sfrarev

Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood: Natural Disaster Lessons from Undead Cinema

Non-Fiction Reviews

Review of Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood: Natural Disaster Lessons from Undead Cinema

Emma Austin

Michael Walton. Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood: Natural Disaster Lessons from Undead Cinema. McFarland, 2023. Paperback. 185 pg. $ 29.95. ISBN 9781476693866.

Michael Walton begins this book with two personal inspirations: first, his experiences in emergency preparedness, fostered in his rural upbringing and later in volunteering with a Community Emergency Response team; and second his love of zombie films. In this, he follows the established pattern of academic and fan authors setting up the personal stakes in their argument, framed by the understanding that as horror fans we all are happy to share our own “what-if” survival scenarios.

Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood: Natural Disaster Lessons from Undead Cinema follows this fan predilection for imagining scenarios by establishing a pattern of chapters following limited ‘zombie’ (read natural disaster) events that occur over defined time periods—up to 72 hours, 2 weeks and 4 weeks. These are matched from specific zombie films such as Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968) and 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002) and later the popular television series The Walking Dead (Darabont, Mazzara, Gimple, Kang, 2010-2022). These film and television texts are summarised in relation to their scenarios of zombie disaster at the start of the main chapters, to establish Walton’s key concern: preparation for self-reliance during emergency situations. These are framed by an initial chapter overall on preparedness, with an emphasis on access to communication and official emergency warnings, planning ahead as a family/group unit, and storage of important documentation. The final chapter discusses decision-making about travelling or leaving shelter during or after an emergency. A useful checklist at the end of the book also supports the overall key themes of planning and preparation. This is not a scholarly or fictional book: it is a practical guide.

The book is concerned only with a North American context, which makes sense given the author’s own experiences. Interestingly, he is not the first to use the framework of a fictional zombie apocalypse to alert people to the need for preparation. The American federal agencies the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) created media releases and documents to help inform the general public on planning and preparation needs. The CDC’s 2011 “Preparedness 101: zombie pandemic” used a comic book format to highlight preparation, while reassuring readers of the CDC’s responsiveness, while FEMA’s 2019 public awareness campaign tied into the release of Zombieland: Double Tap (Fleischer, 2019), using footage created by Sony, on the need for emergency planning. Therefore, Prepare for Zombies is part of an ongoing preoccupation with using popular fictional templates to attract interest to more practical, real-world concerns.

This is the strongest aspect of Walton’s book: offering a coherent building-up of plans and needs for scenarios that may be faced. In each main chapter, he repeats core information from the preceding one and then offers more detail so that aspects which would not perhaps be a core concern in a 72-hour period are then developed for a 4-week period—for example, considerations of hygiene, maintaining shelter integrity, and community. Overall the chapters show that the scale of consideration is mostly limited to immediate areas and social concerns: the neighbourhood, the core family or social group. Prepare for Zombies is an inherently domestic, ground-level consideration of factors, with only brief mentions of national or federal agencies. As Walton clearly states, this book is not intended as a ‘preppers’ guide, for those anticipating the overall collapse of society. Indeed, he makes sure that he reiterates how unlikely zombie apocalyptic scenarios are.

As an analysis of zombie texts, then, the book is quite limited. Apart from the scenarios developed from Walton’s summaries of plots, there is little here for the zombie fan or reader interested in a focus on how fictional narratives depict or construct these scenarios and debates over survival. For those interested in speculative fiction dealing with survival and preparedness in a zombie context, the works by Max Brooks such as The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), which includes some practical preparedness tips along with its imaginative zombie scenario, are worth investigating. For more scholarly discussions of how and why zombie media offer certain interpretations of disaster, and how to survive (and the moral and ethical issues inherent in this), there is a wide variety of academic sources on this – more than can be covered in this review. As a guide to basic preparation and planning however, Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood offers reassurance and skills which are adaptable to many different situations, well beyond the symbolic threat of the zombie masses.

Dr Emma Austin is the Course Leader for Film Studies at the University of Portsmouth, teaching across a variety of subject areas but with particular interests in global popular media and film, particularly horror texts. Her PhD thesis was on zombies in cinematic culture, and her current research projects are on horror texts that move across different media platforms notably in comics, video games and film.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and The Classics

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 55, no. 1

Non-Fiction Reviews

download

Review of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and The Classics

Mariana Rios Maldonado

Hamish Williams. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and The Classics. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing. eBook. 210 pg. $90.00. ISBN 9781350241473.

At first glance, the concept of “utopia” and the Graeco-Roman world may not seem to hold any obvious connections to J.R.R. Tolkien or his Middle-earth narratives beyond Tolkien’s education in the Classics. However, in his monograph J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and The Classics, Hamish Williams showcases how potentiating a conversation between Classical antiquity and Tolkien’s literary production can lead to insightful and exciting scholarly avenues in Tolkien studies. Indeed, Williams had already driven this point home in his edited collection Tolkien and the Classical World (2021). As for this study, Williams declares that Tolkien’s “utopianism” lies in his defamiliarization of “physical space for the sake of exploring and evaluating an ideal” (6). The author’s purpose is therefore to examine “forms of ‘utopias’ in Tolkien’s writing” by placing the focus “on a diverse range of idealised topoi: sociopolitical communities, the individual, mundane home and vistas of the natural world” (Williams 5-6).

Williams’s monograph is divided into an introduction, three chapters, and an epilogue. In the first chapter, “Lapsarian Narratives: the Decline and Fall of Utopian Communities in Middle-earth,” not only does Williams argue that “two important, interconnected human communities in Tolkien’s world—Númenor and Gondor—closely receive and rewrite ancient lapsarian narratives” such as Atlantis and Rome, respectively, but he also explores how narrative traditions about utopian communities contribute to the restoration of ideals (21). The monograph’s second chapter, “Hospitality Narratives: The Ideal of Home in an Odyssean Hobbit,” analyses different forms of hospitality put forth by Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) via the Odyssey, in order to reflect on the roles of host and guest, reciprocity, and what Williams calls ethical dimension that makes a home “good” or “bad” (61). His final chapter, “Sublime Narratives: Classical Transcendence in Nature and beyond in The Fellowship of the Ring,” studies episodes in which experiences of the “transformative, transcendental sublime … are afforded when entering into and existing within certain natural places” depicted in in the first volume of The Lord of the Rings (Williams 103).

The scope of William’s monograph is highly ambitious—so much so that the ideas he either covers or gestures to could easily provide material for further monographs, therefore constituting an approach that will continue to be innovative in the field. The strongest sections of this work are three: first, the conclusions Williams draws from his analysis in the first chapter, in which the author establishes a conversation between Tolkien’s literary production and modern lapsarian narratives, both in literature and in film; second, the network of connections Williams sketches between the Graeco-Roman worldview, Jacques Derrida’s philosophy on hospitality, and Tolkien’s literary production in the second chapter, which provide a very welcome addition to increasing scholarship on the relationship between the self and the Other in Tolkien studies, as exemplified by Jane Chance’s Tolkien, Self, and Other: This Queer Creature (2016) and the edited collection Tolkien and Alterity (2017); and third, the intricate examination the author achieves on the concept of the sublime in the monograph’s final chapter. Furthermore, Williams’s extensive knowledge of Classical texts, of previous work undertaken to address Classical influences in Tolkien’s literary production, and of comparative exercises that bridge the gap between Middle-earth and Classical antiquity, shines forth as unparalleled.

Where the monograph stumbles is in its occasional, unbalanced focus between the reading of Tolkien’s texts through a Classical lens and a clear acknowledgement of the nuances of Tolkien’s worldbuilding project. A detailed examination of how Williams applies this perspective reveals missed opportunities on a further elaboration for how Tolkien’s literary production either departs or reinvents the “classical ideals and values” signalled by Williams, how specific characters actively embody and transform them, and the contextualisation of specific events in the wider history of Middle-earth (xi). Several examples can be provided to this effect: from not fully elaborating on the implications of the intradiegetic criticism Tolkien places on the idealisation of places like Númenor and the Shire; to the manifestation of evil not only as destruction, but as the pursuit to dominate the Other; or the complex ethical conflicts and aporias characters face individually and collectively—like the hobbits, dwarves, and even Old Man Willow, especially when placed into context with the help of the wider legendarium and which thus make them multidimensional figures. Perhaps adding to this impression is the absence in a comparative study of this magnitude of a much more direct engagement with primary and secondary sources on the level of the study’s main corpus, as opposed to hundreds of references placed at the end of his analysis. At the same time, Williams’s reiterated emphasis on well-known religious and Christian interpretations of Tolkien’s Middle-earth narratives wrests attention away from his own original contributions rather than supporting his own findings. Williams’s considerations of how the divine, magical, otherworldly, paradisiac, pious, religious, and supernatural are distinctly presented and perceived in Middle-earth, in Tolkien’s life, and how Tolkien considered them to manifest in his own work require much more precise detailing, as these concepts hold individual, crucial implications for the reading and reception of Tolkien’s fictional construct. Finally, the use of the concept of “orientalism” throughout this monograph could have greatly benefited from a much more profound consideration of other instances in which orientalism is potentially observed in Tolkien’s Middle-earth narratives—especially in The Lord of the Rings, which Williams only mentions in passing—as well as scholarship dealing with the implications of orientalism and the representation of race in Tolkien’s literary production, such as Roger Echo-Hawk’s Tolkien in Pawneeland (2013).

There is no doubt that Williams’s study successfully expands the breadth and depth of what Tolkien Studies is today and what it can look forward to in the future, as this work continues to pave to way for coming studies that connect the Classical world with Tolkien{s Middle-earth narratives. Despite its occasional weaknesses, this monograph is a worthy reinterpretation of Tolkien’s oeuvre.

Mariana Rios Maldonado holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on philosophy and Otherness in Tolkien’s literary production as well as Germanophonic fantastic literature between the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Her most recent chapter was published in the edited collection The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024). Mariana is the Officer for Equality and Diversity at Glasgow University’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic and part of the editorial team for Mallorn, the Tolkien Society’s academic journal. She is the Research Impact Adviser for Glasgow’s Research and Innovation Services.

Thirty Years Later: Sacred Scripture, Ghost in The Shell, and Our Lady of Perpetual Cyberpunk

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 55 no. 1

Features

download

Thirty Years Later: Sacred Scripture, Ghost in The Shell, and Our Lady of Perpetual Cyberpunk

Despite its initial commercial underperformance and lukewarm critical reception, Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995) experienced a cult renaissance in the years following its release due to home video sales. It made a hard connection with a highly influential group of filmmakers such as the Wachowski Sisters, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, who publicly described Oshii’s film in The Guardian as “a stunning work of speculative fiction . . . the first to reach a level of literary excellence” (Rose). The interest in Oshii’s film has not waned as a live-action remake of Ghost in the Shell was released in 2017, and a 4K limited rerelease ran in select IMAX theaters in the U.S. in 2021. In addition to its paradoxical use of cyberpunk trappings to tell a story that resists the usually grim outlook of technological proliferation within the genre, Oshii makes use of uniquely Western Christian archetypes for meaning and metaphor rather than spectacle, as is the usual norm in anime. Oshii’s visual symbols are often religious and distinct from the use of Christian symbols in contemporary works such as Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–96, Shinseiki Evangerion) which serves no authentic story-telling purpose as Brian Ruh argues in Stray Dog of Anime (54-55). However, the usual interpretation of the film, and perhaps even an interpretation through a Christian framework, falls short of describing the fullness of Oshii’s use of the Christian mythos in Ghost in the Shell. To interpret Oshii’s symbolism as solely Christian is too broad a description for there is a denominational distinction becausewithin that overarching Christian framework, exist older and more telling motifs, the severity and specificity of which can only be described as uniquely Catholic. Oshii employs these Christian and specifically Catholic symbols, as this paper will how, to explore the near-universal desire for evolution, transcendence, and, ultimately, some semblance of an answer to the eternal questions.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a contemporary to Ghost in the Shell due to its release date and overlap in genre. Neon Genesis Evangelion also uses Christian symbolism, biblical allusions, elements of Shintoism, Judaism, and even creature names such as “Adam” as parts of a universe in order to create an entertaining, high-fantasy mythos. Ghost in the Shell goes much further in developing these motifs by embracing a singular Catholic vision as the central theme and metaphor in a speculative cyberpunk universe. This metaphor serves to sustain Oshii’s argument for the redemptive and even divine qualities of technology as a forceful contrast to the fundamental cynicism of the cyberpunk and tech-noire genres.

Certain Catholic rather than simply Christian clues emerge from Oshii’s life that bring clarity to the director’s enigmatic use of religious tools of expression. Richard Suchenski writes in Senses of Cinema that Oshii at one point seriously considered entering a seminary to become a priest. Brian Ruh, meanwhile, maintains that Oshii’s consideration of seminary was only to study religion (8). Oshii himself stated in a 2004 interview: “When I was in college, I was always interested in Christianity and religion… I even thought of transferring to a Christian seminary… It’s really the phenomena created by religion that I’m most interested in, rather than religion itself” (Mays). This fascination permeates Oshii’s body of work. However, a merely Christian reading of a work is too easily perceived as a default Protestant reading to a Western audience whereas one must take into account the flavor of the Christian framework from Oshii, the would-be priest. While the tiny percentage of Japan’s population identifying as Christian is approximately evenly divided between those identifying as Protestant or Catholic, to a Japanese audience, the difference between the two sub-categories is an irrelevancy, argues Ishikawa Akito, Professor of Religion at Momoyama Gakuin University. In the West, however, the distinction between Catholic and Protestant is of grave importance, and the Catholic distinction is critical in Oshii’s Christian framework, especially to an American audience. In the case of Ghost in the Shell, Oshii’s use of Christianity is founded upon a Catholic rather than Protestant reading of the Christian mythos and is employed accordingly in his filmography—a non-distinction for a Japanese audience, as Akito argues, but a serious one for the Western viewer.

The hardboiled skepticism from other 80s and 90s tech-noir media conveys a general caution about humanity’s relationship with technology, but Oshii resists this trend by elevating technology to a divine position through interlacing technology’s place within the Holy Family of Catholic teaching: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Oshii employs this trinity of the Holy Family to affirm humanity’s push towards technological advancement and hybridization, as opposed to the “criticism of the extreme enthusiasm of mankind about science and technology” found in Neon Genesis Evangelion and other tech-noir/cyberpunk media (Napier 89). The Catholicism of Ghost in the Shell, therefore, becomes a sustaining metaphor throughout instead of an avant-garde ambiguity; it is not an undeveloped, cross-shaped explosion as spectacle, or a high-fantasy original creature casually named “Adam.” Instead, Oshii uses the Holy Family metaphor to describe the potential divinity of technology in Ghost in the Shell, with Batou as the chaste St. Joseph the Protector, Major Kusanagi as the Virgin Mary, and the Puppetmaster-Kusinagi hybrid as the newborn Messiah. The Messiah’s body serves not only as a representation but is, within the universe of Ghost in the Shell, the nexus of humanity and divinity, the higher order of technology as humanity’s saving grace. Oshii uses the tools of Catholicism in a secular though highly spiritual manner to perpetuate his tradition of “[alluding] to religion to say something deeper about the human condition” (Ruh 55). Ghost in the Shell can be seen as an example of how Japanese content producers use the images and writings of Christianity; for instance, Kusanagi and the Puppetmaster repeat, almost verbatim, in two separate points in the film, the language of Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” But it is also a distinctly Catholic work which makes use of the Holy Family of Catholic doctrine and iconography to offer a secular yethopeful image of the future using metaphors typically reserved for the spiritual realm. Despite all the blood and violence (in the film and in the history of Catholicism), the image Oshii produces is an optimistic theory and suggested map of the next stage of human evolution where technology is not only a boon to ease humanity’s temporal suffering but, from the images of descending angels and mysterious recitations of the Epistles, a divine path forward towards apotheosis.

The trinity of the Holy Family of Catholicism is manifest in the three major characters of Ghost in the Shell. First, Major Kusanagi’s chaste nakedness recalls the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ. Second, Batou fills the role of St. Joseph the Protector in his platonic relationship with Kusanagi. Third, the Christ child at the end of the film, conceived from this higher power, is preceded by the visiting angel, Gabriel (see Fig. 1). It is not the conventional Christian symbolism employed by typical directors; it is instead the intensely violent and bloody Catholic imagery that unlocks these ancient archetypes and makes Ghost in the Shell a counterclaim for the transcendent potential of technology super-imposed upon a grim tech-noir, cyberpunk context.

**Fig. 1.** Descending Angel from the Major’s perspective (Oshii 1:13:37)

Major Kusanagi’s nakedness functions as fan service on one level, but more importantly, Oshii emphasizes the nudity to convey a statement on sexuality or, in this case, the lack thereof; the Major has no sex organs. The cyborg is drawn seamlessly around the hips. This is not a loophole to bypass Japanese censors. Oshii chooses to make a point of slamming the viewer in the face for the first ten minutes of the movie with a torso with no visible sex organs. However, despite this lack of an opening, and despite the fact that Kusanagi herself states, “I cannot bear children” (1:11:43-44), she is given a full set of breasts. Due to the lack of sex organs, it is reasonable to conclude that the Major is a virgin. One could argue that, if the Major had once been human before receiving her cybernetic body, perhaps she was not a virgin; however, that objection is irrelevant since, in keeping with a Catholic reading, the Major immaculately receives a new body as demonstrated at the beginning of the film (see Fig. 2). A tension also exists within the popular consensus, as reported by fan wikis, that the Major may, in fact, be solely cyborg, her memories of an original body as artificially constructed as the poor ghost-hacked truck driver in the first half of the film. At one point in the film, she even speculates, “Maybe there never was a real me in the first place, and I’m completely synthetic like that thing” (0:42:36-41). The Major’s chaste nakedness in the film contrasts with the almost hyper-sexuality of the Kusanagi of the manga source material, but this departure from source material is a matter of course for Oshii.

The presence of breasts, the means of nursing, in the assassination scene before the beginning credits, contrasted with the lack of exposed sex organs, indicates a being not of carnal sexuality but rather of sexless motherhood like the Virgin Mary; the Major bears the means of nursing but not the gifts of sexual pleasure, sexual union, or procreation in any typical sense. Oshii denies Major Kusanagi even the chance of traditional sexual agency, thus maintaining her virginity. Like Mary, Major’s motherhood is a gift from a higher force; she is meant for union with this higher force of technological divinity because carnal or human sexuality is too base to give birth to the new creature who emerges at the end of the film. Therefore, Kusanagi is equipped with neither the urge nor the ability for sensual pleasure or physical reproduction but a far more substantial motherhood—a divine motherhood explained through the metaphor of high technology.

**Fig. 2.** The Major’s Cybernetic Body Creation (Oshii 0:06:16)

Major’s consent to the Puppetmaster for a generative union is a parallel to Mary’s Fiat in Luke 1:38: “May it be done to me according to your word.” Susan Napier states that “it is [Kusanagi’s] body, standing at the nexus between the technological and the human, that can best interrogate the issues of the spirit” (107). The vision of technology as not only good but divine in Ghost in the Shell takes up residence in the womb of a cyborg, for in such an affirmation of technology Kusanagi is already connected to this world as Napier’s nexus. This conception manifests the Catholic teaching that the Virgin Mary was without sin before, during, and after the conception of the Messiah through the Marian dogma of the Immaculate Conception. As the nexus, Kusanagi already has a foot in the world of the divine/technological, but this important presence in the world of sinlessness loses meaning for a Protestant Christian framework which is either hostile to or unconcerned with the Marian doctrine of Immaculate Conception and her perpetual virginity: however, it gains momentum when seen from the Catholic perspective. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as promulgated in the 1854 Ineffabilis Deus states that Mary was free from original sin, a teaching rejected by Protestants (Elwell 595-596). Just as Mary was without sin, the Major is “full of grace” and, as Napier’s nexus, simultaneously occupies the divine space of the technological, manifested in the image of the descending angel, as well as the familiar physical space of flesh and blood; Batou says to Kusanagi, “You’ve got human brain cells in that titanium shell of yours” (42:42-45). She is thus uniquely worthy to participate in the birth of the Messiah.

Kusanagi’s own Immaculate Conception at the beginning of the film shows the Major receiving her new body. The Major assumes a fetal position (Fig. 2) within the water-filled womb from which she emerges, taking on the divine technology within and upon her ghost so that she may be ready to accept the gift from on high. Though born into the baseness of flesh, both Major and Mary’s bodies are literally reconstructed in the image of the divine, a technological Imago Dei and, most importantly, without the essential sin that comes with a humanity bound to its flesh. The Major is reborn through the technologically divine intervention of Oshii’s Immaculate Conception—in this case a divinely digital one, and Kusanagi, the nexus, is now ready to carry the seed within her redeemed womb of sacred wires, holy circuits, and metal (Fig. 2).

Batou has a sexual tension with the Major that he does not indulge, even internally. For example, Batou struggles with this tension on screen, as he winces when he sees the Major unzip her dive-suit in the boat (Fig. 3). He turns away in embarrassment while gritting his teeth (Fig. 4), for he is ashamed that he, as St. Joseph, would even consider the Major in a manner outside of her divinely appointed role; even Batou’s eyes are unequipped for carnal desire, being artificial inserts with a range of tactical filters.

**Fig. 3.** Batou Reacts to the Major Undressing (Oshii 0:29:52–0:29:52)

**Fig. 4.** Batou Looks Away (Oshii 0:29:53–0:29:54)

Batou is the chaste St. Joseph, the adoptive father of Christ and the protector of the Holy Family in Catholic doctrine. It is Batou, who later arrives with his self-described “standard-issue big gun” (1:06:12-14), who saves the Major from being crushed by a tank. Though this dynamic may appear to be a muted sexism where the damsel must be rescued, it is vital that Batou fulfill this role within the Holy Family as St. Joseph, the Protector. It is Batou who takes the bullet into his own flesh for the Major in the ending scene, giving her more time to do her great work. It is Batou who cares for the new child at the end of the movie, even though the child is not his biological offspring. It is Batou who covers Major Kusanagi’s nakedness when she must shed her clothing during the employment of thermo-optic camouflage (Fig. 5). This chaste feature of Batou parallels St. Joseph’s own story within the Holy Family. St. Joseph’s relationship with Mary and Batou’s relationship with the Major are chaste ones; a feature that separates the Catholic vision of the Holy Family from a Protestant one.

**Fig. 5.** Batou Covers a Naked Major Kusanagi with His Coat (Oshii 0:24:20)

“The Protector” has been St. Joseph’s role in Catholic tradition since the beginning but became official in 1882 when Pope Leo XIII declared him so. In the Bible, when Herod searches out the children to be killed, Joseph takes Mary and the newborn Christ to Egypt (Mathew 2:16–18); when the Major, the Puppet Master, and the new being they create are likewise ordered to be killed, Batou protects them with his own body (1:13:39), and he leads them away to his hiding place. When Batou has hidden away the Major (and the new child of whom she is part) in his own safe house, it parallels St. Joseph the Protector who “…did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home” without hesitation or objection (Matthew 1:20). Batou takes his place within the Holy Family, acting with an uneasy obedience to this higher force and in agreement with the Fiat of the Major. It is his role to stand by, keep watch, and protect while the Major and this entity from beyond work to redeem the world.

Even more overt than Oshii’s interjection of scriptures is the robed, glowing angel with feathered wings descending from the light near the end of the film (Fig. 1). The vision of the angel in question functions on three levels, but only one of these is complementary to the Holy Family of Roman Catholic doctrine. The first interpretation of the angel’s descent and the accompanying cascade of feathers fits Oshii’s use of Catholic teaching: this otherworldly creature, as a Christian figure, serves effectively as a secular symbol to represent a being of higher order. Its appearance communicates to the audience and to Kusanagi that she is about to make contact with this higher order, and some kind of transcendence is about to occur. A second interpretation, and the one which explains the presence of the child at the end, is that the angel is Gabriel, the messenger angel (Luke 1:26–35). The angel is descending to announce to the Major that she is to conceive a child with the help of a great and otherworldly force. Then, in the following scene, in a hailstorm of bullets, bodies are destroyed and ripped apart in the throes of the labor pangs (Fig. 7). Despite even Batou’s best efforts to shield her (Fig. 8), Major’s body is eventually pierced by the bullets from the helicopters above, just as Mary’s soul was pierced as foretold by St. Simeon in Luke 2:35: “And a sword will pierce your very soul”The helicopters approach bearing modified snipers; when they come into position, the vehicles unfurl the segmented wings of a dragon with glowing red eyes (Fig. 6), the same dragon from Revelation who follows the pregnant virgin into the desert waiting to devour the child at its moment of birth (Revelation 12:2–4).

**Fig. 6.** Helicopter Unfurls Metallic Wings as Snipers Prepare to Fire (Oshii 1:07:09)

**Fig. 7.** Major’s Body Is Ripped Apart (Oshii 1:05:25)

**Fig. 8**. Batou’s Arm Is Shot Off as He Seeks to Protect the Prone Major Kusanagi (Oshii 1:13:39)

**Fig. 9.** Red Eyes and Tails of the Helicopters (Oshii 1:11:24)

Nearby, the entire hierarchy of evolution leading to “hominis” as the pinnacle form of natural selection is shown on the engraving of the tree (see Fig. 10). It is a tree similar to the one found in Oshii’s Angel’s Egg (1985) with its cross-carrying soldier and retelling of Noah’s Ark, but this tree is riddled with bullet holes from the tank’s auto-cannons, foreshadowing the disturbance of the natural order that must occur, for this next step will not be a linear and incremental natural selection; it is a disruptive leap into the unknown.

**Fig. 10.** Tree Engraving Shot by Tank (Oshii 1:04:21)

Batou takes the Major away, sparing her the indignity of the incoming soldiers out to fulfill their orders from King Herod. In the following scene, we see the child. This child bears the face of the Major, for indeed, it is appropriate that the savior carries one half of its mother’s DNA. This is the savior with a foot firmly planted in both worlds. It is the Emmanuel whose arrival has been foretold by the descending angel in the film. It is totally singular and made substantial only through the Major’s Fiat; therefore, it bears her face and her voice.

Through these Catholic archetypes, Oshii does not anticipate a slow incrementalism, for his view of the next step of human evolution involves violent, painful birth and perhaps even a savior to emerge in the divine light of unhindered technological pursuit. His bloody and Catholic symbolism is fulfilled and sustained far more than the casual Christian imagery of a Protestant nature. However, Oshii’s Catholic framework does not serve as one-to-one allegory for the purpose of religious evangelism. Rather, its purpose is that of technological evangelism; the film makes use of the deeply held preexisting Catholic archetypes to convey the image of the next stage of human evolution. It will happen all at once, and it will be the most destructive force of our creative potential. Oshii affirms this new creation, despite the death and pain of metamorphosis, as the new creature asks aloud to itself, “And where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite” (1:17:35–42).

Oshii does not draw a traditionally Catholic conclusion in his Platonic journey from the Cave; this “net” is not Heaven. As Napier argues, it is “a reference not only to cyberspace but to a kind of non-material Overmind . . . which does not offer much hope for [the] organic human body” (105). Ultimately, Ghost in the Shell suggests “that a union between technology and the spirit can ultimately succeed” (114), and in Oshii’s universe, technology has taken on divine status. To communicate this prophetic statement, Oshii adopts the Catholic metaphor of the Holy Family. The nexus cyborg Major Kusanagi, who is full of grace due to the wires and microchips embedded in her flesh, gives birth to the new creature that is half of Kusanagi but also half of something else so much more. In Ghost in the Shell, Oshii has appropriated the symbols of Catholic theology to state his hypothesis of a secular transcendence. This transcendence is an alternative answer to the visions of heaven and salvation promised by the Abrahamic faith traditions and an alternative to the dire warnings of the cyberpunk genre where technology becomes the means of humanity’s salvation rather than destruction.

WORKS CITED

Akito, Ishikawa. “A Little Faith: Christianity and the Japanese.” nippon.com, May 30, 2020. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g00769/a-little-faith-christianity-and-the-japanese.html

Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2019.

Elwell, Walter A. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001.

Faxneld, Per. “Blavatsky the Satanist: Luciferianism in Theosophy, and its Feminist Implications.” Temenos 48, no. 2 (2012): 203–30.

Ishikawa Akito, “A Little Faith: Christianity and the Japanese,” nippon.com, May 30, 2020.

Leo XIII. “Pope Leo XIII: Prayer to Saint Joseph.” udayton.edu. University of Dayton, 2022. https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/p/pope-leo-xiii-prayer-to-saint-joseph.php#:~:text=Blessed%20Joseph%2C%20husband%20of%20Mary,him%20from%20danger%20of%20death

Mays, Mark. Machine Dreams A talk with visionary Japanese animator Mamoru Oshii about his new film Ghost in the Shell 2. Other. Nashvillescene.com. Nashville Scene, September 16, 2004. https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts_culture/machine-dreams/article_b50d24f8-5092-55ff-a567-6c1bc6c243ac.html

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University Library, 2018.

Meehan, Paul. Tech-Noir: The Fusion of Science Fiction and Film Noir. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018.

“Motoko Kusanagi: Ghost in the Shell Wiki.” Fandom. Last modified June 2, 2021. https://ghostintheshell.fandom.com/wiki/Motoko_Kusanagi.

Napier, Susan. Anime from “Akira” to “Princess Mononoke”: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Oshii, Mamoru. Ghost in the Shell. 1995; Beverly Hills, CA: Anchor Bay Entertainment, 1998. DVD, 82 min.

Rayhert, Konstantin. “The Postmodern Theology of ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ as a Criticism.” Doxa no. 2 (30) (2018): 161–70. doi:10.18524/2410-2601.2018.2(30).146569.

Rose, Steve. “Hollywood is haunted by Ghost in the Shell.” The Guardian, October 19, 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/oct/19/hollywood-ghost-in-the-shell.

Ruh, Brian. Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2013.

Suchenski, Richard. “Oshii, Mamoru.” Senses of Cinema, July 2004. https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/oshii/.

Brian DeLoach, PhD, is an instructor of composition and independent researcher. He has been published in various political publications, outdoor magazines, journals of education, and has been a contributor to the best-selling Teacher Misery series of books. He lives in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Savannah Welch is an artist and student at Polk State College, where she tutors her peers in writing at the Teaching and Learning Center on campus.

Three Tastings of the Delicacy

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 55 no. 1

Fiction

download

Three Tastings of the Delicacy

Baoshu
Translated by Xueting C. Ni

1. The Sumptuous Banquet

The provocative little waitress wheeled the serving cart over, on which, a dish sat covered with a gleaming, radiant cloche that looked like it had been made of pure gold.

Smiling, the waitress maneuvered the cart directly in front of the guest, and then carried the dish, still with the lid on, to the table.

Just as she was about to reveal its contents, the diner gently pushed her delicate, jade-like hand away: “One moment, I have something to say.”

Across from him, the host gestured, indicating “please, continue.”

The guest spoke unhurriedly: “Although I haven’t mentioned my name, you all know who I am. My photograph has often been featured at the top of the rich lists, and even for the ordinarily wealthy, this million RMB private sifang¹ experience would be beyond their means.”

The host nodded, indicating that they knew exactly the man’s name and status.

The tycoon spoke again: “beautiful women, fast cars, luxury mansions—all hold little interest for me, nor do I have ostentatious hobbies, such as space travel or deep-sea exploration. My only passion is eating. I built my fortune from nothing, but right from the start, any time I had earned even a little money, I would invariably treat myself to a meal of something I had never eaten before. It’s a dilemma that, after all these years, I have exhaustively worked through the gourmet cuisines from every part of the world, and my tastes have become increasingly demanding. Recently, no matter how delicious, or how rare the delicacies I have found, none of them have been able to pique my interest. My friend told me that you serve an incredible feast here, and his mysterious avoidance of details convinced me to come and give you a try. I have yet to see anything either good or rare. These half naked girls you have serving me are as laughable a gimmick as the pure gold tableware. I am truly disappointed. I’m sure these tricks work well on the tuhao², who’ve yet to experience the real state of gourmandise, but quite honestly? Seeing these things has already killed my interest. I therefore bid you goodnight, though I assure you, I shan’t expect my one million back.” With that, the tycoon stood up and prepared to leave.

Still smiling, the host urged: “please wait a moment longer. Even if you don’t eat, there’s no harm in taking a look, is there? Aren’t you even a little curious about what’s under the cover? Perhaps a peek may convince you to change your mind?”

The tycoon pondered this, nodded, and returned to his seat: “fine, let’s see what cure you’ve got in your gourd,” and reaching out, he lifted the golden dome.

He was a seasoned connoisseur, but what he saw still left him stunned.

Presented on a wide crystal platter was an odd black helmet.

It took a good while for the tycoon to formulate any sort of action. He picked it up and carefully examined it, and, ascertaining that the helmet was in no way edible, his anger instantly flared: “what’s the meaning of this?!”

“Just as you said,” the host spoke leisurely, “having tasted all the rare and unusual delicacies of the world, what could satiate your appetite? Nothing. So, the search for anything new would be fruitless. However, if those sensations, caused by enjoying good food, from another person could be transmitted into your brain, then naturally you would be able to experience the sweetness, the richness, the aromatic taste of food, all afresh.”

The tycoon snorted: “And this helmet can do that? I’m a businessman and have seen more than my fair share of con artists, so don’t even think about trying to swindle me.”

“Well, then you should be able to see that I’m no swindler. I am, in fact, a scientist, not a chef. I can’t even cook a simple dish of fried egg and tomato. I was initially a researcher at a university, developing a long-distance project to read brain waves, but unfortunately, it failed, and the higher-ups cut my funding. However, there was a by-product from my many years of research, and it’s that helmet. That is why I opened this ‘Taste of Herz” sifang experience, hoping to raise enough funding to allow me to continue with my original research.”

“So you’re saying, that this fancy bucket can collect people’s brainwaves when they’re eating?” The tycoon’s demeanour changed to one of curiosity.

“The headset is only a transmitter; the actual mechanism behind it is in the back. It’s about two or three storeys tall. Humanity’s most basic desire is their appetite for food, and the hunt for the gourmet is the highest form of this desire, so of course it will generate the most intense of brainwaves, which can easily be recorded by the apparatus, and almost as easily transmitted to others. Put it on, and you’ll have the full sensory experience of the subject as they enjoy their food. Taste, scent, textures and temperature, pain… Everything, of course, except auditory and visual recordings so as to, technically, not invade their privacy.”

“Interesting,” mused the tycoon, now fully engrossed. “Well, let’s give it a try.”

“Wait,” said the host, “let me clarify the function. There are seven levels, categorised according to the intensity of pleasure received by this helmet. Each level allows you to experience a random signal. Think of it as blind ordering. However, with regards to the final level… being that this represents the most intense transmission of brainwaves, at the moment we cannot guarantee it would not cause damage to the brain, so please do not select that level. If anything were to happen to you, it would make international news.”

The tycoon indicated his agreement and pulled on the helmet.

“In that case, bon appetit,” the host courteously replied, before withdrawing with the female attendants.

An hour later, the tycoon rang the bell, summoning the host.

“I haven’t felt this way for a very long time!” the tycoon gushed excitedly. “It was all so delicious, so infinitely evocative!”

“Did you try every level?” asked the host.

The tycoon nodded.

“Would you mind recounting the experiences to me? So I can record it for the sake of my research?”

The tycoon closed his eyes, savoured his culinary memories, and slowly began to speak:

“The first level was very spicy, with a fresh xian³ taste and an aromatic sensation. Probably mapo doufu at some Sichuanese restaurant. Not particularly interesting, so I quickly skipped it.”

“The second level tasted rich, tender, sweet, and buttery, melting as soon as it entered the mouth. That should have been high quality Snowflake beefsteak,⁴ but for me, it’s an everyday meal, so I didn’t stay for long.”

“The third level, I experienced an exceedingly ravishing xian, smooth and tender taste, mingled with the scent of sea breeze. It was actually very familiar to me. Fruit de mer. Good quality lobster, abalone, and such.”

The host smiled and commented: “but for you, this wasn’t anything new.”

“No,” said the tycoon, “but from the fourth level onwards, it was different. That kind of pure, light, yet rich and crisp taste, with the elegance of fresh vegetables, the exquisite delicacy of young meat, and the rich aroma of mushrooms, all combined into one, yet distinguishable in layers…” as he spoke, his mouth began watering in response.

“Do you know what the dish is?”

“An excellent broth baicai,⁵” the tycoon answered without hesitation. “The taste and texture were just right, state banquet quality. I tried it once ten years ago, but the chef passed away, and I have never again tasted broth baicai made to quite the same standard again. Where did that cast come from? Can you check?”

“Of course.” The host opened their laptop, and pulled up the log. “It came from a small town in Sichuan; the precise location is—”

“Please, just send it to me after the session,” interrupted the tycoon, whose enthusiasm was still focused solidly on his dining experiences. “Let me tell you about the fifth level. That was a type of chocolate; tasted like it was from Mexico. It was more bitter than the usual chocolate, and even a bit savoury, but at the end, it became something infinitely more relishable in its nectar and fragrance. Of course, the taste itself was nothing special…but in that sweetness, there was like a kind of…joy and a jubilation that lifts the soul…I think, it must be chocolate given by a lover. It felt full of that passion. It made me think of my first wife. It’s a shame we divorced, and she left with a billion of mine.”

“But enough of this, let’s talk about level six, which was just…water! I have no idea what kind of water, but it was almost like nectar. Such a pure, bright taste. I’d never tasted anything so delicious as this water; not even the celestials’ ambrosia could be better than this! I drank it down so desperately, as if my life depended on it, but never felt like I had drunk enough…what kind of water could do that?”

“Let me check the location…” replied the host. “The location…is…an oasis in the Taklamakan Desert. It must be a desperate, dehydrated traveller who found the water source there and drank to their heart’s content.”

“Makes sense!” The tycoon slapped his thigh. “I wondered how simple water could taste so good! That sounds about right. OK, so in the seventh level—”

“Wait!” interrupted the host, flustered by this. “Did I not make it very clear that you should not access the machine’s seventh level? It’s incredibly dangerous!”

“I’m sorry,” said the tycoon, a little embarrassed, “but level six was so fiercely satisfying, and knowing the seventh must be even better, I really couldn’t resist…luckily, nothing’s happened.”

“Okay then,” the host sighed, feeling it was no use protesting further. “What did you experience, precisely?”

The tycoon savoured it, as if reliving the memory of eating in his mind, before replying: “It was a kind of roast meat, a little like roast piglet, but a hundred times more mouth-watering! Just smelling it alone made my soul tremble. I only got to taste a piece or two; it was burning hot and had a charred crunch, as though it had just been pulled out of the fire, but the sensation of putting it in my mouth… I felt like I was being consumed by fire myself, and then reborn from the ashes! Just what kind of meat is this? And where was it eaten?”

“From the coordinates…” mumbled the host, as he browsed the logs, “should be…” he gave an awkward, unfamiliar place name.

“Oh,” said the tycoon, “I know there’s a lot of rare birds and beasts there, but they’re all protected species. I’ve never had a chance to taste them so…perhaps it’s some kind of monkey or sloth? But how could it taste so good?”

The host shrugged, indicating he had no way of finding out.

“Wait, it’s been a warzone there for months. The conflict has caused a huge famine, and there’s been no way for international aid to reach them. Thousands of people starving to death… they’d probably eat anything now. Who cares about protecting animals when you’re starving? But the conflict’s been going on for over six months…so what’s there left for those people to eat now? What else…but…”

The tycoon’s face changed, his lips continued to twitch a few more times, before he bent double and was violently sick.

2. The AppetAid Service

Some years later.

“A steak meal, please,” said the youth sitting at one of the tables in a small restaurant to the welcoming orderbot, which was rolling towards him.

“Certainly, sir, and will you be requiring the AppetAide service?” the synthesised voice asked.

“Of course,” said the customer, without hesitation.

In this restaurant, a steak cost 40 RMB, whilst AppetAide, at 35 RMB, was almost as costly as a dish. However, ordering it meant that the taste could be improved severalfold, giving even an ordinary dish the taste and impact of a high-end banquet for its user, so it could be said to be well worth the cost.

“Then please choose your zuocanshi.[1]” Rows of profile pictures began scrolling across the wafer-thin screen on the orderbot’s chest, the majority of which were pretty-looking women of every body type, some as voluptuous as Concubine Yang of Tang, others as slender as Queen Zhao of Han, each beautiful in their own way. The rest were elegantly handsome or earnest-looking men.

Without even lifting his head, the youth replied straight away: “the usual please, Number 88.”

Number 88 hadn’t even been displayed, but her beautiful face was already present in the young man’s mind. For the past year, whenever possible, he would pick number 88 as his zuocanshi. In fact, he had built his whole order according to the schedule that Number 88 had announced ahead of time: when she said she was eating steak, he would pick steak, when she was eating seafood, he would pick seafood. Her lucid and elegant features, her slight but shapely figure captivated him, but more importantly, it was that tiny mouth of hers, and the incomparable taste buds it contained. Abundant, refined, and dynamic. Every meal with her was like the most splendid of symphonies, sending him head over heels, unable to extract himself from the sensations.

As the meal began, Zuocanshi88 materialised at the table holographically, as if she were facing the diner. Lifting her fork, she gave the youth a small smile, her dimples seemed to light up the whole room.

It was a shame that he wasn’t the only one Number 88 was smiling at, as today, he wasn’t the only one dining with Zuocanshi88 in the restaurant. He could clearly see a bucktoothed, acne-scarred man sitting diagonally across from him, who had also ordered steak and Number 88, and she was simultaneously flashing her brilliant smile at him.

The coincidence was unfortunate, and whilst there were probably several thousand people across the country all being serviced by Number 88’s AppetAide right now, it was unusual to meet a “fellow fan” at the same restaurant.

If he had enough money, the youth thought, he would love to buy Zuocanshi88’s exclusive services and enjoy the one-to-one dining experience, but the price for that was astronomical. Remembering his ever-emptying e-wallet, the youth reluctantly angled his head away, so he didn’t have to look at the ugly simp who still sat diagonally across from him.

“Darling, I’m all turned on and ready to go. Come on, let’s do it together!” Said 88 with a smile. With the gleaming steak knife, she deftly cut off a piece of rosy, succulent, red Matsusaka beef, medium-rare, before skewering it with her fork and placing it between her enticing cherry lips.The youth put a piece of steak into his own mouth, and began to chew. Of course, his standard flank steak that cost a mere 40RMB was coarser and tougher, and was much harder to slice, so his actions could not completely synchronise with those of his Zuocanshi. However, when he placed the steak in his mouth, the stimulation of his taste buds activated the brainwave reception functions of his neuro-implant for taste and smell, and 88’s dining sensation came flooding through the transmission.

Delicate and distinct sensations he had rarely experienced in real life flooded his mouth, such aromatic fragrances, smooth tenderness, warmth, and the xian piquancy, all came swirling around the tip of his tongue, forming a complex and beautiful vortex.

The transmission and reception of “FlavorWave” and AppetAide had been in development for over a decade, and had long attained greater commercial value than the simple sensation-stealing helmet it originated from (which was still embroiled in a slew of legal issues). No matter how fantastic the gourmet tastes the helmet allowed users to experience, they could not rely on absorbing electric brainwaves to provide them actual sustenance, and those who got used to eating ‘brainwave meals’ found everyday dishes dull, which led to problems not only with daily living, but also of survival. Therefore, many restaurants began adopting the technology, transmitting it into their customers’ brains as an accompaniment to dining through the “AppetAide,” thus improving their dining experience immensely and guaranteeing that they would enjoy the food with absolute satisfaction. As the FlavorWave augmentation service became increasingly popular with customers, it rapidly became a common service, available at exclusive restaurants and dive diners alike. With this, many related companies and organisations were formed, but Taste of Herz, the company that pioneered the technology, remained one of the biggest players in the industry.

The only pitfall was that there had yet to be any development in an apparatus for storing and replaying these brainwaves, so the whole experience relied on live-streaming. Despite this, the receptor and transmission devices had already been simplified to a microchip that could be implanted into the brain, so there was no longer the need for clumsy, heavy devices like the helmet. Along with all of this came the birth of a new profession: the AppetAide Zuocanshi.

Zuocanshi would be able to taste all the most exquisite haute cuisines, prepared by the most masterful chefs and, simultaneously, transmit their gourmet experience to diners who are only able to afford ordinary fare. Though this sounded like an enviable profession, not everyone could become a verified AppetAide partner. The oral and olfactory sensitivity required by this trade was exceptionally high, and had even become the new threshold for all professional sommeliers. To maintain the optimum conditions, the Zuocanshi’s tastebuds, mouth, olfactory receptors, and nasal cavity must be maintained to the highest of standards, with regular examinations by a doctor to ensure the best perception and optimum oral sensation during dining. Furthermore, a Zuocanshi’s presentation and appearance was also an important factor to consider. Of course, rather than brainwaves of indeterminate origin, people much preferred to share the gourmet experience with a beloved figure they could see seated in front of them, who could provide them with all kinds of other delectable associations.

Zuocanshi88 sipped the red wine and then picked up another morsel of beef, chewing carefully and slowly for a good while, her posture and deportment eternally impeccable. Such deportment was said to be the dining etiquette of the British monarchy. The youth knew that her line of work was not an easy one. It was said that, in order to produce the most vibrant of dietary experiences, Zuocanshi need to starve themselves for days beforehand, becoming so hungry they could eat a whole cow. However, in order to maintain their eating etiquette, they must dine without letting that desperation show. It was vital to avoid accidentally biting their own tongue or lips. In the early years, there was a Zuocanshi who was so starved that, in a ravenous frenzy, they almost bit their tongue clean off, transmitting that sensation of pain to countless recipients, generating wretched howls simultaneously across hundreds of cities and thousands of restaurants.

This was, of course, a mistake that Number 88 would never make. Her dining techniques were the best. It was not just the gracefulness of her posture, the delicacy of her feelings, but the fact that the food seemed to take on a magical quality as soon as it reached the tip of her tongue. Steak, sauces, asparagus, wine, even bread: the sensory quality of each was at its apex. Main, supplementary, and base notes – the jun chen zuo shi⁷ of tastes, flavours, and textures, combined and separate, creating countless amalgams of exquisite and blissful moments. The youth felt as if he was surfing on a sea of roiling waves, constantly bringing him to the climax of desire.

Suddenly, 88 slowed her chewing, letting her eyelids drop a little, displaying an expression of intoxication, as if engrossed in the incomparable flavours. There was an indescribable charm and loveliness in her expression, which, combined with the delectable steak, provided the utmost enjoyment.

But something in this scene made the young man pause. The expression on the face in front of him gave him a strong sense of déjà vu. He felt sure he had seen that exact look before. This shouldn’t be a surprise, having already “dined” with her so often over almost a year, he would have seen a similar expression from Zuocanshi88 countless times. But this manner and expression was still giving him an uncanny sense of familiarity.

Why was this?

Being in the midst of his gourmet experience, he let it pass and thought no more of it. However, as the dining continued, similar feelings rose in him, again, and again, and again.

Half an hour later, when Zuocanshi88 had completed her synchronised dining, she stood up, curtsied sweetly, and disappeared.

The youth paid the bill and wandered out of the restaurant. Number 88’s expressions and movements throughout the meal were fresh in his mind, but he repeatedly had the feeling that something was not quite right.

“Bring up the recording of my dining experience today.” Back home, the youth instructed the AI assistant on his chip to access the video. Because of his infatuation with 88, he would use a camera in his glasses to record the visuals of her AppetAide session, every time, often playing them back to savour the moment.

Yet this time, when the Zuocanshi’s enticing, smiling figure was projected before him, the youth had no capacity to enjoy it. He scrubbed forward to the moment he’d initially felt déjà vu, and then instructed his AI to “make a search through Zuocanshi88’s channel for all similar images.”

In the past year, he’d made over 270 recordings of 88, and from them, the AI found over 1500 images with similar postures. However, the youth added some more selective criteria, refining by the same outfits, same foods, and so forth.

Very quickly, that number of similar images had fallen to nineteen. The youth browsed through the first two pages before stopping on the third: one of the thumbnails was exactly the same as the scene he had just experienced at the restaurant. The placement of the food, the pose of the person, it was exactly the same. Identical down to the intricate pattern of creases in her outfit.

“Overlap the two images,” he commanded.

The AI overlapped the two images, and even though the background was different, every visual element related to Zuocanshi88 and the dish overlapped perfectly, with no point of distinguishment.

That had been an AppetAide service from four months ago.

Hoping that it was just a wild coincidence, he spent a few minutes comparing the full footage from the two experiences and found that, although the two were not exactly the same, for around one minute before and after this image, 88 made exactly the same movements. Undeniably, at least this part was a recording.

“Those bastards have cracked FlavorWave storage! What a fucking cheat, keeping it secret and still pretending it’s a live stream,” raged the youth between gritted teeth.

The clever young man quickly unravelled the ruse: if they made FlavorWave storage public knowledge, then people would want to purchase the stored experiences and enjoy their dining on their own, just using those recordings repeatedly, so how would Zuocanshis get any more business? The whole AppetAide industry had insidiously concealed the truth, remixing the same recordings to disguise them as live casting, thus lowering their costs, deceiving the public, and exploiting everyone for their own explosive profits!

Poor Zuocanshi88. Perhaps after she had made those recordings, she had already been dropped by these unscrupulous companies!

With this thought, any hesitation in the young man’s head vanished, and he began writing up his findings at a tremendous speed. Trimming up and processing the two clips, he uploaded it to every social media site he could. With the two different backgrounds and the date stamps, it was very easy to prove that the 3D recording was made at different times. The ironclad evidence was as irrefutable as the mountains.

The young man was not wanghong,⁸ so he had no net-celebrity, and for the first couple of days, his post languished, with only a few of his friends sharing it. But after all, this concerned the AppetAide network, a technology that millions of people relied on in their daily lives, so eventually, it was bound to catch someone’s attention.

After three days, the number of reposts began to snowball until, finally, it went viral across every platform.

Overnight, it received over a million reposts. The video was watched over 10 million times.

Immediately, a representative from Taste of Herz stepped forward to dispel the rumours, stating that there was absolutely no such thing, that the video was made by a malicious image manipulator, and further demanding that the rumourmongers step forward and take legal responsibility for their defamation. For a time, they even seemed to manage to quell the story.

However, the power of the masses had been activated, and soon, people across the internet began searching for their own evidence. After another day, a whole new round of similar recordings began to emerge across the internet, and the truth of the matter could no longer be denied.

Aside from the recording scenario imagined by the youth, people began hypothesising other frightening possibilities, such as these companies presenting pretty or handsome models as the “faces” of the experience, whilst transmitting the Zuocanshi experiences of crusty old men who liked to pick their feet or withered old ladies with hairy chins. This would be a hundred times worse than just pre-recorded streams.

Given the serious nature of the accusations and public sentiment growing more and more contentious, the police eventually stepped in to formally investigate the issue.

A month later, the truth came out, and what a truth! It’s said that the truth often exceeds conjecture, but that day, when the youth saw the headlines, he almost passed out.

CEO of renowned dining experience and live-casting company Taste of Herz, Dongguan Hurton, and numerous high-ranking personnel have been arrested and detained by the police. The police revealed that Taste of Herz has been exposed for illegally breeding and keeping several hundred Tugou dogs and Yorkshire Saddleback pigs and for transmitting the “FlavorWaves” generated by feeding them via the AppetAide Service to hundreds and thousands of customers around the globe, whilst simultaneously employing digital deepfake technology and A.I. tracking to generate “human” disguises for these subjects. With gustatory and olfactory senses far exceeding those of humans, the brainwaves provided by the canine Zuocanshi have proved extremely popular. This hair-raising hoax has been perpetrated over a period of at least three years. According to certain sources, many other companies have also been perpetrating similar clandestine operations …

3. The Last Meal

Some years later.

The launch event for Taste of Herz Dining Experience Group’s new product was about to begin. Already, over a million people had registered their participation online, and some important guests had been invited to the Experience Centre itself to attend it in person.

The VIPs gathered. Champagne glasses clinked.

An elderly gentlemen sat down by a middle-aged man, and when their eyes met, there was instant recognition.

“Hello…you’re that tycoon!” said the middle-aged man excitedly. “One of the earliest diners to enjoy the FlavorWave system! They say that was the time when you tasted the world’s most forbidden–”

The old tycoon laughed loudly to interrupt him. “Those are unreliable rumours, and the truth was nowhere near as sensational. But back then, when I had invested a few billion in Taste of Herz, there were all kinds of rumours about me. It was inevitable really…but, if I’m not mistaken, you’re the young kid who first exposed the Herz Live Experience scam, yes?”

“I’m more of an ‘old kid’ now,” said the erstwhile youth rather bitterly, “but I never expected that after that, things would take a path like this…”

After being exposed for the scandal of transmitting FlavorWaves from dogs, and even pigs, to humans, the entire industry imploded, taking companies large and small with it.

However, this turned out to be nothing but a temporary setback. Customers who had grown used to the enhanced sensory brainwaves of the animals and to the much sharper, more sensitive, and abundant stimulation they provided to the tongue, found that returning to the FlavorWaves of human Zuocanshi no longer satisfied their appetites. But as it’s those with courage who reach the headiest of heights, many people quickly broke through that mental block: justifying to themselves that, since we happily consumed the bodies of animals already, why not consume their experiences too?

Despite there still being waves of objections, including religious figures and thinkers, who decried “the degeneration of humanity” till they were blue in the face, a new market, providing animal FlavorWaves rose from the ashes, and with it, the almost expired Taste of Herz Group rose again like a phoenix, its business expanding further and further.

“Had you not poked a hole through that paper window, it would have taken many years to transform the market,” the old tycoon smiled. “Who’d have thought that, after the story broke of our use of animal FlavorWaves, the public would be clamouring for a whole new world of gourmet experiences. And us old taotie⁹ would be reaping the benefits!”

The younger man had to agree: “when they first used animals, they were just trying to save the costs of human labour, and so needed the eating experience to be at least comparable to that of humans for the scam to work and satisfy the customers, but after it went public, people couldn’t help but dig into the experiences of thousands of rare and unusual predators, expanding our menu enormously…that is, I should say, expanding our ‘Gourmet Sensory Spectrum.’ It’s fascinating.”

“It sounds like you’ve tried a few yourself?”

“Yes, over the last few years, I have tasted the xian of fresh grass in the mouths of cows and goats, the sweetness of bamboo leaves enjoyed by giant pandas, and the wonderful delight felt by a kitten’s first taste of fish…you must have experienced these yourself?”

“Not only these, but so much more…have you ever experienced the lion’s thrill when it digs a warthog out of the mud and cracks its skull in a single bite, so the brains explode into its mouth? Or the chewiness of a giant squid when a sperm whale dives into the depths and tears it apart? Or the interwoven icy cold and blazing heat when a polar bear on the glacier bites into a tender, young, blubbery seal pup?” The old tycoon rolled each experience off as if they were familiar delicacies.

“I have to say, I’ve never tasted those. They’re all premium experiences, reserved for the super-rich. The FlavorWaves of these rare, wild animals are hard to capture; each experience must cost a few billion at least?” The middle-aged man mused, salivating, before smacking his lips and swallowing repeatedly.

“But experiences such as these are worth any amount of money. Look, why don’t you come and see me another day, and I’ll treat you to a proper banquet!” the old tycoon suggested with largess.

“Well…then thank you. Thank you very much! But, on the subject of banquets…do you have any idea what today’s experience might be?”

“Well, it has to be some new development in animal AppetAide,” the old tycoon shrugged, “but these people, there’s nothing they haven’t already come across, so I really don’t know what this new thing this could—”

“Esteemed guests, welcome to the Taste of Herz Dining Experience New Development Press Conference Live!” The CEO of Taste of Herz appeared on stage, interrupting the tycoon.

After a short introductory speech, he finally revealed the mystery: “in today’s event, we will be introducing the world to a whole new Gourmet Sensory Experience! Initially, we could only transmit, receive, and interpret human brainwaves that were related to eating, before being able to extend this to different kinds of mammals. As for other organisms, due to the difference in their inherent biological make-up, which was far too distanced from that of humans, their brainwaves took entirely different forms. And this barrier was one we were unable to break through for a very long time. But recently, our scientists have cracked the code, and successfully interpreted the corresponding brainwaves of reptiles, in a manner where their brains could connect with those of humans. Today, the FlavorWaves that everyone will be enjoying come directly from…crocodiles!

“Crocodiles?” The middle-aged man was a little disgusted. “Those dull, dirty creatures? What could be so special about their experience? Don’t they have brains, like, the size of an egg?”

“Perhaps,” the old tycoon said, patting him on the shoulder, “but still, all life is full of wonders, and the unique flavours that animals on the hunt experience have given me many delightful culinary surprises. For instance, when I was receiving the ’waves of an anteater whose tongue was stuck deep into a nest of ants, the ants crawling all over it felt sweet and active, like a mouthful of popping candy…quite unforgettable!”

“OK. That makes me want to try it less…” The middle-aged man frowned.

But still, he activated the receive function on his implant.

Under the anticipation of thousands of people in the venue and the millions viewing online, a magnificent landscape appeared on the giant screen before them.

The scene was split into left and right sides, each side bisected between top and bottom. The top part of both sides showed what looked like sky, snowy mountains, and woods; the bottom half was a dark green world strewn with floating algae. The host informed everyone that this was the world as seen through the eyes of an 18-foot-long Nile crocodile, floating on the water. ToH workers had anesthetised the beast and implanted a FlavorWave transmitter chip into its brain. Of course, the crocodile was completely unaware of any of this.

The Nile crocodile stayed motionless in the waters for a long time. The host said it could spend the whole day waiting like this by the water’s edge, but just then, as a herd of bison appeared in the distance (driven, of course, by the staff), the Nile crocodile began to respond, at which point, the audience began to receive its FlavorWaves.

This was an exceptional feeling. Clearly it had not yet eaten anything, but there was already an intangible thrill stimulated in its mouth, like humans salivating when they look at food, imagining its taste the food before eating it—but this feeling was much fiercer than simple salivation.

This kind of aperitif thrill drove the Nile crocodile to make its move. Slowly, it swam towards the herd, coiling its body and gathering momentum to strike.

Although it had no ‘eating’ to transmit, the middle-aged man was already feeling the extraordinarily fierce excitement of the predator. It wasn’t a desire to eat, but rather the impulse to launch his entire body, wrap it around the prey, and become one with it! It surpassed even the strongest of his sexual urges.

The bison began wading through the river, and a moment later the crocodile suddenly lashed out, snapping its jaws around the leg of a young calf! With a biting force of around 5000 pounds, the bite penetrated the tough skin and tight flesh, delivering the marvellous sensation of blood doufu. That fresh warm blood flowed into its mouth, tasting sweet through the metallic tang, and like a taste bomb, exploded in the mouth of every diner!

In an instant, the middle-aged man felt as if he had become one with the crocodile, a fierce thrill transmitted to all parts of his body. He chomped the air, roared, clenched his fists, and as the crocodile performed its signature ‘death roll,’ thrashed around in his seat. He could see that the old tycoon and the other diners were making similar movements. If he were an onlooker, he might have found it comical, but in the moment, he could only marvel at it. How awesome! How stimulating! Every movement of his body was accompanied by an invigorating freshness and delicacy of taste that he had never experienced before, on an entirely different plane of eating sensations than that of humans, or any other mammal. In pleasurable and comfort it was more comparable to sex. If Zuocanshi88 had ever really existed, she would be a joke compared to this.

After a series of flips and rolls, tearing and biting, the young calf stopped struggling underwater and quickly became a mess of bloody and broken meat. The Nile crocodile dragged this back to its cavernous nest and began to enjoy its catch. Each great mouthful was unusually fresh, fatty, and satisfying, stretching out and relaxing each and every armour-like scale on its body.

The whole experience had been faithfully transmitted to every diner. In reality, the waiting staff had delivered thick slices of fresh steak, but the silverware remained untouched–that would only have ruined this extremely marvellous experience.

The crocodile’s appetite was surprisingly large, and in no time at all, the entire baby bison was in its stomach. That joy of a full stomach, followed by a deep, deep sense of satisfaction, was felt by every diner, who now felt as though that they too had eaten an entire bison. There had never before been such a fulfilling dining experience!

“I’ve never felt this way before! How could it be so….so good?” The middle-aged man struggled to find the words to describe it.

“Interesting,” said the old tycoon thoughtfully. “I think it’s because reptiles are cold-blooded animals, who are far less active than mammals. Their usual states are almost completely stationary; they expend most of their vitality in just those rare occasions of hunting, mating, or fighting for their lives. It’s precisely the lure of a wonderful meal that send their bodies into momentary explosiveness. It could be said that they devote their entire bodies, no, their entire lives, to eating! They are the world’s most profound epicures! How marvellous!”

Yet even more marvellous things were yet to come.

The next day, very little of that deep feeling of satisfaction had dissipated. The old tycoon hardly wanted to move, nor could he bring himself to eat. Unsettled by this, he enquired of the other guests, and found that they were having a similar reaction.

Discussions began across the internet. Some people started researching crocodiles, and soon discovered a terrible truth that, after eating a large meal, they could go for months, even a year, without needing to feed again! That Nile crocodile had faithfully transmitted its experiences into the press conference, so even if its FlavorWaves were no longer being received, the minds of those who attended the event were retaining the state induced by these brainwaves.

The old tycoon was shocked to find that his appetite had totally vanished, soon realising he not eaten anything for two whole days. Very quickly he began to rely on injections of nutrients to keep himself alive.

According to statistics collected shortly thereafter, among the first batch of people who participated in the experience of crocodile FlavorWaves, these symptoms had manifested themselves in as many as 85% of them.

It was a relief that this condition didn’t actually last for a whole year. After three days, appetites returned. One morning, the old tycoon woke up feeling ravenous. He leapt out of bed and, without even getting dressed, rushed to the nearest bakery stall, picked up the first ham roll he could find, and devoured it as if it were the best thing he had ever eaten. The old man breathed a sigh of relief that he seemed to be returning to health.

He had no idea that this was only the beginning.

Soon after, the old tycoon realised that he now no longer needed the stimulation of AppetAides and could enjoy even quite basic food with hearty abandon and pleasure. Every time he ate, he was consuming several times his usual fare, filling his stomach to its absolute fullest. After eating his fill, he would slip into a profound contentment and exhaustion, not wanting to move a muscle. Even his thoughts were beginning to grind to a halt. He could lie or sit like that for hours on end, his mind a total blank, not even moving a finger.

It wasn’t until a day or two after, when the food had been completely digested, that his brain resumed its basic abilities, and with the cravings of a drug addict, he would go about looking for his next meal.

He became less and less communicative, and after a month, struggled to even string a whole sentence together.

In other words, like several other million people, he had started to live the life of a crocodile.

Soon, all the attendees were taken into hospitals, but there was nothing that the doctors could do.

Later, medical research discovered that the Nile crocodile’s FlavorWaves had activated a dormant reptilian cortex deep within the human brain, causing an appetite that had been suppressed by centuries of evolution to awaken, fundamentally—and permanently—altering the body’s functioning.

Although Taste of Herz had performed a minimal number of experiments previously, to test the technology they had used the more common Chinese alligator and certain species of fish, the side effects from which were naturally not as strong. When they had just begun the clinical trials of the Nile crocodile, Taste of Herz discovered that their competitors were about the announce similar dietary experiences, and so pressed ahead with the launch before tests were completed, resulting in this tragedy that brought disaster upon millions of people.

As for the old tycoon and the man who broke the story? They did not feel miserable. After losing most of their human thoughts and behaviours, they could at long last live in the eternal world of the epicurean, and focus on becoming one with their beloved food, without any other distractions.

Perhaps, then, this is the most profound meaning of the gourmet: I eat, therefore I am.

NOTES

Sifang – traditionally sifang cai are the most exclusive of dining experiences. The dishes are served in private mansions. They are not open to the public, nor advertised, nor is there a menu. They are cooked by the host themselves from secret recipes passed down through the family for generations.
Tuhao – a derogatory term meaning “earth rich,” referring to the nouveau riche from China’s rural areas.
Xian – Chinese term for umami.
Snowflake beef is a premium category of wagyu beef.
Broth baicai – kaishui bacai, an haute cuisine of Sichuan and one of its greatest classic dishes, created by an imperial chef named Huang Jingjin, consisting of Chinese leaf vegetables skilfully cooked in chicken or pork bone broth supplemented by pieces of tender meat.
Zuocanshi – “master appetite enhancer.” In Chinese cuisine, a zuocan dish is traditionally a food or drink accompaniment, such as a sauce, a dish of pickles, or wine, that supplements the main dish and improves its taste and the diner’s appetite.
Jun chen zuo shi – “ruler, minister, aide, envoy,” originally meaning those that govern the country. They also represent the principles for TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) prescriptions, the “ruler” herbs being the ones that nourish vitality, the “minister” and “aide” components doing most of the treating, supplemented by the “envoy” herbs. Here, the idiom is extended to oral sensations.
Wanghong: social media influencers
Taotie – the terms means “ravenous gluttony” and refers to a mythical beast, one of the Four Fiends, that is cursed with an all-consuming hunger.

Baoshu, science fiction author, translator, member of the China Science Fiction Literature Association, and scholar of the China Berggruen Institute. His well-known works include novels such as The Thinking Verse and The Ruins of Times. He has published over one million words in multiple novellas. He has won major categories in the Chinese Galaxy and Nebula Awards, and many of his works have been translated into English, Japanese, Italian, German and other languages. He has also been editor-in-chief of collections such as Chinese History in Science Fiction. His translations include The Cold Equations and the Star Maker. This short story was originally published as a Galaxy’s Edge exclusive.

Xueting C. Ni was born in Guangzhou, during China’s re-opening to the West. Having spent a childhood living in cities across China, she emigrated with her family to Britain, where she continued to be immersed in Chinese culture, alongside her British education, realising ultimately that this gave her a unique a cultural perspective in bridging her Eastern and Western experiences. After graduating in English Literature from the University of London, she began a career in the publishing industry, whilst creating works of non-fiction and literary translations. Since 2010, Xueting has written extensively on China’s cultures and its place in the Western consciousness, working with companies, institutions and festivals, to help improve understanding of China’s heritage and innovations, and introduce its wonders to new audiences. Xueting has contributed to the BBC, Tordotcom and the Confucius Institute. Her non-fiction works include From Kuanyin to Chairman Mao: An Essential Guide to Chinese Deities (Weiser Books), Chinese Myths (Amber Books). Her curated fiction in translation includes Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction (Solaris) and Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror. Xueting is currently working on a range of projects, including a book on wuxia culture. She lives just outside London with her partner and their cats, all of whom are learning Mandarin.

SFRA Awards Presented at the 2024 “Transitions” Conference at The University of Tartu

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 54 no. 4

From the SFRA Executive Committee

download

SFRA Awards Presented at the 2024 “Transitions” Conference at The University of Tartu

SFRA Awards Presented at the 2024 “Transitions” Conference at The University of Tartu

Student Paper Award
The Student Paper Award is presented to the outstanding scholarly essay read at the annual conference of the SFRA by a student.

The winner of the 2024 award is Vicky Brewster for their paper “Simulated Worlds and Digital Disruptions: Gothic Glitch in The Tenth Girl”

Mary Kay Bray Award
The Mary Kay Bray Award is given for the best review to appear in the SFRA Review in a given year.

This year’s awardee is David Welch for his “Review of Hades” (SFRA Review 53.1)

SFRA Book Award
The SFRA Book Award is given to the author of the best first scholarly monograph in SF, in each calendar year.

This year’s winner is Mingwei Song, for Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction

Thomas D. Clareson Award
The Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service is presented for outstanding service activities-promotion of SF teaching and study, editing, reviewing, editorial writing, publishing, organizing meetings, mentoring, and leadership in SF/fantasy organizations.

This year’s awardee is Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock.

SFRA Innovative Research Award
The SFRA Innovative Research Award (formerly the Pioneer Award) is given to the writer or writers of the best critical essay-length work of the year.

This year’s awardee is Rebekah Sheldon for her essay, “Generativity without reserve: Sterility apocalypses and the enclosure of life-itself,” published in Science Fiction Film and Television 16.3 (2023).

SFRA Award for Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship
Originally the Pilgrim Award, the SFRA Award for Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship was created in 1970 by the SFRA to honor lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship. The award was first named for J. O. Bailey’s pioneering book, Pilgrims through Space and Time and altered in 2019. This year’s awardee is Lisa Yaszek.

AWARD COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

Student Paper Award, outgoing chair: Kania Greer

Out of this year’s strong field, the committee has selected Vicky Brewster’s “Simulated Worlds and Digital Disruptions: Gothic Glitch in The Tenth Girl” as the winner. The paper offered a sophisticated argument for the incorporation of technology into gothic horror. We were particularly excited about their focus on multiple disciplines including media studies and game studies within the horror genre. The paper brings the classic gothic horror genre together with a modern twist of “a malfunction of digital equipment” leaving the reader with “a sense of unease”. Brewster’s paper firmly plants the glitch into the Gothic. The committee would like to congratulate Brewster on this inspired piece and look forward to seeing more of their scholarship in the future.

Mary Kay Bray Award, outgoing chair: Zeeshan Siddique

With meticulous detail and a discerning critical acumen, David Welch’s review of Hades makes this classics-based video game from Supergiant Games a must-play for audiences. His review captures the game’s various ludo narratological qualities: game design, replayability, and mythological overtones, particularly as embedded within its art direction, music, vocal performances, and writing. Welch’s appreciation for literary and digital craftsmanship alike makes this review especially striking. Moreover, his analysis tackles the popularity of Hades as it relates to classical reception studies and the game’s use of Greek myth. David Welch is worthy of the 2023 Mary Kay Bray Award for such a productive and insightful analysis

Book Award, chair: Chris Pak

This year, we saw an increase from the last in the number of titles that we received, which I take to be an indication that the post-Covid publishing recovery is well on its way. This year’s candidates included a good number of monographs that address sf from around the world. Alongside titles on print sf, film and TV, I was pleased to see a good number of studies focussed on gaming and comics. Utopian scholarship was well-represented, as were studies about climate sf. It was challenging to narrow down on a winner, and I’d just like to thank our two committee members, Sean Guynes and Karen Hellekson, for the impressive work that they committed to throughout the year.

But settle on a winner we did. The committee selected one monograph that represented a major and worthwhile contribution to the field. This work impressed us with its theorisation of an emergent poetics of sf, its timeliness, and its ability to communicate the excitement that comes with expanding our awareness about something utterly important to the future of the field. As one committee member commented, ‘at a time when Chinese science fiction is ascendent in the global sf marketplace, this comes as a welcome study for understanding the political, social, and literary nature of the twenty-first century’s “new wave” of Chinese sf.’

A quote from the book’s prologue imagines Chinese sf as a ‘mysterious weapon’ that’s excavated by an awed future generation: it reads, ‘SF itself, like what it depicts, is the wonder invisible now and here, staying outside the continuum of the perceivable reality’ (8). This year’s SFRA Book Award winner is Mingwei Song, for his monograph Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction.

Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service, outgoing chair: Jonathan P. Lewis

This year the committee recognizes Jeffrey Weinstock of Central Michigan University for his work on the gothic, horror, weird fiction, and particularly conceptions of the monstrous in American culture.

Weinstock received his Ph.D. from George Washington University and joined Central Michigan in 2001; he has since served as horror editor at The Los Angeles Review of Books and has authored and edited more than twenty-five books on the monstrous including works on ghosts and vampires, chief among them Spectral America: Phantoms and the American Imagination (2004), Scare Tactics: Supernatural Fiction by American Women (2008), and The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema (2012) which won the 2013 International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Lord Ruthven Assembly Award for Best Nonfiction Title.

Additionally, Dr. Weinstock’s interest in pedagogy includes editing such publications as The Pedagogical Wallpaper: Teaching Charlotte Perkins Gilman‘s “The Yellow Wall-paper” (2003), The Monster Theory Reader, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition (both 2020) and co-editing with Anthony Magistrale Approaches to Teaching Poe’s Prose and Poetry (2009). Notable publications include work on the films of Tim Burton and M. Night Shyamalan, gothic music traditions, and Critical Approaches to Welcome to Night Vale: Podcasting Between Weather and the Void (2018). His interests and publications are often focused on how the monstrous, weird, and otherwise “different” inform our senses of what can and cannot transgress conceptions of what is “normal” and “American” building on the work of such theorists as Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Lacan among others.

One of Jeffries colleagues writes that although Jeffrey has long been involved with the IAFA (especially when he worked as reviews editor for JFA), my closest association with him has been since he stepped in as the associate editor for all things related to horror and the gothic for the speculative fiction team of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Since he joined our team, he has tirelessly worked to curate reviews from brilliant scholars writing about a richly diverse array of horror novels with special attention to authors from underrepresented communities. He’s thoughtful, professional, and a joy to work with — and he’s a truly excellent editor!

Thinking back further, it was also truly special when he helped us bring Jeffrey Jerome Cohen to ICFA as a guest of honor. Cohen and Weinstock are monster scholars of the highest caliber

While another writes, that given the volume of work published under this name, it would be entirely understandable if Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock was, in fact, a pen name for a small but fiercely productive cabal of talented academics. Alas, Jeffrey is one person and the breadth of his knowledge combined with an enviable ease with which he communicates his ideas are absolutely stunning. From vampires and Lovecraft to cult films and Goth music to podcasts and Twin Peaks, he has written it all in the ways which are both illuminating and highly original. There are really few other scholars who have contributed more to the scholarship on the fantastic across genres and media. And he shows no signs of slowing down.

The Clareson Award Committee takes great pleasure in presenting this award to the 2024 winner, Jeffery Weinstock.

Innovative Research Award, chair: John Rieder

First of all, I want to thank my fellow committee members, Hugh O’Connell and Sumeyra Buran, for their hard work reading, evaluating, and judging the many excellent essays nominated for this award. And I want to thank everyone who nominated an essay for their participation in the process. Without that participation this award could not happen. Also I want to emphasize the high quality of the essays overall, and acknowledge the work of the editors of some of the remarkable collections that contained the nominated work. During our discussion, we wished we had a separate prize for them.

We all agreed, however, that one essay stood out from all the rest as deserving this yearʻs Innovative Research Award, Rebekah Sheldon’s “Generativity Without Reserve: Sterility Apocalypses and the Enclosure of Life-itself.”

“Generativity Without Reserve” explores the fantasy behind depictions of sterility in science fiction film and television, focusing on Blade Runner 2049, Orphan Black, and Children of Men. It positions climate change and the extractive logic of racial biocapitalism within an emergent biopolitics of reproduction that seeks to enclose the living labor of the body, not just at the level of the cell or tissue but at the source of generativity itself, figured in these texts as sexual reproduction.

For an essay that is conceptually dense and steeped in complex theory, “Generativity Without Reserve” is not only admirably clear, but truly engaging to read. It is marked by a conversational tone that takes the reader through a series of intellectually deepening twists and turns. Sheldon starts by posing a series of questions about an important speech in the central text, Blade Runner 2049, makes clear why the speech elicits those questions and why the questions matter, and works her way to an answer by a series of readings in which a wealth of theoretical insight is allowed to emerge. These readings combine the economics of biopolitical production, the history of chattel slavery, the figure of miraculous birth, and the genre of the sterility apocalypse, all of which are put to work unravelling the implications of the matrix of religious, agricultural, and colonial tropes in that key speech in Blade Runner 2049. Sheldon’s readings elucidate the way the sterility apocalypse repetitively offers a fantastic solution—which she names the enclosure of reproduction—to the impossible problem posed by capitalism’s reliance on natural increase. The myriad twists and turns—we could even say, the plot twists—of Sheldon’s readings are therefore excellent examples of working one’s way through the hermeneutic circle, shuttling between an understanding of a whole text, or in this case, a whole genre, by analysis of its parts, and the dependency of an understanding of the parts on grasping the significance of the whole.

Sheldon’s essay keeps reaching beyond, resisting each theoretical or narrative closure that it seemingly arrives at. Rather than culminations, such endings are really generative conditions of new problems, as the essay itself suggests. In this sense, what begins as an approach to a common contemporary sf narrative – the sterility apocalypse –ultimately pushes the theory in new directions, revealing surprising connections between capitalist enclosures, sterility, “miraculous” generativity, and the inexorable drive towards commodification. The result is the best kind of cultural criticism, in which the theory and the texts simultaneously transform each other, pushing us toward what Fredric Jameson calls a new problematic, “not a set of propositions about reality, but a set of categories in terms of which reality is analyzed and interrogated.” Rather than an essay to simply be read and digested for its point, it is an essay to think with and through, one that is innovative – and generative – for sf studies, feminist science studies, and critical theory alike.

Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship, outgoing chair: Veronica Hollinger

It is our pleasure and privilege to present the 2024 Award for Lifetime Contributions to Science Fiction Scholarship to Lisa Yaszek, Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech—and a past president of the SFRA. Dr. Yaszek’s research engages a flexible breadth of subject areas with rigorous critical depth and an acute capacity to make connections. Her recent work has contributed to the ongoing development of Afrofuturist theory and criticism; at the same time she has maintained the incisive focus on women, feminism, and gender of her earlier projects.

Lisa has long been invested in the reclamation and celebration of early sf by women writers. In 2005 she won the SFRA Innovative Research Award for her essay “The Women History Doesn’t See: Recovering Midcentury Women’s SF as a Literature of Social Critique.” Her work since has ranged from the eye-opening analysis of her critical monograph, Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction (2008), to her 2016 co-edited (with Patrick Sharp) volume of stories by early women writers, Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction, to her more recent work as editor of two volumes of sf stories by women published by the Library of America: The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin (2018) and The Future Is Female! Vol. 2: The 1970s: More Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women (2022). Galactic Suburbia encouraged us to revise our ideas about the kinds of sf women were writing before the feminist explosion of the 1970s. The Future is Female volumes present us with first-hand proof of the quality and diversity of women’s sf from the pulp era through the 1970s.

Lisa is also co-editor—with Sonja Fritzsche, Keren Omry, and WG Pearson—of the impressively wide-ranging Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction, which was published last year. Her own contributions to this project—apart from the non-stop work that such a project entails for all concerned—include both the historical introduction that opens the collection and the introduction to the section on theoretical approaches.

Lisa has brought eight books and edited volumes into being, and she has published numerous journal articles and book chapters. Her recent collection Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century, co-edited with Isiah Lavender III, is aimed at “imagining futures in full color” (to quote the great title of their introduction). Lisa’s shorter writings range across diverse topics and appear in top-tier journals, bleeding-edge platforms, and in sf reference resources both within and outside of the academic community.

As we recognize Lisa today for her significant contributions to science fiction scholarship, we want to emphasize the dynamic reach of that scholarship into the future. Not surprisingly, Lisa has won awards for her pedagogy (as well as for her service to the profession). Her writing, teaching, and mentoring consistently engage pedagogy, often explicitly. Her inquiries and breakthroughs come bundled with resources for larger collective projects and objectives. Please join us in applauding Dr. Lisa Yaszek for her innovative and influential contributions to the crucial multi-discipline of science fiction.

Awardee Statements:

SFRA Book Award: Mingwei Song

I feel honored and humbled by this award. I am most grateful to the selection committee for choosing my book from so many excellent volumes of scholarly work in the field of science fiction studies. I consider this award not only an acknowledge of my own research, but a recognition of the emerging subfield in Chinese science fiction studies, which has been created by not just me, but all of us, including many colleagues who have made a collective effort to study, promote, and theorize what is new in the genre’s current revival in China and the larger Chinese-speaking world. I feel grateful to the association for recognizing Chinese science fiction’s importance in the field.

Fear of Seeing is a book that I spent more than a decade to write. I was fortunate enough to witness the new wave Chinese SF’s breakthrough in 2010, and my book traces the origin and development of the genre in the context of China’s long twentieth century all the way to its sudden rise in the second decade of the twenty-first century. In this book, I do not only study the thematic and political components of the genre, but try my best to theorize the unique aesthetics created by authors such as Liu Cixin, Han Song and others. I summarize this aesthetics as the poetics of the invisible, which is profoundly relevant to China’s political and cultural context, because the genre makes it possible for some writers to catch the deeper truth that is hided or forbidden by the fabric of a reality produced by mass media and propaganda machine. I admire the courageous pioneers of the new wave who dare to look into the abysmal darkness that is otherwise unspeakable in literature fiction that more or less follows the rules of mimesis. Science fiction, on the other hand, is literarily metafictional by its design of world-building as well as philosophically subversive with its other-worldly speculation. From here, I aspire to take Chinese science fiction as a method to engage the lofty ideas associated with modernity, dismantling dualist thinking and creating thought-provoking holes and folds in the otherwise smooth surface of the fabricated “reality.” In a word, it inspires people to think beyond what is allowed and ready-made. In China, it is a method for resisting the limitations of walls, metaphorically and ideologically.

At the same time, I also try not to read Chinese science fiction only from the political perspective. Liu Cixin and Han Song both illuminate aspects of China’s hideous politics. But I do see in these writers a poetic heart, which, in Liu Cixin’s case, counterbalances the dark forest mind-set that resonates with contemporary political thinking among some Chinese intellectuals, and in Han Song’s case, inspires a wishful transcendence over the endless repetitions of catastrophic events that have happened again and again, like karmic retribution imposed to the entire nation. As Liu Cixin says in his postscript to the English version of The Three-Body Problem, he writes about the worst possible universe, but he also keeps alive the best possible hope for a better world. In current political situation, that hope is not easy to interpret, but I do not think it’s only serving a political interest, but more related to an immensely unsettling imagination that shatters the ground of everything that we are taught to take for granted.

I spent long enough time to write this book, so I finished it during the recent pandemic. By that time, I was able to recognize a newer generation of Chinese and Sinophone science fiction writers, who have, in my mind, made a second breakthrough for the genre by finding a new path toward a nonbinary universe. For these writers, mostly female, the world that was built by theories and systems, such as Cartesian dualism and the Hegelian dialectics, which defined human race’s modern experience, has neared its collapse. For these new authors, mostly still in their twenties and thirties, they are looking beyond the horizon of the monstrous history of the twentieth century. They are imagining new wonders of a nonbinary world that is based on undifferentiated difference. I feel particularly lucky that I could conclude my book at a moment when this new hope emerges, a hope that Liu Cixin and Han Song’s generations were mostly alien to, but so natural for the younger people who lived upon and recognized the ruins of modernity, the failure of ideological wars, and the disasters human have made toward all living creatures on our planet. They are the first generation growing up with planetary consciousness, and to them, the world has unfolded again and showed its unbound newness, like it did to the travelers who first brought stories about strange lands and imaginary creatures back home, in ancient Egypt, Sinhdu, Greece and Rome, Arabia, Maya, Polynesian islands, and the East Asian world. This new generation, like their American, European, and African counterparts, are making history by imagining differently. I hope there will be more attention paid to this generation—those young women and nonbinary writers living in China, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora. Fear of Seeing has become a less dark book because of them.

Thank you.

Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service: Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

To the members of the SFRA: I’m deeply honored to receive this award and sorry that I cannot be with you in person to receive it and participate in the conference.

When Hugh O’Connell emailed me the news about the Clareson award, I was so stunned that I must have sat open-mouthed and teary-eyed for several minutes in front of the computer screen—because the news started me thinking:

As academics, we’re an unruly lot. With a nod toward Monty Python, I’m tempted to say that we’re all non-conformists here. But there is one other thing that we share aside from an independent streak: We are, all of us, on some level, masochists.

We apply for jobs, for fellowships, for postdocs, for grants, for tenure, for promotion, for various awards and recognitions. We submit conference proposals, book proposals, journal articles, and book manuscripts—and then wait, sometimes for many months, for a verdict and often anonymous feedback.

When I was in college, a group of friends had what they called their “wall of shame” where they posted rejection letters resulting from job and graduate school applications—and I think to myself today that I could wallpaper my house with the number of “Thank you but I’m sorry to report…” letters I’ve received over the years.

But that’s not all. Not only are we forced to contend with the dreaded “reviewer #2,” but we must navigate diminishing institutional resources and declining public support for the humanities at the same time, constantly defending the value of what we do and fighting for every cent. Not to mention “student opinion surveys” completed by students we don’t recognize because they haven’t attended all semester and online yelp-like evaluation sites offering venues for anyone with an ax to grind to opine on our teaching.

And let’s not get started on all the uncompensated labor we are expected to perform!

University life certainly has its pleasures—we are in many ways lucky people in that we get to think about and engage deeply with subject matter we find stimulating and important; however, it is often solitary work and the forces aligned against us can seem formidable.

And this is why I was so incredibly moved to get Hugh’s email about this service award from the SFRA. To be recognized by one’s peers means to be part of a community of “like-minded non-conformists.” And it means that one’s efforts have been noticed and valued. I am glad to have had the chance to promote so many deserving books and to shepherd so much excellent scholarship into print—editorial work has been a significant part of my life for a long time. Your recognition here tonight is both humbling and immensely gratifying and takes center stage on my small but important “wall of praise.” Thank you!

Innovative Research Award: Rebekah Sheldon

Thank you, John, and thanks to the SFRA for this surprising but very welcome recognition. As a belated addendum to my first book, this essay was very much the product of conversations with the science fiction studies community – in the reception at the 2018 SFRA where I delivered it as one of the keynote talks, in sharing drafts with Sherryl Vint, David Wittenberg, David Higgins, and other dear friends, and in the helpful comments from the editorial board and reviewers at SFFTV. And here I want to thank Gerry Canavan in particular. I had more or less abandoned the essay as unpublishable after an unhelpful review from a non-SF journals until Gerry nudged me to maybe give it a chance where it belonged to begin with.

Thinking about the way this essay developed and found its path to publication, I am struck by the generosity of our community, the thoughtfulness we show to each other, our ecumenical approach to modes of scholarship, and what I want to call our disdain for (or even constitutional insensitivity to) the kinds of prestige politics that could make something like an award feel different than it does here. In the past, I have been guilty of joking, only semi-humorously, about how we compensate for our history of marginalization by creating ever more conferences, societies, journals, anthologies, and readers. (Seriously, so many.) In some ways, of course, this is just us being enthusiasts, in line with the more encompassing history of SF fandom, the same delightful nerdery and sincere affection that makes a 19-hour trip seem worth it so that we can spend a couple days together. Recently, however, this tendency of ours has appeared differently to me. In light of the mounting obstructions put in the way of our work by the collusion of neoliberal administrators and extremist politicians in the US, I have begun to think of the service work we do as a species of worldbuilding: conferences generate a shared space; anthologies give us a past; journals, a future; awards, a collective memory. Academic infrastructure as communizing. And as things get harder in our professional situations, for those few of us who have professional situations in the university, I want to call on us all to think even more directly about how we might support each other so we can keep doing the work that supports the worlds that support the careful cultivation of our continued kinships. And not just reactively. I want to take seriously the monastic roots of university life and borrow from other models — from convents and communes to guilds and workmen’s halls – that might help us to imagine how to maintain these worlds, if not after the end of the university, then after our own time in it is over.

Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship: Lisa Yaszek

Thank you for the SFRA Award for Lifetime Contributions to SF Scholarship (henceforth the LCSFS Award); this really means a lot to me. Some of the people I admire most are past winners of this award. To be recognized alongside the authors and scholars who created science fiction studies is an incredible honor. Of course, I didn’t get here alone.

First, I want to specifically thank the previous LCSFS award winners who have made my work as a feminist science fiction scholar and editor possible. My parents were big fans of New Wave science fiction and our bookshelves were stuffed with the novels of LCSFS award winners Joanna Russ, Samuel Delany, and Ursula K. Le Guin—so much so that it was quite a surprise to me when I got older and realized that science fiction was not all written by women and people of color! These authors wrote stories big enough for my imagination and later, when I started reading their nonfiction, they gave me a vocabulary big enough to explain why I was drawn to such stories. Even so, I spent half a decade in graduate school wandering through the postmodern wilderness and only came back to science fiction when I read the work of LCSFS award winners Frederic Jameson and Donna Haraway, both of whom speak passionately and eloquently about science fiction artists as the premiere storytellers of technoscientific modernity. Later, as an aspiring historian and editor of women’s science fiction, I was inspired by LCSFS award winner Pamela Sargent’s Women of Wonder series, and as a young science fiction studies professor I was thrilled to develop a friendship with LCSFS award winner Marleen Barr, whose groundbreaking Future Females! anthologiesintroduced me to feminist science fiction studies. Marleen, once upon a time you told me that someday I’d be giving my own acceptance speech for what we used to call the Pilgrim Award; I was awed by your faith in me then and I’m still blown away right now by the fact that you were right.

Next, I want to recognize my wonderful colleagues at Georgia Tech! I accepted my postdoc in School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Tech in 1999 because I was excited to be part of a school had not one, but two science fiction scholars: feminist technoscience expert Ann Balsamo and early SFRA member Irving “Bud” Foote. At that point I was writing about science fiction, but largely from the perspective of postmodernism. It had never even occurred to me that science fiction studies was its own discipline and that you could do it full time! When I got to Tech, I learned that Bud had retired and Ann had moved on to an IBM think tank, but I am eternally grateful that both generously took time away from their new life adventures to teach me the ways of the SF scholar, and in 2000 I delightedly accepted one of the tenure-line positions left open by their departure. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to work with LMC school chairs Ken Knoespel, Jay Telotte, Richard Utz, and Kelly Ritter, all of whom have been truly committed to fostering science fiction studies at Georgia Tech; with my dear friend Kathy Goonan, our first science fiction professor of the practice at Tech; and with my sisters of tomorrow Amanda Weiss, Ida Yoshinaga, and Susana Morris; together we are building an exciting interdisciplinary science fiction community at Tech and, if I dare say it, keeping the future fabulously female. The other great thing about doing science fiction research at Tech is that it really is a cross-campus labor of love; to that end I want to thank Georgia Tech librarians Mathew Frizzell, Catherine Manci, and Alison Reynolds for managing the speculative fiction resources and events that are essential to our work; IAC communications officer Mike Pearson for always being the first to spread the good word about our community; and all the brilliant students who have helped carry out research projects in the Sci Fi Lab while preparing to become the next generation of science fiction creators and scholars themselves; I am excited to have two of them, Max Mateer and Killian Vetter, with us today. Finally, want to shout out to my dear LMC colleagues Narin Hassan and Aaron Santesso who are also here with us today; they are not science fiction studies people themselves, but most excellent friends and sci-fi-curious allies.

The only place where I feel perhaps an even greater sense of community is in the SFRA itself. In short, you are the best colleagues ever! What other academic group embraces its artists, editors, scholars, and fans with equal passion? Where else can you hold serious debates about the post capitalist values of hope punk while learning risqué filk songs from legendary science fiction artists? What other scholarly organization would have the audacity to co-host a major public event with a “kilt formal” dress code? Where else will you ever have the pleasure of drinking wine and debating science fiction theory in a public fountain at 5 am, even though you know you’ll only have an hour or two to sleep it off before you and all your pals are back in the front row of that 8:30 am panel you absolutely don’t want to miss? Where else can you co-host discussions between scholars and artists that result in award-winning publications for both? In my experience? Nowhere else. There is nothing quite like the SFRA. In fact, when I was pulling together my notes for this speech, I realized that every co-edited project I’ve ever worked on involves members of our community. So, let me express particular appreciation for Karen Hellekson, Craig Jacobson, Patrick Sharp, Sonja Fritzsche, Keren Omry, WG Pearson; Sherryl Vint; and of course, my brother from another mother, Isiah Lavender III. I’ve learned so much from all of you and I hope that shows in my own work.

Finally, I want to thank my husband and SFRA colleague Doug Davis. Doug and I started our personal and professional lives together in 2003, when we married and attended our first SFRA conference together in a span of two months. It’s particularly cool to win this award today, because it’s actually our 21st wedding anniversary. I can’t wait to see where the next 21 years takes the two of us—and where it takes the SFRA as a whole.

Thanks again to all of you.

From the Vice President

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 54 no. 4

From the SFRA Executive Committee

download

From the Vice President

Ida Yoshinaga

Dear members, colleagues, and friends:

Dear science-fiction studies colleagues,

As a lifelong feminist and supporter of gender equality, I’m excited about 2025’s annual meeting, which Dr. Stefanie Dunning of The Susan B. Anthony Institute (The Program for Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies), and her team at the University of Rochester, are co-sponsoring from July 30-Aug. 3.

With the bold theme, “‘Trans People are (in) the Future’: Queer and Trans Futurity in Science Fiction,” Dr. Dunning and The Susan B. Anthony Institute’s conference organizing committee are tackling frightening national and global trends towards fascism, as well as celebrating queer, especially trans, contributions to speculative arts and narrative.

We are thrilled by their courage and political vision which parallels those of organizers of the GATE Global Trans Conference, Columbia U’s Trans Disruptions, Moving Trans History Forward, The Watson Conference, QT Con (A Queer and Trans Conference), and other gatherings which reveal the organizing power of this diverse community while facing unimaginable legislative and institutional violence.

You can still submit a proposal in time for the November 15 deadline (to SFRARochester@gmail.com)

SFRA 2025 Conference

As you know, this is the first SFRA in several years to be held stateside, and the Executive Committee is in conversation to not only cohost another meeting in the continental US for our 2026 gathering, but also to expand our global meetings to new regional venues beyond Europe (while keeping with our hybrid format so as to remain accessible to scholars, researchers, artists, librarians, students, and teachers in a range of economic situations). We will notify you of these arrangements once confirmed.

In the meanwhile, does your institution have the resources to host an annual SFRA conference or even a one-off event? What might that conference/event look like—we would again like to encourage members to think outside of the box in how the organization might evolve going forward to recruit and retain members and creating academic events. For example: If you feel that one of the main purposes of an academic-professional group is networking, then might we consider putting on regular events, semi-formally structured, to offer that opportunity? [I am thinking of the Society for Media and Cinema Studies’ annual December online meetings held by its various Special Interest Groups and Caucuses.] This need has been expressed by junior faculty and early-career researchers in recent years.

Also, what does it mean that, with several European meetings in the past years, we are now more international than ever? How to build on these regional membership gains in our growing, collective knowledge of speculative/fantastic fiction—the conscientious, artful deployment of which feels so critical at this point in world history? Let us know, as we expand the core Executive Committee and newer roles and responsibilities for its members.

Please don’t hesitate to contact SFRA President Hugh O’Connell, me, or any member of the EC with your ideas. I will remain your Veep through the end of 2025, after 3 years of service, but hope to help the organization long after.

From the President

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 54 no. 4

From the SFRA Executive Committee

download

From the President

Hugh O’Connell

As we head into the late fall, this is just a reminder that the SFRA website goes into hibernation mode, and we shut down new memberships and membership renewals until January 1^st. However, while the site goes into hibernation, much of the organization’s work kicks into high gear: committees will be starting up work to consider the best student presentation at the last conference; most innovative essay, best review in the SFRA Review, and best first sf-related monograph published in the last year; and lifetime awards for service to the field and to research for this year’s conference awards banquet. There’s also plenty of behind the scenes planning for the upcoming conference and talks with potential hosts for future conferences. So, while we may a little quiet in terms of communications with the membership, we are all working away on the things that keep us running!

Speaking of keeping us running, we also have elections coming up we have for the Vice President and Treasurer. You can see their statements in this issue or on the website. Voting will open on December 1^st and close on December 30^th (members in good standing will receive a reminder email when the voting officially opens). Finally in related news, I’m very excited to announce that we have a new Web Director: David Shipko. So we’re almost back up to full operational status!

Upcoming Events:

Looking ahead, the 2025 conference in Rochester, New York hosted organized by Stefanie Dunning and Hosted by the Susan B. Anthony Institute: The Program for Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies is shaping up to be a fantastic return to North America for the SFRA. It’s hard to believe that the last conference in North America was in 2019 (Hawai’i) and the last conference in the continental US was 2018 (Milwaukee). Stefanie is planning some pretty unique events for this conference, including a student sf film competition focused on the conference theme, a keynote by Ryka Aoki and another exciting keynote that we’ll hopefully be able to announce soon, a student sf short film contest, and a masquerade/costume/LARP ball for the penultimate night of the conference. So plan for a pretty unique conference as we return stateside for the first time in five years! On a similar note, the Executive Committee will soon start work on organizing the SFRA-sponsored early career and DEI panels; please feel free to contact us with any suggestions for things that you’d like to see in these panels. Looking even further ahead, we’re hoping to be in the US for 2026 as well (we’ve had productive conversations with 2026 hosts), and to return to a more stable three year cycle of two North American conferences followed by a non-North American conference.

Finally, if you have an event that you’d like to bring to rest of the SFRA membership’s attention through its email lists or social media sites, or you have other ideas or concerns about the work the organization is doing, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at hugh.oconnell@umb.edu or our new(ish) Outreach Officer, Anastasia Klimchynskaya (anaklimchynskaya@gmail.com). We’d love to hear from you.

Fall 2024

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 54 no. 4

From the SFRA Review

download

Fall 2024

Ian Campbell

Living in the USA right now feels like the backstory to an SF novel, where in less than a week, some mad scientist is going to pull the quantum lever that sends different versions of each of us off into two different universes, one with a decent and hard-working government that at least attempts to do something to bring us closer to a equitable and inclusive future—though in fact it won’t likely be all that equitable—marked by technological innovation and at least an attempt to mitigate the great Jackpot of climate change, and another future that has concentration camps.

What I never would have thought in all my years reading SF as a child and young adult is that something close to half of Americans want to live in the future with concentration camps.

Many people fear modernity, whether because they’re used to privilege so equality feels like oppression, or whether they’re constitutionally anxious and have a hard time dealing with change. Many people look at the increasingly clear signs of climate change and become reactionaries not out of hatred but out of wishful thinking: maybe they could pull their own quantum lever and go back in time to where it wasn’t quite so hot and loud and fast. In America at least, power has been maintained by the gentry since colonial times by telling downscale white people that no matter how much of their money gets funneled to the gentry, they’ll still have people who don’t count as human to kick down on.

Just imagine the SF novel written about this: some ambiguously hot Special Circumstances agent and her wisecracking drone companion standing there agog, when a white man who misses the days of segregated lunch counters explains that they don’t mind poverty and abjection so long as they get to be gleeful about others’ having it worse.

We don’t have that in this issue of the Review, but we do have a really interesting look at feminized robots and our usual spread of nonfiction, fiction and media reviews. Enjoy them all, while I and half of my compatriots sit around wringing our hands waiting to find out which way that quantum lever sends us. I’m really hoping it’s the future where I don’t get more fake special privilege for being a white guy. Write me at icampbell@gsu.edu.

Comics and/or Graphic Novels

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 54, no. 4

Non-Fiction Reviews

download

Review of Comics and/or Graphic Novels

Dominick Grace

Vittorio Frigerio, ed. Comics and/or Graphic Novels. Paradoxa 32. Paradoxa, 2021. Paperback. 338 pg. $48.00. 9781929512447.

Paradoxa number 32 focuseson Comics and/or Graphic Novels as the issue title announces. Editor Vittorio Frigerio brings together an eclectic collection of essays with an international focus. Indeed a key strength of this collection is that it continues the encouraging trend of bringing scholarly attention to regions and traditions that have hitherto been largely ignored (most notably here in Zak Waipara’s consideration of Indigenous comics from New Zealand). The pieces are consistently interesting and often provide valuable connection across national lines. For instance, Carlo Gubitosa considers comics journalism in American, Italian and French contexts, and Justin Wadlow provides insight into the unlikely connections between American artist Craig Thompson and French artist Edmund Baudoin. Spanish-language comics, however, receive special attention, in often enlightening ways. For instance, I was completely unaware that R. F. Outcault’s Buster Brown had been appropriated/pastiched as the basis of a Brazilian strip, Aventuras de Chiquinho. Marcia Esteves Agostinho discusses this strip, probably not widely-known outside of Brazil, in terms of its depiction of racial relations in Brazil.

Like this one, the articles here are consistently fascinating. However, they are for the most part of little interest to scholars of literature of the fantastic. Only one article, Felipe Gómez ‘s “Will it be possible? Apocalypse and Resistance in Latin American Graphic Novels,” focuses on a science fictional topic. Frigerio also interviews Guiseppe Palumbo, who has worked on genre strips such as Diabolik. In addition, he reviews Gébés’ post-apocalyptic Letter to Survivors. There is, therefore, some content that pertains to the interests of SFRA Review subscribers, but not enough, I think, to justify purchase of this whole collection. The Paradoxa website does allow purchase of individual chapters for $10.00 (https://paradoxa.com/no-32-comics/), so those interested might economically check out the relevant material. Comics scholars, however, will very likely find this a worthwhile book to possess.

Dominick Grace is the Nonfiction Reviews Editor for SFRA Review.

Transparent Minds in Science Fiction: An Introduction to Accounts of Alien, AI and Post-Human Consciousness

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 54, no. 4

Non-Fiction Reviews

download

Review of Transparent Minds in Science Fiction: An Introduction to Accounts of Alien, AI and Post-Human Consciousness

Ane B. Ruiz-Lejarcegui

Paul Matthews. Transparent Minds in Science Fiction: An Introduction to Accounts of Alien, AI and Post-Human Consciousness. Open Book, 2023. Paperback. 144 pg. $23.95. ISBN 9781805110460.

Paul Matthews’ Transparent Minds in Science Fiction, as its title aptly suggests,delves into nonhuman consciousness representation in science fiction (sf), addressing its potential to explore what cognitive science shows us about consciousness through models of cognition particular to subjectivities which vastly differ from that of humans.

In a clear nod to Dorrit Cohn’s narratological work on fictional consciousness representation, Transparent Minds (1978), Matthews cleverly engages with previous literature pertaining to the area of research known as cognitive literary studies. While there are discrepancies regarding the official name for the field, as there is no unification among scholars, cognitive literary studies seems to be the broadest term which encompasses the research done by Matthews and the authors he mentions, i.e., that of the integration of cognitive science with literary disciplines, Matthews also engages other fields of expertise such as neuroscience and cognitive science,. to illustrate a fully-fledged and interdisciplinary image of what constitutes a consciousness, both in our empirical reality and in its fictional counterpart. In doing so, this monograph attempts to fill a research gap in a field which has predominantly limited itself to analysing non-speculative literature of the Anglocentric and Eurocentric canon. Thus, Matthews takes on the task of compiling examples of depictions of nonhuman consciousness spanning more than a hundred years of sf literary production. From foundational texts by Shelley, Lem, and McCaffrey to the more recent and likewise acclaimed additions of Jemisin, Ishiguro, and Leckie, to name but a few, Matthews thoroughly illustrates how extremely unfamiliar modes of perceiving and experiencing the world have been conceptualised.

From the beginning, Matthews endeavours to defend the potential of literature as a whole, and sf in particular, as a tool to engage in a rich imaginative exercise: firstly, as a means through which to conceive scientifically accurate and innovative cognitive models which subvert preestablished anthropocentric sf tropes regarding the nonhuman; and, secondly, through the formation and interpretation of metaphorical networks and systems of meaning brought about by our own cognitive system when interacting with fiction. As a result, Matthews emphasises the collaborative nature of meaning-creation, claiming that it consists of “author intention, reader understanding and mediation through the norms of the genre” (105). Hence, while stressing the role of authorial intent, this monograph deeply resonates with Reception Theory principles, as stated by Iser’s phenomenological account, whereby a literary work is created through the reader’s participation of filling in “gaps” or “blanks” in the text (6).

Chapter 2 is devoted to authors’ motivations for choosing nonhuman characters as the focus of their fiction, as well as the specific symbology and narrative techniques used to guarantee an adequate text-reader interaction, i.e., to avoid alienating the reader, such as merging alienness with animal iconography. Here, Matthews seems to greatly value authors’ scientific knowledge in fields such as neuroscience and biology, as he deems the plausibility of the nonhuman to be vital to merge the familiar and unfamiliar, particularly in the cases of potential future sentience, such as human-made A.I. and extended or enhanced consciousness.

In chapter 3, Matthews thoroughly explains the process of consciousness emergence, that is, the starting point of sentience, as posited by several neuroscientific, biological, philosophical, and psychological approaches. In perhaps the most theoretical chapter of the monograph, Matthews conscientiously takes the reader through an exhaustive yet accessible explanation of the different hypotheses delineating the so-called ‘awakening’ of sentience, from the development of senses and perception of oneself as different from the rest, to the identification of a goal and, with it, the motivation to accomplish it and obtain agency.

He then moves on to provide literary examples of non-human sentience which depict (parts of) these processes, dividing the next three chapters according to specific consciousness features: the individual mind, including terrestrial and alien non-human sentience, human-made A.I. and the extended human; the collective hive and distributed minds; and, lastly, the posthuman. In these chapters, Matthews presents a wide array of case studies to illustrate how the umwelt of a consciousness is shaped by sensory, cognitive, and emotional-motivational aspects of the self’s embodiment, and how there is an interplay of familiar and unfamiliar narrative elements to balance the psychological distance between reader and character. Matthews also pays close attention to the power dynamics involved in self-definition when the consciousness is collective, seen mostly as unequal manipulation or, sometimes, as an egalitarian gestalt relationship.

In his explanation of posthuman consciousness, however, one finds a slight inconsistency, as the definition of extended humans and the enhanced posthumans, in chapters 4 and 6 respectively, seem to overlap, making their classification as separate contradictory. One of the greatest achievements of the text is arguably the non-anthropocentric undertone of the research which aligns itself with posthumanist sensibilities. This can be seen in Matthews’ understanding of both experience and the act of reading as embodied and embedded, his conception of the possible and valid nonhuman umwelt(s), and the absence of anthropocentric and imperialist interpretations of nonhumans mainly found before ‘new wave’ sf, in favour of what he, perhaps rather vaguely, names “fine examples” of other-than-human consciousness representation (11). Therefore, the definition of enhanced posthumans only as transcended consciousness seems at odds with Matthews’ knowledge of posthumanism, as it indicates an inclination towards the ‘posthuman’ definition endorsed by transhumanists, that of a further step in humanity’s evolutionary history. This is even implied by the title of chapter 6, “Supercedure,”—the act of replacing the old and inferior with the new and superior, in other words, embracing transcendence, whereas critical posthumanism holds that posthuman consciousness can exist without transcendence.

Although the monograph does, in earnest, accomplish its goal, providing an extensive account of non-human consciousness representation in sf, certain in-depth linguistic and literary analyses seem to be lacking, which would have added to its mostly descriptive and expository nature. Additionally, the phenomenological approaches mentioned before could have benefitted from Caracciolo’s concept of “consciousness-enactment,” which shares Matthews’ reader-response tenets but to a different, non-materialist degree, understanding fictional consciousness not as an object to be represented, but rather experienced and enacted by the reader when engaging with literature (43).

Transparent Minds in Science Fiction delivers a highly accessible introduction to non-human sentience in the genre, with particular interest for literary scholars willing to embark on an interdisciplinary study of fictional consciousness and seeking a succinct overview of empirical studies on human and animal consciousness. Similarly, the opposite is likewise valid, as scholars in cognitive science may find the exposition of nonhuman characters here useful for a literary application of their research. All in all, I’d conclude that its case study of the unfamiliar nonhuman provides valuable insight into how our cognitive system works, particularly when engaging in acts of imagination.

WORKS CITED

Caracciolo, Marco. “Fictional Consciousnesses: A Reader’s Manual.” Style, vol. 46, no. 1, 2012, pp. 42-65. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.46.1.42.

Ane B. Ruiz-Lejarcegui is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature and Literary Studies from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain, and a member of the research group REWEST: Research in Western American Literature and Culture. In 2022, she was awarded a competitive grant by the Basque Government to carry out her thesis on hybrid identity-construction and power asymmetries in contemporary American space opera. Her research interests also include critical posthumanism, cognitive narratology, critical discourse analysis and, as the focus of her previous research, H.G. Wells and Victorian science fiction.