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Chris Pak SFRA [email protected] A publicationRe of the Scienceview Fiction Research Association Nonfiction Editor Dominick Grace In this issue Brescia University College, 1285 Western Rd, London ON, N6G 3R4, Canada SFRA Review Business phone: 519-432-8353 ext. 28244. Commemoration...... 2 [email protected]

Assistant Nonfiction Editor SFRA Business Kevin Pinkham Let’s Get Off This Train...... 2 College of Arts and Sciences, Ny- Vice-President’s Note...... 3 ack College, 1 South Boulevard, Nyack, NY 10960, phone: 845- 675-4526845-675-4526. Feature 101 [email protected] “Dread of the Masses”: Infertility in Science Fiction Due to Off-Planet Population Control and as an Occupational Requirement...... 4 Fiction Editor Jeremy Brett Cushing Memorial Library and Nonfiction Reviews Archives, Texas A&M University, ...... 10 Cushing Memorial Library & Star Trek: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Theory and Practice Archives, 5000 TAMU College The Politics of The Hunger Games ...... 11 Station, TX 77843. The Age of Lovecraft...... 12 [email protected] Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction...... 14 Media Editor Leimar Garcia-Siino Fiction Reviews [email protected] Down Among The Sticks and Bones...... 16 Last Year...... 17 The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O...... 18

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EDITORS’ MESSAGE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Commemoration Let’s Get Off This Train Chris Pak Keren Omry

GREETINGS, ONE AND ALL, and welcome to another I BEGIN THIS QUARTER'S column on a sad note as issue of the SFRA Review. The SFRA 2017 confer- I mark the passing of a former SFRA President, Mi- ence at Riverside, California, is drawing near, and chael Levy. Mike served as the Association’s Presi- I'm excited about the opportunity to meet with you dent and Vice-President in the 1990s; he organized all again at the home of the Eaton Collection, what I and co-organized a number of the SFRA confer- think of as the Science Fiction Foundation's couter- ences. He was a longtime and highly admired editor part in the US. for Extrapolation, and for his esteemed service and It was in 2014, during the joint Wiscon/SFRA con- dedication to the SF community, he was awarded the Thomas D. Clareson award, in 2007. I did not know many others, as Keren and Gerry's columns will at- Mike well but when I met him he was unwaveringly test—wasference, that saddened I first metto hear Michael of his Levy, recent and passing. I—like kind, thoughtful and generous, and his presence in Shortly after Wiscon/SFRA 2014, I was delighted to continue some of the conversations with Michael at the current EC recognized a gaping hole in our re- Loncon 2014. I did not know Michael well, but I knew cordsthe field and will we be are sorely currently missed. working Reflecting to add on athis page loss, to enough to know that I wish I could have known him who have, through the years, been charitable with in the sf scholarly community, and he will be sorely theirour site time, that devoted lists all their previous energies, SFRA and officers. were Peoplekey to missedbetter. He by wasmany. kind, supportive and a central figure the development and maintenance of the Associa- In this issue of the SFRA Review, we have another tion certainly warrant permanent acknowledgment. joint paper by Victor Grech, Clare Vassallo and Ivan The world of SF recently suffered another loss with Callus, entitled ‘“Dread of the Masses’: Infertility in the untimely death of Mark Fisher. Fisher, although Science Fiction due to Off-Planet Population Con- not strictly speaking a scholar of Science Fiction per trol and as an Occupational Requirement.” This ar- - ticle extends their thinking about the feminist issues sights into Horror, Gothic, and other related forms ofse, popular seemed culturenever far that from have the truly field raised as he theoffered bar forin the last issue of teh SFRA Review. Alongside this Fea- raised by the theme of infertility in science fiction in- a set of terms that shed light on what has become a tion and media reviews, and announcements of calls seemingthe study inevitability of speculative of capitalismfiction. Indeed, as the by sole offering logi- turefor papers 101, we for have conferences our regular and run articles. of non-fiction, fic cal framework within which we live and create, his As always, feel free to contact us should you be writing opened possibilities for imagining alternate interested in writing for the SFRA Review, or if you histories for our future. have any sf-related news, projects or events that you As people grow increasingly desperate in light of would like to communicate widely through these recent politics, with the bleak promises of a Trump pages. America or the worrying support of Le Pen’s France; Until Riverside, Adieu! recent threats to free speech—from Berkeley to Tur- key; science which forecasts an environmental apoc- alypse; and the devastation of human rights in Syria and elsewhere, many yearn for a break with the narrative of history. If this is where we’re going, let’s get off this train, indeed. Writers from Kim Stanley Rob- inson to Matt Ruff, Steve Erickson through to Colson

2 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 3 Whitehead, have turned their metaphoric pens to imagining a new, different timeline. Although vastly different in style, content, and presumably intent, all of these and their ilk offer a unique perspective into the very nature of history. Who we are, where we are going and where we have been are all questions radically challenged and revisited in these novels in ways that remind us of the critical role of memory.

stories we tell make history. Having the privilege of readingSubjective, stories flawed, for a personal,living, I am and/or reminded political, again and the again of loved ones lost, some very recently and others less so, and I strive to meet the impermanence of life with a cracking good story to tell.

VICE-PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Vice-President’s Note Gerry Canavan

I WAS SO SADDENED to hear of the passing last month of my Extrapolation co-editor and friend Mi- chael Levy, who also once served as both vice-president and president of SFRA. Like so many other people I feel deeply indebted to Mike both personally and professionally as someone who has supported and even championed my work—and if there is any

thesilver listservs lining to as be word found spread in this around loss to the our community field it is in thatthe testimonials he was gone. that In the filed midst up Facebook, of a very dark Twitter, time and for the world and for our profession I can’t help but feel inspired by the legacy of friendship and mentorship that Mike left behind. May we all strive to—some- day—be so missed. I’m looking forward to connecting with many of you in Riverside this June! In the meantime I’ll be continue to tweet with Pawel Frelik and Chris Pak from @sfranews and publish on Facebook at https:// www.facebook.com/sfresearchassociation. In the meantime, if you have anything to promote, or any other SF business to discuss, please don’t hesitate to contact me by email at gerry.canavan@marquette. edu or on Twitter @gerrycanavan.

2 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 3 Feature 101 celerating until relativistic time dilation allows the crew to witness the contraction and collapse of the space-time, and technically therefore achieving im- “Dread of the Masses”: Infertility mortality, having lived to and witnessed the end of in Science Fiction Due to Off- the universe, along with the subsequent explosion of the primal monobloc in another big-bang. Planet Population Control and as A Bussard ramjet is a theoretical propulsion meth- an Occupational Requirement od that would utilise a huge (around 50,000 kilome- tres in diameter) magnetic scoop to charge hydro- Victor Grech, Clare Vassallo and Ivan Callus gen atoms in front of it from the interstellar medium, and use this charge to funnel atoms into an onboard INFERTILITY IS COMMON, and it is estimated that fusion reactor. The reactor would use a stellar type the number of couples in developed countries with of fusion reaction to convert hydrogen into helium infertility will double within a decade, from one in and the energy thus released would accelerate the seven today to one in three in ten years’ time. The remaining reaction products to produce thrust (Bus- reasons for this increase are legion and the most im- sard). - A comparable dilemma faces Captain Janeway in nancy when fertility has already naturally declined, the Star Trek Voyager series (1995), set in the 24th portant include rising age at first attempt at preg an increase in sexually transmitted diseases which century. The starship Voyager damage the reproductive organs, a substantial in- 70,000 light years away from Earth, with an esti- crease in the general population’s level of obesity, mated 75 year return trip back to finds Earth. itself Janeway stranded ex- which is known to adversely affect fertility, and a de- presses her concerns thus: clining level of male sperm count and overall sperm I continue to wonder about the issue of procre- quality (Ledger). ation aboard the ship. Certainly, it’s wrong to inter- Infertility in SF is too vast a subject to tackle in any fere with the private lives and decisions of the crew, reasonable length, and therefore this paper will focus yet I remain concerned about the environment we on the intersection of infertility imposed on space- could provide for any child born here (Kolbe). ships and extraterrestrial bases and infertility as an Similarly in Panshin’s “Rite of Passage” (1968), occupational requirement. This paper will attempt spaceship crew families may only have children with a comprehensive reading of such narratives and all the approval of the ships’ councils and infraction re- narrative forms will be entertained. Limitations of sults in exile to a colony planet. space will therefore preclude any more than a brief Varley’s “Titan” (1979) empowers both astronaut synopsis of each narrative. This study will also have genders with contraceptive methods, with females an interdisciplinary slant as the author is a medical taking monthly implants and also having ever-wear - diaphragms, and men having ‘valves’ implying con- ties that exceed acceptable poetic license since SF trol as to whether an orgasm actually contains sperm doctor who will also highlight scientific implausibili in the resulting ejaculate or not. Contraception for research, […] judged on those grounds, and not on spaceship crews is also outlined in Bradley’s “The “was, or should be, integral to scientific thought and merely literary ones: or, one might say, not on liter- - ary grounds at all” (James 23). ditions completely preclude female crew conception butWind have People” no effect (1959) on whereinlibido or artificialpotency, gravityand this con effect wears off after approximately three months. Au- Narratives tomatic contraception is naturally a desired side ef- Issues of Population Control fect of interstellar travel and on long planet layovers A spaceship is a claustrophobic environment which between trips, spaceship crews are routinely admin- does not permit any sort of overpopulation, and in istered a contraceptive drug called “anticeptin” to Anderson’s Einsteinian novel Tau Zero (1976), con- further continue to prevent pregnancies. This narra- traception is enforced by the ship’s medic. The is- - sue is exacerbated when the spaceship, a Bussard ing implantable contraceptive agents, such as Nor- ramjet, malfunctions irreparably, progressively ac- planttive prefigures (developed the in actual 1991 developmentwith a pregnancy of long-act rate of 4 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 5 quate contraception are shown when stranded colo- are actually attempting to persuade certain sectors nists run out of contraceptives. of<1% the over populace a five-year to implant period). such Some agents American in order states to Contraceptive failure is not uncommon in SF tele- curb the population growth of the underprivileged vision series, and in Watson’s Farscape episode (Moseley and Beard). “Natural Election” (2002), one of the protagonists, Likewise, in Taves’ “Luna One” (1973), women a military peacekeeper, becomes pregnant, and the only positive aspect is that the possibility of an ar- contraceptive pill called ‘P-C pill’. This is in sharp rested pregnancy is mentioned, implying that preg- who form part of the first moon colony are given a nancy may be temporarily suspended and gestation moon in Clarke’s, “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbit- later resumed. However, the nature of any contra- ing”contrast (1962). to the eagerly awaited first birth on the ception used in this society is not discussed. The Baxter’s “Space” (2000) is yet another narrative scenario posed in Brooks’s Star Trek: Deep Space dealing with importance of population control on Nine episode “The Dogs of War” (1999) is even more a lunar colony. An implausible approach to sexual- pregnant since her partner forgot to take his birth is seen in Bova’s “Mars” (1992). Individuals who are controlimplausible injection, as one and of theyet bothprotagonists are meant finds to beherself tak- unableity on board to remain the abstinentrestricted on confines the nine of month a spaceship trip to ing their injections. Mars amidst the mixed sex crew are dosed with sexuality repressing drugs by the ship’s medic and even Infertility as an Occupational Requirement more remarkably, contraception is never mentioned. The state may enforce infertility as a necessary qual- On a different tack, in the interest of cement- ing friendship between the various branches of unrealistically, as a form of celibacy, as already al- the armed forces, in St. Clair’s “Short in the Chest” ludedification to above.for a job Celibacy, and this that may is, abstentionbe presented, from often sex (1954), sex between men and women is by roster, for religious or spiritual reasons, is a concept found with women taking an “oestric” drug in order to in- in several religions, and has been a Christian ideal crease libido, and men take the equivalent “priapic”, since early times. The situation is similar in Bud- with contraception ensured through women also taking an “anti-concipient.” Even structures that are literally city-sized, such as isdhism generally and Sufismhostile to and celibacy also for and Hindus Judaism who does follow not entire cities that are launched from Earth to roam generallythe Vedic way,advocate in the celibacy final stages. (Brown). Conversely, Interestingly, Islam the stars, are not exempt from such strictures, and in in Bova’s “Winds of Altair” (1972), both genders of Blish’s “A Life for the Stars” (1962), the city’s (New a terraforming crew take voluntary vows of celibacy York) Chief of Police and his wife are not allowed to as part of their obedience to a multidenominational have children due to population constraints as the church. citizens of the city are immortal. In Brin’s “Foundation’s Triumph,” members of the A greater level of detail with regard to population “order of meritocracy” and of the “order of eccentric- control in the closed environment that constitutes ity” are discouraged from breeding, and even more a spaceship is given by Le Guin in “Paradises Lost” strongly, in Leinster’s “Med Ship Man,” the protago- (2002), where “conshots” are given to both gen- nists (Med Ship Men) are not allowed to marry, in the ders by the medical staff, and individuals who fail vein of knight hospitallers, somewhat naively imply- to show up for their shots are tracked down by the ing that this will ensure their celibacy. Med Ship Men ship’s authorities. Exempt individuals include post- are portrayed as volunteer doctors, similar to Méde- menopausal females, sterilised crew and those who cins Sans Frontières International (Hakewill), who are strict homosexuals or who have taken a pledge travel from world to world with no actual enforce- of strict chastity. The intention to conceive must be ment powers but are so esteemed that their medical formally declared beforehand by both partners, and advice is strictly adhered to. It must be noted at this each individual is only allowed to have one child. Ir- point that the trope of leaving it all in the hands of regular or extra pregnancies are stopped by a morn- the male hero was not uncommon in SF, particularly ing after drug or by forcible termination and indeed, in the 1950s, and especially in Leinster’s works, and in Aldiss’ “White Mars” (1999), the perils of inade- for a typical example wherein sweethearts are left 4 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 5 behind while intrepid men gallop off to high adven- that they would not take sexual advantage of any ture, see “Space Platform” (1953). non-Deltan crew (Wise). Likewise, in the Star Wars universe, in Lucas’s “At- Chastity exactly modeled on the traditional Ro- tack of the Clones,” the “Jedi,” a monastic order that man-Catholic Church’s priesthood is seen in Sim- utilise the “light” side of the “Force”, are also celi- mon’s “Endymion” (1995) in a future where the bate, as are “Life Witches” (Macbride). Equally, in power is based on the literal ability to grant immor- Silverberg’s “Nightwings” (1969), the occupation tality, along with complete control of the military, in- of ‘Watcher’ carries with it a self-imposed vow of cluding military starships, with many priests being celibacy. An inverse eugenic principle is applied in Asimov’s “The Currents of Space” (1952), an all-hu- is depicted in Marley’s “The Child Goddess” (2004) man story where the planet Sark exploits the planet whereinstarship officers.the 23rd Yet century another “Magdalenes,” Roman-Catholic a celibate order Florina, treating the Sarkites as inferiors. Intelli- order of women priests, tour the galaxy as anthropo- gent Florinians are trained on Sark, and some are logical investigators. Non-catholic vows of celibacy returned to Florina to rule over their fellows while are also taken by the all-male inhabitants of a prison others are retained as civil serveants. Both groups plant in Fincher’s “Alien 3” (1992). are not allowed to breed, thus reducing the overall Religious castration is depicted in Brent’s “Plastic intelligence of the Florinian populace. Man” (1974) where a religious sect that worships a A political reason for enforced celibacy is highlight- sentient computer advocates voluntary castration. ed in Blish’s “Earthman Come Home” (1955), where Meaney’s “Paradox” (2000) portrays surgically-al- a space-roaming city’s Mayor is not permitted to tered gender neutral singers and Card’s “Songmas- - ter” (1980) shows promising young children who ligences in order to prevent the potential foundation are removed from society, trained to sing and given ofhave dynasties. children Medics by the city’sand their controlling equine artificial transport intel are also said to be infertile due to treatments designed side-effect of rendering them sterile. In like fashion, to strengthen their immune systems in the ravaged Varley’sdrugs to delay“The pubertyBarbie Murders” for five years, (1978) with envisions the known a Earth portrayed in McIntyre’s “Dreamsnake” (1978), group of individuals who voluntarily surgically con- such that these immune systems do not recognise vert themselves into identical individuals that re- gametes and destroy them as they are formed. semble the Barbie doll, and are female but sexless. Intriguingly, the Vulcan race in Star Trek only have Simak’s “Enchanted Pilgrimage” (1983) is a pas- sex once every seven years, and males are particu- tiche of SF and fantasy. In this story, one of the pro- larly affected as during this period, they experience tagonists (a female virgin) is only allowed to ride a “blood fever” (pon farr) due to a neurochemical on a unicorn, an animal that is essential to the pro- hormonal imbalance, a combination of menstrual tagonists’ quest. The mythological unicorn was a mood problems and premenstrual syndrome. This symbol of chivalry, purity, chastity and virginity and may cause problems during long voyages in space, was supposed to be a proud and untameable crea- and in the Voyager episodes “Blood Fever” (Robin- ture. According to lore, it was believed that a virgin son 1997) and “Body and Soul” (McNeill 2000), the who sat naked beneath a tree would be irresistible Starship Voyager crew’s two Vulcans both eventu- to a unicorn, which would be drawn to lie down ally enter pon farr and face limited options: actual with his head in the virgin’s lap (White). Similarly, mating which is naturally impossible on this voyage in Tiptree’s “Faithful to Thee Terra, in Our Fashion” as no Vulcan females are available, intensive medi- (1969), we are told that the sacred female warriors tation, participating in a ritual combat or dying of from the planet Myria are required to be virgin. And unconsummated lust. In the former episode, medi- - tation solves the problem while in the latter, a 3-di- ture matriarchal dictatorship is enforced by ‘Ama- mensional holographic simulation is used to defuse zons’in Lovering’s who are “The sterilised. Inevitable Conflict” (1932), a fu the situation. Also in the Star Trek universe, the Deltans are highly sexually evolved humanoids, sexually irresistible Discussion These stories reinforce the contention that “SF is are obligated to take an oath of celibacy ensuring distinctly formulaic, but its formulas are multiple to humans. Hence, before serving in Starfleet, they 6 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 7 and various, ranging from myth to mathematics” (Samuelson 191). conceived of the notion of generation ships, and the The narratives mentioned in this paper are root- concept(1882-1945), was explored one of in the further fathers detail of rocketry, and popular first- ed in the precepts formulated by John W. Campbell ised by Shepherd. in his paradigmatic editorship of Astounding Sci- This sort of spaceship would have to be huge so ence Fiction which can be said to represent a golden age of SF, an era which “valorises a particular sort crew and relevant supplies for breeding purposes of writing: ‘Hard SF’, linear narratives, heroes solv- andas to for be self-sustaininggenetic biodiversity. and have Alternatively, a sufficiently a muchlarge ing problems or countering threats in a space-opera or technological-adventure idiom” (Roberts 195). through the use of sperm and ovum banks. An insuf- Campbell’s “ideal reader was an engineer, who smaller crew could assure sufficient biodiversity would bat around ideas in stories with other en- a process known as mutational meltdown, whereby gineers […] in their search for real solutions” (Ed- ficiently large population would tend to experience- wards 23). Thus, the science became more plausible ness and decline of the population size, further exac- and reasonable. This approach is not new, and was erbatingdeleterious meltdown mutations in a accumulatedownward spiral with lossthat ofinevi fit- tably leads to extinction (Lynch and Gabriel). postulate any ideal conditions, but nothing impos- Samuelson has argued that “[l]ike science and en- sible”prefigured (Politics by Aristotle I and II 32). who stated that “we ought to gineering, however, SF makes plausible models of These formulations are best epitomised by God- beings, places, and times nobody has yet encoun- win’s “The Cold Equations” (1954) which is partic- tered […] most SF stories feature a generous assort- ularly relevant to the trope of excessive population ment of hypotheticals […] hard SF mainly derives on extraterrestrial bases and spaceships. The story - takes place on aboard an “Emergency Dispatch Ship” ory,” (192-3) such that in these stories, SF strives for headed for a frontier planet with a load of desper- credencethese through through extensions its allusion of reigning to science. scientific Further the- ately needed medical supplies. The pilot discovers a more, plots require “an element of the unknown, stowaway, an eighteen-year-old girl who wishes to into which writers cast a net fashioned of reigning meet her brother. However, the ship only just carries theory. Yet another facet that is uncovered by these tales is the girl accepts her fate and is jettisoned into space the deliberate imposition of infertility on individuals sincesufficient “the fuel laws to of land the withspace one frontier person must, on board, of neces and- or on groups of people by the “State […] the coldest sity, be as hard and relentless as the environment of all cold monsters,” (Nietzsche 34) inexorably and that gave them birth” (Godwin). Such tales therefore sometimes draconianly enforcing infertility wher- reinforce the futility of “society’s institutionalized ever it deems this necessary, with a “[d]read of the delusions set against the overwhelmingly, absolutely masses […] , a problem for governance-a potential neutral point of view of the universe” (Woodcock). source of subversion […] a product of the population Hence in the setting of closed and limited environ- explosion […] dysfunctional and need to be avoided ments, a dystopia may arise as fertility is deliberately or perhaps even eliminated rather than managed” restricted in order to permit the survival of the ma- (Domingo 730-1). jority. In some ways, these cautions are extensions Most of the narratives accept the Aristotlean admo- of fears of overpopulation on a larger scale, further nition that “we must presuppose many things that accord with our highest hope, although the existence of the population explosion had acquired” (Domingo of none of them must be impossible” (Aristotle “Poli- 729).“[p]roof of the extraordinary influence that the fear tics” VII and VIII). It is also simultaneously evident Controls and restrictions would also apply to that SF also “prepares readers for the future, and, by much large vehicles, such as generation ships. A gen- offering inspiration to would-be inventors, spurs on eration ship is a theoretical spacecraft that moves technological progress” (James 20), in some ways slower than the speed of light, and hence would take preparing us for “future shock” which “is the dizzy- several thousand years to reach even nearby stars ing disorientation brought on by the premature ar- due to the vastness of interstellar space, with many rival of the future. It may well be the most important generations born and dying while en-route. Goddard 6 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 7 disease of tomorrow” (ToffleToffler 14), causing “the death of permanence” (13). Any help that SF pro- biting.” Tales of Ten Worlds. New York: Harcourt vides in this respect will not only allay our fears, but Brace & World, 1962. may also, through gedankenexperiments, cautionary Domingo, Andreu. “'Demodystopias': Prospects of tales that help us shy away from paths whose out- Demographic Hell.” Population and Development comes would be disadvantageous to the individuals Review. 34 (2008): 725–745. or to the race. Goddard, Robert H. The Ultimate Migration. Ms. Jan. 14, 1918. The Goddard Biblio Log, Friends of the References Goddard Library. The Goddard Library, Greenbelt. “Blood Fever.” Dir. Andrew J. Robinson. Star Trek Voy- Godwin, Tom. “The Cold Equations.” Astounding Sci- ager. February 1997. ence Fiction. August 1954. “Body and Soul.” Dir. Robert Duncan McNeill. Star Hakewill, P.A. “Doctoring Beyond Frontiers.” The Trek: Voyager. November 2000. Medical Journal of Australia. 167 (1997): 618–21. “Elogium.” Dir. Winrich Kolbe. Star Trek Voyager. 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Clarke, Arthur C. “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Or- Samuelson, David N. “Modes of Extrapolation: The 8 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 9 Formulas of Hard SF.” Science Fiction Studies. 20 New York: Ace Science Fiction Books, 1973. (1993): 191–232. Future Shock. New York: Random Shepherd, L.R. “Interstellar Flight.” Journal of the House, 1970. British Interplanetary Society. 11 (1952): 149– Varley,Toffler, John. Alvin. “The Barbie Murders.” Isaac Asimov’s 167. Science Fiction Magazine, January–February Silverberg, Robert. Nightwings. New York: Avon, 1978. 1969. Varley, John. Titan. London: Futura, 1979. Simak, Clifford D. Enchanted Pilgrimage. New York: White, Terrence H. The Book of Beasts. Mineola: Do- Ballantine Books, 1983. ver Publications, Inc., 1984. Simmons, Dan. Endymion. New York: Bantam, 1995. Woodcock, John, Gregory Benford, Samuel Delany, St. Clair, Margaret. “Short in the Chest.” Fantastic Robert Scholes and Alan J. Friedman. “Teaching Universe. July 1954. Science Fiction: Unique Challenges.” Proceedings Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Dir. Robert Wise. Para- of the MLA Special Session, New York, December mount Pictures. 1979. 1978. Science Fiction Studies, 6 (1979): 249–62. Taves, Ernest. “Luna One.” Galaxy. July 1973. Zimmer, Bradley Marion. “The Wind People.” If. Feb- Tiptree Jr., James, “Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our ruary 1959. fashion.” Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home.

8 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 9 Nonfiction Reviews physics; Damien Marsic considers the spread of in- telligent life in the galaxy; Charles Savona-Ventura and Victor Grech look at the ethics of reproduction Star Trek: Interdisciplinary (and abortion) in the series; Mariella Scerri considers nursing as a profession; Emmanuel Sinagra looks Perspectives in Theory and at silicon-based life forms; David J. Zammit looks at Practice sentience; Martha Zammit and Stephen Mattocks connect the Hippocratic Oath to the Prime Direc- Cait Coker tive; and Patrick Zammit considers the warp drive. If the reader is feeling rather breathless after this enumeration of the book’s contents, then you know Victor Grech, David J. Zammit, and Mariella Scerri, something of how I felt too while making my way eds. Star Trek: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in through this collection: The chapters are highly in- Theory and Practice. SciFi Malta, 2013. Paper- dividual but not cohesive, and there is no narrative back, 237 pages. $15.00 ISBN 978-1514762073. through-point to the volume. The essays are simply placed one after another with no editorial appara- Order option(s): Paper tus. Further, the Introduction by U.S. Ambassador to Malta Gina K. Abercrombie-Winstanley at the be- IN 2014, a group of academics held a Symposium in ginning of the volume, presumably pulled from the Malta on Star Trek speaker’s remarks at the beginning of the sympo- academic meeting (though thankfully it will not be sium, misspells Uhura’s name as , lending an the last) devoted solely for what to the may franchise. have been From the firstthat Uhuru amateurish feel to the book that is well-deserved but symposium sprang this volume, edited by the orga- thoroughly irritating. nizers, and though the material is copywritten for In response to all of this, I have to ask: Given 2013, the book itself was published through Cre- Why? our current scholarly context in which the Humani- ateSpace/Amazon in September 2015 (though that ties are consistently belittled at large, in which Sci- date appears nowhere on the book itself). Function- ence Fiction Studies has reached something like ally it is little more than a vanity press volume with respectability but where our scholars still have to all of the editing and typesetting errors this would defend their publishing and teaching choices to ad- imply; the chapters are the presenters’ papers with ministrations (indeed, at a recent conference a col- minimal or no editing, such that “Star Trek” appears league related how prior to teaching a class on genre variously as “Star Trek,” “ST,” “Trek,” and even “star she was expected to give a weekly demonstration to trek” according to each author’s usage. There are her college’s so that he could be assured that also several sections of text that are printed in gray Dean her students were something), in which rather than black, presumably because of some color learning too often mainstream media is happy to imply that usage on the part of the individual author that was there’s something just a bit off about people who never corrected as part of the work as a whole. As a deign to take popular culture seriously, would result, the book itself is at times painful to read even why you produce a book of academic material that is so before we get to the individual chapters themselves. shoddily done? The subtitle of Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Please note, I do not blame the individual authors Theory and Practice promises a wide variety of ma- for this: it is an editor’s job to guide writers through terial: Joseph Cacciottolo and Victor Grech relate the revisions and to help them craft essays from conference papers, to make sure that all spelling, punctua- technologies to create a similar device; Ivan Callus tion, and formatting is uniform and consistent, to analyzesfictional medicalthe Prime tricorder Directive to primarily the evolution in terms of real of take parts and make them into a whole. Further, it theory and Star Trek Into Darkness; Cynthia Farrugia- is an editor’s job to make sure that an author’s re- Jones discusses Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and search is as up-to-date as possible, and that the ma- Star Trek in the television comedy series The Big Bang Theoryscience; fiction;Pierre Mallia Victor looks Grech at looks teletransportation at the use of and Starterial Trek cited, and is suitable a multitude and reflectsof academic the broader and popular state of the field. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of 10 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 11 books have been published examining it, so it would sentially, the formation of the political sphere in the have made sense for at least a little bit of this work Roman Empire, through biblical moral code, into

scholarly works on Star Trek are cited across three chapters, the strongest of which focus on individual essays;to have abeen handful reflected of other in academicthe contents. studies Exactly are cited five the fictional realm of Panem. The study has eleven across the book as a whole, but the vast majority of chapters cover Heit’s analysis of the political frame- bibliographies include references only to individual characters within the franchise. While the first three episodes or online sources. That is sloppy scholar- as an introduction to those readers who may not be ship at its worst. If this had been a popular collection work of Panem, the first chapter specifically serves it would have been problematic, but in an academic The existence of The Hunger Games both as novels one it is absolutely egregious. familiar with either the novels or the film franchise. This book cannot be recommended to scholars, while many of his arguments are applicable to both and as for libraries, it would be of interest only to and as films raises a larger issue within Heit’s study:- those institutions that have the space and funds to eation between the two realms when Heit discusses approach collecting for completionism. It may be the films and the novels, there is often little delin of interest to readers of popular material, but such plot and character development that Suzanne Col- readers would also be better off with almost any oth- them. Though the films generally stay true to the er book; of recent publications I would most highly recommend Nancy Reagin’s 2013 collection Star bylins discussing has crafted them in herinterchangeably; trilogy, there bothare significant can stand Trek and History, but there are reams of possibilities ondeviations their own, in theand films. should Heit be missesaddressed an opportunityas separate, out there and undoubtedly more forthcoming. though obviously linked, sources. However, putting

politics very effectively to illuminate the characters thatthe conflation populate Panem. issue aside, Heit uses the language of In addition to laying out the political sphere of The Politics of The Hunger Games - Amanda Lerner gue the relevancy of such a landscape to the intend- edPanem, contemporary Heit also uses American the first audience. three chapters For example, to ar Jamey Heit. The Politics of The Hunger Games. Jeffer- Heit opens Chapter 3, “The Social Contract,” with a son, NC: McFarland & Company, 2015. Paperback, quotation from President Bush’s post-9/11 federal 200 pages, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-7864-9658-7 Eb- budget. He notes that Bush needed to balance the ook ISBN: 978-1-4766-2104-3. two truths of freedom and security in his approach to national security. As Heit explains, ‘Framed within Order option(s): Paper | Kindle truths—security and freedom—are probably the de- JAMEY HEIT appears to have a variety of careers, the specific context of the attacks on 9/11, those two among which is publishing works on popular culture. (Heit 41). Indeed, Heit’s approach to modern politi- His latest offering, The Politics of the Hunger Games calfinitive thought considerations throughout of the modern study politicalseems to thought’ switch (McFarland, 2015), follows Imagination and Mean- between the classical Roman mode and the contem- ing in Calvin and Hobbes (McFarland, 2012), and The porary American one, with some European thinkers Springfield Reformation: The Simpsons, Christianity, such as Machiavelli thrown in for good measure. and American Culture (Continuum, 2008). However, Politics makes its strongest arguments not in the Heit also highlights his position as co-founder and —such as when Heit CEO of Essay Assay, Inc., an “automated assessment uses Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince to illuminate company.” His study is similarly ambitious, juggling theabstract, character but of in President the specific Snow in the eponymous many different themes and questions. Heit succeeds in answering some questions, raising others, and adding an important contribution to the conversa- hefourth does chapter. not lie Into bothhis enemy, the films Katniss and theEverdeen. novels, Heitone tion surrounding dystopian YA literature. drawsof President a direct Snow’s line definingfrom Macchiavelli’s characteristics advice is that to Politics begins with an introduction covering, es- leaders to ensure that they are told the truth and not 10 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 11 — Heit cautions the casual reader, again in the intro- one of the few citizens of Panem who recognizes his “politicsmerely flattered, of fear,” asto Snow’sHeit puts insistence it—never that lie Katnissto him in be too dense and academic and can be skipped with- return for his honesty. Heit uses Machiavelli’s tract outduction, causing that unduethe final harm chapter, to his “Public argument. Violence,” I would may - not recommend skipping over the last chapter; I - imperativeto point out for the keeping flaws in hisSnow’s population political complacent, plan; he ar luminating of the entire study. Heit lays out clearly Snowgues that, should though have Snow extinguished finds a “spark any hope of hope” in order to beto whatfound the the Hunger final chapter Games, to in be, his perhaps, view, really the are: most ‘The il guard his security of power. Games are a manufactured way of justifying an exist- The following chapter, entitled “Katniss,” is one of ing political reality. Once this truth is broadcast live, the shortest at only sixteen pages. However, since President Snow’s collapse is inevitable’ (Heit 166). the majority of the study, by nature of the franchise, - revolves around Katniss’s actions, the rather slim tedly academic, means for Heit to tie together all of chapter devoted solely to the main character does hisIn my observations view, this finaland argumentschapter is afrom strong, the ifprevious admit not read as short shrift. Heit succinctly and, I would ten chapters. argue, accurately pinpoints Katniss’ role in the po- Heit’s study on the politics of The Hunger Games litical development of Panem. He writes, ‘Katniss’s raises almost as many questions as it answers. The role is not to oversee the liberated population; like timing of the work is also interesting; though Heit Moses, she will fade into the background eventually. Her goal is to initiate the process of recovering dystopianrelies heavily YA fan,on the I found films, myself the final watching film had the yet newly to be people across the districts to connect political dots released when I read the finished work. As an avid ina politics a way President that others Snow will works fight for.hard She to encourageskeep apart’ Politics. Heit engages with the existing scholarship (Heit 80). Heit closes the chapter by claiming the onreleased The Hunger final movie Games in franchise a new light—mostly after having included read in Katniss will lead the new Panem towards recovering the 2012 anthology The Hunger Games and Philoso- a “moral politics”; a lofty goal for a character that is, phy: A Critique of Pure Treason. However, with his rigorous political history and political critique, Heit The chapters on Haymitch, The Rebellion, and has made a unique contribution to the body of work PresidentHeit rightly Coin stresses, similarly deeply focus flawed. on single characters currently available on The Hunger Games. or groups thereof, and as stated above, are among the strongest in Heit’s study. Somewhat less convinc- ing is Chapter 9, “The Capitol’s Residents,” largely because of the underdeveloped nature of that popu- - The Age of Lovecraft Steve Nash ‘Welation know in both little the of novelstheir perspective, and the films. but Heit as citizens acknowl of theedges same this country flaw himself that sees in histhe introduction,rebels emerge, stating, trying Carl H. Sederholm and Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock to understand their political mindset provides an al- (eds). The Age of Lovecraft. Minneapolis, MN: Uni- ternative to some of the questions that emerge in the versity of Minnesota Press, 2016. Paperback, 268 previous chapters’ (9). However, the chapter feels pages, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-8166-9925-4. Kindle, like more a contemporary political statement than $14.49, ASIN: B01DEIFVC6. an analysis of the residents of the Capitol of Panem; Heit discusses the shooting of Michael Brown in Fer- Order option(s): Hard | Paper | Kindle guson, Missouri at length. Such powerful compari- son would have been more useful in the introduction WITH THE AGE OF LOVECRAFT, editors Carl H. Seder- or conclusion. Putting aside the placement of the holm and Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock promise to offer Ferguson section, however, Heit’s effort to keep his study both contemporary and relevant to the larger American political conversation is especially strong Fromthe ‘first as earlysustained as the analysis foreword of byLovecraft Ramsey in Campbell relation in Chapter 9, as well as in his chapter on “The Media.” to twenty-first-century critical theory and culture.’ 12 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 13 there is evidence of a very deliberate attempt to pro- tents, a topic made particularly intriguing in James vide an original perspective on H.P. Lovecraft’s life Kneale’s examination of Lovecraft’s Weird geogra- and works. Campbell’s foreword gives primacy not phies. There is also a keen focus upon the synaes- thetic appeal of Lovecraft’s use of imagery, colour, and sound. Both Jessica George and Brian Johnson writingto Lovecraft’s (though position naturally as a agreat rundown influencer of the of muchusual utilise Lovecraft as a counterweight in compara- suspectscontemporary is offered), fantasy, but scienceto the quality fiction, of andLovecraft’s horror tive discussions of Neil Gaiman and Ridley Scott re- work itself, a subject still often referred to with cyni- spectively, and the energy with which the subjects cism or outright scorn even in critical works of re- are approached in both cases affords each essay the covery. dexterity to avoid traps that comparative analyses The introduction gives an overview of Lovecraft can frequently succumb to. This is not a collection through the lens of the scholarly reception of his work to date. This is a prudent approach as the subject, but the delight in its analysis does afford the names most frequently associated with the critical that flaunts a rigidly affirmative response to its main reading of Lovecraft and his work are largely absent by. Even an essay that promises to engage Lovecraft from the list of contributors. This emphasises the throughreading aa vigourscaffold that of “Race,is difficult Species, not toand be Others” persuaded de- originality of the included approaches to Lovecraft, livers on its promise of adding something new to the while offering due acknowledgement of the dedica- expanding horizon of theory regarding the once-de- tion to the recovery, reappraisal, and reinvigoration rided author, and it is here that main thread running of the American author of Weird tales by the likes of through the collection is made explicit. Joshi, Cannon, Harman, Houellebecq, etc, and creates Despite the diversity of the essays and approaches an overall quality of an opening up of the hermeneu- here, it is striking that Lovecraft appears to draw tic space, and an encouragement of new lines of en- all of these critical responses toward a similar fo- quiry, rather than a rejection of previous thought. cal point. It is a question of the border that seems to To proceed this far without mentioning the giant beat at the heart of Lovecraft’s elder gods and less squid in the room is not to suggest that the major ethereal tales of terror. The recurrence of Kristeva, detraction from Lovecraft and his writing—his un- and Deleuze and Guattari as theoretical touchstones questionable racism and xenophobia—is ignored throughout this thoughtfully compiled collection by Sederholm and Weinstock (or the contributing emphasises this obsession with borders and the fear writers); in fact, this subject is met directly and ac- of that which dares to transgress them. Lovecraft’s knowledged as a major aspect of Lovecraft’s psyche weird geographies, dialogues, cacophonous sounds, that should be addressed and then left for each indi- all of the Things that should not be, it seems should vidual critic to decide the level to which it should be be after all. What they should not be is within our brought into the reading of the work. realm of perception. Perhaps for a man so intent on The diversity of the essays here is testament to segregation, with such a palpable fear of the Other, the openness of Lovecraft’s oeuvre to multiple in- it should be little surprise that the basis for the ma- terpretations (partly due to his refusal or inability jority of his horror tales lies in the fear of the trans- to describe Things in explicit detail), and its surpris- gressor of the border. Lovecraft’s Weird worlds are ingly inclusive approach to genre. Yes, Lovecraft’s not fantasy worlds from far off galaxies. They are work can be described as fantasy, horror, or science realms adjacent to ours just beyond a threshold, - craft’s stories offer fertile ground for linguistic, topo- that boasts novels such as Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Mi- graphic,fiction, but posthumanist, within these phenomenological, obvious major genres feminist, Love eville’sand, in aUn world Lun ofDun popular fantasyPan’s and Labyrinth science fiction, and and psychoanalytical approaches—not to mention Midnight Special, and most recently the hugely pop- - , films like ing renewed popularity in. Stranger Things, perhaps the title The Age of Love- theFor various a relatively fantasy slim subgenre volume, fields a great Lovecraft deal of criticalis find craftular (and is not critically such a Weird lauded) thought Netflix after original all. TV show ground is covered throughout the eleven concise essays here. There are works that focus upon the tan- - 12 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 13 gibility of Lovecraft’s fictional spaces and their con Speculative Blackness: The Future this bombshell revelation. The second chapter concerns the career of Nichelle of Race in Science Fiction Nichols, who portrayed Uhura in the original Star Jerome Winter Trek series and subsequent movies. Carrington analyzes scenes from the television series and Nichols’ André Carrington. Speculative Blackness: The Future memoir Beyond Uhura to show how the show at- of Race in Science Fiction. Minneapolis: University tempted to project a utopian future of racial har- of Minnesota Press, 2016. Hardcover, 304 pages, mony and international cooperation while at the $87.50, ISBN: 978-0816678952. Paperback, 304 same time marginalizing Uhura to functioning little pages, $25.00, ISBN 978-0816678969. Kindle, more than as a mini-skirted prop blandly repeat- 304 pages, $16.99, ASIN: B01CTOJSOI. ing “hailing frequencies open” in the background of shots, while at the same time subordinating the ac- Order option(s): Hard | Paper | Kindle tor Nichols to a day-player contract. Carrington then discusses Nichols’s public-relations recruitment and ANDRÉ CARRINGTON'S Speculative Blackness is an consulting work for NASA and the blow it helped to exemplary piece of scholarship at the intersection strike against the prohibition against female as well - as black NASA astronauts prior to the shuttle pro- ies, and critical ethnic inquiry. In limpid, jargon-lite gram. prose,of fan studies,Carrington popular interrogates culture, sciencethe overrepresenta fiction stud- The third chapter investigates the black female Marvel comics superhero Ororo Munroe, also known culture — what he terms the whiteness of science as Storm, primarily examining her character arc in tion of white perspectives in science-fiction popular The Uncanny X-Men series during the Chris Clare- even when attempting to forge intimacy and empa- mont and John Byrne era of 1977-1991. Carrington thyfiction— across that ethnic often boundaries. takes its privilegeCannily avoiding for granted the tracks the reimagining of Storm through the dynam- critically complex term “Afrofuturism,” Carrington ic shifts of characterization from her status as a to- - kenized mutant superhero, to her moody disaffected lative blackness” as rooted in social conditions and punkish phase, to a more mature re-exploration of forcestakes a that strikingly make originalmediations stance of black that figures identity “specu “halt- her African roots. It is very possible to interpret Cla- ing and deeply compromised” (113) but neverthe- remont’s fudged historical context for Storm’s origin less buttresses his deft critique of race thinking in story as evidence of the stereotyped construction of this exotically desirable superhero, whose given the role of participatory media in making possible a name of Ororo is Swahili for “beauty,” as a vicious popular science fiction with a nuanced inquiry into- ahistorical vision of the non-Western “magical ne- ise. gress” projected by the gaze of the adolescent white self-elected,Delving into black-identified archival research space from of utopianthe Eaton prom Col- male reader. Carrington, however, chooses to move lection of Science Fiction and Fantasy housed at UC, beyond a straightforward hermeneutics of suspi- - cion, keenly observing a speculative blackness in his don controversy in which a young Terry Carr im- reparative reading of Storm as a formative black su- personatedRiverside, the an firstimaginary chapter black explores fan in thepart Carl to defend Bran perhero. In Carrington’s sympathetic reading, which does not overlook Claremont and Byrne’s troubling monolithically white. Carrington productively com- exoticizing of the character, the discourses swirling paresscience-fiction this so-called fanzines “hoax” against perpetuated charges against of being un- around Storm effectively constitute a form of cultural production in which race, gender, diaspora, and co-optation of black authenticity in the same 1950s - culturalwitting science-fictionmilieu. Brandon fans was to in the fact Beat such subculture’s a beloved, nary and non-realist genre conventions. nation signify precisely in terms of specific imagi if elusive participant of 1950s fan culture that in Au- The fourth chapter switches gears toward the di- rection of independent comics with the black-owned editor of Fantasy Amateur Press Association (FAPA), publisher Milestone Media’s superhero comic Icon, gust 1958 he was leading the votes for the official which, Carrington does not fail to point out, was illuminates the fascinating racially charged fallout of nevertheless distributed as an imprint of DC com- 14and CarrSFRA hadReview to finally 320 Spring come 2017 clean; Carrington nicely SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 15 ics. Carrington documents how Milestone Media Benny Russel who struggles through his mundane exploited the collector fan craze in the early 1990s everyday experience of racial discrimination, ha- comics-industry bubble in its savvy deployment of rassment, and violence during the pre-Civil Rights crossover marketing, advance fan copies, and letter- segregation era of American history. Carrington then to-the-editor columns and contests to wedge into insightfully analyzes Steven Barnes’ novelization of the predominately white comics industry. Remark- the episode in terms of the phenomenon of media ably, Icon was a black superman, i.e., Augustus Free- tie-ins, the larger oeuvre of this overlooked African- man—also known as Icon, produced by black art- American SF author, and Barnes’s rich, challenging ists for an at least partly black audience. Speculative adaptation of the episode. blackness, in this instance, occurs in its mixture of Buffy the Vampire Slay- - er - ered alien attended by a plucky ace reporter — with memberThe final Us chapter archive explores that Carrington helped create. superhero tropes — the crime-fighting, super-pow Carrington and Harry interprets Potter fan the fiction diasporic from cyberculture the online Re of professional black literacy that belies a stereotypical this fan faction as contributing to the decolonizing representationan anti-gentrification of black message realness. and the promotion of of spectatorship in the era of globalization. Through Perhaps the most compelling chapter of the book, non-canonical origin stories and Hurt/Comfort for- Star Trek franchise mulas involving the minor black characters of Kend- in a discussion of the critically neglected Deep Space ra, Olivia, and Angelina from these respective media Ninethe fifth series, chapter its innovative returns to episode the entitled “Far Be- products, Carrington contends that this new brand yond the Stars,” and a novelization of the episode by noted SF writer Steven Barnes. In the Deep Space of Buffy Nine episode, Benjamin Sisko, a black male space- centeredof online fanon thefiction creative, upends counterhegemonic the Anglo-American output bias station commander, played by Avery Brooks, travels and Harry Potter. Overall, this final chapter back in time in a dream vision, ancestrally inhabit- superb investigation into contemporary representa- ing an imaginary 1950s SF digest-magazine writer tionsof fans of themselves blackness in offers SF popular a fitting culture conclusion and media. to this

14 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 15 Fiction Reviews misleading. Jack and Jill are the children of shallow, thoughtless parents who have children simply because the cou- Down Among The Sticks and ples around them are doing the same. Both husband and wife have dreams of the perfect child-shaped Bones Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook daughter who will go with the mother to charitable events.accessory: When a son the who parents will provevisit his absolutely father’s unequaloffice, a to the task of childcare after the birth of their daugh- McGuire, Seanan. Down Among The Sticks and Bones. New York: Tor, 2017. 192 pages, cloth, $17.99. ters, the son’s mother—‘Gemma Lou’—moves in to ISBN 0765392038 parents decide that the grandmother is a social em- barrassment,look after the girlsshe is for evicted their first from five the years. house When and the Order option(s): Hard | Kindle girls told that ‘Gemma Lou’ doesn’t love them any- more. Down Among the Sticks and Bones is Seanan Mc- leading down, Jack and Jill are involuntarily wedged 2016 novella Every Heart a Doorway. The second Until the age of twelve when they find the stairs entryGuire’s in follow-upthe Wayward to/expansion Children series of her tells magnificent the story into the roles their parents imagined for their children: Jack is the princess doll to accompany her Every mother; Jill, the tomboy to take the place of the son Heart as the snappily dressed scientist who lurks in theof Jack basement and Jill, and who the were frilly first princess encountered doll with in a habit the father failed to get. The girls themselves are given of loitering around corners. It turns out that, as in all no options, no choices, and McGuire makes it clear that the afternoon of exploration which leads them to the Moors is one of the last days in which they will have any understanding of or sympathy with each goodEvery stories, Heart the was truth in many of the ways two thesisters story is infinitelyof all the childrenmore complicated at the Home than for first Wayward appears. Children, using other. Each girl suffers under the weight of her own the experience of otherworld returnee Nancy Whit- denied self and, given no other outlet, blames her man as a gateway into a general exploration of Mc- sister for her own pain. Those who have read will remember Guire’s universe. Sticks and Bones, on the other hand, Every Heart is entirely focused on Jack and Jill. This is not to the the range of other worlds the various children at the home had visited. Jack and Jill end up on “the Moors,” exclusion of all other characters—the housekeeper Mary, for instance, has a story of her own which per- a distillation of high Gothic horror (vampires, were- haps McGuire will be kind enough to give us some wolves, the risen dead)—with a tinge of Lovecraft (drowned temples and ancient gods). As in any good day—but the sisters are truly the core of everything that happens in this story. fairy tale, choice is critical, and the fateful choice of the girls to go left rather than right leads them to a Sticks and Bones could be read very straightfor- wardly, as a book that frames Jack and Jill’s back- certain village that faces a windmill over a stretch of story as a fairly simple and familiar fairy tale, from moorland with the seacoast not far away. The village the time their parents decide to have children, to is watched over by the Master; the windmill by Dr. the moment the girls discover stairs descending out Bleak—one girl goes with each man and the story of an old trunk in their grandmother’s room, to the time they are unceremoniously dumped back into no less terrible by the fact that anyone who has read unfolds from there to the horrific climax, one made the ‘real’ world as teenagers. This last event hooks Every Heart will be able to guess what is coming. has deep roots in the genre of the us into the world of Every Heart, as the response of Sticks and Bones the girls’ parents, Chester and Serena Wolcott, is to retold fairytale as presented, notably, in Terri Win- deposit their returned children with Eleanor West dling and Ellen Datlow’s wonderful Fairy Tale An- at the Home. However, a reading at this level would thologies series that began with Snow White, Blood be to miss the marvelous complexity and density of Red in 1995 (Neil Gaiman’s 1995 short story “Snow, McGuire’s story, the simplicity of which is entirely Glass, Apples” also comes particularly to mind as a model for McGuire’s kind of tale). Like Gaiman, Mc- 16 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 17 Guire does much more than retell an old story. She Wilson uses the conceit to combine the trappings makes no concessions to the source material in of the thriller with a critique of the ultimate in com- terms of telling her own story, bringing the individu- - ality of her characters to the fore at every opportu- ism, privilege, and even identity politics. While time nity and making it clear that the personal decisions travelmodification tourism culture, is hardly with a new glances idea at (we interventional have all read of the characters—or their lack of ability to make Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder,” after all), here Wil- them—are what shape the story as a whole. son (perhaps unsurprisingly, given the current polit- The framework of the novel—the sticks and bones, ical and economic world in which we live) imagines to coin a phrase—is pure fairy tale: the magic portal, the primary use made of technology allowing such the endless descent, the entry into another world. travel would be economic exploitation. Wilson pres- However, the meat of the story is where McGuire ents an entrepreneur named August Kemp, whose does her most interesting work, in taking those name echoes Donald Trump metrically and whose sticks and bones and creating something different surname offers a slant rhyme, allowing us to view out of them, in the process pushing her readers to him as an alternate-world version. Kemp gains con- reconsider what they thought they knew. trol of the portal technology via unclear—but almost certainly—underhanded means and uses it to exploit as a source of wealth generation the alternate nineteenth-century America to which it provides ac- cess. It is a concept somewhat reminiscent of Bruce Last Year Sterling’s and Lewis Shiner’s 1985 short story “Mo- Dominick Grace zart in Mirrorshades,” in which alternate timelines are ransacked for natural resources badly needed in Wilson, Robert Charles. Last Year. New York: Tor, the home timeline. 2016. 351 pages, cloth, $27.99. ISBN978-0-7653- Kemp builds a Disneyland version of the future 3263-9. (the ‘City of Futurity’) in 1872 America, selling sanitized glimpses of the future to the well-heeled na- Order option(s): Hard | Paper | Kindle | Audible tives while also offering a sort of time-travel tourism to folk from his own time. Think Westworld, but with Robert Charles Wilson’s Last Year revisits one of his the real West, not an ersatz version; one in which enduring interests, time travel, which has featured actions have real-world consequences, just not for in one way or another in Bridge of Years (1991), The the tourists’ real world (a point the novel develops Chronoliths (2001), and the Spin Cycle (2005–2011). slowly but clearly). Time travel here contributes to his larger thematic The novel’s protagonist is Jesse Callum, a nine- interest in the juxtaposition of the familiar and the teenth-century man hired by the City of Futurity. strange, whether as a piece of one world trans- Many locals are thus employed and given sensitiv- planted into another (e.g. 1994’s Mysterium), as ity training to ensure that their nineteenth-century one world being given a window into another (e.g. political and social attitudes do not offend the visi- 2003’s Blind Lake), or as travellers moving between tors—an amusing glance at the relative priorities of worlds, as in 1986’s A Hidden Place. Last Year offers Kemp, who is careful to protect the sensibilities of interworld travellers again, this time by combining his own people at the expense of those he is exploit- the idea of time travel with the many-worlds model. ing, who are expected to subsume their own values Wilson posits a portal that carries people from one and accept those of the dominant culture—not re- world to a different, historically earlier instantiation ally a colonizing power, but analogous to one, given of the world. Consequently, we have something like Kemp’s exploitative and paternalistic agendas. Cal- time travel, but into an alternate reality, a concept lum is remarkably enlightened for a nineteenth-cen- that has been used before, but which Wilson handles better than some of his predecessors (e.g. this novel sexuality and racial pluralism, unlike most of the oth- can be instructively contrasted with Michael Crich- ertury nineteenth-century man, being fairly characters.open to twenty-first-century Wilson is thereby ton’s conceptually-similar but execrable 1999 novel able to acknowledge that past attitudes about many Timeline). 16 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 17 things are abhorrent from a twenty-first-century sis. As this point, the bigger ideas of the novel recede from that nineteenth century who can provide some and page-turning action takes over. One can still sortperspective, of outside but commentary also to have whileas protagonist also not aalienat figure- read this section ideologically—Callum’s confronta- ing modern readers with rampant racism and sex- real past offering a coun- ism. A more daring choice might have been to have a terpoint to the sanitized concept of the past sold to black or female, or black female, or indigenous, pro- timetion with tourists, his own, who horrific, are as carefully shepherded and tagonist—and indeed, one might object to Wilson’s monitored as are the nineteenth-century denizens stereotypical depicting of nineteenth-century Chi- given glimpses of the future—but that seems to be nese—but he is interested in examining the dynam- a stretch. ics of cultural domination and economic exploita- Regardless, this is a thoughtful and thought-pro- tion, even if that focus drifts as the novel progresses. voking novel that uses time-tested SF tropes to offer Most interesting are the ways in which Wilson critiques how privilege informs one’s view of the economics and neo-liberalism. other. Notably he describes, on the one hand, twen- new insights into twenty-first-century post-colonial the nineteenth century because they conceive of it ty-first century nostalgists who want to relocate to Jack Finney story, “The Thirst Level,” about precise- The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. as a lost golden age (the flip side of the classic 1957 Jonathan P. Lewis perhaps a companion piece to Richard Matheson’s 1975ly such novel a nostalgist Bid Time who Return flees). toOn just the suchother a handpast, heor Stephenson, Neal and Nicole Galland. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. New York: William Morrow, 2017. 768 (rightly, it must be admitted) to Kemp’s exploitation pages. Hardcover. $35.00, ISBN 9780062409164 ofwrites the past of twenty-first-century yet create their own crusaders problems whovia compa object- . rably paternalistic attempts to protect the past by ill- advised revelation of information and provision of Order option(s): Hard | Paper | Audible | CD modern weapons. This leads to considerable chaos and bloodshed. They are in their own way exploit- Neal Stephenson’s and Nicole Galland’s The Rise and ers, as a means of demonstrating their own moral Fall of D.O.D.O. is a time-travel fantasy narrative in superiority to the crooked entrepreneur—one of which government agents discover that America’s them (naturally) is his rogue daughter, a familiar enemies may be using witches to affect the past. Sud- cliché, though Wilson makes some effort to give this denly facing a potential “magic gap,” the government daughter a bit more to do than simply rebel against forms the Department of Diachronic Operations Daddy. The novel could serve as a fruitful way of (D.O.D.O.) to discover why magic stopped working in discussing the complex and problematic challenges represented by both colonialism and objections to the art, and what can be done to get America up to it, in the context of an alternate-world time travel speed.the first In place, a clever how play America’s with the unnamed time-travel foes narrative, revived fantasy that distances the discussion from the ten- Stephenson and Galland explore the nature of time dentious realities of today. This might thereby allow and human consciousness, the often terrifying dan- for a focus on the underlying issues and ideologies gers of the unintended consequences of emerging rather than on the messy and of necessity partisan technologies, and our era’s fascination with record- contemporary realities. ing and editing history in real-time. This is not, however, a thesis novel. These issues As Stephenson and Galland’s compelling story de- are there, but Wilson does not stress them. Indeed, velops, a wide array of characters are drawn into he could have emphasized them a bit more, especial- D.O.D.O.’s net, including such typical Stephenson ly as the latter third of the novel shifts into a home- characters as computer programmers, linguists, coming/revenge story in which Callum’s quest to quantum physicists, academics, soldiers, engineers, bankers, and experts in making and using swords. childhood stomping grounds, where he has a pro- Galland brings her considerable talents for histori- tractedfind Kemp’s and violentmissing confrontation daughter takes with him an back old neme to his- cal narrative to bear in the various eras that include 18 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 19 11th century Normandy, 13th century Constantino- buried in the same patch of earth in many Strands of ple, 17th century London and Boston, and Victorian 1640 Cambridge to be disinterred in contemporary England. While the collaborative nature of the text Cambridge. - Visually, time-travel in this novel is more James cult, there is, overall, a return to the humor and light- Cameron than H.G. Wells or Octavia Butler—where- heartedmakes assigning tone that a has voice been to largelyeither authormissing here from diffi Ste- as, for example, Butler’s Dana Franklin moves in and phenson’s recent novels Reamde and Seveneves. out of the past without personal agency, D.O.D.O. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is a raucous yarn and agents need a witch to send them where they want to Snow Crash go from inside the ODEC. But unlike Wells’ Traveler, (1992), but he leaves behind neither his career-long who emerges from his machine exactly as when he interestsStephenson’s in cognition most fun-filled and language work since nor more recent leaves Surrey no matter where in time he goes, Ste- forays into the poly-cosmic interpretation of quan- phenson’s and Galland’s agents come and go through tum mechanics. Galland’s career interests in histori- time like Cameron’s Terminators—naked. Nothing

- ciallycal fiction, welcome court-and-commoner in this collaboration, intrigue, since and of late the ODEC,artificial, so includingD.O.D.O. agents tattoos, must clothes, cultivate piercings, a network pace- Stephenson’sflows and restrictions work has of often feminine focused power on arepractices espe ofmakers, helpful or witches fillings acrosscan depart time whofrom can or arrivesupply in them the like video games and orbital mechanics rather than with period clothes, weapons, and other supplies. Among the novel’s other amusing elements is how protagonist Dr. Melisande Stroke’s lack of agency in the present-day characters watch Wikipedia entries somethe people of the involved various inplots them. problematic, While readers even may clichéd, find to observe whether what they know as history un- I found her character to be the most complex and in- dergoes changes, and the novel thus raises ques- teresting woman in a Stephenson text since Eliza in tions about the legitimacy of remembered histories The Baroque Cycle (2004–05). Historical-era witches and digitally alterable histories, and thus opens the Gráinne and Erzebet are also intriguing characters novel for scholarly interest in alternative history SF, with compelling, competing agendas of their own, but the novel’s contemporary witches, such as Re- For me, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.’s chief value liesspeculative in exploring fiction, an iterationand time-travel. of Stephenson’s interest book’s only real missed opportunities. in Hugh Everett III’s theory of the poly-cosmic na- beccaOverall, East-Oda D.O.D.O. and Julie Lee, are fairly flat and the ture of the universe resulting from quantum effects. body of work (especially Snow Crash and Anathem This interest began in Anathem, where Stephenson (2009)), in the ways fits that squarely language into shapes Stephenson’s how we engaged Everett’s ideas directly through characters think and the larger implications of quantum me- like Fraa Paphlagon and Fraa Jad and the compet- Snow Crash, The ing orders on Arbre, the Rhetors and the Incanters, Diamond Age (1995), or Seveneves (2015), there is and their abilities to affect changes in the past and chanicsnot a realizable on the flow technological of time. Unlike innovation such as the the future. In that work, characters spoke of “causal Metaverse, nanotechnology, or genetic engineering domains,” and the alien space craft, the Daban Ur- in D.O.D.O.—the novel’s chief technological invention nud, takes advantage of the universe’s preventions is the “ODEC” or “Ontic Decoherence Cavity,” which of space-time paradoxes by moving the ship from allows a witch to perform her magic. We are very one consciousness-bearing cosmos to another. In much in a work of fantasy here. That said, the novel’s D.O.D.O., such paradoxes result in “Diachronic Shear,” exploration of history as a series of “Strands,” each - occurring at the same time but in different “world- strophic response of the universe to too-extreme tracks” which all converge in whatever present we changesdefined inbeing the novel’swrought glossary as a result as an of “infernal,diachronic cata ac- are experiencing as “now” is a fascinating applica- tivity” and known among Irish witches as “lomadh” tion of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum and Hungarian witches as “diakrónikus nyírás” (750). mechanics. Here, to affect change in their present Such explosive events are rather to be avoided as Strand, Stokes and other Agents are sent back to the when a supposedly murdered celebrity appears in same moment in multiple Strands to amplify small public years later. In the novel, the universe allows changes—a book must be stolen and subsequently for small changes worked out gradually and slowly 18 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 19 through actions in various Strands. It does not, ap- tions of societies and the technologies and military parently, allow agents to go back in time and kill Hit- actions used to preserve them. ler as an art student or send great supplies of ura- The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. connects to both Anath- nium to American weapons labs. em and William Gibson’s The Peripheral (2014) Stephenson’s engagement with the nature of cog- through ideas of unstable histories, quantum cross nition and of consciousness being shaped by shared talk, and narratives as “strands,” “stubs,” or “fork- languages and group dynamics deserves greater crit- ings” that can be visited or engineered. Further, it ical attention, as these have been at the heart of his may prove interesting to examine these and other The Big U (1984). Since Anath- recent texts examining the manipulation of time and em, his use of Everett’s conceptions of the nature of history through questions of our age’s focus on digi- thefiction universe going backboth to connects with and complicates tal records, instant communications, and the imme- this long-standing interest in the long-term opera- diate and contested nature of record keeping online.

20 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 21 Media Reviews the comic books: a defender of Earth from mystical and supernatural enemies, and a counterpoint to the Avengers. There is quite a lot more to this, but the Doctor Strange interesting part of this movie has little to do with Amanda Dillon the underground societies protecting the Earth from demagogues on some astral plane. - Doctor Strange. Dir. Derrikson. Perf. Benedict Cum- vides neatly into three categories: that of the politi- berbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Bene- This film’s scholarly and classroom potential di dict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton. Marvel representation, the continuing question of how to Studios/Disney. 2016. cal climate surrounding the film in terms of racial Order option(s): Blu-Ray | DVD place superhero films in terms of genre, and that of- lythe Inception world-building (Nolan thematics 2010), The that Matrix link this (Wachowski film with ‘What if I told you that this reality is one of many?’ 1999),others itCrouching resembles Tiger, in terms Hidden of spectacle:Dragon (Lee specifical 2000), asks The Ancient One (Swinton) in Scott Derrikson’s Hero (Zhang 2002), and House of Flying Daggers 2016 adaptation of Marvel’s Doctor Strange. What (Zhang 2004). The folding cityscapes seen in the bat- - - ing cannot help but echo these recent classics: many ticular.if, indeed. Though This isDoctor the central Strange question certainly of foregrounds all fictional tles with Kaecilius and the martial arts-based fight thetexts, issues and ofof scienceworld-building, fiction and time, fantasy reality, texts cause in parand effect, and questions about the multiverse, it is far ofAs these such, are Doctor also about Strange the fluidity of the real, and the more noteworthy for the more mundane issues that building of worlds for specific narrative purposes. - - cally concerned with the nature fits, mid-sequence,of reality and a intohu- tasy in general. mana cycle being’s of science ability fictionto change and reality fantasy through films specifispecial speakWe aredirectly presented to the statewith ofStephen science fictionStrange and (Cum fan- powers. The astral weapons the masters use are ee- berbatch), an arrogant, sarcastic brain surgeon rily reminiscent of those used in the much-maligned —his hands—destroyed in a car Green Lantern (Campbell 2011). crash. Ironic hubris is a central trope of the Marvel The cinematic Strange’s intertextual tendrils stretch Cinematicwho finds hisand pride Comic Universes (MCU), and doubly film adaptation of so with Strange. In the search for a cure for his dis- of magical books stretches across such diverse texts asbeyond Harry film, Potter however., The Kingkiller For example, Chronicles the importance, Buffy the follows a lead on a miraculous cure of a paraplegic Vampire Slayer, and many more. Such intertextuality andfiguring, ends painful,up in Kathmandu. and career-ending He trains injury, as a Strangemaster is ripe for unpacking. of the mystical arts under the guidance of The An- What is interesting about this is not so much the cient One. Along with masters Mordo (Ejiofor) and intertextuality itself—as that is part of the science Wong (Wong), Strange eventually meets and battles —but that such in- Kaecilius (Mikkelsen), his followers, and his mysti- tertextuality moves across genre boundaries. Thin cal master, Dormmamu (also played, uncredited, by fictional and fantastic mega-text Cumberbatch). - Along the way, like all good heroes on a quest, and dotted as the line between science fiction and- Strange gathers objects that aid him in the climax fantasy is, superhero films go to great pains to pres of his journey: the Cloak of Levitation and the Eye andent themselvesmore traditional as specifically tropes like science aliens, fictional, space, proand soviding forth. montages This runs of across scientific the MCU, inquiry, but may engineering, be seen most interestingly problematised in Thor (Branagh humility:of Agamotto, the whichrekindling allow of him the to broken fly and relationship control the withflow ofStrange’s time respectively. ex-lover, ChristineThis journey Palmer comes (McAd with- centre of its world-building. Doctor Strange moves one2011), step a further, film which and placespositions Clarke’s its action dictum purely at theon says, ‘other ways to save lives’. In the end, Strange the fantastical plane: astral projections, alternate becomesams), and the a realisationSorcerer Supreme that there we are, all know as the from film - 20 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 21 realities that are not the result of a scientific experi ment gone awry, and (unfortunately) an Orientalism white origin. Despite these issues, Strange also pro- that underlies so many fantasy texts. It is a science motes several problematic characters of colour to —because we have been shown it exists the foreground: Mordo is now of African origin, and —but almost Wong has a much larger and less stereotyped role entirelyfiction film uses fantasy tropes. Such blending of tropes than he does in the comics. Strange does fall down in an overtly science fictional universe - in terms of gender portrayals—though The Ancient One is female, Swinton provides the role with an age- reflects the current state of science fiction and fan less and androgynous quality—and Palmer is sadly tasy film, where we now have one enormous box of minimised in her role of care-taking ex-lover. Such toysAs toan play adaptation, with, but Doctor also their Strange increasing also proves difficulty in- problems of representation provide fascinating fod- interesting terms of for genre some definition of the changes and categorisation. that were made in der for those studying ethnic and gender represen- terms of casting. The most problematic is the casting of Swinton, a white woman, as a character that, in process, particularly given the changes in the adap- the comics, is a man of Eastern origin. Though this tation process. in contemporary film in terms of industrial was done to avoid any stereotyping of those of Asian While Doctor Strange is about the possibilities that origin, there has been a backlash against Swinton surround us, such speculation is about more than and many question the appropriateness of her in the role. A similar undercurrent focused on Cumber- batch, who was plagued once again with accusations worldsthe mere— andfighting what of those bad worldsguys. It ought plays toa partcontain. in the of whitewashing that proposed Strange to be of non- continuing dialogue about how we create fictional

22 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 23 Announcements invite submissions from scholars and researchers across disciplines, including game studies, literary studies, linguistics, fan studies, media studies, soci- Call for Papers—Conference ology, and cultural studies. Suggested areas of research include but are not Title: Generation BioWare: Story-Driven Games in limited to: Contemporary Humanities. Deadline: 30th September 2017. • narratology and character research; Contact: [email protected] or jakub. • literary and ludological dimensions; [email protected]. • sociology of BioWare games and their fan Dates: 5–7 December 2017. communities; • BioWare games and classic RPGs; American Literature and Culture Section (Depart- • worldbuilding techniques; • narrative techniques; New Media and Popular Literature Section (Depart- • gameplay design; ment of English Studies, University of Wrocław) and • poetics of BioWare games; paper abstracts for “Generation BioWare,” a confer- • ethical and moral issues in BioWare mentence focusedof Polish exclusively Studies, University on the Canadian of Wrocław) developer invite games; and their games. • localization and adaptation; Founded in 1995, BioWare have been responsible • paratextuality and transmediality; for some of the most acclaimed titles in the history • video game market and the evolution of of the industry. The studio’s games are famous for BioWare as a studio; multi-layered narratives and complex characters, • Interplay; BlackIsle; Troika; and Obsidian both of which originated in titles set in the well- as competitors and creators of alternative established worlds: Faerûn from the Dungeon and worldbuilding Dragons pen-and-paper RPG system and the Star • and narrative techniques; Wars universe. Since their release, Baldur’s Gate • narrative and character design methods; (1998), Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000), and and Knights of the Old Republic (2003) have enjoyed • visuality and sound in BioWare games. critical and commercial success and the two fran- chises have enabled the studio to create its own pro- Submission: Abstracts not exceeding 600 words prietary worlds in Jade Empire (2005), Mass Effect can be sent via the registration form. (2007), and Dragon Age: Origins (2009) as well as • Abstract submission deadline: 30.09.2017 writing, karmic mechanics, and worldbuilding tech- • niques.to further refine story-telling structures, character • Conference registration due: 15.11.2017 Notification of acceptance: 10.10.2017 The positive reception of BioWare titles has been accompanied by the development of a dedicated Conference fee: 100 EUR (fee transfer details will be fanbase, whose general video game literacy was centrally shaped by BioWare’s design decisions and Main event: 5-7.12.2017. provided with the notification of acceptance). techniques. As a result, BioWare games have come All questions regarding the event should be sent to be regarded as templates for many western RPGs: to: [email protected] or jakub.krogu- the recent Kickstarter success of Divinity Original [email protected]. Sin (2014), Pillars of Eternity (2015), and Tyranny The event is organized by the American Literature (2016) can be partly ascribed to the impact the Bal- and Culture Section (Institute of English Studies, dur’s Gate series had on these titles. Consequently, BioWare’s impact on the medium Literature Section (Institute of Polish Studies, Uni- University of Wrocław), the New Media and Popular as well as the industry can be perceived as nothing PGW initiative. versity of Wrocław), “Trickster” Association, and the like to create a platform for academic exchange and The conference will be held at the University of 22 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 short of critical. To address this influence, we would SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 23 - tion to papers focused on the ways in which sf en- anum. gages the climate crisis, energy regimes, and mul- Wrocław, pl. Uniwersytecki 1, in Oratorium Mari tiple ecologies (real or imagined), we are interested in discussions that draw on feminist and queer futu- rities, swerve with the nonhuman turn, analyze the vicissitudes of capitalism’s secular crisis, and follow Call for Papers—Articles the utopian impulse. We see immediacy in climate crisis—we must act now—and yet we appreciate a Title: Science Fiction Studies Special Issue: Science long view of global warming as well—the slow ac- Fiction and the Climate Crisis. cretion of carbon that has so recently tipped the at- Proposal Deadline: 1st June 2017. mospheric balance of the planet. Contact: Brent Ryan Bellamy and Veronica Hollinger . Submission: Please send proposals (300-500 words) by 1 Jun. 2017 to Brent Ryan Bellamy () and Veronica Hollinger (). Completed papers (6000-8000 gent and ongoing conversation with colleagues in words) will be due by 1 Dec. 2017. the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences. In the energy humanities and other interdisciplin- Title: Feast of Laughter. description, allegory, abstract model, immanent ma- Proposal Deadline: 1 June 2017. teriality,ary fields, slow the climateapocalypse, crisis and unfolds the end differentially of humanist as Contact: Gregorio Montejo . philosophy. We welcome submissions that address Feast of Laughter is a journal dedicated to the Amer- crisis in historical and/or theoretical terms and in ican writer R.A. Lafferty, the creator of a modern the intersections of science fiction and the climate- literary mythos informed by Western, Irish, Native American, Catholic and other literary traditions. onmultiple and explore media genreforms hybridity, from the includingpulps to science-fic modalities tion media and art. We encourage papers that reflect within the SF genre, his work routinely transcends - genericEven though boundaries Lafferty and ostensibly subverts wrote conventional fiction from sci- lapssuch with as climate the climate fiction, crisis? petrofiction, Is it the andpunctual slipstream. events ofWhat the thriller does one genre look or for the when slower science pacing fiction of a overcare- fully considered longue durée that grabs critical at- andence are fictional actively tropes looking and fortopics. scholarly articles about We are in the process of planning our fifth volume, as foreground or background? Which sf authors or All disciplinary and theoretical perspectives and di- textstention? stay Moreover, nervous abouthow doesthe climate climate crisis? figure Is in there sf— verseLafferty, research his work, methods its reception, are welcome. and hisAuthors influence. who are interested in submitting a paper for this volume and the defamiliarization of neologisms such as the should send a short abstract-length proposal to Gre- Anthropocene,a parallel between hyperobjects, science-fictional necrocapitalism? estrangement Con- gorio Montejo ([email protected]). Any general en- tributions might also consider how the climate cri- quiries can also be directed to this address. - Submission: The deadline for proposals is June 1, ofsis coalfigures crisis in sf and in light depictions of the energy of nuclear regime. disaster? For in 2017. The deadline for submissions is September 1, Howstance, does what the differences way we use obtain energy between affect figurations the reach 2017. and scope of sf writing? Conversely, what impact, if any, does climate crisis have on our understanding Title: Messengers from the Stars: On Science Fiction We are looking for submissions that contribute and Fantasy. substantialof the role of overviews science fiction of the in currenttechnoculture? situation and Manuscript Deadline: 15th June 2017. that explore a variety of sites and authors. In addi- Contact: ed. Martin Simonson & Raúl Montero Gi- 24 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 25 lete; co-ed. Angélica Varandas, Ana Daniela Coelho Longer reviews, e.g. dealing with more than one & José Duarte . book, should be agreed upon with the Editorial Board. "Messengers from the Stars" is an international, peer-reviewed journal, offering academic articles, reviews, and providing an outlet for a wide range of Title: Fafnir—Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. Proposal Deadline: 15 June 2017. thecreative humanities work inspired while, atby the science same fiction time, andproviding fantasy. a Contact: . It aims at promoting science fiction and fantasy in and fantasy by welcoming innovative approaches Fafnir—[email protected] Journal of Science Fiction and Fan- andforum critical for discussion methodologies on all aspects to the ofcritical science and fiction cre- tasy Research invites authors to submit papers for ative landscape. The journal covers the following the upcoming edition 3/2017. Theme for the edition topics: is ‘reception, audience/s and fandom studies’ (e.g. The World Hobbit Project). The theme issue has been • moved from issue 2/2017 to issue 3/2017. We invite • Comic Books/Graphic Novels; papers that focus on all aspects of the study of ‘audi- • FantasyArtificial and Intelligences; Children’s Literature; ences’ for cultural and media products and practices • Fantasy and Science Fiction on Screen (cinema, Web, video games, etc…); is hosting the 75th Worldcon in 2017, for this edi- • Fantasy and the Gothic; tionthat arewe connectedwould also to be speculative interested fiction. in studies As Finland of fan • Imagination and Fantasy; societies, conventions, and their history in Nordic • Journey; countries and beyond. ‘Audience’ is here understood • Medieval Fantasy; - • National and International Fictions; tions. • Place and Non-place; broadlyFafnir—Nordic without Journal any specific of Science theoretical Fiction and orienta Fan- • Popular Culture; tasy Research is a peer-reviewed academic journal • Science and Fiction; which is published in electronic format four times a • Steampunk; and year. Fafnir is published by The Finnish Society for • Television Studies and Utopias/Dysto- Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (FINFAR) from pias. 2013 onwards. Fafnir publishes various texts ranging from peer-reviewed research articles to short However, for our 2018 issue we are particularly interested in essays that cover the intersections of sci- — overviews and book reviews in the field of science such as the suggestive mélange found in King’s “Dark Submission:fiction and fantasy The research.submissions must be original Tower”ence fiction, books horror and exploitedand fantasy/secondary to great effect worlds in other work, and written in English (or in Finnish or Scandi- more recent novels, TV-series (Lost; Stranger Things; navian languages). Manuscripts of research articles and Westworld to name but a few mainstream exam- should be between 20,000 and 40,000 characters in length. The journal uses the most recent edition of the MLA Style Manual. The manuscripts of research ples) and films over the last few decades. - articles will be peer-reviewed. Please note that as In addition, you can propose a book or film review.- Fafnir is designed to be of interest to readers with tions.We welcome book and film reviews on current sci varying backgrounds, essays and other texts should ence fiction and fantasy research and PhD disserta be as accessibly written as possible. Also, if English Submission: Submissions, between 4000 and 6000 words in English, must be sent to mfts.journal@ proof-read by an English language editor. Please gmail.com by June 15. payis not attention your first to ourlanguage, journal’s please submission have your guidelines article available in: Reviews should be between 500 to 1,000 words. submission-guidelines/ The authors will be notified by the end of July. http://journal.finfar.org/for-authors/ 24 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 25 The deadline for submissions is 15th June 2017. imagined, the futuristic and the historical settings, In addition to research articles, Fafnir constantly and other genres/works related to this topic. welcomes text proposals such as essays, interviews, Brumal will only consider works of a fantastic na- overviews and book reviews on any subject suited ture as , hereby only accept- for the journal. ing papers on other non-mimetic genres such as the Please send your electronic submission (saved as defined by the journal related to fantastic narrative. marvellousSome areas or of science research fiction include, if and but whenare not they limited are editors:RTF-file) to the following address:, aino-kaisa.koistinen@ submissions(at) to: finfar.org., [email protected] For further information, please contact. More the detailed [email protected] about our journal is available • Urban Fantastic and the City; atjyu.fi our webpage: . • Cities: between reality and Fantasy; This edition is scheduled for the end of September • Place, Space and Liminality; 2017. journal.finfar.org • Underground Tales/Real and Fantastic Urban Creatures; • Adaptations (different perspectives: televi- Title: Brumal: Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fan- sion, cinema, visual arts, comics, etc.); tástico/ Brumal: Research Journal on the Fantastic. • Past and Present Representations of the Ur- Proposal Deadline: 30th June, 2017. ban Space; Contact: http://revistes.uab.cat/brumal/about/ • Videogames; submissions#authorGuidelines. • Adult/Teen Fiction; • Utopias/Dystopias; Monographic Section: “The Fantastic and the Urban” • Possible and Impossible Urban Worlds. (José Duarte and Ana Daniela Coelho, Coords). There is a special connection between the Fan- Miscellaneous Section: this Miscellaneous section tastic and the Urban, particularly in a subgenre like is open to any type of article on any of the diverse the Urban Fantastic, which describes works that are artistic manifestations of the fantastic (narrative, mainly set in the urban space. These matters have become increasingly popular since the late 90’s with games), whether theoretical, critical, historical or well-known works as, for instance, Neverwhere (Neil comparativetheater, film, in comics, nature, painting, concerning photography, the fantastic video in Gaiman, 1996) or Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (Joss any language or from any country, from the nine- Whedon, 1997). Exploring themes like the coexis- teenth century to the present. tence between the real and imagined worlds or the inscription of myths, magic or the supernatural in Submission: scholars who wish to contribute to ei- real cities, these works subvert the codes of reality ther of these two sections should send us their ar- with increasing complexity, presenting alternatives ticles registering as authors on our web page. The and visions that question identities and representa- Guidelines for Submissions may be found on the Submissions section of the web page. values of the nations they personify. tions,The objective and also of reflect this monographic upon the cultural issue andis to socialoffer, in a series of essays, a broader but still specialized Title: World Science Fiction Studies. view on the urban and the fantastic, as well as the Manuscript Deadline: Ongoing. possible and the impossible, by focusing on different Contact: Dr Laurel Plapp, Senior Commissioning artistic expressions (literature, cinema, television Editor: [email protected]. series, comics/manga, among others), to analyze in depth the urban fantastic produced around the The book series World Science Fiction Studies under- world. The monograph will consider works that not only explore the Urban Fantastic subgenre, but also and explores the various manifestations of the genre instands cultures science around fiction the toworld. be a It global recognizes phenomenon the im- urban experience and the fantastic, the real and the portance of Anglo-American contributions to the those focusing on specific relationships between the 26 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 27 - Museum’s new Journal of Science Fiction. “We’re en- tion in other national traditions, particularly Ger- couraging anyone who considers themselves a sci- man-speaking.field but promotes It also the supports critical studythe investigation of science fic of transnational discourses that have shaped the sci- enceThe fiction Journal scholar of Science to send Fiction us their will be original published articles, on- of the series is not limited to one particular medium lineessays and or freely book accessiblereviews for to our everyone first issue.” -- no subscrip- andence encourages fiction tradition study sinceof the its genre inception. in both The print scope and tion or submission fees are required. The Museum’s - Journal of Science Fiction welcomes original work medial). Theoretical approaches (e.g. post-human, from writers around the world, with an emphasis on digital forms (e.g. literature, film, television, trans the interdisciplinary and innovative aspects of sci-

withgender, a focus genre beyond theory) the and Anglo-American genre studies (e.g.tradition film year and each will feature between eight and twelve areshorts, also transgenrewelcome. such as science fiction comedy) peer-reviewedence fiction. Issues academic will be articles published as well three as timesseveral a book reviews and essays. Submission: Proposals for monographs and edited collections in either English or German are invited. Submission: submission information for the Jour- For more information, please contact Dr Laurel nal of Science Fiction can be found on the Journal’s Plapp, Senior Commissioning Editor, Peter Lang Ltd, homepage at the University of Maryland: http:// 52 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LU, UK. Email: L.PLAPP@ . peterlang.com. Tel: +44 (0) 1865 514160. Submissions for the Journal of Science Fiction can bepublish.lib.umd.edu/scifi/index sent to: submissions#authorGuidelines. Title: Museum of Science Fiction Call for Submis- Any Journal-relatedhttp://publish.lib.umd.edu/scifi/about/ questions can emailed to Mon- sions for New Triannual Journal of Science Fiction. ica Louzon, Managing Editor: journal@museumof- Manuscript Deadline: Ongoing. . Contact: Register on website: http://publish.lib.umd. More information about other activities are avail- . ablesciencefiction.org on the Museum’s website: www.museumof- . edu/scifi/about/submissions#authorGuidelines - Aboutsciencefiction.org the Museum of Science Fiction: the non- The Museum of Science Fiction, the world’s first comprehensiveUniversity of Maryland’s science fiction journal museum, management will pubsys- - lish an academic journal of science fiction Journalusing the of eringprofit theMuseum history of Scienceof the genre Fiction across will be the the arts world’s and Science Fiction will be launched in January of 2016 providingfirst comprehensive a narrative scienceon its relationship fiction museum, to the covreal andtem. will The serve first issueas a forum of the for Museum’s scientists new and academ-

andworld. impacts The Museumsocieties. will Also show serving how as an science educational fiction theics frommodern around world, the andworld its to prognostications discuss science fiction,of the catalystcontinually to expand inspires interest individuals, in the influences science, technolo cultures,- future.including recent trends in the genre, its influence on gy, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) areas. The Greg Bear, member of Museum of Science Fiction’s Museum uses tools such as mobile applications and Board of Advisors and Hugo award-winning science - tain. For a full press packet on the Museum of Science Fiction’swifi-enabled vision display and other objects information, to educate please and enter visit: fiction author said, “Science fiction as literature has . toreal understand staying power the andcultural has beenand mythica huge influenceroots of our on needour modern for anticipation, world. It’s adventure, only fitting and that imagination.” we attempt www.museumofsciencefiction.org/presspacket “We want readers everywhere to consider the sci- Title: Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. want them to ask questions and to have fun doing Manuscript Deadline: Ongoing. so,“ence said fiction Monica genre Louzon, they love managing from new editor angles. of the We Contact: Debbie Felton: [email protected]; 26 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 27 http://www.editorialmanager.com/preternature/. ticles, notes, and reviews covering all time periods and cultures. Additionally, Preternature is pleased to The journal Preternature: Critical and Historical Stud- consider original editions or translations of relevant ies on the Preternatural is currently seeking original texts from contemporary or ancient languages that submissions. Preternature is indexed by both JSTOR have not yet appeared in scholarly edition or been and Project MUSE. made available in English. Preternature provides an interdisciplinary, inclusive forum for the study of topics that stand in the Submission: contributions should be roughly liminal space between the known world and the 8,000–12,000 words (with the possibility of longer inexplicable. The journal embraces a broad and dy- submissions in exceptional cases), including all doc- - umentation and critical apparatus. If accepted for passes the weird and uncanny—magic, witchcraft, publication, manuscripts will be required to adhere spiritualism,namic definition occultism, of the preternaturalesotericism, demonology, that encom to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (style 1, monstrophy, and more, recognizing that the areas of employing footnotes). intersections should continue to be explored, con- please visit http://www.editorialmanager.com/pre- textualized,magic, religion, and andchallenged. science are fluid and that their ternature/To submit a manuscript to the editorial office, A rigorously peer-reviewed journal, Preternature system will guide you through the steps to upload welcomes submissions of original research in Eng- and create an author profile. The online lish from any academic discipline and theoretical Inquiries may be directed to the Editor, Debbie Fel- ton,your at: article [email protected] for submission to the editorial. office. preternatural. The journal publishes scholarly ar- approach relating to the role and significance of the

28 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 SFRA Review 320 Spring 2017 29 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 membership. 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 Craig B. Jacobsen Gerry Canavan Dept. of English Language & Literature Composition, Literature and Film English Dept. Room 1607, Eshkol Tower Mesa Community College Marquette Hall 244 University of Haifa, 1833 West Southern Ave. Marquette University Mount Carmel, Haifa 3190501 Mesa, AZ 85202 Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Secretary Treasurer Susan A. George David Higgins University of California Inver Hills Community College Davis One, Shields Avenue Davis 2500 80th Street East CA 95616 Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076 [email protected] [email protected] SFRA Standard Membership Benefits SFRA Optional Membership Benefits SFRA Review Foundation Four issues per year. This newsletter/journal surveys the field (Discounted subscription rates for members) of science fiction scholarship, including extensive reviews Three issues per year. British scholarly journal, with critical, of fiction and nonfiction books and media, review articles, historical, and bibliographical articles, reviews, and letters. and listings of new and forthcoming books. The Review also Add to dues: $36 (seamail); $43 (airmail). posts news about SFRA internal affairs, calls for papers, and updates on works in progress. Science Fiction Film and Television Three issues per year. Critial works and reviews. Add to dues: SFRA Annual Directory $59 (e-issue only); $73 (airmail). One issue per year. Members’ names, contact information, and areas of interest. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts Four issues per year. Scholarly journal, with critical and bibli- SFRA Listserv ographical articles and reviews. Add to dues: $40/1 year (US); Ongoing. The SFRA listserv allows members to discuss $50/1 year (international); $100/3 years. topics and news of interest to the SF community, and to query the collective knowledge of the membership. Femspec To join the listserv or obtain further information, visit Critical and creative works. Add to dues: $50 (US); $95 (US wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sfra-l. institutional); $60 (international); $105 (international institutional). Extrapolation Three issues per year. The oldest scholarly journal in the field, with critical, historical, and bibliographical articles, book reviews, letters, occasional special topic issues, and annual index.

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

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