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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could operate along Spinozian principles. ‘But that’s what
community is’ Eric explains to a young student researching
her group dissertation on the role of sexuality in gay
community development, ‘a lot of different kinds of people.
Together. It ain’t the difference between. It’s the difference
among – the difference within, see?’ (776) This is a radically
egalitarian form of difference that doesn’t privilege any
particular difference, but difference itself, as Eric explains;
‘all of us at different times know different things. That’s
all. It ain’t a matter of more or less. Just different.’ (777)
What is important is the difference amongst the modes,
understanding those differences, and accumulating those
that share a modal essence and so affirm and amplify each
other into a community. What is not important is negative
differences between modes, which can only make us sad,
and the difference between modes (specific things) and
God/Nature, which prevents us from understanding their
immanence. Internal differences constitute the specificity of
the members of a community, their autonomy and freedom,
but what draws them together are the common-notions
they share, which define how they are ‘in’ the community.
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders is a utopian
novel that offers a vision of a community more or less
separate from the rest of the world – certainly for Eric and
Shit, who rarely leave the environs of Diamond Harbour
– where a new way of organising social life is developed. 114
This community is, at its largest, the ‘Black Gay Utopian
Community’ of the Dump (676), comprising of 75 houses
and built with 10 million dollars of Robert Kyle’s money
(428). Started the same week as AIDs was announced, its
211
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