Zepke Stephen: Head in the Stars. Essays on Science Fiction
Science fiction concerns the future, of course, this being its simple, organising essence. But science fiction wants to do more than just be in the future, it wants to predict the future, to reveal its horrors and beauty, its similarities and difference, and more importantly, tell us about all the cool stuff. This means that the ‘future’ science fiction explores has changed a lot over the years, and has a fascinating past, one with a twistier time-line than a Phillip K. Dick story […]. But this book is not a history of science fiction, because although historical context plays a part – the Cold War from which alien arrival films emerge, or our biopolitical present in which interface films become symptomatic – this book is most concerned with science fiction futures that crack history open, allowing something unaccountable to emerge, something singular and new. As a result, this book sees the ‘new’ and its ‘future’ in science fiction in a very different way from Darko Suvin and Frederic Jameson, whose astoundingly influential theory sees science fiction futures as forms of ‘cognitive estrangement’ that seek to reflect on the present that produces them. [from the Introduction] Layout: Dejan Dragosavac Ruta 260 pages [Paperback : 13,5 x 19 cm] Publisher: Multimedijalni institut [Zagreb, Croatia] ISBN: 978-953-7372-67-5 — the book is available via Amazon: https://www.amazon.de/dp/9537372677/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=
Science fiction concerns the future, of course, this being its simple, organising essence. But science fiction wants to do more than just be in the future, it wants to predict the future, to reveal its horrors and beauty, its similarities and difference, and more importantly, tell us about all the cool stuff. This means that the ‘future’ science fiction explores has changed a lot over the years, and has a fascinating past, one with a twistier time-line than a Phillip K. Dick story […].
But this book is not a history of science fiction, because although historical context plays a part – the Cold War from which alien arrival films emerge, or our biopolitical present in which interface films become symptomatic – this book is most concerned with science fiction futures that crack history open, allowing something unaccountable to emerge, something singular and new. As a result, this book sees the ‘new’ and its ‘future’ in science fiction in a very different way from Darko Suvin and Frederic Jameson, whose astoundingly influential theory sees science fiction futures as forms of ‘cognitive estrangement’ that seek to reflect on the present that produces them. [from the Introduction]
Layout: Dejan Dragosavac Ruta
260 pages [Paperback : 13,5 x 19 cm]
Publisher: Multimedijalni institut [Zagreb, Croatia]
ISBN: 978-953-7372-67-5
— the book is available via Amazon: https://www.amazon.de/dp/9537372677/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=
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But to those who ask “why God did not create all
men so that they would be governed by the command
of reason?” I answer only “because he did not lack
material to create all things, from the highest degree of
perfection to the lowest”; or, to speak more properly,
“because the laws of his nature have been so ample
that they sufficed for producing all things which can be
conceived by an infinite intellect”. (EI, Appendix III)
Together with Mama Grace’s moment of grace inspired
by EI, D2 – and in particular the concept and practice of
help – Eric’s reading of part I provides the basic logic of
his life at Diamond Harbour; making others feel good
makes you stronger, and this applies equally to everyone
and everything, no matter what. Even the losers living in
the Dump and so sorely lacking in ‘reason’ live this wisdom
everyday without anyone needing to teach them about
it. As Eric reads on, something else makes sense to him:
‘By reality and perfection I understand the same thing.’
(EII, D6) Perfection, in other words, is not a metaphysical
concept dwelling in the great beyond, but simply what is
real, right here, in front of us. This is perfect, it is ‘God or
whatever’ (525) as Eric nicely puts it (Deus sive whatever) –
every thing is perfect. ‘What was perfect?’ Eric wonders,
‘The pattern one picked up from a spider web between
the ferns... What one could see of the stars webbing the
night…’ (525) No metaphor, each expresses a fractal infinity
joyously leaping from the Dump to the dark and encircling
cosmic arc, each actualises the eternal diagram of Nature’s
completeness.
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