medical beyond the bodily) that signal her/his gender: “But proceduresa “thing,” a riddle,performed a problem without that her/his can only consent, be fixed the the surgeon was talking. ‘Tell me, uh— He avoided protagonist seemingly and seamlessly transitions from one category of the binary into another, thus From this point on, the protagonist becomes never troubling the binaries existence. Once the my name” (40). 46 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 47 known as the Belgian Congo, and which is today in to become part of society again. our world occupied by the Democratic Republic of protagonist’sThe sex/gender/sexuality body is “corrected,” correlation he/she ispresented allowed the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. The novel spans in the story seem to be based on an underlying the years 1889 to 1919, telling the story of the assumption that biology dictates clear rules for initial impetus behind the creation of Everfair by how men and women should look and what their the British socialist Fabian society, together with a bodies should be capable of doing. The potential black American orator and former slave (modeled on George Washington Williams), and some money heterosexuality is therefore never actually realized from a black missionary society, all the way up to the of a queering of either the sex/gender binary or integration of indigenous tribal governments into rooted within heteronormativity. the new state, and the decolonial revolution that and the protagonist (as well as the story) stays firmly the socialists, Christians, and indigenous Africans Works Cited Barrett, Rusty. “Is Queer Theory Important with the novel ending shortly after WWI and a seriesof Everfair of treaties lead against that ratify King LeopoldEverfair’s of existence Belgium, Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and in the international legal sphere. While the novel for Sociolinguistic Theory?” Language and was largely well-received by sf readers and critical pp.25-44, Center for the Study of Language and audiences, it was also sharply criticized for its Information,Practice, edited 2002. by Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, form: a series of short, temporally disjointed but chronologically organized narratives, none longer Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the than 18 pages (out of a 400-page novel). In part, this Heinlein,Twentieth Robert Century, E. “‘—All edited You byZombies—’.” Orson Scott 1959. Card, is a matter of style: Nisi Shawl is well-known as an Ace, 2001. author of short stories, which she has been writing professionally for almost 25 years; but it is also a Medical Authority, and Lived Experience. Duke matter of utopian praxis. More on that later. Karkazis,UP, 2008. Katrina Alicia. Fixing Sex: Intersex, For now, I want to contextualize some of the generic concerns the novel raises, and in particular the relationship it indexes between Afrofuturism, Alternate History and Racial alternate history, and history itself. In a broadly Capitalism in Shawl's Everfair Marxist reading and certainly following John Rieder’s understanding of the mass cultural genre Afrofuturism’s Specter: Alternate History, Racial system, if genres emerge in response to certain Capitalism, and Nisi Shawl’s Everfair social and historical formations, and are forms that narrate the material conditions of those producing Sean Guynes the genre, then it stands that the emergence of late- Michigan State University twentieth-century Afrofuturism was a response to, well, something. A rather obvious statement, but one Day 3 | December 8, 2018 | 9am that has yet to be fully historicized even now, in a Afrofuturism post-Black Panther moment when Afrofuturism is trending across the media industries both because it IN THIS PAPER I discuss the generic lines that provides representation and hope for Afrodiasporic course through Nisi Shawl’s 2016 novel Everfair, and peoples and because, like other forms of black popular in doing so I use the novel as a conceptual space for culture in the colonial and especially American thinking about Afrofuturism’s relation to history, world: it makes money. While we can—and certainly temporality, and the political present. For those should—speculate about the many reasons why who don’t know—and I hope I can convince you Afrofuturism emerged when it did, I want to scale to get the novel right away—Everfair is about the out and suggest that Afrofuturism, particularly in the American black diaspora, is at its core a response friendly, disability-championing, anti-colonial state to formations of racial capitalism. increation Central of Africa, a multi-racial, in and around intergenerational, the land formerly queer- What this means, ultimately, is that Afrofuturism 48 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 49 is as preoccupied with the past, with the legacies of colonialism and racial slavery that brought racial blackness is what ultimately seems to motivate capitalism into existence, as it is with imagining the Afrofuturism’smemory” of racialconstant capitalism return to inthe the past history even as ofit future, and in doing so it is, like all of speculative beckons better futures. And we see something like

capitalist present. Shawl’s Everfair evidences text and blockbuster hit Black Panther, where the contemporaryfiction, a meditation Afrofuturism’s on the conditions simultaneous of the embrace racial- worldthe now of Wakanda quintessential is created contemporary both out of Afrofuturist notions of of futurism and countermemory in its efforts to black African cultural history through the somewhat imagine, create, and embody a world hospitable to incongruous pastiching of cultural objects, music, black folks and other people of color. In doing so, art, dance, and language from all over sub-Saharan it complicates understandings of the relationship between futurity and history as they might be (albeit Wakanda is also produced in opposition to this rather simply) understood in Afrofuturism. In a very history,Africa in having order toultimately create “Wakandan avoided and culture,” defended but clear, formal, narrative, and ultimately utopian sense, Everfair achieves its pan-Afrodiasporic framing of a the continent’s black bodies. hopeful futurism by remaking the past through the itselfIf Afrofuturismagainst racial is capitalism’s haunted by commodificationthe history of racial of genre of alternate history. capitalism, then alternate history confronts and Shawl’s novel charts the birth of a utopian reimagines the history that haunts the genre. The Afrofuturist project by asking not “what could be, historical situatedness of Afrofuturism is especially evident in alternate history novels that return to devastating genocide in modern African history nexus events where the presents and futures of hadin the become future, the if” cause but instead for anti-colonial “what if” thestruggle most and decolonization half-a-century early. Like other Terry Bisson’s Fire on the Mountain (1988), though writers of alternate history, Shawl rethinks what heracial himself capital is arenot either black, in and flux Steven or made Barnes’s hypervisible. Lion’s Blood (2002) and Zulu Heart (2003), for example,

might be considered a “turning point” or what terrain and legacy of racial slavery in both global blackKaren writersHellekson of inalternate the only history, sustained such treatment as Steven of andoffer U.S. alternate contexts. worlds Racial thatcapitalism, refigure as theJodi historicalMelamed Barnesalternate and history Colson calls Whitehead, a “nexus the event.” pivotal Like moment other makes clear, is bound up with colonialism, but also with the more recent discourses of the nation- state, of nationalism, and of the nation in an always theShawl life choosesof racial capitalism. is specific In to Everfair, the history Shawl of offers black a global context. Shawl’s utopian nation operates at newracial temporality oppression, for one imagining that represents utopian a flashpointpossibilities in the juncture of these formations of power, placing her narrative about the formation of this joint of black labor, bodies, and life. socialist-European/indigenous-African revolution springingShawl’s from Everfair, the atrocities both ofthe the commodificationnovel and the against colonial forces of the Belgian Congo at the world-making project that gives the novel its chronological crux of what Hobsbawm labels, in name, contextualizes the relationship between Afrofuturism as a political mode of cultural production and the alternate history genre as a butworld-historical clearly concerned terms, with the “agean activist of empire.” hermeneutics for Setthe duringpresent, the Everfair European is important “scramble to for thinking Africa” Presently understudied, precisely because they buck about the relationship between history/futurity theunique typical articulation narrative ofof future-oriented science-fictional speculative worlding. and alternate history/Afrofuturism because the novel simultaneously articulates multiple vectors to invoke, Afrofuturist alternate histories represent of colonial, capitalist, racial, and even religious afiction key thattextual-political the “futurism” ground of “Afrofuturism” for contesting is meant the power as they operate in relation to racialized intersection between discourses of history, power, bodies. Shawl achieves this—and here’s where I race, capital, and empire. To borrow a term from return to my observation about utopian form in Frank Herbert, where he uses it in the context of the novel—by accreting multiple viewpoints in a religious colonialism in Dune, the “demanding sprawling, complex narrative that communicates the 48 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 49 shifting, always-becoming promises of the Everfair and most of them get 5 to 8 chapters, meaning that revolution against European powers. Everfair the novel gives the reader no time to settle in to the probes the relationship between an Afrofuturist mindset of any single political position, but keeps conception of black liberation, the scars of racial them always separate, and so maintains an openness history, and the generic legacies through which these discourses are mediated. By assembling Chinese narrative inability to pinpoint a singular political indentured servants, black American former slaves, directionand indefiniteness for Everfair. formally The chapters congruent scramble with thefor white British socialists, and indigenous Africans from multiple cultures, the novel offers a hopeful meditation on possibilities for cross-racial justice fornarrative sovereignty space fromas the European Everfairers powers fight altogether.for land and movements while also emphasizing the necessity of blackIt liberation,is thus no and great as thesurprise, indigenous at the Africans end of fight the decolonial projects that place black liberation before novel, though perhaps surprising and maybe the appeasement of whiteness and white allies. even unsettling for the average white reader who To backtrack and clarify some of the narrative: imagines themself in solidarity with the most Everfair, as a state, comes into existence when sympathetic white characters (of which there are European socialists purchase land in the Congo few), that Everfair kicks the white colonizers out from Belgium, thereby superseding anything like of the country, only allowing mixed-race Lisette to autochthonous rights to the land and producing stay (and then only because of her close friendship a legal state, from the Euro-American vantage, on indigenous land. Everfair thus begins as a colony, black Americans to remain, as well as the Chinese laborers,with Queen saying Josina). that both King represent Mwenda populations allows the Belgium’s slaving practices in the Congo. The forced to leave their places of origin, whereas the Europeansalthough one and explicitly black Americans set up to fightarrive back in Everfair, against white settlers actively took the land from indigenous build a city, start preaching—although there are Africans, purchasing it in a capitalist system of tensions about proselytization among the socialists international trade that ultimately corroborates the and black Americans—and eventually take in forces of racial-capitalism that brought about the

Shawl also narrates the internal struggle of the African Everfairers, the nation is a decolonial African refugees fleeing Belgium’s colony. Parallel to this, nation,atrocities one in thethat Congo rejects in whitenessthe first place. but Forrecognizes Shawl’s the geopolitical necessity, because always forced by peoples.Congolese Ultimately, King Mwenda the toEverfairers maintain authorityand Congolese in his colonial power relations, to interact with whiteness joinconflict forces with under Leopold the Everfairand other banner, indigenous with Mwenda African nonetheless. Everfair offers narrative closure of a sort, but it works something like the early Roman Republic, actually ends at a new beginning, an unforeseen and whichas King saw but a a tension representative between council the Senate advising and him; the contingent moment in which the always-becoming occasionally appointed military dictator. process of utopian world-making becomes and Mwenda and the Congolese, including a people becomes. Like its formal properties of non-closure, called the Basanga who gift the Everfairers with of chronological, perspective, and geographical displacement from chapter to chapter, Everfair turns largely out of necessity, and there is constant to multiplicity and thus rejects the utopian narrative tensionsteampunkified among the nuclear factions power, over join their the competing colonizers since Thomas More that follows a (typically male) protagonist through the architecture and social planning of this or that improved society. Everfair holidayvisions after for Everfair—perhaps Jackie Owen, the Fabian best exemplified leader whom in is fragmentary, composed of many parts and Daisy,the Europeans’ Everfair’s attempts British poetto name laureate, the first refers national to as people, some of whose motivations and visions for the nation’s founder. That there is always a tension the state change over time as they interact with drawn across racial-capital lines of whiteness/ other characters, and so Everfair comes formally to blackness, settler/indigenous is underscored by the represent the social body of Everfair itself. Like the novel’s refusal to situate its narrative voice in any social novels of the period during which Everfair single protagonist. There are eleven POV characters, is set, Shawl’s Afrofuturist, alternate historical, 50 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 51 steampunk (or steamfunk) novel attempts to capture with the stardate given at the beginning of each the whole of a utopian society that is in the process of episode. The franchise creates a world based on becoming. Shawl’s formal intervention in the utopian the analogical paradigm and its very objective is novel’s structure stitches together the struggles of to estrange and show the contemporary reality as European socialism, African decolonialism, and US unjust and arbitrary. Even if the metaphors were anti-racism while recognizing that the very project of Everfair is always imbricated with the forces of racial capitalism, that it is itself a product of the blunt and the artistic value questionable, Star Trek colonial scramble for black land and bodies. never was purely “ideological” in the Marxist sense To invoke the terminology of this conference, cognitiveof “false consciousness” estrangement and and—at thus, I leastbelieve, until it should Deep Nisi Shawl’s Everfair is an exercise not purely in this Spacebe considered Nine (DS9)—it science was fiction. utopian. It does present us with very sf-y practice of world-building, but an actual Suvin makes a compelling argument for science praxis of worlding that remakes history in order to repurpose how we think about Afrofuturism, about genre, history, blackness—and all of their 76).fiction’s And here descent lies fromthe problem. utopia, Suvin calling claims it “if that, not a possibilities for mobilization in the present. daughter,As different yet a niecefrom religious of utopia” ideas (Metamorphoses about other worlds such as Paradise or Hell, utopia is an historically alternative wishful construct. Its islands, valleys, communities or worlds are Eschatology in Star Trek constructed by natural intelligent beings— human or humanoid—by their own forces, World Re-Building: Eschatological Thought in without transcendental support or intervention. the Science Fiction Genre as Exemplified by Star Utopia is an Other World immanent to the Trek world of human . . . and not transcendental in a religious sense. This differentiates it from Agnieszka Urbańczyk myth, horror-fantasy and fairy-tale, which Jagiellonian University, Poland happen outside history—even an alternative or hypothetical history; it similarly differentiates SF Day 3 | December 8, 2018 | 3:30pm from kindred yet opposed genres. (Positions and Star Trek II: Before Discovery Presuppositions 34) Utopia in Suvin’s understanding is secular. But IN THIS PAPER I focus on the notion of Star Trek as Thomas More, universally recognized as the father of the genre, considered religion integral to his of eschatological imagery—especially the phantasm utopia. Moreover, he himself was proclaimed a saint ofa utopia an inevitable and more catastrophe. specifically on the franchise’s use SF as an essentially rationalist genre and make thisby the rationality Catholic its Church. constitutive Even if feature, we try towe definemust I am using Darko Suvin’s definition of science I do realize that Suvin himself would consider Star remember that religion was historically there at its fiction as it is surprisingly applicable to Star Trek. Trek a space opera but it is widely known Suvin is core. I believe Star Trek is a great example of the very selective in his approach and treats cognitive paradoxes this may lead to.

though the same effect can be evoked by texts he a utopia—the Federation is a post-scarcity, just, and estrangement as essential to “high literature” even would call pulpy. Though there were many blunders egalitarianIt is quite society obvious in whichthat Star (at Trek least was declaratively) created as in Star Trek’s history, the respective series were race, class, gender or sexuality cannot legitimize often counter-hegemonic in their time. Star Trek exclusion. With the universal replicators introduced in The Next Generation (TNG) the need for the market of science and the limits science describes is pivotal economy dissolves. And the point of this utopia is “it toisn’t the extremely entire franchise. scientifically As opposed accurate to but stories the notiontaking Americans that a better world could be created if Trek almost obsessively brings up historical time, theycould embraced be us.” Gene humanism Roddenberry and rationalism, was trying andto show that place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” Star 50 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 51 everything presented in the series could happen notion that in Star Trek evolution is synonymous As DS9 introduced post-secular thought into withdone progress, it” (75). Thisthat interpretation“[i]t is not simply is based a random on the thethrough franchise, scientific I intend progress. to focus on the series and intelligence and more sophisticated life forms . . . . those during whose creation Roddenberry was still Inprocess this framework, but has a moraldefinite and arrow biological toward evolution increased go alive).the movies From Roddenberry DS9 onwards had we anycan influenceobserve aon much (i.e. more nuanced approach to religion, but I think the I would, however, argue against this reading. ostensibly secular The Original Series (TOS) and hand in hand” (73-74). TNG prove much more interesting as they are still serve as an example of a kind and gracious being. fueled by deeply religious convictions. HeFirst is a of trickster all, Q himselfat best. But most that definitely is just a cannotminor inconsistency. Peterson, I believe, makes the same his disdain for religion: mistake as Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence IIronically, condemn Roddenberryfalse prophets, was I condemn quite vocal the abouteffort in Eschatology in Pop Culture, who address the to take away the power of rational decision, to supposed postmillenarianism of Star Trek and drain people of their free will—and a hell of a lot consider successive captains as saviors: all of of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their them ignore the catastrophe that happened before degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most there was any Federation. There is a big difference people, religion is nothing more than a substitute between premillenarianism and postmillenarianism. Postmillenarianism maintains that the savior will Star Trek stems from this viewpoint and religion is come to the perfect reality that has been already for a malfunctioning brain. (qtd. in Reyes 39) established. Premillenarianism says that this all have a common theme among them. Though the reality cannot be established without the savior’s notionquite explicitly of the Sacred addressed is not completely in many episodesrejected and which we intervention, and I think that is the case with Star Trek. soul, there’s no such thing as the supernatural and The Suvinian notion of history and fortuity of allcan formsfind it inof thetypically Vulcan Western idea of a theistkatra, theworship immortal are the contemporary world lies at the core of Star Trek. discredited. From TOS and TNG we learn there’s no Humanity is indeed shown as able to change, evolve, transcendence and every god has a power source. If a and to make technological progress. But contrary god appears, it must be a more sophisticated piece of to what Peterson suggests, progress in Star Trek is technology or a more evolutionarily advanced alien who poses as a supernatural being. Star Trek V: The century seen from the perspective of twenty-fourth Final Frontier brings it to a level of pure absurdity and,neither especially, fluent nor twenty-third, linear. The societydoes not of seemthe twentieth capable when an alien posing as the Judeo-Christian of any progress that is not strictly technological. patriarchal God tries to steal the Enterprise and Every time the twentieth century or its simulacra shoots lasers out of his eyes. are shown in Star Trek, their landscapes consist of And yet the narrative structures apparent Nazis, warfare, atomic bombs, or social injustice. throughout the series are deeply eschatological. I am The very epoch in which the series itself was created is presented in Star Trek as the time of a crisis. wrote a paper on what he calls the “evolutionary Moreover, the audience’s contemporaneity wasn’t not the first one to point this out: Gregory Peterson just another step in humanity’s smooth evolution that “science and reason inform an evolutionary and betterment; it was a prelude to an inevitable eschatologyeschatology” in of which Star individuals Trek. Peterson’s contribute point to their was species’ evolutionary progression toward higher presented as absolutely inconsistent with the level ofcatastrophe. ethical development Scientific and on technological the planet. Twentieth-progress is super-evolutionary being, “shows that humanity too century Earth is shown not only as already mayand morebecome benevolent like gods. life By evolutionaryforms” (62) and development, that Q, the condemned, but also as not worthy of salvation. The catastrophe from the narrative point of view is future awaits us. How is this known? Because the unavoidable since it has already happened. There Qaided continuum, by scientific like many advance, other a species, bright andhas already beatific have already been the Eugenics Wars and the Third 52 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 53 World War, which decimated the human population to die and at the same time the vision it presents is and left the world in ruins. supposed to make us change our ways. We cannot Although declaratively rationalist, Star Trek have both. There is no reason to take any action if from its very beginnings, even when Roddenberry we are already condemned and we cannot create was still in control, actualized an eschatological the millennium by ourselves. Star Trek makes the pattern. Even if humanity is able to achieve the warp audience passively await the coming cataclysm. It is drive and break the speed of light, it is incapable of anti-parenetic and anti-didactic. It is apocalyptic. As moral evolution by itself. The social, economic and Jacob Taubes, a Marxist Jewish political theologist philosophical changes leading to the establishment points out: of a utopia are made possible only by an outside force: The science of apocalypticism presupposes a by otherworldly beings descending from the sky. passive attitude toward the happening of history. Formally, the transformation happens in the secular There is an absence of action. The fate of world order. Even though Vulcans come from another history is predetermined and there is no sense in planet and possess superhuman (or different- trying to resist it. The passive voice predominates in apocalyptic style. In the apocalypses no one contingency. But if we look closely at humanity’s metamorphosisfrom-human) abilities, in Star Trek’sthey definitely diegetic chronology,belong to the it Star Trek is a great illustration of the possible becomes apparent that the narrative structures are paradoxes“acts” but of ratherSuvin’s everything rationalist “happens.” literary genealogy (34) millenarian. Millenarian movements have existed for thousands of years in many forms and across that are absolutely atheist in principle can be rooted different cultures but there are some core concepts inand religious of science narratives. fiction in general.Roddenberry’s Even the Star projects Trek all of them share. The end of the world is at hand constantly depreciated theist religions, negated the and there will be a New World after the catastrophe; Transcendent, and attempted to naturalize every it will be just and opulent. The more attention is being that could be considered supernatural—and given to the New World, the closer millenarianism yet, it proved unable to break the eschatological approaches utopian thought (see Schwartz 6028). pattern. The belief that Star Trek is rooted in the Star Trek has it all: the catastrophe is at hand for Enlightenment is widespread in academia and the viewer, because in the storyworld it has already happened and it has served as an expiation—a ofquite the correct,term, one but offered it is rarely long agoacknowledged by Theodor that Adorno it is the ashes is harmonious and fruitful. andcorrect Max only Horkheimer if we use ina very Dialectic specific of Enlightenment. understanding baptismSuvin of creates fire, if youan oppositionwill. The world between rebuilt science from The apotheosis of Reason and rationality in Star Trek does not entail the banishment of the irrational. The he argued result from a mythical consciousness irrational and the mythical remain hidden and their producingfiction or utopiafairy-tales, and fantasy, “metaphysical and religious genres” imagery. which The metaphysical worlds, according to Suvin, were there. ahistorical, unmovable, and unchangeable. They influenceThe catastrophism becomes harder of Star to notice, Trek isbut not they surprising are still took place in illo tempore. As I have already said, by if we take into account the historic relationship establishing secularity as the essential trait of the between utopia and millenarian movements. It is, genre, Suvin ignores the roots of utopian thought. however, an obstacle for cognitive estrangement to Moreover, he ignores the nature of eschatology and serve as it should. After all, overcoming alienation millenarianism. Their premise can be very much materialist: salvation to millenarianists is not a the conditions of society. It is impossible to make thing that will be accomplished in the afterlife. It is someoneis supposed act upon to be an a arbitrary first step historical toward injustice changing if supposed to happen and last in this world. one is told that the end is near, or at least coming, From its beginnings the franchise was based and nothing can be done about it, since humanity is on the phantasm of a perfect world that can be unable to improve until someone from the outside established only after a catastrophe brings down intervenes. the old order. And here lies the biggest problem: Star Trek shows the contemporary world as fated Works Cited 52 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 53 Peterson, Gregory. “Religion and Science in the adventures of a young vampire might not seem Star Trek: The Next Generation. God, Q, and relationship between novelty, age and the strange Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations worldsan obvious of sf, text I argue through that which this tois reconfigureprecisely what the ofEvolutionary Star Trek, Religion, Eschatology and onAmerican the Final Culture, Frontier.” Fledgling does. edited by Jennifer E. Porter, and Darcee L. The novel begins with the following lines: McLaren, , pp. 61–76, State U of New York P, “I awoke to darkness. I was hungry - starving! - 1999. and I was in pain. There was nothing in my world Reyes, Christopher E. In His Name. AuthorHouse, but hunger and pain, no other people, no other 2010. narrative follows the protagonist’s movement from Encyclopedia of Religion. Second Edition, edited thistime, amnesia-induced no other feelings” position (1). The of remainder ignorance of to the a Schwartz,by Lindsay Hillel. Jones, “Millenarianism: , pp. 6028–6038, an Overview.” Macmillan, reclamation of her identity. She learns that her name 2005. is Shori Matthews. That she is a member of the Ina, Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. Bern, Peter Lang, 2016. although as she puts it, “I didn’t have any idea of how Suvin, Darko. Positions and Presuppositions in Butler’s science-fictional, vampiric species. That, Science Fiction. Macmillan, 1988. Taubes, Jacob. Occidental Eschatology. Stanford UP, learnsold I was that or much why my of herage strangeness,should matter,” for (8) the for humans those 2009. shearound encounters her, age asis awell deeply as for significant the reader, category. resides She in the fact that she has the appearance of a ten year old

Finally, she learns that the Ina, due to what Habiba Novelty and Age in Butler's girl but has in fact been alive for fifty three years. Fledgling IbrahimChuck has Robinson called their has “oceanicdiscussed lifespans” this opening (313), Through the Eyes of a Child: Novelty and Age in passageconsider directly. fifty three He to writes: be the age of a child. Octavia Butler’s Fledgling As an amnesiac, [Shori] does not have a personal, cultural, or historical past to serve as a model. The Katie Stone Birkbeck, University of London, UK this amnesia . . . We experience a new beginning alongopening with sequence Shori, as of she the (and novel we) formally reconstruct echoes a Day 3 | December 8, 2018 | 3:30pm sense of persona and world bit by random and Age and Aging intense bit. (489) It is this echoing and the connection which it suggests between Shori’s position and that of the sf reader— published in 2004. Butler has described this novel as who picks up a new book and is confronted by a “somethingOCATVIA BUTLER'S that was more final lightweight novel, Fledgling, than what was I’d strange world in which they, like Shori, cannot rely

she wrote to give herself a break from the gruelling orient themselves—which I argue makes Fledgling taskbeen ofdoing” creating (Gonzalez the near-future, and Goodman dystopian 222); the world novel suchon their a useful “personal, text in the cultural consideration or historical of the pasts” science- to detailed in her Parables novels (Parable of the Sower (1993), Parable of the Talents (1998)). Fledgling is One example of Butler’s engagement with the her vampire novel. Published in the same year as processfictional ofpractice worlding of worlding. is her choice to frame Fledgling Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2004), it is framed, in as a vampire novel. While her blood-drinking Butler’s interviews, as a text targeted at a younger, species, who hail from Eastern Europe and are less politically engaged, audience. severely allergic to sunlight, appear to invite readers It is my contention that only someone who had to draw upon their past exposure to the vast array just written the Parables novels would describe of texts dedicated to vampirism, Butler subverts Fledgling as lightweight. While a novel detailing this invitation. Like Shori—who spends much of the 54 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 55 novel’s opening chapters attempting to research her interlocutor replies: “You are, now more than

cannot rely on their prior understanding of what a which the novel ends, where Shori faces the people vampirism—the reader quickly realises that they responsibleever with your for memorykilling her loss” family (80). and The causing trial with the the Ina. The extent to which Butler’s vampiric peoplevampire will “really” conform is when to, or attempting diverge from, to understandthe already moment in which her childishness is presented as a wounds which led to her amnesia, offers a final Ina who looks favourably on Shori’s case, states: “My nebulous and ill defined cultural touchstone that is impressiondefining identity is that characteristic. she is exactly whatZoë Fotopoulos,she appears anto throwing“the vampire,” herself is into impossible the terrifying to determine new world without which facesfirst readingher. To read Fledgling, Fledgling, or, therefore, in Shori’s is to case, navigate first The fact that Shori’s childishness extends beyond the world of the text from a position of ignorance, appearancebe—a child” and(294). is not merely a veil which can be

of the child into the world of sf criticism—a world is revealed, is clearly articulated here. However, whichof childishness, it has previously and thus been to excluded incorporate from. the figure thisswept emphasis aside once on her Shori’s “true,” status science-fictional as a child shouldnature In Metamorphoses of Science Fiction Darko not be read as a way of fetishisizing her as a source Suvin wrote: “SF has historically had one of its roots in the compost heap of . . . juvenile or popular subliterature, and in order to develop properly it has isof relative: originary purity with unique access to science- fictionalI’m a novelty. child according As Shori points to the out, standards age in Fledgling of my people, but my people age more slowly than whathad to Butler’s subsume writing and outgrowshows is it—thethat the quicker process the of yours, and I have an extra problem. I may be growth,better for the its movement generic affirmation” from ignorance (22). to Inknowledge, contrast, older than you are in years. As far as my memory is precisely what allows for interaction with science- is concerned, though, I was born just a few weeks ago. (91) been made knowable they become a part of the It is not because Shori is exceptional, then, that dominantfictional novelty. episteme, Once at theleast details for that of anreader, sf world and havethus in Fledgling her age and its relation to novelty is are no longer associated with what Suvin termed the problematised. Disassociated from the number of years one has been alive, childhood in Butler’s he believed was at the heart of the genre’s radical writing is instead tied to memory, knowledge, and potential.“strange newness” By staging of sf,the or “theconfrontation novum” (4), between which strange new thing and strange new world, where both are continually reborn and recast, Fledgling, tonovelty. be a product Age is of estranged social relations from which its fixed opens roots up the in possibility,biological or for historical the sf reader, “reality” of and becoming instead revealedchildlike and thus becoming (strangely) new. Rather,where Shori Butler has shows “an endless us that stream immaturity of questions is a vital and It is important to note that in Fledgling this no answers” (5), does not mature or become fixed. newness is explicitly politicised. Shori, described as interacting with strange new worlds. partIt of is the Butler’s science-fictional willingness process to embrace of creating Shori’s and her human lovers, is the product of an experiment position as a child which allows her to reimagine wherebythe “new, genetic improved materials model” were (120) collected of Ina from by one an Ina of the novum as reliant upon the epistemological man, several Ina women and a human woman. While positioning of those who observe, create, and the Ina all have pale skin, Shori’s human mother embody it in this way. On page 28 Shori states: is African American and it is the added melanin in Shori’s skin, as well as her human DNA, which allows appearance is gone, as Shori’s father makes clear: “In her to move around in the daylight and which enrages “I look like a child.” By page 64 the question of is shown to be a category capable of increasing (173). This racism is explicitly connected to the overfact, Shoritime. Confrontingis a child.” Soon another afterwards Ina, Shori childishness demands some of the Ina, who consider her to be a “mongrel” an explanation of her perceived youthfulness. to novelty. For example, it is noted of Shori’s main antagonistIna’s long lifespans Milo Silk, and that their “when subsequent he was born, antipathy there 54 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 55 Accusingly, she says, “You said I’m a child,” to which disbelieve children and thus to exclude them from participating in the workings of the institutions attackers,were no Europeansappeals directly in the Americasto America’s or Australia” history which govern their lives. This is also true for any of(231), racial while oppression, Katherine which Dahlman, she hasanother witnessed, of Shori’s in order to justify her hostility towards Shori. As she puts it, “When I came to this country, such people nations,group who women is deemed and gender to be “childlike”non-conforming in some people way, whosewhether adult these status are peoples has to beof so-calledcontinually “developing” proved or the past in Fledgling—as in Butler’s time-travel trans people whose experiences are often cast as a were kept as property, as slaves” (272). To escape second adolescence, both by those who are sincerely an arm in her escape from the antebellum South— novel Kindred (1979), where her protagonist loses experiences and by those who would cast trans racial oppression and the legacy of slavery. Shori’s attempting to find ways of conceptualizing trans positionis thus specifically as a child and framed the novelty as an that act ofbrings combating with it bodies, or even as guilty of corrupting their own is actively invoked as an explanation of her ability to childhoodpeople as unfitselves. to decide what to do with their own make this escape and thereby to revolutionize Ina/ This is not to say that there are no utopian human relations. In this way, childhood is shown to possibilities opened up by an understanding of age be a useful tool, not only in sf criticism in general, but in criticism of Afrofuturist writing in particular, the child might not offer particular access to the strangeestranged new from worlds linear of time.sf. Rather, Nor thatit is theto say figure that ofa possibilities for intervention within the dimension denaturalized age is not one necessarily free from ofgiven the its predictive, concern, asthe Kodwo projected, Eshun the put proleptic, it, “with the existing structures of state violence and that more envisioned, the virtual, the anticipatory and the research is needed into how our navigation of sf worlds are mediated by our own, partial, socially To tap into the utopian potential of childhood constructed and ambiguously novel roles as children. andfuture novelty conditional” in this (293). way is not to free it from the structures of oppression with which it is also Works Cited associated. Ibrahim has described how nineteenth Butler, Octavia E. Fledgling. Grand Central century American slaveholders denaturalized age Publishing, 2005.

the enslaved people they oppressed and tortured inand order invented to grant science-fictionally a nostalgic connection long lifespans to George for Eshun,Vol. Kodwo.3, no. 2, “Further Summer Considerations2003, pp. 287-302. on Gonzalez,Afrofuturism.” Juan, and CR: Amy The Goodman. New Centennial “Science Review, Fiction Writer Octavia Butler on Race, Global Warming, Washington, the “father of the nation” (313). In theFledgling, terrifying the potentiallyand disorientating oppressive circumstances qualities of Butler, edited by Consuela Francis, pp. 222-225, a science-fictionally denaturalized age are felt in UPand of Religion.” Mississippi, Conversations 2010. with Octavia extended youth force her into. The fact that Butler Ibrahim, Habiba. “Any Other Age: Vampires and which Shori’s continually reinstated and artificially assault suggests that, in her writing, the potential vol. 49, no. 4, Winter 2016, pp. 313-327. forchose weaponizing a courtroom childhood’s to stage connection Shori’s attackers’ to memory final Robinson,Oceanic Chuck. Lifespans.” “Minority African and American Becoming-Minor Review,

has created. The experience of children in court Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, November 2015, pp. 483- roomsextends (meaning well beyond in thisthe science-fictionalinstance people world who sheare 499.in Octavia Butler's Fledgling.” Science Fiction below the age which the government of their country Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. Yale in which their experience of the world around them UP, 1979. ishas attacked. decided makesIn this youinstance, an adult) the isability frequently to make one oneself new over and over again, or to perceive the world around one as malleable and excitingly full of possibility, is used only as another excuse to 56 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 57 Throw Grandma Out the Airlock so I crowd-sourced the problem. I approached which science fiction novels included old women, Sylvia Spruck Wrigley multiple online communities for help creating a list SF Author and Independent Scholar of relevant science fiction works. Once the results Day 3 | December 8, 2018 | 3:30pm started coming in, however, it quickly became clear Age and Aging that “old women in science fiction novels” wasn’t well enough defined. THIS PROJECT started because I was wrong. My The first question was a minefield: What is science fiction? Tropes vary by genre and it is impossible to thisconsider can thebe reverserepresentation engineered, and tropes that you of a canspecific see crone,initial premisethe wise was woman, that speculative the meddling fiction mother, relegated the whatgenre genre if that something genre isn’t is defined.by the tropes It almost that itfeels follows like friendlywomen “ofinnkeep. a certain This age” seemed to very such specific an obvious roles: truth the or subverts. that it was barely even worth stating. We've seen these women all our lives, in fairy tales and epic but it’s like looking at asteroids and planets: although fantasy, and of course in Terry Pratchett’s wonderful it isScience generally fiction obvious is clearly which not theis which,same as in fantasy some parodies of old women in all of their cliched roles. However, when pressed, I discovered that there was and so we end up having to draw somewhat arbitrary one place where we do not see these women: in borders.instances, it becomes difficult to tell the difference,

with the reaction of human beings to changes in whenscience they fiction do novels.exist, they inhabit a very different scienceAsimov’s and technology. definition is The that science science may fiction be dealspure space.Old We women don’t arehave a innkeeps, rarity in we science have fictionimmortals. and fantasy, for example time travel or faster-than-light We don’t have crazy cat ladies, we have body snatchers. There’s a distinct lack of old ladies who about the impact of science on the characters of the love solving cozy mysteries, but we do have a greater- novel.transport, but I like the definition that the genre is than-normal number of politicians. Typical tropes across literature, using TV Tropes sf as realistic speculation about possible future as a primary reference, didn’t feel right for science Heinlein takes this a step further, defining the real world, past and present, and on a thorough the Cool Old Lady. I found this particularly obnoxious events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of becausefiction, with they the don’t exception seem to of bethe tropes Hip Grandma so much and as representation. Men who aren’t misogynistic and understanding of the nature and significance of the teenagers who aren’t orphans don’t get singled out aboutscientific men, method. especially white men, and how they are for special treatment, so why Cool Old Ladies? Was changingThese the definitions world and have are set affected the stage by the for storiesfuture. this in itself a symptom of the problem, that old When looking for old women in major roles, there may already be a stumbling block in that western considered an exception worth naming? society, as a whole, does not tend to treat women womenTo even who consider were quick-witted the situation, and we confident need to set were up seriously when it comes to their achievements in science and technology. havesome their definitions. own issues, From startingthe start, with I limited the fact the analysisthat old womento novels. should, Science if fiction at all moviespossible, and look television like Cher series or whatIn they effect, are, the which tradition is one reason of science why hasthis reflectedis such a Tina Turner. The fact that they look better in their fascinatinginto science subject. fiction and made the old women tropes 70s than I looked in my 30s maybe makes me a bit prejudiced, but I wanted a starting point of literary What is an old woman? Two points immediately tropes rather than Hollywood clichés. becameThe secondobvious. question First, towas consider equally uncomfortable:representation the future. But there was no reference for discovering Now I had a quest: to find the little old ladies of of old women in science fiction, they had to be 56 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 57 human women: not immortal, not a form of artificial intelligence, not an alien race. Maybe a cyborg. Alien Trope: Forever Young

Culture novels, might not age at all or when they Forever Young is about the author’s treatment of the do,life may forms, have even no well-defined intersection lifewith forms our own like inaging the characterThe first rather of these than the is rather character handwavey herself. This because can process. of an old woman is relative. The telltale signs are thatbe hard the to author clearly informs define as us of that course the the character “mindset” is Thus we need to answer this question, which I 50 or 60 or even 70 but there is nothing in the did However,by defining it woman still wasn't as “recognisably enough. Thehuman crowd- with women’s mindset or mannerisms that show this: the sourcinga defined waslifespan great who but uses the femalesubmitted pronouns.” novels made character’s presence and reactions and concerns are exactly that of a younger woman. There may be a few Jessica in Dune kept coming up, and although she crows feet around her eyes but her movements are it clear that I needed to better define “old.” Lady always easy and graceful. She does not suffer from rheumatism or hairs growing out of her chin. If you ages later in the series, this was specifically referring change her age from 55 to 35, there’s nothing that to the first book, which I suspect is because many jars about her personality or her mannerisms. Her inreaders Time, were and sheprobably is in her 14 30sor 16 with when creamy they firstskin read and age is a number, not a state of being. violetit. Another eyes. oneOne was character Dr. Kate described Murray fromas middle-aged A Wrinkle turned out to be in her late 20s, old only in contrast Trope: Incremental Immortality to the teens in YA novels. Another youthful trope is connected to a common I wanted women who had moved on. Whether or literary trope: the fountain of youth. Typically, this not she had children or even considered it, that phase of her life was behind her. This led me to a biological thatis a macguffincan be used that to reseta character time and or morea team importantly, strives for. what about women who went through menopause itIn canscience be donefiction, over it is andsimply over a modern again. Manyconvenience novels early?definition: What old about women women are who menopausal. medically repressed But then, with this device have no representation of older their periods? What of women who never had women because they’ve all reset before they got old. periods at all? Others, including Peter Hamilton’s Commonwealth Beyond that, how could you tell? Women in series, include the drawbacks such as dealing with

In the end, it has to be about worldview: her experience without aging. This trope draws an personalityscience fiction shows novels the don't impact menstruate. of her life experience multiple “life” partners and the side effects of gaining and her actions are shaped by her knowledge that she has more years behind her than in front of her. tointeresting include old line women between if it “humanscan be undone? with a lifeHowever, span” manyand “immortals”: of these novels should engage these with books physical be considered issues of to collect data for analysis and then to recognise aging and personal choices regarding rejuvenation, patternsHaving and defined whether all thethey things, are the it becomessame as easierthose which is not true of those dealing with true immortals. in fantasy and other genres. Over time, we see very special women… again and again and again. Trope: Body Snatchers It’s important to mention here that something In the Body Snatcher version of the fountain being a trope is not necessarily a bad thing. Tropes of youth, the woman has lived a full life but is are simply common themes or literary devices, offered a new body, which can be someone else’s or just a pattern that people and stories like. It can be created by cloning. Either way, the body is not her shorthand or it can be cliché. own. This is effectively an extrapolation of organ That said, they do tell us something about the farming. Technically, it’s just a different method of worldview of the authors and their target audience. rejuvenation but there is something slightly more disturbing, to me at least, of taking over another exceedingly interested in making old women young body and throwing away your old one. The great again.One thing that is clear is that science fiction is example of this trope is John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War,

58 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 59 which focuses specifically on the issues arising from this system. then gets out of the way so that the protagonist can

Trope: Career Choice—Politician Although I'm not sure this can be called a trope keep protaging. Stephen King uses this a lot, it has in itself, it’s hard not to notice that if you are an older to be said. The Stand is also King’s earliest science fiction work, a departure from his mystical fantasy than-normal chance of being a politician. This is thethemes. horse, Although it’s hard not I concede to wonder that if the defining book is science really perhapswoman in an a easyscience career fiction to assignworld, anyou older have womana greater- to fiction by the tropes used is putting the cart before offer her power which is mental and emotional rather perhaps, there’s a separate set of tropes that apply than physical. Being a politician is not necessarily toa fantasypost-apocalyptic story in sciencenovels in fiction general, trimmings whether orthey if, a bad thing but it makes me wonder where all the retired cops and disillusioned soldiers and eccentric mentors are, as their male counterparts seem to be Theare science problem fiction with ormaking fantasy headway or horror. on this is that I very much represented. need more data. I discovered many things. For example, that Trope: The Final Frontier there’s barely any women of color over 50, in fact, other than Mother Abagail, diversity appeared to and the Western tropes for men appear regularly, but Western stories transfer easily to science fiction Even looking at minor characters, I can tell you the don’t follow this trend. Even more surprising, to me pickingsbe limited are to slim. women who are “not quite white.” atI was least, surprised was that to the find author that thewith women’s the most characters examples The old women often reference sex and romance of strong representation of old women in space, and yet they all seem to be heterosexual. I found just who very clearly used this trope, was not an author one counter example: a bisexual woman over 50 who I expected to be impressed by when it comes to ends up shacked up with a male teenager, so I’m not representation of women. I’m talking about Robert Heinlein, who has a number of old women in his books, It’s almost as though, to survive in the future, one including one in a major role. Hazel in The Rolling hasfeeling to be the pale queer and representation cishet. And there there. are surprisingly Stones is a clear frontier woman who was among the few disabled women after decades on generation founding fathers of Luna. She’s Chief Engineer of the ships and asteroid colonies and space wars. There’s ship, an expert blackjack player and repeatedly and no one in a wheelchair or losing their hearing. In vocally irritated by the sexism inherent in the solar general, even with the oldest old women, there are system. Hazel and other old women in Heinlein’s books are wonderful representations of old women, age other than, maybe, a bit of pain in her knuckles as long as you can overlook the general lack of aftervery fewturning references 80. to the increasing infirmities of interest in the future of younger women, other than

initiallyWhen respond I introduce with, my “Oh quest yes, tothere’s identify lots! science Like, Trope:how they Wise will Old find Crone a husband. fiction books with old women in them, many people And then there are the common tropes that... turn out not to be common within the genre. I toum…” think And about they it. come up with three fantasy novels, andAt one a sciencelater point, fiction sometimes one, and promisea few minutes to go away and represented at all in Science Fiction. Then I stumbled sometimes a few weeks, that initial enthusiasm almost thought I would not find the Wise Old Crone This post-apocalyptic novel was also my only So: here is the list I’ve found so far of science exampleupon Mother of another Abagail TV in Tropes Stephen listing, King’s the TheWasteland Stand. would turn to “Oh, hey, this is hard isn't it?” Elder, although she is the only female example on are old women. fiction novels in English with major characters who example I found of the Magical Negro trope, in which Isaac Asimov, The Complete Robot (1950) atheir black literary character list. offersShe’s alsohelp the to the only white science protagonist, fictional Gertrude Atherton, Black Oxen (1923) often in a supernatural or paranormal form, and Iain M. Banks, Feersum Endjinn (1994) 58 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 59 Elizabeth Bear, Hammered (2004) and many books here that I would never have picked Lois McMaster Bujold, Gentleman Jole and the up if it weren’t for this project. Red Queen (2015) This project has also given me a chance to Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn Few (2018) connect with you, as well. I’m asking everyone to let C.J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station (1981) connect with other science fiction readers. I’d like to James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War (2013) should be included, because without the support of Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue (1984) me know any science fiction novels that they think Molly Gloss, Dazzle of Day (1997) Peter F. Hamilton, Pandora’s Star (2004) co.ukthe science with anything fiction community, you believe there’smay be norelevant; way I itcan is ---, The Reality Dysfunction (2004) alwaysfind them useful all. Please and appreciated. mail me at oldwoman@intrigue. Robert A. Heinlein, The Rolling Stones (1952) In the great scheme of things, whether science Frank Herbert, Children of Dune (1976) Hugh Howey, Wool (2014) matter. I’d love a role model, the person I would likefiction to be novels at 60 includeor 70 or old 80, womenbut I’m doesn’talso at an really age where I don’t really feel I need permission to be who Stephen(1974) King, The Stand (1978) I want to be. But, it’s an odd thing, isn’t it? And I can’t LouiseUrsula K.Marley, Le Guin, The The Terrorists Day Before of Irustan the Revolution (1999) help but hope that maybe just by shining a light on Ian McDonald, Lunar: New Moon (2015) this issue, we might end up with some old women who aren’t middle-class and conservative, who have Naomi Mitchison, Memoirs of a Space Woman battle scars and wrinkles and dark skin and fantastic Sam(1962) J. Miller, Blackfish City (2018) lovers. Maybe just by saying “Hey, have you noticed Elizabeth Moon, Remnant Population (1996) Linda Nagata, The Last Good Man (2017) get to read about amazing old women of all types Annalee Newitz, Autonomous (2017) these people who don't exist in our books?” I might Terry Pratchett, Strata (1981) the power to change the future. If so, the project will ---, The Long Earth (2012) totallywho are have in the been final worth phase it. of their lives but still have Alastair Reynolds, Pushing Ice (2005) Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (1996)

(2018) Naturalism and the Ontological BruceMike Shepherd,Sterling, Holy Kris Fire Longknife: (1997) Commanding Complexity of SF Worlds Sheri Tepper, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (1996) Lidia Yuknavitch, The Book of Joan (2017) Science Fiction and (Extra-)Naturalism: The Ontological Complexity of SF and Its Worlds Having gone through literally hundreds of submissions, I have found just over 30 books in the Grant Dempsey University of Western Ontario, Canada major characters and two of these (Asimov and Le science fiction corpus which feature old women as Day 3 | December 8, 2018 | 3:30pm short story to create or to reference a novel. Ontologies and Epistemologies II Guin)I have are cheats,a separate because list theyof books qualify with by usingminor a characters that looks a little better, with just over 60 THEORIES OF ontological and existential pluralism novels. in philosophy and anthropology have productive

starting on a journey. I just wanted to see if women as a genre. Such theories challenge the ontological overWhen 50 existed, I started let alone this quest,had an I impact didn’t on know the Istory. was formulationsimplications for onto our which understanding the boundaries of science between fiction The result has been an adventure. It’s no surprise that women authors are well represented but there science fiction and other speculative genres, such 60 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 as fantasy, tend to be mapped. Science fiction is, by SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 61 is also a fair showing of “Golden Age” science fiction, definition, most essentially distinct for holding itself, as imaginative play, within the domain of naturalist work and play in act and as powers among others, conceptions of possibility and plausibility, whereas and as anterior even to those of their determinations fantasy essentially exceeds or abandons that that give to thought the very concepts through which domain. This paper challenges the tendency to take they themselves tend largely to be understood, for granted as an ontological given that difference such as notions of human faculties or indeed of the between naturalist possibility/plausibility and extra-naturalist conceivability which is often There is no a priori parsing of what is real and what human itself, or of the significance of such faculties. distinct genre-ontology, drawing on philosophical such parsing would already be a posteriori. argumentsheld to ground for a scienceradical reconception fiction's work of as existential a clearly is “merely”Worlding imaginative is also fractal: fabrication it occurs tosimultaneously be done. All agency, on expressions of Indigenous ontologies on all scales. Worlding therefore enfolds itself. It achieved in collaborative anthropology, and non- frames or situates each world(ing) within other world(ing)s—containing, constraining, conditioning.

Eurocentric futurisms and scientific imaginaries. contained, constrained, conditioned, by many and conceivedThe paper as considersessentially waysnaturalist, that are science not built fiction on variousScience-fictional elements: works the determination offer world(ing)s, of imagination which are anor ontological science-fictional given, worlds,but rather insofar are both as theyproducts are and its domain by contrast to other ontological of and participants in other modalities of worlding, entangled dynamically with the determinations contained, constrained, and conditioned likewise of the naturalism in and for which they operate, fields, such as the field of the empirical; they are by certain world(ing)s that both imagination and the empirical over that of the imaginable. The paper by the concept of fiction(ality) itself. It is in and extending those determinations beyond the field of of weight or weightlessness, that they have for us. not bound to naturalism and proposes an alternative Withinfiction(ality) these havecertain the world(ing)s, kinds of sense, then, and a particularthe kinds asks what science fiction might be if its concept were inaugurates world(ing)s of its own—but framed, genre-ontologyontological conception with complexly of science multiple fiction. It potentials proposes situated,work of science enfolded, fiction, in the a world(ing)s particular text,that determineoffers and fornew articulation directions of for its thinking world(ing)s on science with others. fiction as a world(ing) by which they, the world(ing)s of of a working sense, of the central terms: world or imagination and fiction(ality) themselves. Another worlding,But first, the naturalism, definition, science. or at least some expression conditioned, is what can be called naturalism. To begin with, a productively peculiar assertion science-fictionalAmong other works, disciplines, are contained, anthropology constrained, is one by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari provides ground that has taken up interest in similar notions of for a potent sense for the concept of world: they worlds and worlding. Anthropologist Philippe think of the “Cosmos as an abstract machine, and Descola, for example, has proposed that there are, in a broad context, four ontological types, four “modes A world(ing) is an effectuation of the real; the real cannoteach world be without as an assemblagesome world(ing) effectuating or other it” in (280).which Oneof identification” of these four types that operateis naturalism. as the According grounds to of Descola,worlding naturalism configurations is an among ontological human type civilizations. in which init is which configured to think and yetof this each sense world(ing) for the is contingent.concept of all that is real is real by virtue of their participation in Configuration and contingency are important terms materiality or physicality. On this stage of universal an arrangement of relations that determines reality materiality, real entities distinguish themselves by inworld. certain A world(ing)ways rather is than a contingent others. Each configuration, world(ing) whether they possess a subjective or perspectival indeed constitutes a different reality. element and how they manifest that element in their Human existential work and play are elements of world(ing)—not necessary elements of it, but opposition of naturalism to another of the modes of certainly elements of it in that they do occur. ways of existing. This is further clarified by Descola’s An immanent philosophy, such as Deleuze and entities universally participate in the possession of Guattari’s, involves thinking of human existential perspective,identification which that heis what observes: makes animism, them real, in whichand it 60 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 61 is with respect to whether and how entities manifest corporeally that differences within reality occur. In other words, whereas, in animism, all entities share the falsificationdistinction of theimaginative given, empirical play that reality. holds (38) itself a common sort of interiority and vary in whether withinThe genre the domain concept of of naturalist science fictionplausibility, is formed whereas by and how they have bodies, in naturalism, they share fantasy essentially exceeds or abandons that domain. bodily existence in common and vary in whether Plausibility: the middle ground between entirely and how they have some sort of interiority. free imaginative play and commitment to naturalist Moreover, in naturalism, because all entities reality; the domain of a naturalist receptivity share materiality in common, they are also characterized by compromise between a willingness relatable to each other through the principle of to suspend disbelief wildly, on one hand, and, on their materiality. A strong form of naturalism the other, an interest in the (changing) contours determines further that all that is real can be known best through the prioritization of attention materialof material possibility possibility. rather Science than fictiondisregards is plausible; them— empirically available in principle, without reference it imaginatively extends scientific articulations of to supernaturalmaterial qualities elements and tointeractions, account for which phenomena. are all distortive. Thus, naturalism tends to be the world(ing) not only evenThis if suchsense imaginativeof plausibility extension which isgrounds frequently the within which Western science, or technoscience, operates, but also within which such science is taken in the spirit of an ontological given: what understood and valued. So, Western science works by itdistinction means to of be science interested fiction in from plausibility, fantasy isin often the purposing of imaginative play towards the expansion is often determined by way of ontological naturalism. of possibility as opposed to the exploration of methodologicalIn naturalism, naturalism, the faculty but ofalso imagination its significance has conceivability, is often taken as though it should be a place in reality, but the particular conjurings universally apparent, precisely on the grounds of the broad world(ing) that naturalism itself is. But, in the empirical is sharply distinguished from that of the spirit of ontological pluralism, that broad world(ing) imaginable,of and in imaginationand whatever do is not. real The resides field ofin the can be confronted too. Rather than taken for granted, accessible there. The determination of the empirical theand ontologicalits grounding conditions of the distinction of the naturalist of science sense fiction of field of the empirical or at least is, in principle, plausibility can be considered in the light of a sense of basically into opposites. But the productive work broader contingency. How is this sense of naturalist ofand the the imagination imaginable is makescapable “real” of constraint and “imagined” and of plausibility to be understood, with naturalism itself running closer to or farther from reality as material possibility. And what could such understanding do to motivate Descola is not the only anthropologist to suggest no longer thought as the configuration of reality? a way of thinking naturalism in an ontologically be, and what it can do? pluralist spirit, as one world(ing) among others, newIn thinking the light on of whatan ontological science fiction pluralism is, what that ittakes can naturalism to be one world(ing) among others, the sense of plausibility that is the usual ground of withbut thethe definitiondistinction of that naturalism is usually that understood he provides to suffices in this case, precisely for its clear resonance Tothe borrow genre concept a term fromof science Deleuze fiction and turnsGuattari out again, to be be develops constitutive a hyper-naturalistic of science fiction, hypothesis, which Gregory i.e., it plausibilitysomething of is a the dynamic way that project naturalism rather thanterritorializes a quality. Paschalidisexpands concisely imaginatively articulates: the facts science and the fiction workings not only the imagination, having formed a distinct of the empirical world on the basis of some actual sense of that faculty by its own determinations

or presumed scientific principle. This is what anto beginaspect with, of naturalism’s but also the framing field of theof imagination. imaginable. whosedistinguishes characteristic science ontological fiction from principle that otheris, on Plausibility creates shapes thecertain field kinds of the of imaginable,sense for and as theequally contrary, transcendentalist that of supernaturalism, genre, the fantastic, i.e., the among imaginative world(ing)s, conditioning an 62 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 63 garb scientists look more alike across cultures. that preserve the ontological terms and valuations (xi) ofinclination naturalism towards thus speculativeeven in engagements genre identifications with the The concept of naked science not only inspires theory towards the thought of a science unmoored rather than the real. Plausibility is the conditioning from certain forms of ideological framing, which in ofimaginable recognition rather of than deviations the empirical, from the naturalist “unreal” turn sharpens critical perspective on that framing articulations of material possibility, and it motivates and its various actualities; the concept of naked a tendency to measure those deviations. Particular science also invites into consideration a wide variety of practices of knowledge production and and potentials, in relation to other world(ing)s, imaginative and world(ing)s, not, are thus and partially their significancedetermined empirical investigation even as they develop in in advance by an investment in judging what is knowledge fidelity, many of which involve rigorous closer to and farther from a given sense of reality, empirical’s relations with, or indiscernibility from, an overarching concern with what does and does and through non-naturalist affirmations of the

butother a signal,fields. Therean impetus, is no science an anthropological that is naked. push Naked to thenot empirical. qualify, within So, plausibility the imaginable, is not simply for a a sense textual of keepscience the is concept not a kind of orscience category itself of scientificnot so exclusively practice, direct relatability to the “reality” that is reserved for in reading—and, doubtlessly, in writing—that does institutions, and their spread, as it tends among workquality, for but naturalism a disposition as a greater in thought, world(ing) a disposition to which ustethered to be. toThe Western concept technoscientific of naked science practices affects and a imaginative world(ing)s must be subordinated. broadening of what ought to be thought as a science. Although naturalism can hardly be described It opens thought onto the fact of a wider plurality of without repetitions of its own determination of sciences. criteria for the inclusion of entities and forces in, In his essay in Nader’s collection, Colin Scott or exclusion of those from, reality as a delimited zone, this delimiting is exactly what an ontological practices of hunters among the Cree of James Bay,reports Canada; the scientifiche especially depth examines of the the knowledge work of or necessary. This delimiting is contingent; knowledge construction involved in goose hunting pluralism does not allow to remain settled, definitive, reality. The sense of plausibility that is constitutive poses. “If one means by science a social activity that naturalism itself is a contingent configuration of specifically. “Do Cree hunters practice science?” he these inferences are deliberately and systematically wayof science of imagining fiction and as athe distinct transformative genre, then, potentials either draws deductive inferences from first premises, that ofmeans that thatway scienceof imagining fiction are is a limited necessarily accordingly naturalist or is itself not necessary to the constitution of science observedverified in regularities relation to in experience, the course and of events, that models then, yes,of the Cree world hunters are reflexively practice adjustedscience—as to conform surely allto human societies do. At the same time, the paradigms itfiction also aftermean all. making But what the relationis science between fiction withoutscience and social contexts of Cree science differ markedly it? Would somehow extricating science fiction from from those of Western science—accustomed as we rather than a matter of imaginative extension? are in the West to a ‘root metaphor’ of impersonal fictionIn andher scienceedited intocollection some sortNaked of disjunction Science, causal forces that opposes ‘nature’ to ‘mind,’ ‘spirit,’ anthropologist Laura Nader proposes the titular hunters continually refer to human and animal In the insistent dressing of all science in Western capacitiesand ‘culture’…” as interpretants (69) What of is one that another. difference? The family “Cree conceptgarb bywe posing limit a question:answers to the philosophical structure, leadership, memory, and communication processes of animals are all explored as analogs of what is Western science? By examining the processes,question: whatsome is science,hidden, or some more important,disguised precisely because they are taken for granted, we corresponding human qualities, both individual can see a more naked science; stripped of our projectedand social” metaphorically (76). Importantly, for heuristic these purposes, qualities as a are not simply identified in the human and then 62 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 63 responsible naturalist thinker might understand the

somehowscientific possible findings, to live and with conceivable and live from. alternative In other move. The equality of human and nonhuman animals world(ing)s that make the findings of a science differentby virtue ofdegrees sharing and such modes qualities—and of corporeality—is the plurality a of manifestations of those qualities by way of entities’ words, science fiction can not just challenge science’s be expressed in forms that Scott, following others, developments,institutional arrangements, while taking extrapolate as a given thaton scientific science fundamental, ontological configuration that tends to findings and theories, and conceive of technological of knowledge construction. Cree hunters are deeply insist upon ontological plurality in thinking about investedcalls “mythico-ritual” in the rigorous, and thatsystematic grounds development procedures anditself living is or with requires science—indeed naturalist thinking; in thinking it can about also of actionable knowledge about nonhuman animal and living with sciences. Its imaginative world(ing) behaviors and ecological relations, and they are s can connect with or posit other instantiations of demonstrably successful. That their development science and explore their actual or conceivable livability. than naturalist, conceptual schemas and practices— inof which knowledge the faculty is framed of imagination in “mythico-ritual,” does not merely rather Perhaps, then, science fiction could have a place as such by the same manner of contrast to the in, for example, inflecting the course of thought on empirical“have a part,” as it but is in itself and might by the not frame even of be naturalism— constituted nurturingthe climate of crisisthose aspects away from of various the specific other sciences futurity whichof technoscientific infuse agency and innovation responsibility and in towards knowledge the as an intrinsic dimension by way of ontological does not, or anyway should not, disqualify the associationknowledge aswere scientific. not simply with the tradition of ones. WesternSo, what technoscience, would science the fiction values be ifand its grounding anxieties configurations other than recognizably naturalist bound up with it, and its spread and permutations, Works Cited but with this concept of naked science? Could Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi, University of production,science fiction but become also in naked-scienceits reception—if fiction? it were What to Minnesota Press, 1987. followcould becomescience’s ofown, science more various fiction—not becoming? only in its Descola, Philippe. Beyond Nature and Culture. Translated by Janet Lloyd, The University of grant necessity to its alignment with naturalism Chicago Press, 2013. andWhy simply think sharpen science the fiction distinction in this wayof other rather genres than Nader, Laura. Introduction. Naked Science:

from it? Because there is power in affirming science Paschalidis,Anthropological Gregory. Inquiry “Modernity into Boundaries,as a Project andPower, as newfiction paradigmatic as such while thought changing in which and the enlarging ontological its Self-Criticism:and Knowledge, The by HistoricalNader, Routledge, Dialogue 1996. between sense. There is power in fitting science fiction into a

toground the pluralization of its common of science.definition The is theoryshaking, of because science JohnScience Moore, Fiction Macmillan and Utopia.” Press, Science 2000. Fiction, it allows science fiction to contribute productively Scott,Critical Colin. Frontiers, “Science foredited the West,by Karen Myth Sayer for theand

fiction, and consequently our ways of identifying science-fictional works, could conceivability Rest?: The Case of James Bay Cree Knowledge bring the expectation of fidelity to naturalism’s editedProduction.” by Laura Naked Nader, Science: Routledge, Anthropological 1996. territorialization of the imaginable into question Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, Knowledge, onrather participation than take thatin and fidelity resistance as a given. of naturalism’s In that way, claimscience to fictionthe very could meaning be thought of science, for itsas well variations as for its exploration of conceivable alternative sciences, conceivable alternative world(ing)s to frame 64 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 65 Nonfiction Reviews do we breach the barrier between fans and scholars? What happens when fans and scholars are the same individuals? We might believe that these issues were La ideología de Star Wars overcoming prejudice is actually a very slow process. Sara Martín Alegre solvedMoreno by Henry presents Jenkins his twenty-fivework as an years essay, ago, which, but unlike standard academic studies “does not intend Fernando Ángel Moreno. La ideología de Star Wars. - Guillermo Escolar Editor, 2017. 356 pages. €22.00. ISBN 978-8417134242. Spanishto be exhaustive,” are my own). nor His“gather book together must be approachedall the rele asvant “a sources”product of(333, the dialogueall translations I have keptfrom with the original myself, SOMETHING IS AMISS in which, as I hope, should start a dialogue with you, the treatment that the Star - Wars saga receives from munication means that, surprisingly, Moreno often academia. The MLA data- useskind reader”very informal (333). Thislanguage, wish toincluding open a linethe off-word. com base offers only 215 refer- This strategy to build a rapport with the reader, nev- ences (as of January 2018) ertheless, may also (barely) conceal an anxiety that for George Lucas (and Dis- ney’s) sprawling text but, other sources. Moreno may not have compiled all for instance, 390 for Star thathis book is relevant offers a in too his dense bibliography, weave of quotationsbut this is fromvery Trek and 785 for Harry Pot- extensive, often branching off into Literary Theory, ter. A search using “Luke shows that scholars can be communicative and prop- erlyPhilosophy, intellectual and Politicalbut also Science. daunting This at issome fine, points, for he Skywalker” as keywords particularly for readers less willing to follow the rich Starleads Wars to just are 3not publications, monographs but but to collections, 12 for “Katniss both thread running through the footnotes. inEverdeen.” need of anThe up-date: main book-length Finding the studies Force devotedof the Star to As the title announces, Moreno analyses Star Wars Franchise: Fans, Merchandise, & Critics, edited Wars’s ideology. To clear the path for his argumenta- tion, he boldly rejects all the criticism of the saga’s (2006); and Culture, Identities and Technology in the narrative incoherence, advising readers to let them- Starby Matthew Wars Films: Kapell Essays and on Johnthe Two Shelton Trilogies Lawrence, edited selves be swept away by its “boundless, enormously by Carl Silvio and Tony M. Vinci (2007). There is not - that George Lucas set in motion a bland text with though there is, for instance, a “Joss Whedon Studies negligibleexpressive ideological imaginary” content, (43). Moreno but he also firmly rejects denies the a well-established field of “Star Wars Studies,” al- habitual impression that the hero’s monomyth of- nal. All this suggests that Cultural Studies has certain fers all the tools we need to analyze it. For him, “the awkwardAssociation” limits. which even has its own academic jour saga is too complex to be accused or defended from This is why we must welcome with honors Fer- nando Ángel Moreno’s volume La ideología de Star Star Wars appears to be “racist and anti-racist, pro- Wars as a luxury, also beyond the Spanish-language wara single and viewpoint”anti-war, pro-religion (327). Depending and anti-religion, on the focus, in- domain. Published to coincide with the release of - that scholars need not be wary of approaching a ingdividualistic positioning, and Morenosolidary” claims (331); that it is, the too, saga “neither does stillEpisode ongoing VIII, saga.The Last As MorenoJedi, this declares, unique bookhis reading shows havemasculinist a characteristic nor feminist” ideology, (255). based Yet, despite on “combining its shift of Star Wars is a personal exercise aimed at under- standing why he likes it so much, which he offers to - other spectators who are similarly fascinated. This sides,inner improvementa staunch defense through of compassionfriendship, withpresenting a firm declaration connects, however, with a clear tension familyattitude and before love hostility”as decadent (124). values Star through Wars offers, the lives be underlying his book: who should be the addressee of of the unhappy Skywalkers. the academic studies focused on popular texts? How Although Morena describes himself as a Spaniard 64 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 65 with a left-wing militancy, and grants that Spanish Essays on Gender and Identity in the same way because of their diverse socio-cultural the Star Trek Universe backgrounds,and American his spectators volume does can nothardly offer read a distinctive, a film in local reading of Star Wars. It would be unfair to judge Cait Coker his volume by what he never intended to accomplish, but his own positioning and the basic fact that this is Nadine Farghaly and Simon Bacon, editors. To Boldly a book in Spanish addressed to a Spanish readership Go: Essays on Gender and Identity in the Star Trek Universe. McFarland, 2017. 268 pages. $35.00. of why and how the saga has managed to achieve ISBN 978-1476668536. such(not necessarilycolossal translational Latin-American), success. begs Future the questionresearch should address this issue, whether by Moreno or, PUBLISHED ON the heels of ideally, by a team of international scholars. the Star Trek franchise’s Moreno makes a most valiant defense of an idea To Boldly Go: that should also be the object of deeper exploration: Essays on Gender and Identity in his view, Star Wars ranks with the work of the infiftieth the Star birthday, Trek Universe is an greatest poets. As he brashly declares, “the union of insightful and wide-ranging lyricism and entertainment shapes a marvelous po- collection that examines the etical domain that lends the saga a higher aesthetic value than that of the most philosophical novel or particularly useful to those writingvarious critically series and on films. Star Trek It is sensorial experience, based on the enjoyment of the as it has several essays that powerfulfilm” (21). images Thus, Starthat bringWars togetheris, above itsall, diverse an intense ele- examine Deep Space Nine, which has long been ments: the narrative but also the music, the sound unjustly neglected in the scholarship; however, effects, the landscapes, the spaceships, the gadgets, and the costumes. This might not be a wholly new in passing, and thus major critical gaps remain. The idea, but Moreno goes further in linking the poetic bookEnterprise is thus and thean rebootimperfect films one, are mentionedbut one onlythat pleasures of Star Wars with the sublime, which he nonetheless makes multiple contributions in its

The essays are not divided topically or defines as the contact of the everyday finite with the- thematically,fifteen essays sothat there will beis nouseful narrative for scholars. through-line. vidualsinfinite. againstThis, after the all, background is what science of an immensefiction should uni- verse.be about: a reminder that we are insignificant indi out the book’s mission to engage with theoretical La ideología de Star Wars, to sum up, offers a constructsThe first entry of gender,is an editorial feminism, Introduction and masculinity, that sets generous insight into the contradictory positions as- and how such topics were developed in the various sumed by the saga using a very personal style, which series for mainstream media. The Introduction also should also be part of current academic discourse. Moreno’s enthusiasm and commitment also raises a new hope for the publication of further studies on stories)devotes stemming significant from space The to Original the topic Series of fanfiction (TOS)— Star Wars in other languages than English, and for a well-trodand the origins territory of slashto be fictionsure, andin K/S yet (Kirk/Spocka topic that much urgent international dialogue. cannot go unmentioned given the subject matter. Unfortunately, the essays themselves neglect this same topic, so it’s just as well that it is presented early on rather than not at all. There are several stand-out pieces. Suzan E. Aiken’s essay on “The Bad Boy and Feminism:

reputation for womanizing and machismo has becomeAnalyzing vastly Captain overblown; Kirk” rereads in the actual a character episodes whose that

66 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 67 Aiken analyzes, Kirk’s “feminine” traits such as his compassion for his crew and his empathy for others I am more hesitant to praise what is in essence the challenge the traditional performance of masculinity; rather than weakening his authority, these traits To Boldly Go celebrates Star Trek’s egalitarian make him a better Captain as well as a better man. andabuse utopian of the “depravedideals even bisexual” as it is stereotype.willing to criticize Andrew Howe’s “Deep Space Gender: Miles O’Brien, the franchise’s (many) shortcomings. The book makes good and constructive use of the decades of how performances of masculinity and gender have scholarship already extant on Star Trek—a claim beenJulian overlooked Bashir, and in Masculinity” a show that similarlyis famous looks for its at that, in my opinion, all too many collections devoted critical examinations of race and ethnic oppression. to popular, mainstream works do not, to their Zara T. Wilkinson’s “Where No Girl Has Gone Before? detriment. However, at the same time, the volume suffers from spotty copy-editing, with minor typos looks at the disparity between the show’s depiction sprinkled throughout, and the occasional more ofTeenage adult Girlswomen in Starcharacter’s Trek’s Strongromantic Female and Future”familial relationships (or lack thereof) and the complete out; this is perhaps (hopefully) indicative more of an absence of female adolescents in contrast to the ill-consideredmajor error (e.g. Spellcheck “Arganian” than for of “Organian”) neglectful stickingauthors multi-season arcs of characters like Wesley Crusher, Jake Sisko, and Nog. weakness is the ill-timing of its publication, just The collection also includes several essays and editors, but still annoying to the reader. Its final that look at the intersections of gender with reading, I kept wishing the various authors could havebefore commented the first new on this series or inthat fifteen plot or years; character while from Discovery. other identities. Jack Fennell’s “Infinite Diversity This collection will be of immense value to studyin Infinite with Combinations:survey data on The how Representation trans* people of scholars with an interest or specialty in Star Trek respondTransgender to the Identities franchise. in In Star particular, Trek” is aFennell sociological notes

metaphors and allegories for transness in the shows, Thespecifically, book is andalso tohighly a lesser readable, extent and those thus who can arebe that respondents were dissatisfied with the use of interested in feminist critiques of SFF more generally. Monteith’s “From Supercrip to Assimilant: Normalcy, enjoy critical engagement with their favorite texts. rather than tackling trans issues head on. Ken safely recommended to aficionados and fans who examines the problematic depiction if disabilities onBioculture, the show, and including Disability blindness in the Star in Trek TOS Universe” and the Where No Black Woman Has character of Geordi LaForge on The Next Generation, Gone Before Captain Christopher Pike’s loss of mobility in TOS Rebecca Hankins regained), Melora Pazlar’s loss of mobility once outsideand in the the reboot low gravityfilms (where of her his homeworld mobility is inshortly DS9, Diana Adesola Mafe. Where No Black Woman Has and Seven of Nine’s various prosthetics on Voyager. Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Teresa Cutler-Broyles’s “What We See When We Film and TV. University of Texas Press, 2018. 184 pages. $27.95. ISBN 978-1477315231.

fromLook inthe the various Mirror: series,Star Trek’s in which Alternative the characters’ Sexuality” Mafe offers an excellent and un- moralis a close revisions reading go ofhand-in-hand the “Mirrorverse” with penchants episodes compromising exposé on Black

TOS characters these differences are demonstrated TV that should be given to di- throughfor violence, bared sexualmidriffs, voracity, while in and later queerness; iterations it for is rectorswomen inand speculative producers film world and- wide. Subversive Portrayals, as foregrounded in her subtitle, inthrough the Mirrorverse, onscreen queerness. which was While their only Cutler-Broyles canonical are repeatedly uncovered and appearanceis welcoming until of the Star appearances Trek: Discovery of queer went characters on the air explained throughout her nar- in late 2017 (and so after this book’s publication), rative. From her detailed intro- 66 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 67 duction that opens and ends with a discussion of is revealed. Her representation as the cradle of civi- Star Trek’s (1966-99) Lieutenant Uhura, Nichelle lization, after being the only person to birth a child in a dystopian world, is much more maternal than heroic. Her character serves as a symbol: a mother Nichols—“fifty years after her debut, she remains and her newborn daughter in the ocean waiting to herthe symbolicstudy, which face she of systematicallyblack women inand science skillfully fiction an- be rescued, but to what end? (SF)” (1)—Mafe poses a series of questions to focus Hushpuppy is a six-year-old child whose abusive dysfunctional father has nonetheless raised her to be subvertsswers throughout notions of her black narrative. femininity These and questionswhat the - implicationscenter on how are speculative of imagining fiction these stereotypes characters or ing resolve is evident when she faces off with the through the portrayals by black actresses within the who she is, self-sufficient and fearless. Her unflinch genre. andmythical her father, aurochs; Wink, if necessary has been she the ismost well important equipped 28 Days Later (2002), Lex in Alien vs. Predator (AVP) into her be thatdevelopment. final girl. TheThe relationshipfact that when between given herthe The film andChildren tv roles of Mafe Men studies (2006), are Hushpuppy Selena in choice Hushpuppy chooses her dad over Miss Bath- in Beasts of the Southern Wild Firefly sheba, the other dominant female in the storyline (2002-03;(2004), Kee Serenity in , 2005), and Martha in Dr. Who besides her mother, in the destruction of the levee (2007-10). Mafe provides in-depth (2012, examinations Zoë in of and that Hushpuppy’s last words were about her - girl (14), the heroic and in some cases, literally, last womanthese characters, standing, linking focusing them on tothese the ideasix characters,of the final “Daddy” (119) make clear that the “Law of the Fa while including other examples to compare and con- relationshipther (not the as Law oppositional, of the Mother) as a struggle prevails” between (110). trast these portrayals, thereby expanding this work theMafe maternal frequently and discussespaternal, missing Wink and the Hushpuppy’s opportunity to discuss their father/daughter relationship that She situates these portrayals within Barbara Creed’s promotes strength and endurance, though she fre- theoryinto a filmography of the monstrous and detailed feminine analysis (21), ofthe the castrat genre.- ing female psychotic, the woman seeking revenge, approaches to these characters. Mafe responds to that reimagines woman as the hunter rather than quently mentions Freud and other psychoanalytic the hunted. The characters subvert the meaning of that Mafe responds to and rejects, unfortunately, as monsters in ways that allow them to stay alive and and rejects bell hooks’ negative review of the film,- ter as the stereotypical black male: violent, unfeel- This representation is most apparent in the char- ing,hooks and notes brutal. that Mafe the film does does little depict to dissuade Wink’s characus that actersembody of the Selena final and girl Lex, ideal. who, Mafe argues, embody hooks’ review is accurate. the monstrous feminine concept. For Selena, it is - lar in that though they play companions to the lead meeting with Jim (the male lead) when she dispas- charactersThe characters (both white of Zoë males), and Marthathey are are strong, very force simi- important to establish her leadership from her first front of him after her boyfriend has become infected a white male, but Martha, although in love with Dr. bysionately the zombies. and quickly It is hacks her resolve her boyfriend and fearlessness to death in Who,ful, and knows have thattheir the own relationship agency. Zoë can is alsoonly married be platon to- that saves Jim and the young girl Hannah. For Lex in ic. Both of these women have control over what they AVP, her survival is ensured by trusting, coordinat- do, and they are portrayed heroically, as great femi- nist representations, throughout their respective Predator; together, they succeed in defeating Alien, series. Interestingly, the majority of Black women theing, prototypeand fighting of withthe monstrous the other monstrous feminine, psychoticfeminine, characters studied in this book are with white men, and vengeful. either as companions, supporters, or superiors. Both characters have ended their storylines but continue feminist representations, appear to be shoehorned to be fan favorites. The other four characters, while providing unique Despite the existence of these strong characters, Hollywood still falls short in providing compelling, into some of the author’s notions of the final girl or monstrous feminine ideal. Both Kee and Hushpuppy 68 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 69 are children, although very little of Kee’s backstory Black female characters in speculative fiction. Why is there such a problem casting Black women particu- and academic, and anyone interested in a careful and larly within this genre that offers “limitless poten- - tial where raced and gendered imaginaries are con- tion. Mafe deals with complex theories, but she uses themthorough clearly reading to contextualize of Black women much in ofspeculative the analysis. fic truths to be distorted, and the imagination and cre- This book is an excellent text for upper level under- ativecerned” license (3)? Speculativeto be encouraged, fiction soallows why conventionalthe constant - tion throughout the text. Regrettably, some of these thatgraduates, this book film provides and tv studies a wealth students. of opportunities Scholars and for retread of the formulaic? Mafe returns to this ques livelystudents discussions of Africana and and further Women’s study. Studies will find groundbreaking roles, unlike many white male and women have not seen their “stars rise” from these roles turned into lucrative franchises, i.e. Captain Trekonomics female heroes of (1966-69), speculative Ripley fiction of who see (1979), their Star Trek Alien Erin Horáková Sarah Connor of Terminator (1984), and many oth- ers.Kirk of Manu Saadia. Trekonomics: The Economics of Star The only downside of the book is its dismissal Trek. Pipertext Publishing, 2016. 280 pages. and lack of discussion of Black men and their de- £17.70. ISBN 978-1941758755. piction. Yes, this is a discussion of the portrayal of SAADIA'S Trekonomics was substantial time discussing white females and white males,Black women and there in speculative is an assumption fiction, buthere Mafe that spends white 2019, and I can only pray it and male is a stand-in for all males. Black male willthe be first the book worst Itext finished this year in scholars such as Tommy Curry, Calvin Warren, and has in store for me. Trekonom- T. Hasan Johnson note that too often the works of ics treats the Federation’s Black feminist writers ignore Black male vulnerabil- post-scarcity economy, focus- ities and complexities. For example, the most iconic ing on replicators as the pri- Night of the Living Dead (1968), features mary agents of that prosperity surviveshorror film, the night, in contrast to all the white char- a black male hero, Ben, throughout the film who with robotics technology. Saa- acters, only to be unceremoniously shot and killed and eagerly conflating them at the end. Mafe discusses Ben as one of the hyper- that informed the series’s initial development, and a gooddia pays deal some more attention to the psychology to the pulp and science social organfiction- that they “model a precedent of macho heroism and isation of a humanity freed from want. There are sig- phallicmasculine performance figures of for these those films male and characters further notes who extent, the Borg’s alternative economic models. Saa- description ignores the reality that Black male char- nificant digressions on the Ferengi and, to a lesser are not busy terrorizing female victims” (26). This dia also discusses how the Federation might practi- cally operate without specie, especially in macro and depicted as heroic, as even social media has taken acters, including in the films she critiques, are rarely An in-depth work on Star Trek’s presentations of economicsmicro “international” ought to be exchanges. fruitful. For one thing, there’s noteIn of, spite hence of thethese popular small hashtags but important #Blackguydies issues, a wealth of interesting data on work outside of the thisor #BlackDudeDiesFirst. book is well written and Mafe responds to the constraints of capitalism to bring to bear when an- alyzing its depictions of labor after scarcity. Extra- notes at the end are a must-read to provide further capitalist tribal economies, historically and today (in importantquestions thatcontext were to thethese focus characters. of her analysis. Two recent The regions like the Bastar forests in India), have strug- Black female lead roles, Michonne on The Walking Dead (2010-present) and Michael Burnham of Star them by assimilating their people and resources Trek: Discovery (2017-present), offer opportunities intogled itsagainst productive a global and capitalism consumptive that wouldworkforce. “civilize” Part for Mafe to expand her book to a possible Volume of such tribes’ struggle has been to make patron- 2. I would recommend this book for libraries, public 68 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 69 izing outsiders see their subsistence activity as the am familiar with—how can I trust it where I have highly-skilled labor it is. Various Communist coun- less information to help me weigh its claims? “Great tries have produced labor statistics, and centuries voyages of discovery and world changing inventions of aristocrats worked without strictly needing to do - so. How many members of the Royal Academy of Sci- sensical, and indeed contradicted by what the author ence have not been leisured gentlemen? Italian Au- himselfwere never says . . in. collective the same enterprises.” book about False the invention and non tonomist Marxist theorists like Silvia Federici have of the warp drive. “There is a reason why universi- examined unremunerated female labor, while Olga ties are designed around campuses: to foster an in- Goriunova has built on that tradition to theorize dig- tense social life, the ferment of invention and prog- ital art economies and fan spaces. Academia, espe- cially in the era of precarity, yields fulsome examples - andress.” as Misleading I’ve stated and elsewhere, baffling—that’s this is a notmass how cultural time tionships of remuneration, as of course does fandom. readingworks. Horndogpredicated Kirk on makesscant textual several evidence appearances, and Thinkersof “valuable” like work William done Morris outside treated of strict “work causal beyond rela mobilised in the service of hegemonic discourses

Iowa because a protagonist of Robert Heinlein’s is. Federationcapitalism” aeconomy—which century ago: there’s Saadia plenty is atof painsmaterial to of masculinity. Jim Kirk is also, Saadia claims, from- to fill out a lit review, here. This single aspect of the side, Iowa, complete with dinky Enterprise statue a reconcile with our knowledge of the world and com- laI went literal to cart.uni next Saadia’s to aspirant claim isn’tKirk-birthplace the story I Riverknow, monjustify, sense—could seeming to believebe elegantly we’ll linkedfind it toimpossible a variety toof and he gives no evidence to substantiate his version. concerns and conversations. Set Phasers to Teach! (Springer, 2018), for example, makes a sound case there’d been more discussion of what we can infer for using Star Trek as a teaching tool across several My quibbles about Saadia’s choice of foci (I wish disciplines. Thus Trekonomics’s unwavering disin- models, contrasted against the Federation’s brand terest in context cannot be attributed to its subject. ofabout social Klingon, coercion, Cardassian, as well as andmore Romulan speculation economic about Despite both the book’s lack of interest in oth- er ideas and experiences and its scant pagecount such a society might organize career assignments or (much of which is taken up with spacey introduc- socialquestions projects) like whoare trivial gets tocompared live on to Earth the fact and that how I tions, accolades, and indices), Trekonomics strug- simply can’t trust this text. gles with its length. A degree of circularity is to be Saadia also speaks of “the Aztecs and Incas, who expected when dealing with interlinked ideas, and - sign-posting can be a helpful gesture. Nevertheless, - I felt Saadia reiterated his scant points too often and canswere andswiftly Aztecs, dispatched is primarily by the airborne. conquistadores' The Nahua ve allowed chapters to bleed into one another unhelp- peoples,nereal diseases.” sometimes Smallpox, called Aztecs, which are killed still manyalive and In fully, seemingly because he didn’t have enough to say. struggling for visibility and representation today, I don’t feel Trekonomics—a word the author loved to along with other indigenous Mexicans. This is all repeat in an awkward gesture of brand-building, like Gretchen trying to make fetch happen—substantial- to describe the historical violence of colonization, Saadia’seasy to find, bizarre non-specialist assertion itself information. enacts racism, In an effort sug- Given how effective late capitalism is at circumscrib- gesting that these people vanished off the face of the ingly benefited our vision from of beingthe possible a book ratherand the than fact an that, article. for earth, possibly because they were promiscuous. The many people, Star Trek’s provocative possibilities of alternative interpretation, that these civilizations a post-capitalist world are the only exposure they’ll were sexually assaulted to death, elides the eco- have to such ideas, this is a shame. nomic and cultural realities of slavery and religious The book is at its strongest when summarizing conversion in a manner that is of a piece with Saa- information that may be fresh to readers, like the dia’s attempts to describe capitalism without racial substance of Asimov’s pulp career, which I person- capitalism, manufactured desire or indeed the vio- ally know very little about. But I’m troubled by how lent forces of capital (Saadia likewise predicts we’ll - ous, or unsourced assertions regarding subjects I casually the book makes misleading, flatly errone escape the cycle of late capitalism when beneficent 70 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 71 tech-overlords voluntarily relinquish their hoarded wealth and power). There are several such odd and gitimate. However, Saadia’s lack of allegiance to aca- potentially hurtful inaccuracies in a book nominally demic norms of rigor has cost this book dearly. What aimed at creating pluralistic economic utopia here this writer in particular brings to this intellectual en- and now, and thus aspiring to the best values and deavor beyond salesmanship remains unclear to me. life-experience depicted in Star Trek. Trekonomics’s I believe Trekonomics’s brand of pro-capital tech- no-optimism owes more to Saadia’s working in LA for attempting to retain their homes, for example, - doesn’tassertion sit thatat all the well Maquis with the are discussion simply ‘freeriders’ of Native thing else. The whiplash between the coloniality and rights and the limits of utilitarianism in “Journey’s reactionary“helping tech capitalist startups assumptions get off the ground” that underlie than any this - book and its simultaneous liberal self-perception ing towards kindness and excellent work for its own and vision are very of a piece with that background, sakeEnd” that(TNG Saadia 7x20). piously One might recommends suggest that could the beginstriv those loyalties. The book’s kickstarter funding starts at home, say by writing a more collaborative and to feel a little like a well-intentioned con. thoughtful book. One could explicate Trekonomics’s dubious state- could offer something to. I don’t know that much ments for pages, but it’s just not worth it—especially aboutI’m economics, equally unsure so it’s who strange this thatbook this is aimedbook didn’t at or when the logic and assumptions underlying Saadia’s ask me to learn anything new. Trekonomics doesn’t arguments are often more contradictory (and in- go hard enough for an engaged academic audience. deed, often more disturbing). So many of his broad It doesn’t do a good enough job provide baseline context to guide readers whole unfamiliar with this highly contestable, deeply located in our particular Westernassertions moment. about economics Saadia shares and these“human as thoughnature” he’s are engaged with its core text, which I’d argue it often already done the work of proving them true and uni- readsfield and rather its terms. poorly. It’s not particularly fun, or deeply versal. A great many interpretive avenues are thus There could be a good book on this subject; this unduly foreclosed. For example, no serious consider- ain't it. ation of the range of economic possibilities depicted in Star Trek, the underlying structures of economics, - The Doppelganger in 21st- sibly be complete without a thorough, good faith Century Media engagementor the potential with “ideal” Marxist futures and other of labor extra-capitalist could pos economic theorizations. You don’t have to be a Com- Melissa Colleen Stevenson - tion of due diligence. Even to dismiss them, you Heather Duerre Humann. Another Me: The Doppel- wouldmunist have or Anarchist to reckon to with think them, so; it’s and simply Trekonomics a ques ganger in 21st Century Fiction, Television, and does not. Saadia never once mentions Hegel, but Film. McFarland, 2018. 180 pages, $39.95 ISBN sometimes this book smells like Austrian spirit. 978-1476671765. I would never say that people outside the acad- emy can’t make immensely valuable contributions to Heather Duerre Humann’s scholarship, fan and otherwise. Such an ahistorical, slim volume Another Me: The classist position would, for example, discount the Doppelganger in 21st Century enormous intellectual labor of someone like “Mrs Fiction, Television and Film takes on a monumental task. remains anonymous even within transformative fan- In just 158 pages (plus bibli- domPotato due Head,” to the the contentious Fanlore archivist nature ofand her digitiser work. She’s who ography and references), Hu- done far more to preserve vanishing print and digi- - the doppelganger, here em- ties than academia will before it’s too late—and with bodiedmann exploresas a twin, the clone, figure multi of- verytal cultures limited ofinstitutional female and support, queer writing in the teethcommuni of an ple universe other, or mechan- archival establishment that still often doesn’t accept what she does or even the work she protects as le- television shows. The work is a fascinating introduc- 70 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 ical recreation, in fifteenSFRA Review recent 327 novels, Winter films,2019 71 or tion to the topic, but leaves the reader wanting more On this level, the Television and Film section is a bit more successful because, while similarly short, three of the six chapters pair narratives in such a way and somewhat under-satisfied. as to allow their differing 21st century renditions of often,In herand, perusal after completing of 21st century her fiction,work, the television, reader the doppelganger to build and bounce off one anoth- isand likely film, toHumann as well. finds Humann herself traces seeing these double doubled quite er. This section of the book interrogates the paired twin-swap television shows Ringer (2011-12) and The Lying Game (2011-13) as well as the doubles- describedfigures, in by their Otto multiplicitous Rank in 1914, forms, but littered to the across much- Fringe (2008-13) discussed figure of the doppelganger, as famously and Battlestar Galactica (2003-09) and the initially after. Humann argues that 21st century texts, like naiveobsessed cinematic science clonesfiction programsof The Island (2005) and theirfiction forebearers, in the centuries “deploy before the motif as well of asthe the double century (or Oblivion (2013). Further focused attention is given to doppelganger) to engage with issues related to iden- the hosts of the rebooted Westworld (2016-), Orphan - Black’s (2013-17) Leda clones, and the multifaceted ergreen existential issues, Humann argues that the The Prestige (2006) wherein we 21sttity, autonomy, century adds and self-expression”a virtual world in(1). which To these we, ev as see both twins and technological doppelgangers. individuals, are continually building, rebuilding, and doubling in the film deconstructing our own identities at a rate hitherto promise and peril. They offer the reader and the rel- unknown: “Indeed, we now have the ability to self- evantHumann’s characters doppelgangers the opportunity are to envision figures ofa pano both- fashion, that is, to consciously construct our identity ply of possibilities in regard to the performance of identity and the character of self, but they are also Humann asserts that these changing technologies and public persona in whichever way we choose” (3). self to be, in an oft repeated phrase across chapters than ever as new opportunities for self-fashioning “the monster in the mirror” (1) and can prove the reengagemake the withfigure old of anxieties the doppelganger about self moreand identity. relevant 37, 55). The double, then, as presented in these 21st After an introduction which offers a historical centurythroughout works, the vacillatesbook, one’s between “own worst a liberating enemy” free (8,- overview of the literary appearances of doubles, dom of self-determination (you could be anyone) twins, and clones across the canon as well as a swift and a de-centering that could mean a wholesale loss primer on the relevant criticism, Humann divides of self-hood (someone who could be anyone is no her book into two sections, Literature being the one). Humann’s conclusion presents an alternative or- she does not offer a clear argument as to why this ganization for her argument that might have been organizationfirst, and Television made the and most Film sense the second.of those However,possible, more satisfying to this reader. Here she groups the and this division between the works she considers works by the kind of doubles represented – twins, limits the development of her argument as the vari- clones, allohistorical selves (i.e. alternate or paral- ous texts are somewhat siloed in their sections. lel universe doubles), and mechanical or construct- In the Literature section, Humann devotes about ed doppelgangers. Reorganized in this way, fruitful seven to eight pages each to close readings of Audrey symmetries emerge, and it seems possible that an Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry (2009), José argument about the opportunities afforded by dif- Saramago’s The Double ferent kind of doubles could offer a new perspective Never Let Me Go (2005), Blake Crouch’s Dark Mat- on 21st century representations of the doppelgang- ter (2016), Dexter Palmer’s (2002), Version Kazuo Control Ishiguro’s (2016), er. For example, how are the stakes different in twin and Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes (2017). In each brief tales than in clone stories or accounts of allohistori- chapter, there are pearls of insight, but Humann of- cal others, if indeed they are? Do our technological ten moves on just as her argument is beginning to build. Furthermore, the chapters, for the most part, doubling stories, or are we more likely to see certain do not intertwine or interact with one another, and typesanxieties of doppelganger account equally narratives for all emerge of these from sorts this of so the same phrasings, assertions, and arguments particular technological moment? often repeat without further development from one Humann’s writing is clear and comprehensible. to the next. Her work is at its strongest in the small details that 72 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 73 make up her close readings and begin to open a Fiction Reviews window upon her topic. Overall, the reader is left wishing that she had opened that aperture up a Hybrid Child bit further, either through more developed and in- depth analysis of the individual stories or through a Lauren Crawford broader cross-consideration of them. The book is a Hybrid Child. Translated by Jodie Beck, University of Minnesota Press, 2018. 352 television,wonderfully but evocative perhaps introductionbest serves as to an the aperitif figure and of Marikopages. Ōhara, $19.95. ISBN 978-1517904906. inspirationthe doppelganger for the inreader contemporary to go on and fiction, do more. film, and Hybrid Child won the 1991 Seiun AwardMARIKO for ŌHARA’sbest novel, and has gone on to be a classic of Japanese SF. Jodie Beck’s 2018 translation for the University of Minnesota’s Parallel Futures series marks

major work of speculative the first time it—or any writer—has been available in English. Almost three decades after its originalfiction publication, by a female Hybrid Japanese Child continues to bend genre, push expectation, and defy convention.

SF, and feminist SF, Hybrid Child takes place on the precipiceEqual of parts apocalypse. Bildungsroman, Humans are biopunk, warring military with a machine race, the Adiaptrons, that threatens to tear down civilization; in an eleventh-hour effort, they place all hope on fourteen military-built, immortal cyborgs, each capable of shapeshifting through the consumption of genetic material. But one cyborg,

his bellicose purpose, escapes. Taking on various Sample B #3, unable to reconcile his existence with there that he meets Jonah, a household AI modeled on—andforms, Sample haunted B #3 by—a finds murderedrefuge at a child.rural house;Starved it tois death by her mother, Jonah’s body is buried under the

house, perfectly preserved in an impenetrable coffin. avoidAs the detection military closesand destruction, in on Sample and B the #3’s two location, beings becomeJonah the inextricably AI invites Sample linked, B or #3 hybridized. to eat her corpseThrough to

boundlessnessSample B #3, of Jonah humanity. is resurrected; and through Jonah,For Samplehundreds B #3of years, experiences Jonah theeludes bounds capture, and traveling through space and shapeshifting as needed. One day, Jonah encounters Shiverer Mouse, a native 72 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 73 of the planet Caritas—one of the last vestiges of the human race. Shiverer Mouse, himself trapped in an lay waste to the skin of his current body. Violence, intransformation, this manner, begets Sample beauty, B #3’s metalas when bones Jonah’s maul hand and falls in love with Jonah, despite knowing that she is notiron what coffin she due seems. to a viciousBonded demyelinating by the (im)perfection disease, Caritas that burrows deep into her veins, signaling a of their vessels, Jonah and Shiverer Mouse devise a plays host to a carnivorous “windflower” (106) on plan to heal Planet Caritas’ mindsick maternal AI, It is important to historicize Hybrid Child, which Milagros, whose control over Caritas has turned symbiosis, a birth, through the tearing of flesh. homicidal. But word of Jonah’s—and Sample B over centuries and through multiple characters, Ōhara wrote more than three decades ago. Told military, and they endeavor to reclaim what is theirs. #3’s—reappearanceA triptych of novellas, has reached Hybrid the Child top brass is a ofwork the it is a marvel of speculative fiction that evokes the that revises archetypes and inverts expectations. (andtemporal the surreality and perspectival of writers fluidity like Haruki of Philip Murakami). K. Dick’s The binaries of mother and child, the living and Herwork, rethinking and exemplifies of the thematernal nonlinearity character of Japanese and of the SF dead, and even god and man are tested, inverted, relationship between identity and technology are core, rebels against his creators by daring to more than the relationship between mother and experiencesubverted. humanity, Sample B by #3, wanting a cyborg a life with beyond a nuclear battle child.artful, Can with a mother—human, feminist overtures AI, thator otherwise—who question much murders her child ever be forgiven? Can a being dependent on others’ bodies and memories every dominationand war. Jonah, and through her Sampleown eternal B #3’s immortalitystarvation, reinvigoratingand shapeshifting, her overcomes new hybrid her mother’sbody by filicidaleating merely a stopping place between one consciousness everything and anything she chooses. On Caritas, andtruly the know next? itself? Even theIs death syntax a offixed, the bookfinal ispoint, innovative, or is it the caretaking, woman-programmed AI Milagros, and translator Jodie Beck dexterously honors systematically tightens her control on the planet, killingplagued its by inhabitants neuroses and in a order “learning to wholly disorder” consume (105), Ōhara’s textual idiosyncrasies (such as an equal sign them. between Jonah’s various forms—“Jonah=grandros”; “monster=Jonah”),Hybrid Child looks or beyondcreating storied English SF analoguesconventions, of most often. Mothers, wombs, and births all take Ōhara’s various neologisms. on multiplicitiesIt is the maternal of violence being and that rage. Ōhara Jonah, subverts after the lingering humanity that those technologies have landing on Caritas, is birthed through her living imprintedlike commodified on them. AI andIt is militarized a tour of viciousness, robots, to explore of the costs of war and the limits of suffering, but it is also a (94), tears it apart with gratuitous bloodshed—a rumination on the very aspects that make us human: spaceship; her cyborg body, using wrists as “ice picks” of human birth. The ship, now a vacant womb, and suppression, and for the meaning of life itself. beginsfeminist to legerdemain hunger for meat; that affirms it cannot the be bodily satiated. violence This the quest for autonomy, for freedom from dominance is a direct comparison to Jonah’s real mother, Mama, who starved not only Jonah, but herself through The Future Is Female! anorexia. Mama ruled Jonah through food, and Jonah, still tethered to Mama and to the ship-as-mother, is Katie Stone compelled to use food as an antidote to the ship’s bodily lack. Disordered mothering, like that of Mama Lisa Yaszek, editor. The Future is Female!: 25 Clas- and Milagros, is a central theme. sic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Carnage, likewise, is used as a vehicle for Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin. Library of America, transformation instead of destruction. Blood 2018. 530 pages. $27.95. ISBN 978-1598535808 and gore are simple artifacts of life: by eating the blood-red meat of other beings and taking on their IN THE FUTURE IS FEMALE! Lisa Yaszek has curated - and renewal; but in the physical process of that ries written by women. From Clare Winger Harris’a memories, Sample B #3 experiences empathy, joy, a collection of twenty-five striking science fiction sto 74 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 75 mestic spaces are considered as generative sites for ‘Nine Lives’ (1969), this collection spans forty years - of:The women’s Miracle contributions of the Lily" (1928) to a genre to Ursula which K. hasLe Guin’s often lection. From early Atomic Age stories such as Judith been actively hostile to their efforts. These ‘labora- Merril’sscience-fictional ‘That Only extrapolation a Mother’ (1948)—which - throughout the details col the effects of radiation on a woman and her infant various ways in which women have, over the years, daughter—to the dystopian drudgery imagined by developedtories for aesthetic “our sense exploration” of wonder (ix) about show manythe many and Alice Eleanor Jones in "Created He Them" (1955) and the unhappy marriage which Doris Pitkin Buck at times overstates the supposedly hospitable at- dismantles by way of theoretical physics ("Birth of a mospheredifferent futures that the we SF might publishing inhabit” world (x). offered While sheits Gardener" (1961)), the domestic is continually cen- female contributors, Yaszek ably frames the stories tered. This is, however, by no means the only element collected here in the context of both women’s SF and of feminist SF nascently present in this anthology. As of the genre more broadly. Rather than a niche sub- is evident in the writing of Leslie F. Stone ("The Con- - ries provide compelling evidence for the argument - thatgenre women’s which can SF behas justifiably always played overlooked, a central these role sto in ationquest ofof herGola" heroine, (1931)) Alyx and ("The C. L. Barbarian"Moore ("The (1968)) Black the development of the genre; that, as Yaszek puts it, God’s Kiss" (1934)), it is not with Joanna Russ’s cre- male heroism. This anthology is the latest in a number of publi- in theMoreover, 1960s thatThe SFFuture first is concerned Female! itself with fe cations“the future that has have always worked been to female develop as this well” argument. (ix). Joining Mike Ashley’s The Feminine Future (2015) SF. John Jay Wells (Juanita Coulson) and also Marion prefigures Zim- and Patrick Sharp’s Darwinian Feminism and Early merthe queering Bradley’s of contributiongender roles tofound the incollection, later feminist "An- Science Fiction (2018), The Future is Female! con- other Rib" (1963), is an early example of an SF text tributes to the atmosphere of rising excitement sur- which explores the possibility of transgender iden- rounding early women’s SF. Unfortunately, Yaszek’s tities while, in Sonya Dorman’s "When I Was Miss collection also shares the near exclusive focus on the Dow" (1966), amorphous aliens take on the shape of writing of white women exhibited in these recent differently gendered humans seemingly indiscrimi- publications. One might have hoped that Yaszek’s nately. experience as a scholar of Afrofuturism could have Overall, then, this collection succeeds in its stat- furnished some examples of the contributions that ed goal of demonstrating the importance of women’s writing to SF prior to the feminist SF boom of the The absence of such examples, or any attempt to ex- 1970s. The work which women did to contribute plainwomen or ofeven color acknowledge have undoubtedly their absence, made to sadly the marsfield. to the genre in this way did not, however, go unop- what is an otherwise comprehensive introduction to posed. While Yaszek’s efforts to stress that although

Despite this rather egregious omission, the storiesa critically collected neglected here field. do offer a wide range of ap- from“women the indominant SF occasionally critical narrative met resistance” in which these fe- proaches to the genre. Many of these—such as Alice malewere SF “isolated” authors (xi)are incidents—thusframed as the oppressed moving away vic- Glaser’s terrifying ‘The Tunnel Ahead’ (1961) or Eliz- tims of their male contemporaries—is commend- abeth Mann Borgese’s "For Sale, Reasonable"(1959) able, this stance risks minimizing the struggles that in which a worker attempts to persuade his employ- these women had to face. Judith Merril’s biography, ers to buy him, in place of a machine—are only pass- for example, includes an episode in which John W. ingly concerned with gender and center, instead, the Campbell made a bet with her based on his claim - that she wouldn’t be able to get a story published iar to all mainstream SF readers. However, Yaszek is in Astounding Science Fiction, because “women rightquestions to identify of automation this collection and overpopulation as providing a linkfamil to couldn’t write SF good enough to appear in his mag- - plicitly feminist, SF. For example, one can trace the development“the finely honed, of the radiant” concept (xx) of writing"galactic of suburbia" later, ex Youazine” Were (510). Great" Meanwhile, (1967)—which the oppressive opens with misogyny the vio- (Yaszek, Galactic Suburbia (2008))—wherein do- lentexplored assault in of such a young stories woman as Kate for Wilhelm’s the purposes "Baby, of 74 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 75 entertainment—refuses to be contained within the Finding Baba Yaga’s narrator, Natasha, is a young strange world of the text and instead seeps out into, happens upon Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged house in as saying that she left the genre due to “sexist experi- woman who runs away from a difficult home life and- for instance, the life of Leslie F. Stone, who is quoted ably crusty yet wise old woman while self-conscious- While Yaszek’s introduction is lythe subverting forest. Natasha the expectations finds acceptance of Western with fairytales.a predict ences” (520). not, therefore, aligned entirely And herein lies the problem. Baba Yaga and the sup- with the stories and biographies porting characters have been stripped of their essen- that she has collected, this can tial Russian character and context. They are pressed largely be ascribed to the polyvo- into the tropes of European fairytales and the poorer for it. Russian fairytales have always been delight- - fully different from their European cousins. Readers tion.cality The of acollection’s field that beautifully defies any looking for tough heroines rescuing princes, outwit- designedone or definitiveonline characterizacompanion ting captors, or generally getting the job done will be (www.womenSF.loa.org)—which disappointed. features a gallery of magazine cover art, a selection The character of Vasilia suffers the most from of appreciations written by prominent feminist and this decontextualization. Russian folklore contains - many strong active heroines who rely more on wit tions of the work of the authors featured in the col- and courage than their passive Western sisters. Once SF critics, and a collection of films and audio adapta- known for her bravery, ingenuity, and kindness, plicity. As proclaimed on the collection’s dust jacket, Vasilia now becomes a spoiled, naïve girl trading on thislection is a- textonly thatadds will to this“permanently sense of the alter field’s your multi per- her looks. The plucky, chaotic wonder so intrinsic to Russian fairytales has been traded for dashes of magical realism. Natasha herself remains shadowy, ception of American science fiction." reacting often, acting rarely. Finding Baba Yaga Finding Baba Yaga works best when appreciated for its poetry. The precise language appears simple Jess Tucker but should be savored for deeper layers of meaning.

Jane Yolen. Finding Baba Yaga. Tor.com, 2018. 144 have been a compelling tale, rich with the exotic pages. $8.00. ISBN 978-1250163868. enchantmentsSadly, however, of the Russian story itself folklore, falls isflat. instead What amight sub- version of the traditional European fairytale model. FINDING BABA YAGA by Jane Now, if you will excuse me, my prince has been kid- Yolen, a novel in verse, is an in- napped again . . . teresting journey that fails to live up to its potential. The Baba Yaga of Russian folklore is an

cruel, sometimes kind, always perplexing.intriguing In figure, recent sometimes years, she has been coopted into the New Age crone archetype, viewed as a diminished aspect of the God- dess rather than an interesting character in her own right. This interpretation looms large over Ms. Yo- len’s book.

76 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 77 Media Reviews Brock and Venom form an unlikely alliance and take down Drake, who has himself ended up bonded with another of the symbiotes, Riot. Venom Unlike the best of the current spate of Dominick Grace commentaries on contemporary concerns (e.g. Blacksuperhero Panther’s films, whichsmartness manage about to offer race), meaningful Venom Venom. Dir. Rubin Fleischer. Columbia, in association raises serious issues such as imminent ecological with Marvel, 2018. on the disenfranchised (Drake, for example, THE ONSLAUGHT of Marvel catastrophe and unethical scientific experimentation Comics characters on cinemas opportunities it might have had to use them to make continues with Venom, meaningfulexperiments commentary on the homeless) on genuine only to contemporary squander the arguably among the weakest concerns, choosing instead incoherent action of the catalogue of Marvel-

sequences. Once such issues have been raised, it related films. Venom first Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, but this andseems meaningful—but as if the film believes instead, it hasthe donegenuine all itserious needs appeared on film in Sam reboot jettisons any Spider- problemsto render itthe raises subsequent end up ignoredmindless in action favor ofrelevant a silly Man connection (other than power fantasy. Drake’s putative concern with improving costume). The only similarity is that Venom continues toVenom’s be an alien superficial symbiote resemblance (or parasite) to that Spider-Man’s bonds with a human host. Overall, little good can be said of this sociopathy,the human as lot he and casually finding kills ways test subject to avert after global test mix of clichés further compromised by lazy writing catastrophe is difficult to reconcile with his evident

matches—whateversubject trying to find athat way tomeans, bond humansin relation with theto and filmmaking. billionaire biochemist with his own space vehicles bindingaliens. This alien depends, DNA to human; apparently, how Drakeon finding might perfect know At the beginning of the film, Elon Musk-like Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), seeking to save this though, or why he thinks that bonding humans humanity from impending ecological catastrophe, with alien symbiotes—about which, it becomes clear, he knows literally nothing—is a good idea are options) gelatinous alien symbiotic creatures while discovers (or is discovered by—the film floats both looking for new habitable worlds. He decides that bother asking, let alone answering. Instead, getting the solution to humanity’s problem is to experiment among the myriad questions the film does not even to discover how to bond earthly creatures with these symbiotes, thereby creating humans who will be provingthe aliens his to villainous bond with credentials; humans hasonce to Eddie be difficult comes able to survive in space. Ace investigative reporter onat first, the soscene, Drake the can aliens kill a canbunch suddenly of people, bond thereby with Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) ambushes Drake in an pretty much any host without any evident problem. interview for what was supposed to be a puff-piece, challenging him about his legal troubles stemming host bonding end with the symbiotes consuming from dodgy human trials, thereby getting himself their(Early hosts; in the byfilm, the all end, instances this apparently we see of symbiote/no longer inevitable outcome of bonding seems remedied as Six months later, one of the scientists working with long as Venom can eat the occasional gangster rather and his fiancée lawyer (Michelle Williams) fired. Drake on the human/symbiote hybrid program, than feeding on Brock’s body.) troubled by its ethical violations, contacts Brock to try to expose Drake again. As a result, Brock ends up bonded with one of the aliens, which tells "discovered"The second by Drake, act of actually the film wanted introduces to be found the us its name is Venom (a name inapplicable to the so"twist”"that they could get the to Earth aliens, and rather feed on thanhumans—as being creature’s nature or methods, but that’s hardly the Venom tells Brock shortly after they bond. At this point, Venom is in absolute control; though Brock 76 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 most implausible element in this film). Together SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 77 retains his consciousness and mental independence, Altered Carbon Venom can do with him what he will. This leads to Vlad B. Jecan in characteristic angst-ridden, twitchy style, plays asome man of literally the film’s unable few amusingcontrol himself—pummeling sequences, as Hardy, Altered Carbon villains, for instance, and then apologizing for doing 2018 so. However, by the third act, Venom has changed . Created by Laeta Kalogridis. Netflix, sides and decided he wants to destroy the other Japanese high tech and post- the invasion of his own people. The reasons for communistTAKESHI KOVACS, a blendEastern of main symbiote figure, Riot, and save humanity from this are poorly-developed: where he comes from, European rubble, is probably the best name in cyberpunk Brock is on Earth, and furthermore he is getting history and Altered Carbon Venom says, he is “kind of a loser,” just as Eddie is a splendor of cyberpunk seems fully able to control Venom, reversing their aesthetics. The series has it to like Earth). By the end of the film Brock now original relationship—again, without explanation. all: high tech, low life, outdated ad visuals, techno- hallucinogens, synthwave In short, character is modified on the fly as certain invading alien to somewhat sympathetic anti-hero graphics, and the glorious plot points are hit. The film wants to get Venom from in two hours, and does not bother coming up with decadence of an overpopulated, technologically plausible or organic plot reasons for bringing about sophisticated city of the future where socio-economic the transition. Anyone interested in superpowered gaps are so wide that they reach the sky. The ground antiheroes will be better served by the Deadpool belongs to the poor while the rich live in excessive luxury on top of towers that reach above the clouds. the morally problematic aspects of superpowered Altered Carbon brings a plot with complex exceptionalismfranchise; anyone as the looking path forto human a film thatsalvation explores has any number of superior choices, but to go with one uploading technology in cortical stacks. The series, outside the Marvel canon, one could do worse than ramifications centered around the theme of mind Watchmen (2009). the same title published in 2002, targets numerous Venom, however, is lazily written and indifferently ofadapted the resulting from the ethical novel concernsby Richard without K. Morgan exploring with directed, using well-worn tropes with little thought any of them in detail. Altered Carbon deals with or novelty. One can look back to SF produced over human enhancement, human cloning, reality probing, benevolent and malicious A.I., and pokes at concepts of the soul, memory, history, faith, family, 50 years ago and find more thoughtful and useful threat of aliens who control or can pretend to be the future and recollection of the past, unrestricted treatments of this film’s major tropes, whether the people (a theme germane again in this era of fake violence in the absence of the state, and humanity’s news and online bots—and given Brock’s journalistic Even the creature from Frankenstein is tossed in as risks of ecological catastrophe, or the ethics of the desire to conquer life and confirm its god-likeAltered status. superrich.career, an There opportunity is probably squandered little point, here), therefore, the Carbon is a tour of things cyberpunk and, in doing so, “the Patchwork Man.” In this sense, Netflix’s relation to the major SF tropes it invokes (aliens Human bodies are now called sleeves, expensive in trying to consider what the film has to offer in productsit resurrects that the come literary with “movement.” upgrades for the right mad scientists precipitating the catastrophes they price. Laurens Bancroft, a centuries old wealthy who can infiltrate and take over human bodies; ostensibly are trying to avert, etc.). Venom seems individual with little excitement in his life, contracts simply to be designed as the beginning of a new franchise—Carnage is already set up to be the villain murder. Morgan develops extensively around this plot.Takeshi Perhaps Kovacs a bit to too solve much. the For mystery example, of the his story own satisfying work. In sum, it is an inessential addition starts 250 years before current events during the toin the nextMarvel film—rather Universe. than as a self-contained and 78 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 79 war between the rebel group known as Envoys and Beneath this messed up world of neon glow cities and virtual interrogation technologies, lies the cyberpunk protagonist, is separated from his sister, pulsing need for clear purpose, love, and real death. Raileen,the U.N. and Protectorate. becomes Takeshia member Kovacs, of an ourelite typical team of U.N. special forces. During a raid on a Yakuza to-be-murdered friends call him, is aimless just like stronghold, Takeshi is reunited with his sister. theTakeshi society Kovacs around is an him, empty but sleeve. moves Tak, forward as his due soon- to love for Quellcrist. When the Envoys revolt against Envoys whose leader, Quellcrist Falconer, invented eternal life, his love for Quell is enough motivation They fight their way out to be later recruited by the Irrelevant characters are introduced along the other hand, does not subscribe to the cause and sees waythe stacks to serve but nowas cannonfights for fodder. mortality. Some subplots, noto joinreason the to fight. abandon Takeshi’s immortality. sister, Raileen,She pursues on thean moreover, remain undeveloped; for example, over unhealthy idea of family unity caused by childhood several episodes, mercenaries hunt the protagonist. trauma and separation from her brother. Raileen is After enough people have died, we discover the willing to do anything to keep Takeshi by her side. Love in Altered Carbon binds, breaks, destroys, which belonged to a detective who investigated the and nurtures. The viewer is left alone to identify corruptionreason lies withemanating the current from sleeve above of the Takeshi clouds, Kovacs, and gender, and even time. Love, then, in its powerful, former lover. Ortega, always tense and ready to mostreal love abstract beyond manifestations superficial barriers makes sense of skin in color, this punch,who also is happensa competent to have detective been Kristinand gradually Ortega’s dystopia. Altered Carbon shows a healthy pursuit becomes Takeshi’s aid and lover. She is an example of family unity through a couple willing to risk of loyalty and sense of duty when rewards are everything to retrieve their daughter Lizzie who is unavailable. The world is a mess a she puts it back in place, in her own way. a benevolent A.I. named Poe with love of humanity andstuck fondness in a virtual for “trauma Victorian loop”. attire As the patiently story unfolds, helps Lizzie back on her feet and trains her in various doubtThe that general the average audience viewer may findmade this it past salad the of cyberpunk tropes and plots quite exhausting. I with knives and saves the day Matrix-style when and speculative philosopher, Altered Carbon offers combat techniques. She becomes particularly good second episode. However, for the inquisitive SF nerd Poe reminds us of Asimov’s optimism for the Morgan has a blast delivering numerous thought futurecircumstances of intelligent require. machines. In Asimov’s stories, experimentsa wonderful excusefor cyberpunks to play aroundto consume with while “what the if”. humans usually fail to understand the potential for directors, editors, and writers of the series do a good in robots and project onto them their own brilliant job to ensure that patience pays off in the violent expectations. On a similar note, in Altered end. The conclusion of the series beautifully weaves Carbon in together the fragmented story line to solve the itself for his human friends. Therefore, our usual expectations the A.I.of robots is helpful, taking neutral, over the andworld sacrifices may be intends to release a new season probably based a projection of our own violent tendencies. And when onmurder the second mystery novel, and giveBroken hope Angels, for the infuture. the Takeshi Netflix the viewer has experienced enough violence and disregard for human life to lose hope for humanity, Poe, the lovable A.I., restores it. wouldKovacs trilogy.be possible. In this case, Altered Carbon For 250 years, Raileen has built an empire. She portrays“What a if”world consciousness that has lost transferthe ability technology to value has successfully monetized the deranged sexual life. It is people that populate the dark alleys of the impulses and violent desires of the class of pretender city instead of the usual street dogs. In fact, to my recollection, the only pet present in the series is a snake who hosts the mind of a human, an illegal a“gods” discreet living location above shethe clouds.has set Turnsup for out them real known death is highly profitable if the rich can murder at will in Laurens Bancroft tells Takeshi, “the only choice is project for the amusement of the rich. “In this world,” as “Head Above the Clouds”. There, people can play “god” for the right price. “Mr. Kovacs, haven’t you 78 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 between being a purchaser and a purchased.” heard?” Laurens BancroftSFRA Review asked 327 Takeshi Winter 2019 at some 79 Murderpoint, “God is a is line dead, he and will we not have cross. taken Bancroft His place.” thinks he isLaurens principled, Bancroft, after all however, he replaces is a the bored sleeves “god.” he mistakenly kills during his sexual escapades. But “the danger of living too many times is to forget to fear unabledeath.” Theto accept“Grim Reaper”that temptation, becomes “and given antiquated enough time,metaphor.” will become And when impossible he commits to ignore. murder, Bancroft’s he is solution is to make the memory of the act disappear by killing himself minutes before his consciousness is autosaved. When the murder mystery is revealed to Bancroft,Altered Carbon Takeshi finallyis an responds:excellent “Youseries started for playing God and ended up like the devil himself.” fans. It is also a good introduction for anyone willing tocyberpunk peak into initiates the aesthetically and for patient pleasing detective dystopian fiction and imagined the effects of digital technology before mixedworlds reality of a literary was a commonproject that experience. defined cyberspace

80 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 81 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 Keren Omry Paweł Frelik Sonja Fritzsche

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80 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 SFRA Review 327 Winter 2019 81