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=
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Notes
1 Reddell’s genealogy of the ‘sonic novum’ in his recent The Sound of
Things to Come is a remarkable example of what can be achieved by
taking this approach.
2 I am referring to Owen Hatherley’s excellent book of the same
name. Csicsery-Ronay makes a similar point, writing, ‘the novum
reveals history’s contingency: that, at any point, history can change
direction. […] Modern historical consciousness is shaped by belief in
novums.’ (2008 57)
3 ‘My day’, Nietzsche complained (but also boasted), ‘won’t come until
the day after tomorrow.’ (1968 125)
4 There are, of course, other philosophies of the ‘new’, perhaps most
notably the recent work of Alain Badiou and his concept of the
‘event’ that is discussed in chapter three. Phillip Wenger has also
drawn upon Badiou in his discussion of science fiction films (see
Wenger 2009).
5 In recent years the number of dystopian films has declined somewhat,
less as a reflection of current politics, and more because of the
seeming hegemony of superhero films, which currently dominate the
science fiction market.
6 Science fiction is based, Jameson argues, on ‘the properly utopian
dialectic of Identity and Difference’ (2005, xiv). This dialectic conse-
233
Change language