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Fall 2008 SFRA Editors a Publication of the Science Fiction Research Association Karen Hellekson Review 16 Rolling Rdg 286 Fall 2008 SFRA Editors A publication of the Science Fiction Research Association Karen Hellekson Review 16 Rolling Rdg. Jay, ME 04239 In This Issue [email protected] [email protected] SFRA Review Business Lies of Omission 2 Craig Jacobsen SFRA Business Behind Us and Before Us 2 English Department Executive Committee Officers 2 Mesa Community College Features 1833 West Southern Ave. Postmodernism 101 3 Mesa, AZ 85202 Twenty-Two Years in the Karen Fowler Writing Group 5 [email protected] Nonfiction Reviews [email protected] Navigating the Golden Compass 9 Popcorn Science 10 Managing Editor The Philosophy of “The X-Files” 12 Janice M. Bogstad Utopia Method Vision 13 McIntyre Library-CD Der Autor mit dem dritten Auge 14 University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Fiction Reviews 105 Garfield Ave. Minireview: Caine Black Knife 15 Eau Claire, WI 54702-5010 Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse 15 [email protected] City at the End of Time 16 Harmony 17 Nonfiction Editor Matter 18 Daughters of the North 18 Ed McKnight Weaver: Time’s Tapestry Series, Book 4 19 113 Cannon Lane A World Too Near 20 Taylors, SC 29687 The Host 22 [email protected] The Last Theorem 23 The Voyage of the Space Beagle 24 Fiction Editor Media Reviews Edward Carmien Doktor Sleepless Volume 1: Engines of Desire [comic book] 26 29 Sterling Rd. The Golden Compass [film] 27 Princeton, NJ 08540 Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 [TV show] 28 [email protected] The Venture Bros. [TV show] 29 Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened [game] 30 I Am Legend [film] 31 Media Editor The Dark Knight [film] 32 Ritch Calvin Cloverfield [film] 33 16A Erland Rd. News Stony Brook, NY 11790-1114 Calls for Papers 34 [email protected] SFRA Member Directory Updates 38 The SFRA Review (ISSN 1068-395X) is published four times a year by the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA), and dis- tributed to SFRA members. Individual issues are not for sale; however, all issues after 256 are published to SFRA’s Web site (http:// www.sfra.org/) no fewer than 10 weeks after paper publication. For information about SFRA and membership, see the back cover. SFRA thanks the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire for its assistance in producing the SFRA Review. SUBMISSIONS The SFRA Review encourages submissions of reviews, review essays that cover several related texts, interviews, and feature articles. Submission guidelines are available at http://www.sfra.org/ or by inquiry to the appropriate editor. Contact the Editors for other submissions or for correspondence. stepped up to help with the myriad of subsequent details needing change. So lots of folks finally got to Kansas, where the SFRA Executive Committee decided, among other things, to open the SFRA mailing list to nonmembers so that interested scholars who could afford only one or two organizational memberships SFRA Review Business might enliven our discussions. But behold, along with many a legitimate scholar came a bubblegum chewer (or two? or three?) whose goal was apparently to gum up the works. Then either EDItors’ Message the U.S. or the British post office (you guess which one) lost in transit Gwyneth Jones’s Pilgrim award plaque—although not the Lies of Omission statue, which, thank goodness, stays with the SFRA president. Karen Hellekson and Craig Jacobsen (A replacement has been engraved and sent.) Now, as twilight falls upon my presidency, more upheaval: the SFRA Web site has decided to move in search of a server and set of programs Confession is said to be good for the soul. Though few of capable of handling truly interactive fare, from blogs to online you might notice if we didn’t call it to your attention, we lied membership renewals. Apparently I should have sprung for the to you in the Editors’ Message of issue 285. We assured you higher-priced rearview mirror! that this issue would contain a 101 feature on fan Studies, and a Yet turbulence can lead to new pathways and insights. Partly One Course feature on teaching the Zombie Renaissance. Alert because of all the shifts and shake-ups in SFRA’s various gears readers will notice that it contains neither. Alert readers will also and mechanisms during the past two years, SFRA’s membership notice that, even without these promised features, this Big Issue (and especially its younger and more energetic membership) has is just as big as the last Big Issue, and sometimes something’s increased dramatically. The SFRA Review under new leader- got to go to make room. Since the Editors of the Review are also ship has become even more far-ranging, media-inclusive, and the writers of the promised but absent articles, we knew that they good-looking. New directors for publicity and Web directorship could handle the disappointment of having to wait another issue. have come forth to make both areas much more dynamic in the What we do have is a much-needed Postmodernism 101 fea- future—soon, all of us will be able to consult our Directory ture article written by 2008 Pioneer Award winner Sherryl Vint, and renew our memberships and subscriptions online—while and a piece by former SFRA President Alan Elms about Karen from the past, SFRA organizational and Review archives are Joy Fowler, our guest at the 2008 conference, as well as the usual being firmed up both as hard copies in Kansas and as electronic reviews of fiction, nonfiction, and media. We’re confident that documents in Florida. SFRA award committees have become these offerings will sufficiently express our contrition for our stable and efficient, and new liaisons with other SF organizations omissions. (such as SFWA and About SF) have been established and are beginning to flourish. New monies for SF scholarship projects and travel grants for members are coming online. The future SFRA conferences in Atlanta, Phoenix, and Lublin, Poland, have already attracted an abundance of interesting (and famous) SF authors who promise to make these events among the best in our organization’s history. And finally, initial queries have started about another, updated, more exciting SFRA fiction anthology. And all of this with “no new taxes” or dues raises! SFRA Business So as I return my sight to the way ahead, I see a landscape both inviting and vibrant in front of us, and I feel confident that SFRA remains firmly on the road to a most successful future. PresIdent’S Message I’m glad I’ve stayed along for the ride. Behind Us and Before Us Adam Frisch SFRA ElectIon Results Executive Committee Officers Final columns often gaze through rearview mirrors. As I look back over my two years of SFRA presidency, most of what The Science Fiction Research Association announces the strikes my first glance contains a whole lot of turbulence. Near results of the elections for Executive Committee officers for the beginning of my term came the one event no SFRA presi- 2009-2010: dent ever wants to face: the resignation of then SFRA Review’s fine editor, Chrissie Mains. Shortly after that turnover, an early President: Lisa Yaszek morning e-mail arrived from Farah Mendlesohn informing Vice President: Ritch Calvin me of the economic collapse of the Dublin venue for SFRA’s Treasurer: Mack Hassler 2008 summer meeting. Woof. Fortunately, the Campbell folks Secretary: Shelley Rodrigo came through quickly with an alternative site, and Ritch Calvin 2 SFRA Review 286 Fall 2008 In accordance with SFRA bylaws, Adam Frisch becomes the into meaningful sites of human identity and collective action. Commitee’s fifth voting member, the Immediate Past Presi- The emergence of postmodernism is equally tied to the rise of dent. Congratulations to all. information culture and the increased penetration of information The Association would also thanks the members who stood technology into our daily lives and experiences (hence Jame- for office, and David Mead, outgoing Immediate Past President. son’s connection of postmodernism and cyberpunk). This, too, The SFRA depends upon and values the service of its members. has become such a common feature of daily experience that it is difficult to perceive how radically our experiences have been shaped by portable and ever-present entertainment technologies over the period termed postmodern—although watching Life on Mars (UK or US) gives some sense of the import of these cul- tural changes in precisely how truly alien is the world displaced thirty-some years in the past. In sorting through the various things the term postmodern Features might mean to those who use it, it is helpful to keep in mind two continuums along which to plot various definitions and reac- tions: aesthetic or historical explanations of the phenomenon; Postmodernism 101 and perceptions of it as reactionary or progressive. Discussions of postmodernism that see it predominantly as an aesthetic Sherryl Vint mode, a list of features or techniques that postmodern texts Postmodernism is a term as difficult and frustrating to define (broadly construed) possess while others do not, inevitably run as is the term science fiction, and anyone trying quickly to grasp into difficulty when a supposedly postmodern characteristic the term is soon beset by seemingly countless and often contra- (such as metatextuality) is located in a text dated before the puta- dictory descriptions. Even the “post” of postmodernism com- tive appearance of postmodernism, such as the often-invoked plicates rather than clarifies, as the precise date and nature (or metanarrative The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentle- even fact) of its break with the modernism that precedes it have man (1759). On the other end of this continuum are approaches all been occasions for critical debate.
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