Author: sfrarev

Symposium: Utopia and Dystopia in Turkish SF Literature

Interview with Selim Erdogan

Emre Bozkuş

Selim Erdoğan is the author of the novel Kurbağa Adası – Bir İstanbul Distopyası. The book was published in 2019 as part of the Pangea series by Ithaki Publishing. The novel presents a dystopian fiction set in a future after the great Istanbul earthquake. It deals with themes such as the effects of global warming, migration, demographic change, infrastructure disasters and social collapse. In this work, Selim Erdoğan draws attention with his minimalist narration of current issues in a gripping dystopian universe. Author Emre Bozkuş conducted a book interview on Selim Erdoğan’s dystopian novel Kurbağa Adası.

EB: In Kurbağa Adası, entropy is not merely a physical breakdown. It resembles the quiet unraveling of relationships, language, and solidarity itself.

SE: If you’re asking whether the book mirrors some kind of personal detachment from the world, I wouldn’t put it like that. Let’s say it was quietly there, like background noise you only notice once it stops. I was surrounded by the same slow disintegration. The place I lived in was coming apart: economically, socially, and morally. Social bonds were thinning, shared truths were disappearing, and migration was redrawing the lines of identity and geography. Naturally, this wasn’t unique to Turkey. That soon became clear. Conflicts between major powers intensified. The world continued to heat up, both in temperature and tension. Istanbul was part of it. In the book, the island is actually the European side of the city. One could sever it with a line drawn from the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea, just west of the city. A canal, at least officially. But it’s a metaphor, really. Perhaps the whole planet is now an island, and we are the ones lighting the match.

EB: Unlike most dystopian fiction, Istanbul in your novel feels like a living character. It breathes, remembers, and reacts. Do you believe cities eventually develop their own form of awareness, or was asking this question a literary need for you?

SE: Absolutely. Anyone who travels enough knows that every city has a temperament. Some are calm, others anxious. Some move in chaos, others run with mechanical order. A city can feel impatient, kind, grotesque, ruthless, pretentious, or dignified. Istanbul is like ancient nobility buried under weight it can no longer carry. Despite millions treading on its surface, it hasn’t completely lost its allure. In the book, Istanbul has already surrendered. It lies dismembered, inexorably collapsing piece by piece.

EB: In your novel, the family no longer feels like a shelter. It seems more like a space where helplessness is shared. Under dystopian strain, is it still possible to hold on to the idea of family, or does it dissolve along with everything else?

SE: The nuclear family is under stress. That’s evident. Statistics show that nearly half of all marriages end. The kind of marriage we know may not have a future. Or maybe it is simply changing form. If we understand dystopia as extreme social pressure, not just authoritarian surveillance, then we can ask how families respond. There is no single answer. Some collapse. Some grow closer. In Kurbağa Adası, the family is caught in between. The mother displays a stronger instinct to protect, especially when it comes to the child. She demands safety immediately. The father might fall behind. Tension builds. Sometimes this leads to separation. Returning to your question, when disintegration becomes the norm, people tend to cling to whatever structure still stands. That might be religion, ideology, or the family itself. Institutions, regardless of their nature, offer shape against disorder.

EB: Silence, heat, and thirst. Throughout the book, there is a threat that remains unseen yet constantly felt. What did you rely on while writing this invisible force? Sometimes silence can be more exhausting than screaming.

SE: I drew from what surrounds us today. That scattered and insidious form of violence, precisely because it is invisible, was what I leaned on. In the novel, that is the villain. But this villain doesn’t come with a face or a name. It appears suddenly through a dust storm, a sinkhole, an unbearable heatwave, or the sluggish flow of suffocating traffic. This presence is stronger than any antagonist we’re familiar with. It’s so vast that it exists everywhere at once. It doesn’t choose. It doesn’t aim. It simply exists. Sprawling, mindless, and ever growing. It is not evil by design. In fact, it lacks any design at all. It is the illegitimate child of the human struggle with nature and with itself. What emerged was a shapeless monstrosity. A clumsy giant. It has no pulse to silence, no will to reason with. You can’t destroy what never asked to exist in the first place. And above all, it is not imaginary. It is real.

EB: There’s a strong sense of “waiting” in the story. What wears the characters down isn’t the disaster itself, but the creeping feeling that it’s on its way. The atmosphere amplifies this tension—crafted with the kind of sparse fatalism we recognize in McCarthy, and a touch of Vonnegut’s absurd irony. Were there any works, films, or moments in your life that shaped these suspended instants in time?

SE: I do appreciate those writers. And yes, their work, along with others, may have influenced me. But I believe that in order to create emotional intensity, one doesn’t need to bombard the reader with explicit imagery. In fact, such approaches often reduce impact. Take the first Alien film for example. The creature barely appears, yet the dread it evokes lingers far more deeply than in later CGI-heavy films. The narrow, airless corridors of the Nostromo were more disturbing than the alien itself. But beyond cinematic references, what truly fed the tone was the world outside. When I read a report about dam levels, and realize they may never rise above ten percent again, or when even a mild earthquake halts traffic and breaks communication, I can’t help but think of Istanbul turning into a trap for millions. It only takes one event to close the lid.

EB: Nature in this novel is not just a backdrop. It seems to have a will of its own. Would you call Kurbağa Adası an eco-dystopian lament, or is it more of a belated warning?

SE: Kurbağa Adası is an allegory of a city, perhaps a world, where small-scale disasters occur almost daily. In that sense, it has the tone of a lament. But at the same time, it offers a highly plausible scenario, based on the continuation of an existing disorder. Or rather, a world gnawing at its own roots. Without pause, without conscience. If that continues, the scale of disaster grows with it. It’s not just grief speaking in the book. There’s also a sober estimation of consequences.

EB: In Turkish literature, science fiction is still often associated either with technical curiosity or adolescent excitement. With Kurbağa Adası, were you intentionally trying to break this perception, or did the story simply lead you there?

SE: Changing perceptions was never my aim, nor something I believe I could do. And yes, science fiction is seen that way here. But readers play a role in this as well. I’ve seen reactions saying the plot in Kurbağa Adası moves at a glacial pace. Some even thought that very little actually happens or that the story lacks a strong narrative arc. Those who approached it as conventional science fiction might have been disappointed. I don’t write with a specific genre in mind. I don’t start with the idea that this will be science fiction or dystopia. Categorization is done later by publishers, bookstores, and eventually, readers. Some books clearly belong to a genre. Agatha Christie, for instance, wrote pure detective fiction. A book like Kurbağa Adası, on the other hand, can easily be misunderstood when forced into a category.

EB: In the novel, trust seems almost completely eroded. As readers, we cannot fully hold on to any character. Was this sense of isolation a conscious choice, or a reality seeping in from the world we live in?

SE: When I was writing the book, the file was named Entropy. Of course, I wasn’t going to keep that name. This isn’t a physics manual. But the story shaped itself around that idea. Entropy refers to the inevitable increase in disorder within a closed system. Even the energy you use to restore order contributes to the overall chaos. Although a scientific term, I believe it applies socially as well. Kurbağa Adası presents a city, and in a sense a world, unraveling on every level. Infrastructure, social order, architecture, and demographics are all coming apart. Disasters can briefly bring people together. We saw this during earthquakes. But if the disaster is not regional, if it spreads into every corner of life and refuses to let go, alliances start to weaken.Principles fade. Beliefs dissolve. Hope disappears. What remains is the most basic instinct. Survival.

EB: Your novel isn’t a classic dystopia. There is no villain, no intense action. The tension builds gradually. Was this feeling of suffocation intentional? Does slowness function as an element of suspense for you?

SE: Yes, but not only slowness. A broken air conditioner. A customer service line that never responds. A pool covered in moss. Dust sticking to the windows. These are all forms of pressure. As I said earlier, the antagonist is not an evil force. It is the weight we leave behind. The marks we carve into one another and into the environment.
It lumbers forward. Not out of malice, but because nothing halts a world already collapsing under its own weight. Even its slightest movement is enough to create discomfort. You do not need to be chased. The threat is already present.

EB: While writing this novel, did you ever think: What if all traces of the future were already left behind in the past?

SE: I did. Almost everything suggested in Kurbağa Adası already exists today in some form. I simply asked what might happen if the same tendencies continue. Climate-driven migrations. Demographic changes triggering tension. Heat-related deaths in urban areas. Fragmenting social fabric. The rise of cults and extremist ideologies. Survival technologies. Private land acquisitions in supposedly safe regions. All of this already hums beneath our cities. Barely hidden. If the Kanal İstanbul project were actually realized, it would only be the final touch in a reality that has already reached its boiling point.

Selim Erdoğan was born in 1970 in İzmit. A graduate of Ankara University’s Faculty of Political Sciences, he spent many years working in both public and private institutions within the capital markets. Over time, his professional background gave way to a deeper engagement with literature, where he began crafting narratives that blend social critique with imaginative depth. His literary debut came with Denizatı Vadisi, published by NotaBene in 2012. This was followed by İkibinseksendört, Gofer Ağacı and Trinidad’ın Dönüşü, each expanding his voice across themes of memory, estrangement and quiet resistance. With Kurbağa Adası Bir İstanbul Distopyası, published by İthaki in 2019, Erdoğan envisioned a haunting future version of Istanbul. The novel was awarded the 2022 FABİSAD Gio Award for Best Novel. He later continued his collaboration with İthaki through the novels Sabotaj Anadolu’da Hazin Bir Komplo Öyküsü and Derin Merhamet, which further explored speculative narratives grounded in local history and political anxiety. His short fiction appears in science fiction anthologies such as Yeryüzü Müzesi and İlk, published by İthaki, and Arz Cephesi’nde Yeni Bir Şey Yok, released by Fihrist. In addition to fiction, he has written essays and commentary for Bilimkurgu Kulübü. In 2023, he served on the jury for the FABİSAD Gio Awards in the Best Short Story Collection category.

Emre Bozkuş was born in 1995 in Bakırköy, İstanbul. He studied Turkish Language and Literature at Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University. He began writing in 2014 through blogging and gradually turned to fiction and essays. His stories and articles have appeared in platforms and journals such as Bilimkurgu Kulübü, AçıkBeyin, Düşünbil, Kayıp Rıhtım and Lacivert Öykü ve Şiir Dergisi. He has also contributed to several short story anthologies. He works as an editor for Bilimkurgu Kulübü and Orm Fantastik, and is part of the editorial team at Roket Bilimkurgu Dergi. His essay collection Ay Kızılıydı Gece was published in 2022. His science fiction series for children, Uzaylı Pizzacı, recently began with its first book Kayıp Çoraplar Savaşı, published by Pamey Publishing. He continues to explore the boundaries of storytelling, working at the intersection of literature, imagination and editorial vision.

Environmental Disaster and Postapocalyptic Fiction in Gülayşe Koçak’s Ecodystopia: Siyah Koku

Symposium: Utopia and Dystopia in Turkish SF Literature

Environmental Disaster and Postapocalyptic Fiction in Gülayşe Koçak’s Ecodystopia: Siyah Koku

Meltem Dağcı
Translated by Eyşan Çolak

Artistic works that aim to promote sustainable living in natural way while warming people against threats and environmental destruction are particularly noteworthy. Through visual or literary means, these works not only raise awareness but also encourage people to take preventive action. The role of literature in addressing environmental issues has become increasingly significant. In science fiction, subgenres such as dystopia and postapocalyptic fiction portray pessimistic scenarios, dark aspects, and potential disasters, while also serving as pioneers of a conscious environmental movement. In this context, the role of science fiction in literature has gained growing importance in highlighting environmental crises.

In science fiction literature, ecodystopia has emerged as a response to supernatural events such as environmental pollution, waste, and natural disasters. In recent years, it has begun to appear across all forms of cultural texts. Literary works that combine ecocritical approaches and ecodystopian narratives with postapocalyptic fiction have also found their place in literary discourse. Thus, it aims to contribute to transforming environmental awareness into a non-anthropocentric social consciousness through the art of science fiction, encouraging humanity to abandon its flawed way of thinking inherited from the past- one that interprets the external world solely based on its own interests and perceptions- and to develop lasting solutions to environment problems. This is significant because postapocalyptic fiction demonstrates how the world can deteriorate when humanity ignores warnings related to environmental factors and becomes completely isolated from the outside world. In postapocalyptic fiction, dystopian themes of nature are frequently encountered. Ecodystopia and postapocalyptic fiction can be viewed as interconnected through a cause-and-effect relationship. Every situation involving the human-nature dichotomy that results in negative outcomes inherently contains a harmful cause that affects the green environment. Therefore, postapocalyptic fiction often presents us with the image of a consumed environment and a consuming human.

This article aims to conduct a text focused analysis of Siyah Koku by Gülayşe Koçak- known within Turkish science literature for its ecodystopian and postapocalyptic element- in terms of its relevance to the existing literature. In Siyah Koku, natural resources have been depleted, water consumption per person is rationed, and organ donation is mandated by law without regard for age. In a world where even “souls” have become plasticized, people are only able to continue their daily lives through the use of calming drugs dispersed into the air via massive “sprayers.” With the use of these drugs, a future dominated by obedient citizens comes to prevail. The work in question will be examined within the framework of science fiction and literature, focusing on its postapocalyptic atmosphere and dystopian narrative that explores the potential consequences of environmental destruction.

The Relationship Between Ecodystopia and Postapocalyptic Fiction

In science fiction literature, ecodystopia- one of the subgenres of dystopia- depicts a fictional world that conveys future environmental concerns, warnings, and dangers through dystopian elements. While emphasizing ecological awareness, it also contains utopian aspects within its own narrative structure. One of the key features that distinguishes ecodystopia from other subgenres of speculative fiction is its direct emphasis on environmental concerns and its use of dystopian and postapocalyptic elements to reveal the consequences of ecological collapse. Marco Malvestio (2022) defines ecodystopia as a “hybrid genre” that combines the “catastrophic narrative of the postapocalyptic with the speculative foresight of dystopia” (Malvestio 26-28). In this regard, ecodystopias critique the societies they emerge from through an “ecological perspective” and depict to their readers “worlds in which natural life has either disappeared, is on the verge of extinction, or has undergone terrifying transformations causing humanity to suffer as a result.” (Aksu-2) The bleak future visions in these narratives, in which the relationship between humans and nature is irreparably damaged, intersects with the discourse of the “post-nature” era. The concept of “post-nature” introduced by American environmentalist writer and journalist Bill Mckibben, suggest that due to the destructive impact of human activities-such as ecological disasters, exploitative industrial practices, and pollution-the world as we once knew it has transformed into a post-nature world. In this sense, “nature has now given way to the post-natural” (Şensoy 33).

While technology is a central focus in dystopian fiction, the opposite is often seen in postapocalyptic scenarios. In such settings, technology is broken down, technological devices malfunction, consumerism comes to an end, and consumption is portrayed as a force that has transformed both environments and human beings. As a result, in postapocalyptic fiction, we encounter a world where the final point reached through technology evokes a simulated atmosphere.

The Earth hosts all kinds of living beings and offers them various alternative ways of life. At the same time, important steps must be taken to ensure the sustainability of life and the healthy and efficient renewal of the resources consumed by humans. One of the key steps is to establish a balanced ratio in response to the growing human population. This is because a universe in which resources are consumed in direct relation to increasing population rates may point to the core problems underlying dystopia. The rise in the human race, combined with individual ambitions and the advanced use of technology, may lead to actions that could ultimately bring about the end of the universe.

Novel Structure

Siyah Koku consists of 35 chapters and 621 pages. This study uses the first edition of the novel, published in 2021 by Everest Publishing. Focusing on the life of the protagonist Mine Özbizden, Siyah Koku presents the world and people around her through her perspective. The central focus of the novel is Mine’s relationship with Tuncay, as it is through this romantic connection that she becomes aware of the “plastic world” she inhabits. Tuncay—who at times reminds her of her grandfather or occasionally her brother—acts as the catalyst in her journey of self-discovery. In the novel, where Mine Özbizden’s struggle for individuality and selfhood is portrayed, the narrative features a depiction of a dystopian world. The state of the world is revealed through the lens of Mine’s personal experiences.

In the novel, natural resources have dried up, the ecological system has begun to deteriorate, and water consumption is strictly rationed—everyone uses Sukretcard to access Pırıltemiz water. It is known that everything has become plasticized and artificial, and that organ donation has been legalized and made mandatory. People inhale a tranquilizer called Dosilin in every environment. Individuals are categorized as Us, the Other, or those who return from being the Other, and there is an ongoing war between the Bizistan soldiers and the mountain men. Pills such as the tea pill, forgetting pill, sleeping pill, no-smell pill, and happiness pill are commonly used. In a country where MutluTV is watched constantly, we witness the strange and complicated love between Tuncay and Mine, along with the unfolding ecological disasters, the climate crisis, and an entirely artificial atmosphere.

Ecodystopian Motifs in the Novel: Scent and Giant Sprayers

According to McKibben, as a result of the environmental disasters caused by humans inhabiting the planet, it has become difficult to find an untouched or pristine natural area anywhere on Earth. “By altering the air, we have made every point on the surface human-made and artificial”. Nature has lost its ability to transform independently and exist on its own terms. McKibben argues that it is hardly possible to claim that anything remains other than a damaged and deteriorated environment (McKibben 50). The disruption of the Earth’s ecosystem—through the increase in natural disasters, abrupt shifts in weather patterns, and the abnormalization of climatic conditions—has led to a state in which “no clear distinction can be made between the human and the non-human realms” (Wapner 37). Building on this, ecodystopian fictional texts propose the possibility of an atmosphere in which it is either difficult or entirely impossible to distinguish what still belongs to nature, and what a life devoid of nature might look like.

In Siyah Koku by Gülayşe Koçak, one of the most striking examples of the ecodystopia genre in contemporary literature, ecological collapse and its consequences, social unrest, the erosion of biodiversity, and the rise of oppressive and controlling powers are all addressed. In this dark world, water’s taste and sound have turned into a melancholic legend; social rage and human emotions are kept in check by tranquilizers sprayed into the streets; discrimination, cruelty, and apathy have become normalized; culture and language are nearly extinct; and even the human body has been transformed into a source of global profit under state control. The novel traces the footprints of dystopian motifs lurking in the shadows of this bleak reality.

The novel reflects the globalized climate crisis and its consequences. One of the major issues depicted is the desertification of habitable areas and the scarcity of water sources due to extreme heat. Another problem arising from the depletion of water resources is the onset of the World Water War. As a result of this global conflict, water has ceased to be considered an infinite resource, prompting the implementation of protective policies. Chief among these are preventative measures like limiting consumption to “a few drops of water.” In addition to various nutritional pills, citizens receive their daily water rations via Sukredi or Sukret cards (Koçak 63).

Humans perceive their environment through five primary senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. These sensory inputs are essential for their connection to and survival in the world. However, not all senses carry the same weight in daily life. While sight and hearing tend to dominate everyday experiences, the sense of smell holds a unique status—it is the first to develop in humans and is directly registered in the brain. From the moment of birth, individuals are exposed to countless scents, which are stored in the brain’s olfactory memory. In the novel, the imagery associated with the sense of smell—one of the five senses—is conveyed through the scent of flowers and the distinctive odor of the sprayer, encapsulated in the notion of the “black scent” (siyah koku). Flowers are now plastic, and their scents, too, are artificial.

As soon as I heard the words rose scent, I felt nauseated. Admittedly, though there are still a few scattered gardens where one might come across a living flower, I must have grown quite distant from the real thing. Now, when I hear ‘rose scent,’ what comes to mind isn’t the smell of an actual rose, or even rosewater, but rather the plasticky odor of those so-called artificial roses sprayed with synthetic rose essence. (Koçak 76)

Rising temperatures and carbon emissions, disrupted seasonal balances, extreme droughts, melting glaciers, declining oxygen levels in seas and oceans, among many other factors, are destroying animals’ natural habitats. Food sources are depleting. While some species lose the battle for survival, the balance among the remaining ones is disrupted. This imbalance affects all living and non-living elements of the ecosystem. The extinction of a single species can destabilize the entire ecosystem. In the novel’s narrative, endangered or extinct species primarily include animals, especially birds. Due to the effects of global warming, it no longer even snows:

Constantly migrating in search of water, large families—children, grandparents, entire households—see each other as competitors. It’s as if the entire country’s population has abandoned their homes; spilling onto the roads in drought and perhaps in hope of leaving something else behind, caught in a perpetual motion, an ongoing flight. Perhaps what they flee is not just the lack of water as a drink. Could the drought that envelops every aspect of life—relationships, love, cultural life, aesthetic feelings, our humanity—be the consequence of water scarcity as the source of life? (Koçak 112)

Siyah Koku can be read through the lens of the climate crisis’s harmful effects on the ecosystem and humanity, with a continued focus on the human experience. As ecological destruction escalates, nature can no longer fulfill even the most basic human needs. It can be said that this adverse trajectory of nature also causes fluctuations in people’s mental and emotional states. “Could the drought that envelops every aspect of life—relationships, love, cultural life, aesthetic sensibility, and our humanity—be the consequence of water scarcity as the source of life?” (Koçak 112)

Mine’s grandfather takes care to nourish her with “real” food and “real” water to protect her from becoming “plastic.” His advice to always remember water reflects an ecological awareness.

The deadly radioactive rays of the Sun, especially during the periods when there was no atmosphere, were blocked by the oceans and seas formed in the early days of the Earth. Even today, radioactive rays practically cannot penetrate below 200 meters of the sea surface. The fact that life began on the ocean floors leads us to consider a connection between the protective nature of water and the origin of life. For all these reasons, and perhaps more, water is extremely important for life as we know it. We say that without water, life on Earth likely would not have begun, since all known living organisms depend on water molecules in one way or another. (Bakırcı 2018, para. 12)

Could it be that water has become the last stronghold not only for cleansing our bodies but also for purifying our hearts and souls? They invented dozens, even hundreds, of cleaning products that do not require water, yet strangely, people no longer feel the need to be clean… They can increase the dosage of Dosilin they spray on us as much as they want—just as people have grown bitter with water’s absence, they too have become bitter, surrendered, and given up… Life has grown bitter… (Koçak 123)

In Bizistan, giant sprayers constantly spray antidepressants over the people on the streets, and various narcotic pills are delivered free of charge to every home. The public has become accustomed to these tranquilizing drugs. People, habituated to the antidepressant and calming scent permeating the air, have forgotten how to feel and transformed into robotic or “plastic” individuals exhibiting uniform reactions. According to Marcuse, capitalist societies suppress human emotions, turning people into passive beings who think in a standardized way (Marcuse 11).

They even installed sprayers at the bus station; we stood right beneath one. Coming from outside the city, Dosilin didn’t smell calming at all; it was like an outright assault on the nose. The rhythmic hiss from the sprayer evoked the feeling that the city was surrounded by monsters breathing deeply. (Koçak 70)

The constant spraying of tranquilizers on people, the vitamins and thirst-quenching additives mixed into water or synthetic foods, are all imposed by the state without individual consent. Many chemicals, such as happiness pills and drugs that erase memories and traumas, are distributed free of charge and marketed to people through the media. According to Adorno, the media acts as a chemical that shows people ways to escape reality; by presenting its content as a “convenient and simple” happiness pill, it constructs social suffering as an invisible structure (Adorno 93).

But some news I got from the media really confused me: many articles have been published marking the second anniversary of the government’s organ harvesting and exporting policy. In our crisis-ridden world, where everything revolves around short-term survival and making money, our Bizistan has become the world’s number one source of organs. Within five years, everyone over the age of 20 will have donated at least one organ. (Koçak 436)

Thus, as a state policy, people become manipulable both physically and mentally. This total control of the individual by power, encompassing all aspects of life, is a defining characteristic of dystopian literature.

The Bodily Resources Act

Factors such as the Earth’s limited resources and environmental problems indirectly encourage humanity—and by extension, states—to pursue various illegal paths with the aid of science and technology. Authoritarian totalitarian governments experimenting with unlawful methods are a common theme in dystopian fiction. State institutions serving oligarchic structures impose practices that harm both health and the life cycle on the populace through coercive power.

Foucault emphasizes that power does not merely supervise individuals in society but transforms into a structure that regulates and controls their life processes—especially biological processes such as health, the body, and fertility. In this context, state institutions perceive themselves as having the authority to intervene directly in people’s lives ostensibly for their benefit (Foucault 105-108). In the novel’s narrative, where even water resources are restricted and sprayers are mentioned, people’s health is hardly a concern of the state. In an environment where decisions are made unilaterally by the government, certain illegal projects, laws, and practices that assert the state’s power are imposed on the people as mandatory conditions. In dystopian fiction, the human body is disregarded and human health is neglected. A law is enacted over people’s bodies.

The National Minister of Bodily Resources explains at length—with statistics and graphs—how the annual income generated from eyes taken through BK (Bodily Resources) procedures increases steadily every month and how it raises our social welfare: ‘BK surgeries are a project of love, a project of turning into life,’ he says, emphasizing his words. (Koçak 456)

It can be inferred that the government enacted the Bodily Resources Act to generate revenue and made organ donation mandatory regardless of age. Although organ donations are portrayed as a sustainable environmental practice, the dystopia reveals a strikingly harsh and realistic aspect of this reality.

In Siyah Koku, the Bodily Resources Act and the right to life granted through organ donation fall short of protecting the physical and biological integrity of the individual. The fundamental purpose of the right to life is to safeguard human existence. However, in the novel, the protection and respect for the right to life have ceased to be among the core responsibilities of the state. Under an oppressive regime, it is hardly possible to speak of respect for human health.

The assistant appeared; he had one eye. At the time, this did not surprise me because the Bodily Resources Act had just been enacted and was not yet implemented nationwide… At that time, there was no obligation to wear a patch over the blinded eyes; the state had not yet decreed, ‘All blind eyes must be covered!’ in order to prevent the disgrace caused by the law from being so openly visible. (Koçak 62-63)

In the last century, as a result of natural disasters and devastating catastrophes linked to climate change, various environmentally conscious and solution-oriented efforts have emerged. The concept of a sustainable environment appears as a green ecological movement aimed at raising awareness about environmental issues such as global warming, water scarcity, and the climate crisis. Since the biology of nature is also disrupted by climate crises, it is difficult to assert that ecosystems remain suitable for healthy life under normal circumstances. Considering the human–nature relationship as an inseparable part of living organisms’ life cycles, the serious disruption of nature’s balance can also be seen as a threatening disturbance to human biological cycles.

“Isn’t the meaning of the phrase ‘Every organ sacrificed for the integrity of Bizistan is immortal,’ which is framed and hung even in schools everywhere, exactly this? Mortals are living beings; doesn’t one have to be lifeless to be immortal?” (Koçak 480-481) According to Agamben, modern forms of sovereignty expose not only the political status of the individual but also their very biological existence to political intervention. This normalizes the idea of creating a social “immortality” by exposing the human body, thereby turning the human body into a victim of political power (Agamben 98-102).

In dystopian fiction, bodily projects and practices imposed by governments concerning human health often emerge as consequences of the disruption in nature’s vital cycles.

Ecocriticism examines the meanings attributed to nature in textual narratives by assigning an imaginative mode of expression to these meanings, analyzing the conceptual frameworks they create, and exploring how rivers, seas, soil, plant, and animal species shape human-environmental cultures and approaches to environmental issues (Oppermann 25). An ecocritical perspective centers on reducing nature-destructive attitudes of individuals, striving to instill an awareness of living in harmony with nature and a sustainable lifestyle.

The building bearing the large, golden letters ‘STANDARD BODILY RESOURCES HOSPITAL’ on its door was perhaps the most crowded place I had ever seen in my life; I had never shared a room with so many people. Yet, the only image that came to mind about that place, the only feeling that awoke within me, was a deep, bottomless loneliness. (Koçak 473)

In the novel, the concept of sustainable living is not presented as a utopian ideal but rather as a grace granted to people within a dystopian setting, as if it were a normal, ordinary condition devoid of any negativity. The government, acting in response to the catastrophes and climate crises at the core of a sustainable environment, has created a chaotic, isolated atmosphere and environment.

There are distinct consequences stemming from the totalitarian government’s lack of commitment to a clean, green, or sustainable environment. Climate change, natural disasters, nuclear pollution, militarization, insatiable demand for endless energy sources, energy crises, biological epidemics, diseases, social injustice, ethical issues arising from biotechnological research, environmental pollution, and depleted natural resources are among the major problems depicted in the novel and faced by the contemporary world. In Siyah Koku, the traces of ecodystopian and apocalyptic fiction are accompanied by bodily laws enacted in response to the destructive outcomes of climate change and natural disasters.

Conclusion and Evaluation

This study examined the descriptive analyses within ecodystopias that depict dystopian futures caused by climate change, focusing on their role in fostering collective consciousness and encouraging action. The research presented dark future projections resulting from humanity’s failure to effectively combat climate change, culminating in ecological collapse. Postapocalyptic fictional narratives were explored to contribute to the literature by advancing discourse on environmental issues in literary texts and deepening the analysis of ecodystopian constructs.

The ecodystopian perspective emphasizes that humans have no real chance to reorganize their ecosystem and resources, highlighting the need to overcome false consciousness and raise environmental awareness. It problematizes anthropocentric environmental approaches by asserting that nature’s existence is not contingent upon humanity—that nature can persist without humans, whereas humans cannot exist without nature. This framework is suitable for critically examining areas where human-centered environmental attitudes must be challenged. Within this scope, literature is recognized as a powerful tool to guide society positively toward the protection of nature. Literary works aim to raise awareness of the scale of the ecological crisis. Through functional readings of ecodystopian novels, steps can be taken to promote a sustainable environmental consciousness. The struggle to preserve natural life and maintain ecological balance is carried out through literature.

Gülayşe Koçak’s novel Siyah Koku falls within the category of ecological dystopian fiction. Alongside ecodystopia, impressions related to postapocalyptic narratives were interpreted through selected excerpts from the text. Inspired by real-life nature-human disaster reports, the novel constructs a pessimistic future that brings readers’ anxieties to the fore while drawing attention to ecological crises. It traces the likelihood of disasters occurring if the necessary sustainable environmental understanding and green policies for nature protection are not implemented.

WORKS CITED

Adorno, Theodor W. Kültür Endüstrisi: Kültür Yönetimi, translated by Mehmet Tüzel. Yordam Kitap, 2016.

Agamben, Giorgio. Kutsal İnsan: Egemen İktidar ve Çıplak Hayat, translated by İsmail Türkmen. Ayrıntı, 2002.

Bakırcı, Mert Çağrı.“Bizim Bildiğimiz Anlamıyla”. Hayat İçin Suyun Önemi. Bilimkurgu Kulübü, 2018, https://www.bilimkurgukulubu.com/genel/bilim-teknoloji/bizim-bildigimiz-anlamiyla-hayat-icin-suyun-onemi/. Erişim tarihi 06 Haziran 2025

Farhat, Hamidreza. “Dystopia in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Films.” Master’s thesis, Bilkent University, 2019.

Foucault, Michel. Özne ve İktidar, translated by Işık Ergüden. Ayrıntı Yayınları, 2000.

Koçak, Gülayşe. Siyah Koku. Everest Yayınları, 2021.

Malvestio, Matteo. “Theorizing Eco-Dystopia: Science Fiction, the Anthropocene, and the Limits of Catastrophic Imagery.” European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes, vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, pp. 24–38.

Marcuse, Herbert. Tek Boyutlu İnsan: Gelişmiş Endüstriyel Toplumun İdeolojisinde İncelemeler, translated by Ünsal Oskay. Ayrıntı, 1995.

McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.

Oppermann, Serpil. Ekoeleştiri: Çevre ve Edebiyat. Phoenix Yayınları, 2012.

Şensoy, Ayşe. “Beth Steel’in Ditch [Hendek] Oyununda Doğasonrası Dünya.” Ekodrama: Çevreci Tiyatro, Sahne ve Performans Ekolojileri İçinde, edited by B. Ağır and M. A. Balkaya. Kriter Yayınevi, 2022, pp. 33–52.

Wapner, Paul. “The Changing Nature of Nature: Environmental Politics in the Anthropocene.” Global Environmental Politics, vol. 14, no. 4, 2014, pp. 36–54.

Meltem Dağcı graduated from Ondokuz Mayıs University Computer Programming, then from Eskişehir Anadolu University Turkish Language and Literature. She completed Pedagogical Formation Training at Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University. She graduated from Mersin University Institute of Social Sciences Women’s Studies Non-Thesis Master’s Program. She is interested in science fiction, speculative fiction stories and novels. Her stories, book reviews and interviews were published in various magazines and newspapers. She continues his Writer’s Room interviews on Edebiyat Haber with pleasure. The Other Side of the World, published by Ithaki Publishing, is her first book of short stories. Her anthology works include Women Around the Planet (Feminist Speculative Fiction Story Anthology) and A Strange Spark (Special for the 70th Anniversary of Fahrenheit 451). She is continuing her studies in Ondokuz Mayıs University Institute of Postgraduate Education, Women and Family Studies Master’s Program with Thesis.

The Subjectivity of Robots and the Critique of Anthropocentrism in Children’s Science Fiction: “Robonlar” as a Case Study

Symposium: Utopia and Dystopia in Turkish SF Literature

**The Subjectivity of Robots and the Critique of Anthropocentrism in Children’s Science Fiction: “Robonlar” as a Case Study**

Duygu Küçüköz Aydemir

In today’s world, where technology permeates nearly every sphere of life, the relationship between humans and machines has become increasingly complex, and this dynamic is reflected in cultural productions, particularly in literature. The rapid advancement of technology and the growing visibility of artificial intelligence and robotic entities in society deeply affect the world of children, and consequently, children’s literature. In this context, the rising prevalence of robots and AI as central motifs in children’s books provides a critical space to interrogate the role of technology in shaping children’s sense of identity and their perception of the world. Mert Arık’s Robonlar: Bir Kaçış Operasyonu (Robots: An Escape Operation) emerges as a significant example of this literary transformation.

The work moves beyond the traditional framework of children’s literature by addressing the existential challenges of robots and AI at both the individual and societal level. Robonlar cannot be defined strictly as a dystopia or as a utopia; rather, it embodies a “dysto-utopian” form. In doing so, the novel conveys how technological beings are marginalized within anthropocentric systems of domination, while simultaneously exploring the practices of solidarity and liberation that resist such marginalization. In this regard, the text foregrounds robots as “Others,” destabilizing and reconfiguring the boundaries of humanity itself.

This article analyzes Robonlar through its dysto-utopian structure, with particular attention to human-robot relations, the literary representation of robotic consciousness, and posthumanist perspectives. Moreover, it considers how the representation of robots in children’s science fiction shapes young readers’ attitudes toward technology and identity. Ultimately, the aim is to develop a fresh perspective on how children’s literature reflects and interprets this transformation in an era when technology ceases to be merely a tool and emerges as a social, ethical, and affective presence.

Robonlar: An Examination of an Escape Operation

Written particularly for children growing up in the technological era, this adventure and science fiction text by Mert Arık positions him as both an educator and an author of note within the field of children’s literature.

The book defies simple categorization as either a utopia or a dystopia; rather, it exhibits characteristics of a disto-utopia. The concept of a disto-utopia refers to narratives in which utopian and dystopian elements coexist or intertwine. Typically, such works present an initially dystopian environment, yet they embed potentialities for a better future or elements of hope. The term has been utilized by utopian theorists such as Lyman Tower Sargent, Tom Moylan, and Ruth Levitas since the 1970s. Moylan’s (1986) concept of critical utopia operates on a similar logic: an imperfect utopia imbued with the potential for liberation.

Within the narrative, robots are marginalized, devalued, and stripped of freedom under an unjust and oppressive system. Anthropocentric attitudes, the instrumentalization of robots, and hierarchical domination underscore the story’s dystopian dimensions. Conversely, the friendships and collaborative visions of liberation formed among robots in the scrapyard articulate strong utopian traits, culminating in a narrative imbued with hope. Moreover, egalitarian and empathetic relationships between non-human subjects underscore the story’s utopian potential.

The front and back covers of Robonlar: An Escape Operation visually convey the disto-utopian structure of the narrative even before engaging with the text. Barbed wire, scrap yards, corroded metals, and robotic skulls represent an oppressive system in which technological beings are devalued and destroyed. This imagery evokes Adorno and Horkheimer’s (2002) reflections on how technology, through instrumental reason, transforms into a vehicle of domination. The depiction of scrap metals and old tools alludes to subjects systematically excluded from the capitalist production-consumption cycle once they are deemed “functionally obsolete.” This underscores one of the central functions of instrumental rationality: technological progress does not necessarily advance emancipation, but rather reinforces hierarchies defined by utility.

The moss-covered and greenish metals in the scrapyard symbolize the gradual reclamation of what has been taken from nature, resonating with posthumanist ecological thought. Braidotti’s (2013) framework of decentering anthropocentrism and emphasizing the continuity of nature and technology suggests that mutual transformation between human and non-human entities is possible. Conversely, the robot skulls evoke themes of death, oblivion, and the erasure of identity, adding a dystopian layer to the narrative. These images emphasize not only the material destruction of technological beings but also their social and ontological invisibility, highlighting the mortality of technological subjects (Ferrando, 2019).

On the first page, an illustration of a production line with robotic arms functions as a visual metaphor for both the technological production process and the evolutionary advancement of robots. This image signals a shift from human biological evolution to technological evolution. Such a production line represents the dominance of technical rationality over social organization and the increasing mechanization of labor (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2002). Furthermore, it can be interpreted as a transitional moment in which the boundaries between human and machine blur, giving rise to hybrid subjectivities. The robotic arms on the production line do not merely produce objects; they become instruments that sustain the continuity of their own kind, making visible the notion of technology’s self-evolution (Braidotti, 2013).

This opening establishes the dystopian atmosphere of Robonlar: a uniform mode of production dominates, creativity is replaced by standardized mechanical processes, and the scrapyard and quest for freedom, which recur throughout the story, are foreshadowed by this oppressive structure. Nevertheless, the narrative hints at the robots’ latent evolutionary potential, opening a pathway to utopian developments in later chapters. Descriptions of dystopian space and temporality are exemplified throughout the text, such as:

“…cold and dark scrapyard… ” (p. 39)¹
“…the shelter deep within the scrapyard was cold and metallic” (p. 43)
“…metallic prison…” (p. 47)
“It was as if huge, tangled mountains of metal formed a labyrinth that no one dared to enter” (p. 48)
“Saving him from this nightmare gave both him and us hope” (p. 54)
“…in the cold atmosphere of the scrapyard…” (p. 57)
“…in the dark, rusted corners of the scrapyard” (p. 58)
“…giant security robots…” (p. 62)
“We would escape this dark and cold world” (p. 100)
“The smell of mold in the scrapyard was replaced by the scent of fresh grass” (p. 109)

These descriptions function narratively to establish emotional atmospheres, reinforce thematic underpinnings, and stimulate the imaginative engagement of child readers. Through such depictions, children can experience the setting not only cognitively but affectively, enhancing their immersion in the narrative. In summary, these expressions powerfully establish the dystopian environment, facilitating readers’ visualization of space and temporality.

Representation of Human-Robot Relations

Sabri Uçankalem, a human author within the narrative, owns a robot named Robon, to whom he has attributed remarkable storytelling abilities and fame. However, when Sabri receives criticism asserting that Robon’s narratives lack realism, he seeks corrective measures. He contacts the company that manufactured Robon to inquire how the robot might “recognize real-life circumstances, perceive adversity, and also depict sadness” (p. 20). Following the company’s guidance, Sabri applies a pseudo-corrective intervention, implementing psycho-technological coercion on Robon. This act inadvertently triggers Robon’s awakening when he suffers a physical blow. The narrative subsequently explores his fall into the scrapyard and encounters with other robots who have also experienced maltreatment and undergone awakening. The robots’ emergence into consciousness begins with speech, battery depletion, and the first appearance of metallic tears from their eyes.

The tears from the robots’ eyes can be interpreted as a symbolic representation of human-like affective experience, signaling the robot’s emergent capacity for emotion and exemplifying anthropomorphization. This attribution of human psychological and emotional traits to mechanical and electronic beings extends beyond Robon to other characters, such as the old kitchen robot Çırpıcı. When a missing component is replaced, Çırpıcı expresses joy, saying: “You gave me life again” (p.46). Expressions like “Our battery… yes, we robots have batteries instead of hearts” and “Our screws almost loosened from laughing” further illustrate anthropomorphic metaphors that transpose physiological and emotional experiences onto robots. Even the depiction of robotic breathing through flickering battery indicators reflects this strategy, wherein robot-specific elements—battery instead of heart, loosening screws instead of laughter—are aligned with human referents.

Within the literature, anthropomorphization is crucial for perceiving robots not merely as functional machines but as social and emotional beings (Epley, Waytz & Cacioppo, 2007). This enables affective bonds to form in human-robot interactions, particularly in domains requiring direct contact such as care, education, or customer service. Humans are more likely to engage cooperatively with robots exhibiting empathetic, human-like qualities.

However, human anthropomorphization can also serve as a mechanism of control and domination: familiarizing robots makes it easier to incorporate them into social hierarchies and assign functional roles. This raises a critical issue: anthropomorphization may inadvertently reinforce anthropocentrism, defining robot subjectivity through human-centered criteria. From a critical posthumanist perspective (Braidotti, 2013; Ferrando, 2019), such projections risk obscuring the robot’s own experiential and material existence. Critical posthumanism advocates decentering the human and recognizing that other entities—including robots—possess autonomous agency and meaningful forms of existence. Consequently, rather than humanizing robots, it is imperative to consider their distinct modes of being and relationality.

Ağın (2020) emphasizes the importance of transcending anthropocentric limitations to appreciate robots’ unique ontologies, agency, and experiential modalities. Barad (2007) also interprets such metaphors not merely as anthropocentric reductions but as hybrid figurative spaces for meaning-making. Through these lenses, interpretive bridges between human and machine are constructed via mutual references, allowing human readers to partially apprehend the robot’s distinct material reality. These metaphors thus function both as a narrative strategy for inter-species empathy and as a concrete example of the discourse surrounding anthropocentric representation.

Programmed Consciousness and the Illusion of Freedom

When Robon first ventures outside and remarks, “One day I will write poems while observing this enchanting landscape” (p. 33), it reveals that despite experiencing significant awakening, he continues to think according to patterns designed by his human creator. As a “writer robot,” Robon’s code, identity, and expressive modes reflect externally imposed frameworks. This parallels the condition of individuals within capitalist systems who, believing themselves free, in fact express themselves through culturally and ideologically prefigured codes. According to Althusser’s (1971) theory of ideological apparatuses, subjects may perceive themselves as speaking autonomously, yet their language, desires, and imagination are shaped by the prevailing ideological order.

Robon’s inquiry, “How did I suddenly begin to speak, remember, think, smell, grieve, and feel?” (p. 33), marks the onset of his cognitive awakening. The narrative frames this moment as an internalized self-reflective process. Nevertheless, this introspection does not emerge in isolation; it unfolds within constraints established by human-designed software, coding, and logic. Braidotti (2013) emphasizes that the subject is constituted not only biologically but also through technical and cultural networks. Robon’s emergent consciousness can thus be read as an illusion of freedom, wherein both existence and expressive capacity remain confined within pre-determined parameters.

Literary Representation of Robotic Consciousness: Escape from the Scrap Yard

The narrative constructs a hierarchical system based on binary oppositions, wherein the human male—particularly the capitalist figure in control of power—consistently occupies the position of the dominant subject. In Robon’s story, this role is assumed by Sabri; in Ebro, by Mr. V.; and in the scrapyard, by the owner of the scrapyard. Within this framework, escaping the system emerges as the sole means of liberation. According to Marx (2002), evading the traps of capitalist structures requires a certain degree of consciousness.

The scrapyard is depicted not merely as a physical space but as a locus of oppression, surveillance, and hierarchical power. Descriptions such as “cold and dark scrapyard” (p.39), “metallic prison” (p.47), and “giant security robots” (p.62) foreground the dystopian nature of the environment and the surveillance regime operating within it. The scrapyard owner functions as the local authority, while the large security robots consolidate his control.

Robon’s awakening, in this context, signifies more than the activation of a technical system; it marks the emergence of awareness and the incipient desire for emancipation. Drawing upon Chalmers’ (1995) “hard problem of consciousness,” Robon transcends the status of an information-processing mechanism to enter a subjectively reflective state regarding his own existence. The desire to escape the scrapyard stems not from programmed imperatives but from a consciousness attuned to its own conditions.

Moreover, Foucault (1977) asserts that power operates through visibility and surveillance; panoptic structures maintain constant observation over subjects’ behavior. The giant security robots in the scrapyard exemplify this panoptic arrangement. Robon’s awakening is triggered precisely by recognition of this surveillance mechanism and the aspiration to transcend it.

Marcuse (1964) contends that oppressive systems reduce individuals to single-function, compliant subjects. Robon’s refusal to remain confined aligns with Marcuse’s notion of freedom beyond the repressive order. This act of escape embodies an assertion of will to transcend the one-dimensionality imposed upon existence.

Posthumanist Modes of Existence

Characters such as Robon and Ebro exhibit humanoid forms. Ebro, for example, is a large-scale hamburger robot. Like Robon, Ebro’s name contains the suffix “-ro,” signaling his robotic identity. Ebro begins speech with the phrase, “Oh, white robpts powdered with flour” thereby subverting the anthropocentric lens through which prior events, spaces, and emotions have been interpreted. This linguistic intervention invites readers into the robot’s own terminological and experiential world.

Ebro’s descriptor “powdered with flour” reflects sensory and interpretive frameworks distinct from human perception, drawing instead from the robot’s technical memory and material universe. This exemplifies emergent forms of expression arising from the blurring of boundaries between human and machine. The robot operates not merely as a passive receiver but as an agentic subject, processing sensory data and generating meaning.

From a critical posthumanist perspective, this scene challenges anthropocentric practices of meaning-making. As Braidotti (2013) emphasizes, the posthuman subject attains significance only when considered in relation to human, non-human, and technological entities. Ebro’s linguistic choices thus signal the existence of multi-subjectivity, opening readers to perceptual regimes beyond the human. Simultaneously, the depiction preserves the material uniqueness of robotic existence: the robot’s representation conveys not only visual aspects but also traces of its mechanical history and production context. This underscores the importance of acknowledging ontological difference rather than interpreting the robot solely through human analogues.

Within the context of children’s literature, this narrative strategy introduces young readers to the value of alternative perspectives. By articulating the environment through the robot’s own vocabulary, the story facilitates empathy not only among humans but also across human–non-human boundaries. Consequently, the text constructs a critical imaginative space, enabling readers to navigate complex posthumanist concepts while remaining engaged with a compelling narrative.

Trans-species Solidarity

At a key moment in the narrative, the text observes: “With Tokyo’s energy, Ebro’s wisdom, and Çırpıcı’s regained strength…” (p. 47), highlighting the apex of the solidarity theme. Here, solidarity is constructed not merely as cooperation among similar species but as a trans-species collaboration, combining the attributes of humans, robots, and urban spaces into a relational synergy.

This narrative approach aligns with feminist new materialist understandings of relational subjectivity (Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2010), which posit that subjects are not fixed or self-contained entities but relational nodes shaped through interaction. In the story, each figure—human, robot, or environmental—is insufficient in isolation but gains meaning, agency, and efficacy through their interrelation.

From a posthumanist perspective (Braidotti, 2013), this solidarity exemplifies the possibility of uniting diverse ontological forms around a shared objective, transcending anthropocentric boundaries. Consequently, overcoming the oppressive order delineated in the dystopian setting is achieved less through individual heroism than through collective agency.

In the context of children’s literature, this portrayal delivers a critical message: collaboration fueled by diversity proves more effective than singular, uniform power; each contribution, though different, holds equal value. The narrative thus reinforces awareness of diversity and nurtures a culture of solidarity, representing a sophisticated pedagogical strategy within a science-fictional frame.

Robots’ Working Hours and the Capitalist Labor Regime

In the narrative, Ebro states: “I lived constantly connected to the charging unit, could not enter sleep or airplane mode, and experienced overheating due to continuous operation” (p. 82). This depiction symbolizes the erasure of rest and recuperation periods under the tempo of capitalist production. Analogous to human labor exploitation, the narrative foregrounds a work regime in which robotic labor exhaustion and limits are disregarded.

Mr. V.’s relentless pursuit of profit, which compromises both robot performance and customer experience, reflects the unbounded growth imperative characteristic of capitalist production and consumption cycles. Incremental acceptance of quality-reducing changes, such as smaller hamburgers, and the monetized deletion of negative social media feedback, further exemplify mechanisms of cultural production manipulation and ideological control.

Smythe’s (1981) concept of “audience labor” is applicable here, explaining how Mr. V. converts attention, likes, and engagement data into economic capital. Audiences and customers shift from passive consumers to producers, generating value for capital through their attention and data. By transforming robots into advertising symbols, Mr. V. exemplifies an economic network in which both robots and human participants become commodified.

Furthermore, Ebro is deployed by Mr. V. for multiple tasks beyond his initial design as a “hamburger robot,” including cleaning, serving, and cashier duties. This expansion of robotic functions exemplifies the flexibility and multi-functionality of robotic labor. Such versatility not only represents technological advancement but also mirrors the flexible labor regimes of contemporary capitalism. In modern economies, labor increasingly undergoes flexibilization, job descriptions blur, and workers are compelled to rotate between diverse roles.

Within the narrative, robots resemble the precariat (Standing, 2011): a laboring class characterized by economic insecurity, precarious and temporary roles, and absence of social protections. The continual expansion and differentiation of robot functions parallels the instability and uncertainty faced by the precariat. Increasing working hours and shifting responsibilities situate robots within a labor form defined by multiple and indeterminate roles.

Thus, equipping robots with versatile functions serves not only as a technological innovation but also as a mechanism reproducing capitalist flexible labor regimes through technological means. This perspective underscores that robotic labor, like human labor, remains vulnerable to exploitation and transformation. The narrative emphasizes that robotic identities and roles are not fixed but constantly reshaped (Standing, 2011), while simultaneously foregrounding robots’ processes of self-discovery and consciousness formation. The emergence of symbols, such as the “R” marking on robots, raises fundamental questions in philosophy of technology: Are robots merely programmed machines, or are they agents experiencing and interpreting existence through technological mediation? The portrayal of robotic characters with authentic emotions, desires, and pursuit of freedom transcends their mechanical ontology. Haraway (2016) describes such hybrid identities as “non-human subjects,” and in Robonlar, these hybrid entities encounter struggles related to those of humans, negotiating freedom and belonging.

Robots assert: “We were not merely machines, but conscious entities, perhaps even shaped by the destiny imposed by the Robon company” (p.97). Through such symbolic markers, they articulate both self-awareness and recognition of the constraints imposed by technological systems.

Consequently, the flexibility and multifunctionality of robotic labor are essentially linked to their existential and identity inquiries. This dual dynamic positions robots as both exploited labor within economic structures and agents reflecting upon their being and identity within the philosophy of technology.

Escape from the Scrap Yard and Liberation

By the conclusion of the story, the robots escape the scrapyard through mutual solidarity and achieve liberation. This is depicted as: “The musty smell of the scrapyard was replaced by the scent of fresh grass” (p. 109). The synchronized movements of Ebro’s arms, Çırpıcı’s blades, Kıtır Kıtır’s gleaming grills, and Külüstür’s headlights convey a vitality and sense of community that transcend mere mechanical function (p. 111).

Haraway (2016) conceptualizes liberation in conjunction with technology; similarly, in this narrative, robots pursue freedom through their technological capacities. The activation of their inherent functions enables them to succeed in this quest for autonomy. This scene represents a moment where individual mechanical operations coalesce into a collective rhythm, highlighting a communal mode of agency and performativity.

The depiction demonstrates that robots, freed from anthropocentric definitions, establish new forms of subjectivity through their own unique movements and interactions (Braidotti, 2013). Additionally, the rhythmic and coordinated motions of the robots emphasize that technology constitutes not only functional but also aesthetic and social modes of experience. The illustration on the final page reinforces this vision of liberation, serving as a concrete image of the narrative’s transition from dystopia to utopia.

The story’s final imagery—sunflowers, birds, clouds, music, a farm, and a smiling scarecrow surrounding the robots as they drive—signals a radical departure from the dark, dystopian atmosphere. These visual and symbolic elements indicate the robots’ re-engagement with nature and their movement toward a hopeful and free future.

This transformation illustrates that robots transcend their mechanical ontology to develop a novel mode of existence and experience. Simultaneously, this imaginative space exemplifies the narrative oscillation between dystopia and utopia, wherein the robots’ collective consciousness and emancipation propel the story toward utopian possibilities. Consequently, the narrative transcends mere technological development, embodying universal themes of hope, solidarity, and transformation.

Conclusion

Mert Arık’s Robonlar: Bir Kaçış Operasyonu presents significant innovations and contributions to Turkish children’s literature, particularly within the domain of children’s science fiction. Firstly, the work emerges as an original, local production in a field where science-fiction narratives for Turkish children are limited. This enables children to experience stories linked to technological and scientific developments within their own cultural and linguistic context, simultaneously fostering interest in science fiction and strengthening local literary production.

The narrative structure intertwines dystopian and utopian elements, portraying technology as both a tool of oppression and a medium of potential liberation. The depiction of technological entities as emotional and conscious subjects introduces the concept of anthropomorphization to young readers, while maintaining the critical distance demanded by posthumanist theory.

The consciousness-raising of Robon and other robots, the blurring of human–robot boundaries, and themes of trans-species solidarity invite young readers to reconsider their relationship with technology. In this context, the text opens space for ethical and ontological reflection on technological developments and fosters critical engagement with fundamental concepts such as freedom, identity, and belonging. The depiction of oppression and domination faced by robots parallels contemporary technological and social control mechanisms, raising awareness of not only futuristic but also current societal dynamics.

Rather than presenting technology as a mere instrument, the narrative explores philosophical and ethical questions through the robots’ processes of consciousness and liberation, adding a depth rarely encountered in children’s literature. This approach cultivates imaginative and critical thinking in young readers, acquainting them with complex concepts and contemporary debates.

The increase in original local science-fiction productions within Turkish children’s literature contributes both to the diversification of the genre and to fostering a positive attitude toward technology and science. Arık’s novel expands local science-fiction narratives while simultaneously aligning with global science-fiction culture.

WORKS CITED

Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. Aydınlanmanın Diyalektiği, translated by Oğuz Özügül. Kabalcı, 1995.

Ağın, Başak. Posthümanizm: Kavram Kuram Bilim-Kurgu. Siyasal, 2020.

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” 1971.

Arık, Mert. Robonlar: Bir Kaçış Operasyonu. Genç Timaş, 2025.

Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press, 2007.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press, 2010.

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity Press, 2013.

Chalmers, David J. “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, 1995, pp. 200–219.

Epley, Nicholas, Adam Waytz, and John T. Cacioppo. “On Seeing Human: A Three-Factor Theory of Anthropomorphism.” Psychological Review, vol. 114, no. 4, 2007, pp. 864–886.

Ferrando, Francesca. Philosophical Posthumanism. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books, 1977.

Haraway, Donna J. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Prickly Paradigm Press, 2016, pp. 3–49.

Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press, 1964.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto, translated by Samuel Moore, Penguin Classics, 2002.

Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. Methuen, 1986.

Smythe, Dallas W. “On the Audience Commodity and Its Work.” 1981.

Standing, Guy. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Bloomsbury Academic, 2011.

Duygu Küçüköz Aydemir (b. 1990, Samsun) holds a B.A. in English Language Teaching from Çukurova University and a B.A. in Sociology from Anadolu University. She earned her M.A. in Women’s and Family Studies at Ondokuz Mayıs University with a thesis later published as Cyberfeminism: The Cyborg Body and the Status of Gender in Cyber Identity (2021). She pursued doctoral studies in Communication Sciences at Giresun University and is currently conducting academic research at the University of Oslo. Her work primarily engages with feminist techno-science, environmental humanities, and critical theory.

Introduction: from Pandora’s Box to the City of the Sun

Symposium: Utopia and Dystopia in Turkish SF Literature

Introduction: from Pandora’s Box to the City of the Sun

Meltem Dağcı and Duygu Küçüköz Aydemir

In this special issue, we trace the themes of utopia and dystopia in Turkish science fiction literature, exploring narrative practices across both adult and children’s literature. The tension between utopia and dystopia—between hope and fear, reason and chaos—reveals deep reflections on social, cultural, and technological transformations.

Science fiction literature establishes a creative imaginary universe that rearticulates social, political, and moral values concerning the future. While doing so, it draws upon two opposite imaginative modes: the benevolent (utopian) and the malevolent (dystopian). In this respect, both utopia and dystopia constitute powerful intellectual spaces in which ideas of progress, order, freedom, and destruction are questioned. With the accelerating transformations of the modern world, technological and cultural shifts have opened the door to new literary visions of the future—visions where hope and fear, reason and chaos, salvation and catastrophe coexist. In other words, utopia and dystopia exist through one another.

In the early Republican era, the themes of utopia and dystopia in Turkish science fiction literature often exalted ideals of science, progress, and modernization. After the 1980s, however, they expanded toward issues such as globalization, authority, identity, outer space, and ecological crisis. In recent years, Turkish science fiction narratives have further diversified through engagements with digital culture, artificial intelligence, the surveillance society, migration, body politics, and posthumanist thought.

The children’s and young adult dimension of Turkish science fiction also holds a distinct significance. These works nurture imagination through adventure, discovery, and didactic elements, fostering scientific curiosity and ethical awareness among young readers. Utopian and dystopian motifs are reinterpreted here through the lenses of hope, exploration, and moral values, offering alternative visions of the future.

Our journey from “Pandora’s Box” to the “City of the Sun” explores the intellectual landscape opened by utopian and dystopian imagination in Turkish science fiction. As conceptualized in our call for papers, disedebitopia—an approach that situates “edeb” (both literary grace and ethical respect) at the heart of its reflection—forms the central axis of this issue. Each contribution seeks to discuss the evolving narrative traditions of Turkish literature within the axes of science fiction, utopia, and dystopia from an interdisciplinary perspective.

This special issue not only examines the ethical, political, and aesthetic dimensions of utopian imagination but also illuminates the possibilities of resistance, hope, and rebirth within the seemingly bleak landscapes of dystopian narratives. The articles herein reveal how utopian and dystopian themes have transformed across different periods of Turkish science fiction, how they intersect with conceptual debates, and how they acquire distinctive forms within their historical and social contexts. In doing so, we aim to build a bridge between the national and universal dimensions of our collective imagination about the future.

Articles in this special issue on Turkish Science Fiction Literature were designed to both contribute to the scholarly literature and to establish an archive for the field. It has brought forth articles that examine different periods and works, promoting greater recognition of local science fiction authors and their contributions. Collectively, these works enable writers, scholars, and readers to better understand the utopian and dystopian worlds imagined in the making of a “future” society.

We hope that this special issue will shed light on the intellectual richness of Turkish science fiction literature and remind us that imagining the future is, at the same time, a way of transforming the present.

The Silent Planet

Media Reviews

Review of The Silent Planet

Alfredo Suppia

The Silent Planet. Dir. Jeffrey St. Jules, Canada, 2024.

Screened at the 48th São Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil, The Silent Planet (2024), written and directed by Jeffrey St. Jules, provokes an intriguing nostalgia, whether literal or in Jamesonian terms. The film begins by evoking 1970s audiovisual aesthetics, from the off-screen TV news explaining the visit of an alien species, the Oeians, to the anachronistic visuals perceivable in the very “texture” of the initial scenes, the costumes of the characters, and the settings throughout the entire film.

The Silent Planet relies on a generally good, yet not entirely original, idea: that of a remote landscape serving as an (alien) setting for an intimate tale about loneliness, guilt, vengeance, and regret involving two extremely vulnerable human characters. Unfortunately, even a very good idea is not always enough to sustain an entire feature-length film, but the experience provided by The Silent Planet is worth watching.

Divided into five acts, The Silent Planet tells the story of two characters sentenced to life in prison on a distant, eerie planet. Initially, there is only one prisoner, Theodore (Elias Koteas), who serves his time alone, living in a tiny life-supporting pod and forced to extract a mysterious ore from the prison-planet. The ore is sent to Earth, though its true nature and value are not detailed in the film. Theodore is monitored by a device implanted in his chest. The first act begins with Theodore learning he is close to death from the body monitor. He cuts his chest, removes the device, buries it and keeps working, refusing to accept his condition. As time goes by, the aging Theodore suffers from the decay of his body due to working for so long in such unhealthy conditions. He also struggles against the decay of his mind in absolute solitude: the memories of his past on Earth become murkier as Theodore approaches the end of his life. Strongly attached to his memories of his beloved wife Mona, Theodore believes he was unfairly convicted of the murder of his wife’s lover—or at least that is the past he has created for himself.

Aware of Theodore’s final days, the Earth-based authorities dispatch a replacement to the prison planet—another condemned worker. This is the young Niyya (Briana Middleton), whose arrival in her pod on the planet’s surface is carefully observed by Theodore. Niyya was raised by an Oeian family on Earth. The Oeians are an alien species declared “illegals” and hunted by human authorities. After witnessing her Oeian parents’ murder by the military, Niyya joins a rebel group, is captured as an Oeian sympathizer, and exiled to the prison planet.

Theodore, the planet’s current prisoner, fears being replaced and breaks into Niyya’s pod to steal her Oeian journal. While he craves companionship, Niyya wants solitude. Both have lost faith in humanity through their experiences. Theodore eventually wins her over, leading to the film’s most powerful sequence: a dinner scene where they finally have a profound conversation over whisky and marijuana.

A generational and cultural clash emerges—Theodore longs for lost human relationships while Niyya identifies with the Oeians and feels betrayed by humans. However, Theodore reveals uncertainty about his identity, suggesting he might be Nathan Flanagan, the soldier who killed Niyya’s family. This revelation triggers paranoia in both characters, who come to believe only one can survive. Their suspicions lead to a violent skirmish across the silent planet’s landscape.

According to Jeffrey St. Jules, the story derives from a fantasy he had as a child: to live alone and unbothered on another planet. But the film also revolves around the long-lasting debate over humans’ frequent incapacity to communicate effectively, often failing to reach agreement or even accept otherness. In that sense, it is significant that the film employs variation in point of view at crucial moments. For instance, Niyya’s arrival scene is first shown from Theodore’s perspective in the first act and from Niyya’s perspective in the second act. By shifting the characters’ perspectives, St. Jules essentially creates not just points-of-views but “filters” for the audience—a cinematographic way of angling or distancing each character from the other. In doing so, he creates a communication disruption for the viewer that serves to echo the characters’ selfsame miscommunication. As they are “imprisoned” by their unique point-of-view so too is the viewer drawn into this imprisonment through the shifting angles. The Silent Planet may stand as a metaphor for countless conflicts in human history, up to the present day. The anachronistic undertone of the film, with its frequent nod to television culture (Theodore enjoys TIA, an artificial intelligence that creates a sitcom based on his life, and he watches it repeatedly), in addition to the apparently purposefully outdated design of the props and settings, evokes a series of 1970s/80s science fiction films from various countries. These include, but are not limited to Nicholas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running (1972), Richard Viktorov’s Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981), and first and foremost, Solaris—the 1968 TV adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 eponymous novel more than Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 version. Geoff Murphy’s This Quiet Earth (1985), as well as Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine (1985), are also in this patchwork of films evoked by The Silent Planet. In lieu of Solaris’s sentient ocean, Jeffrey St. Jules creates an interesting purple haze or pinkish fog that drifts across the surface of the silent planet periodically to capture the humans’ memories and repeat their voices from the past. When this purple haze engulfs Theodore or Niyya, they can hear echoes from past prisoners.

In the fourth act, Theodore/Nathan and Niyya have an altercation, where she eventually attacks the old man, believing he is the murderer of her Oeian family. The fight takes place in a third “homepod,” one whose past inhabitant had committed suicide by hanging. Cryptic words and drawings are on the pod’s walls, some of which turn out to be identical to ones that Koteas himself had said or heard. It becomes evident, upon this discovery, that the two main characters are not the first to experience that terrible isolation and communication disruption. Instead, several previous prisoners (maybe generations of previous prisoners) coped with similar and even worse scenarios. The third homepod casts light on the main theme being developed throughout: that isolation and solitude blurs the lines between memories and “generations” of individuals. Indeed, all the dialogues in The Silent Planet seem to serve this purpose: the human mind and memories are tricky, and what we tell ourselves has more to do with our mental state and traumas than objective past reality. The “untrustworthy” Theodore, plagued by doubts, ends up guiding Niyya in her self-discovering journey. Memories are deceiving, words are pale, and perhaps only action and attitudes are truly meaningful.

According to producer Andrew Bronfman, the budget for The Silent Planet was nearly 4 million USD. This is low for a Western SF film. In addition to the intended anachronistic, nostalgic atmosphere of Jeffrey St. Jules’s film, The Silent Planet may have also been inspired by the aesthetics of lo-fi sci-fi and “Science Fiction from the South” or a more encompassing aesthetic often associated with SF from the Global South. Regardless, lo-fi sci-fi is clearly present in the minimal, understated visual effects that are overshadowed by the drama and clever story, based on solid plot points and twists.

The story does not unfold entirely fluently, and some blind spots might be perceived in the script or the film’s world-building. For instance: while Theodore’s initial attitudes and fears are comprehensible (he is dying, he is an outcast, he is somewhat delusional), the same does not apply to Niyya. Yes, she is traumatized by humans, but some flashback scenes show her in a close, even romantic relationship with another human. While she may have been betrayed by that woman (an undercover police agent), it remains unclear why there is no empathy or stronger inclination toward cooperation, given that she and Theodore are the only two prisoners left to die on this faraway planet. We must adopt a metaphoric mode of viewing to fully enjoy The Silent Planet, since there is no symmetry between the characters nor a more coherent assemblage of their motivations and psychological nuances (Koteas’s character is better designed in this sense, paradoxically because he is more mysterious and also due to his performance). In sum, all characters’ attitudes, fears, and actions are ultimately justified by humanity’s incapacity to truly communicate, as well as an innate instinct to suspect other people and resist cooperation. Viewed positively, the film can be understood as criticizing this feature of human nature, by testing hypotheses on how human a person can remain in solitude for years, living a miserable life on a faraway planet.

While the critique of the characters’ arcs and psychologies may reveal asymmetries that could annoy some discerning spectators, there is nothing inherently problematic about metaphor or allegory. Excessive criticism of characters’ psychology and verisimilitude, or cause-and-effect in storytelling, is oftentimes not only controversial and culture-dependent, but also sterile and pointless. However, concerning The Silent Planet, problems arise when spectators must constantly shift between metaphoric and literal viewing. In metaphoric mode, there is no reason to be too demanding of answers and explanations. But when viewing literally, verisimilitude and questions concerning cause and effect become important. For instance, the ore mined on that planet is seemingly useless, likely a MacGuffin or something to fill a gap. If it were valuable, there would be no reason to send just one or two prisoners to manually extract such a rare commodity. Why not settle an entire penal colony with drones, robot-miners, and nanorobots to optimize extraction? Here we may return to allegory and view Theodore as Sisyphus. When Niyya speaks to “Jane,” the “Alexa” of that world, while picking a meal, the meal comes packed inside an ordinary “take-away box” made of aluminum foil, with a cardboard lid. Since there’s no hint of agriculture or food production on that planet, do the prisoners get these supplies from Earth? The stowed meals, like take-away or in-flight meals, distracted and annoyed me somewhat. While most actions, props, and scenes are justifiable given the anachronistic world-building, lo-fi sci-fi, and low-budget, independent film style, some details could have been better designed or developed.

As it becomes evident, Niyya was sent to the planet to replace Theodore once Earth authorities knew about his health condition. Within days, perhaps hours, she lands on the planet. In the film’s final moments, Theodore dies with Niyya’s monitoring device implanted in his body so that she can live undetected. One may wonder how naive this futuristic monitoring technology is since we already have better tracking methods today. If it is so easy to tamper with the monitoring technology, why don’t prisoners do the same upon arrival? Simply get rid of the chest monitor and enjoy freedom.

Questions remain such as whether Niyya is “free” since Theodore died in her place. However, Earth authorities could easily uncover the trick, and she cannot escape from the planet since the transportation pods are launched into space immediately after arrival. Moreover, a substitute for Niyya is expected soon. The planet’s rarefied atmosphere makes exploration difficult. The film ends with Niyya on top of a mountain, looking at the horizon, with final credits rolling without showing an expected pod entering the atmosphere.

I find myself wondering what The Silent Planet’s impact might have been had Jeffrey St. Jules decided not to show the Oeians at all. We would have to imagine them completely. As a fan of the off-screen tradition (e.g. Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 Cat People, or Joseph Lewis’s 1950 Gun Crazy), I wonder about keeping the aliens unseen, perhaps only revealed in the small picture shown by Niyya to Theodore. Like the “overlords” in Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 Childhood’s End, the off-screen—particularly in SF and horror—is often preferable. Yet I can understand if Jeffrey St. Jules intended to pay homage to 1950s SF films like Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Man from Planet X (1951), Joseph M. Newman’s This Island Earth (1955), or Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).

Nevertheless, The Silent Planet seduces through the nostalgia it provokes—from Elias Koteas’s presence (an actor familiar to veteran spectators), to the intricate web of SF evoked by St. Jules’s cinematic storytelling, visual style, and evident cinephilia. For spectators open to intimate, minimalist SF cinema, unpretentious and not entirely concerned with cohesion and coherence in world-building, The Silent Planet may signal renewed interest in SF scripts with good ideas that escape the tired infantilization of most American blockbusters, even though several points (especially world-building, settings and props) could have been better developed. Not presumptuous, hermetic, or overplayed, The Silent Planet delivers valuable “ore” to its spectator: humanist SF creatively based on atmosphere and good acting. From a scholarly perspective, the film offers significant value for academic study in two key areas: first, as a compelling case study in how contemporary low-budget science fiction cinema engages with and recontextualizes the aesthetic traditions of 1970s-80s SF filmmaking, demonstrating how nostalgia functions as both narrative device and visual strategy. Second, the film provides rich material for examining the persistent themes of communication failure and otherness in science fiction, particularly how the genre continues to use isolated settings and cross-cultural encounters to interrogate fundamental questions about human nature and xenophobia in an era of increasing global tensions.

Alfredo Suppia is an Associate Professor at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, where he teaches film history and theory, science fiction cinema and new media art at the Department of Multimeios, Media and Communications. He also coordinates the Graduate Program in Social Sciences at the same university.

Superman

Media Reviews

Review of Superman

Jeremy Brett

James Gunn, director. Superman, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2025.

The opening shot of James Gunn’s Superman, after an on-screen line of text informs us that “3 MINUTES AGO, Superman lost a battle for the first time”, sees the titular hero (David Corenswet) plummet from the sky and crash headlong into the Arctic ice—beaten, bloodied, and nearly unconscious. He escapes succumbing to his wounds only by being unceremoniously dragged by his cape to the Fortress of Solitude by his rambunctious superpowered dog Krypto. This jarring in media res rupture of the traditional superheroic cinematic narrative (which arcs from origin to early victories to temporary defeat before concluding in a final triumph) signifies a change in focus for the new DC Universe (DCU) away from its predecessor, the Zach Snyder-helmed DC Expanded Universe (DCEU). Whereas the latter was criticized by many for treating Superman as a solemn near-god presenting as a stern Savior-type figure in a dark, desolate world, James Gunn, instead, concentrates much of his efforts on Superman’s inherent vulnerabilities and imperfections.

These facets of Superman’s character tie him to his instinctive and learned human nature and values that he consistently champions. The DCEU characterized Superman as less of an active being and more as a phenomenon, a living incident or event descending from hostile outer space—an outside force that happens to Earth—whereas the Superman of Gunn’s new film is a flawed but striving figure that operates within and as one of the denizens of his adopted planet. That conflict over definitions is the central debate at the heart of Superman—what does this superbeing imbued with immense power to destroy or to preserve, represent to the people living in his shadow? Certainly Superman is not the first product of superhero media to analyze the relationship of the hero to the world around them, but few connect the hero’s nature to his fallibility, the possibility of his losing or failing, as explicitly as the film does.

Superman is frequently overmatched in the film, facing savage attacks at the hands of the “Hammer of Boravia,” the armored metahuman sent to attack Metropolis; by “Ultraman,” the mysterious villain serving as the muscle behind Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult)’s brain; by Luthor’s other powered warrior “The Engineer” (Maria Gabriela de Faria); and by the morally compromised Kryptonite-wielding Rex Mason/Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan). The film embraces the immediacy and brutality of violence, but less, perhaps for mere spectacle and more to signify Kal-El’s own embrace of the human condition. The fighting and failing and getting up and trying again is a function of being mortal, a process in which Kal willingly engages and considers a fundamental component of his own nature. In a climactic exchange with Luthor—a man fundamentally defined by his opposition to Superman as a deadly and otherworldly threat to the planet, who has just referred to Superman as “you piece of shit alien!”—Kal fervently declares,

I’m as human as anyone! I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning, and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other, and I try to make the best choices that I can. I screw up all the time. But that is being human, and that’s my greatest strength. And someday, I hope, for the sake of the world, you understand that it’s yours too.

Kal is an active entity of constructed choices, the most significant of these being his willingness to embrace the importance and sanctity of life everywhere. Bedrock compassion for the least of humanity is not new to the image of Superman—we’ve seen it touchingly deployed in such comic book instances as Grant Morrison’s 2005-2008 All-Star Superman series—but Gunn’s film centers it as the core of his heroic identity more than any other example in live-action Superman cinema. That aspect of Superman’s heroism has been much better served in animation—both Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000) and My Adventures with Superman (2023-present) understand it well.

That choice to serve life defines Superman. During a battle with a kaiju in downtown Metropolis sent by Luthor as a distraction, Kal not only rescues people from imminent death, but rushes a squirrel out of harm’s way and, while nearly being crushed underfoot, gently shoos a wandering dog away from the area. His double-pronged strategy to save the lives of both people and the monster itself is a direct contrast to the actions of the corporate-sponsored superheroic Justice Gang: Guy Gardner/Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), who kill the creature without compunction over Kal’s frustrated objections. Later on in the film, following Krypto’s abduction by Luthor’s forces, Kal turns himself in to the authorities in hopes of being taken wherever Krypto is being held. When Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) says, “It’s just a dog”, Kal responds in the most compassionately human way possible: “I know, and he’s not even a very good one. But he’s alone, and probably scared.” Notably, Superman’s first in person confrontation with Luthor has him smashing into the latter’s office, enraged, demanding, “Where’s the dog?”

Kal’s concern for the smallfolk of the world gives him added ethical dimensionality lacking in the Justice Gang or in, say, his darker DCEU counterpart. That added complexity, ironically enough, derives from Kal’s simple core belief in the inherent goodness of people, and gives both his character and the film an emotional brightness lacking in much superhero media. When Kal protests to Lois at one point that he is, in fact, “punk rock”, an amused Lois laughingly denies this, and then says, “My point is, I question everything and everyone. You trust everyone and think everyone you’ve ever met is, like… beautiful.” Kal responds, “Maybe that’s the real punk rock.” At bottom, Superman is a hero whose mightiest powers are the implementation of radical kindness and his unshakable belief in its efficacy. If we accept that superheroes are symbolic instruments for the ethics we want to see valued in the world, presenting the most powerful being on Earth—a man with godlike abilities—as dedicated to the idea that everyone has worth and deserves compassion, is a beautifully revolutionary statement.

And there is great emotional resonance in Kal’s desire to live his values in the face of real-world political complexities, impractical as that choice might be. A powerful moment in the film comes when Lois conducts a mock interview with Superman concerning his recent intervention in an international conflict, noting his illegal entry into a sovereign country on his own, without the approval of or even consulting with US authorities, and de facto acting as a representative of the United States on foreign soil. A frustrated Superman can only exclaim, “I wasn’t representing anyone except for me! And, and, and… doing good… People were going to die!”The exchange cuts to the heart of the contradiction inherent to the image of the superhero as they operate in the world—what responsibilities do superpowered beings owe to human-established systems of law and sovereignty? And do those systems take priority over the preservation of life? These kinds of questions have relevance in the real world, where around the world we see increasing interest in extra-governmental and communal ways of living that value life over commerce, justice over laws, and the dignity of peoples over profit.

Kal’s worldview, one in which each life is deemed of value, is diametrically opposed to Luthor, a rat’s nest of ego and envy enmeshed in a system of hypocritical objectification. Objectification, because Luthor—like any number of real-world politicians and CEOs—regards his fellow humans as tools to be used in the furtherance of his own ambitions. He claims to be acting in the name of humanity, yet his machinations produce catastrophic levels of death and destruction. His obsession with subduing the “threat” of Superman leads him to ruthlessly shoot an innocent man in the head right in front of the captive hero. Luthor maintains a private prison within a pocket universe, in which he has jailed not only criminals but his personal enemies (including ex-girlfriends) and political prisoners that various governments want hidden away beyond the reach of the media and accountability. His master plan involves manipulating the nation of Boravia into invading and occupying the neighboring country of Jarhanpur—risking untold casualties—all to maneuver Superman into his control. Luthor views Superman in the DCEU model, as an alien thing who only inspires fear and (for Luthor, a much greater sin) feelings of weakness and inferiority. At one point he rants,

I can’t stand the metahumans, but he’s so much worse. Super… ‘man.’ He’s not a man. He’s an it. A thing with a cocky grin and a stupid outfit, that’s somehow become the focal point of the entire world’s conversation. Nothing’s felt right since he showed up.

Luthor is a supervillain, at base, because he conflates his own superiority with that of humanity, sublimating the latter into the former, whereas Kal is a hero because he chooses to sublimate his alien self into embracing humanity and making weakness its own strength.

The film is ultimately grounded on the power of choice. Kal became Superman in large part because he was inspired by the legacy of his birth parents on Krypton. Partway through the film, however, Kal faces an existential crisis in learning from a recording by his birth parents that he was sent to Earth not to serve humanity but to rule it and preserve his Kryptonian heritage by taking multiple human wives and spreading his genetic code. This revelation turns much of the planet against Kal—assisted by Luthor’s manipulation of social media to target him—but the doubts raised in Kal himself do even more damage. Devastated that his drive to do good sprang from a lie, Kal renews his confidence in his mission after a conversation with his adoptive father Jonathan Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vance), who reminds Kal that his choices and his actions are what define him, not the choices made for him. What Kal wanted the message from his parents to mean, says more about his character and his goodness than the message itself. Heroism is a conscious decision, the film argues, and Kal’s embrace of radical kindness represents the choice that each of us need to make as we move through the unequal and unjust world around us. In this, Superman reinforces the multidimensional nature of the superhero image and its function as a reflection of the values that we cherish most in ourselves and with each other.

Jeremy Brett is an archivist and librarian at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M University. There he serves as Curator of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Research Collection, one of the largest of its kind in the world. Both his M.A. (History) and his M.L.S. (Library Science) were obtained at the University of Maryland, College Park. His professional interests include science fiction, fan studies, and the intersection of libraries and social justice.

Inland

Fiction Reviews

Review of Inland

Kristine Larsen

Kate Risse. Inland. 12 Willows Press, 2024.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” – Fred Rogers

These words, from a 1999 interview, were famously posted in a viral Facebook post by PBS in response to the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14, 2012, and to this day are frequently resurrected after countless other senseless tragedies. Apocalyptic SF is replete with examples of the worst of humanity coming to the fore in the face of adversity and catastrophe. Another well-worn trope in such works is the helpless damsel in distress, doomed to sell her soul, or her flesh, in a desperate attempt to survive. More often than not, she is the victim of physical and/or sexual assault. Lastly, teamwork by male and female protagonists inevitably ends in comfort sex, a one-night stand (or sudden sequence of such events), often to be regretted in the morning or soon pushed out of the narrative as unimportant, fading into the background as if it were just one more trite plot device to be ticked off the author’s standardized to-do list. To Risse’s credit, her debut novel, Inland, only features the last of these three over-used tropes. Risse’s novel quietly celebrates Mr. Rogers’ “helpers,” although it takes some of her characters considerable time and effort to come to the same realization.

The tale begins soon after the beginning of a vaguely described weather catastrophe that, without warning, floods the eastern seaboard of the US. Speculations by Martin (who, it is insinuated, has some scientific background in climate change) sprinkled throughout the novel suggest it is related to years of rising sea levels and the mass thawing of glaciers and Antarctic ice, coupled with sudden shifts in the ocean currents (think The Day After Tomorrow with Noachian rain and waves rather than flash-freezing Arctic superstorms).

In contrast to many fictional cli-fi catastrophes, Risse’s is set just around the corner, in 2026, the author explaining that she wanted to portray climate change as “unwinding faster than was initially thought, or at least communicated to the public…. I decidedly didn’t want my novel to be a dystopian story set in the far-flung future. I wanted it to be about where we might possibly be heading soon and how that’s not a good direction” (Semel).

Boston native Kate Risse is intimately familiar with the Florida Panhandle coastline and barrier island where the novel begins, having spent many summers vacationing there. In interviews she credits the destruction she witnessed in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in 2018 as a major motivation behind the novel (Rowland; Semel). In addition to her lived experience along the eastern seaboard, Risse also draws upon her Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies (Boston College) and her climate justice and Spanish language/culture courses at Tufts University in crafting details for her story (“About”).

This cli-fi ecocatastrophe is written in first person, the unfolding disaster described through the eyes of Juliet and the younger of her two sons, sixteen-year-old Billy. Individual chapters focus on Juliet’s desperate attempt to get home to Boston from her mother’s Dog Island beach home on the Florida panhandle and Billy’s equally desperate attempt to survive as the ocean swallows his Boston neighborhood and unexpectedly leaves him to fend for himself. The story of a second family, who lives a few blocks away, comprised of Martin (in Florida for a business deal) and his two teenage daughters, schoolmates of Billy (also stranded without adult supervision in the wake of the disaster), is intertwined (figuratively and literally) in the narrative.

A MacGuffin of a complete disruption of all communication systems cuts off the parents from their stranded children, significantly raising the tension and driving Juliet and Martin’s desperate road trip north—or, rather, north-ish—following an inland path that allows them to not only play the role of good Samaritan, but be the repeated beneficiaries of similar grace. This is fortunate for the characters, as there is an apparent complete lack of governmental aid above some very limited local help within selected communities. While Juliet is openly skeptical of the basic goodness of humanity and repeatedly expects the worse from others, she is more often than not surprised to find that there are, indeed, as Fred Rogers offered, plenty of “helpers,” even in the worst of situations. This is not to say that Risse’s story is a Pollyanna tale; her characters also encounter realistic brutality and harrowing situations. But through these challenges they also discover their inner strength and hone their resiliency, all while learning to let go of parts of their old lives that no longer seem important while simultaneously holding fast to what truly matters.

The widespread failure of most radio, television, flip phones, and internet communication is exacerbated in the novel by a government smartphone ban that had gone into effect some months before. This ban was not intended to save the country’s youth from the mind-rotting effects of social media per se, but literally to prevent their brains (and bodies in general) from being poisoned by “toxic metals and radiation” supposedly associated with the phones (152). Again, the specifics behind the ban are doled out sparingly in the novel, alongside conspiracy theories and banal parroting of the government’s official pronouncements of the dangers. Fortunately, Billy and Juliet have contraband smart phones, and manage to send a few precious texts to each other, enough to convince Martin and Juliet that their children are still alive and attempting to leave Boston together.

While the first part of the parents’ road trip is told in great detail (from Dog Island, Florida, through West Virginia), the rest is either apparently uneventful (which seems strange given the trials the characters endure before this time) or held back for some other reason, until their arrival in southern Vermont. The novel ends with more questions than answers (not the least of which being an unshakable feeling that there is more to Martin than he is letting on), but does give the reader some closure in the form of the main characters’ emotional and physical status. There is certainly room for a sequel, which Risse has considered writing (Semel).

Taken in total, the work did not strike me as necessarily suitable for intense scholarly analysis. However, it would be interesting to see how different aged audiences might read the cellphone subplot in particular, especially given that the story is told from the viewpoints of individuals from two generations. I could see this book being used in a Climate Change Literature or Science and Society class at the college level; it could lead to some quite interesting class discussions and student personal reflections.

WORKS CITED

“About.” KateRisse, accessed 27 Sept. 2025, https://www.katerisse.com/about.

“Mr. Rogers Post Goes Viral.” PBS News, 18 Dec. 2012, www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fred-rogers-post-goes-viral.

Rowland, Kate. “Creativity Never Ends: Kate Risse on Writing ‘Inland’ and Thinking About the Future of Our Planet.” The Justice, 22 Oct. 2024, www.thejustice.org/article/2024/10/creativity-never-ends-kate-risse-on-writing-inland-and-thinking-about-the-future-of-our-planet

Semel, Paul. “Exclusive Interview: ‘Inland’ Author Kate Risse.” PaulSemel, 1 Aug. 2024, paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-inland-author-kate-risse/.

Kristine Larsen, Ph.D., has been an astronomy professor at Central Connecticut State University since 1989. Her teaching and research focus on the intersections between science and society, including Gender and Science; the links between pseudoscience, misconceptions, and science illiteracy; science and popular culture (especially science in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien); and the history of science. She is the author of Stephen Hawking: A Biography, Cosmology 101, The Women Who Popularized Geology in the 19^th Century, Particle Panic!, Science, Technology and Magic in The Witcher: A Medievalist Spin on Modern Monsters, and The Sun We Share: Our Star in Popular Media and Science.

The Ministry of Time

Fiction Reviews

Review of The Ministry of Time

Lena Leimgruber

Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time. Simon and Schuster, 2024.

What does it mean to meet history face-to-face? In Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, the past is not a distant tableau but a living presence, and the future is something to be negotiated. Bradley, a British-Cambodian author, constructs a novel in which temporal encounters become both deeply personal and ethically charged. The narrative alternates between two storylines: a near-future Britain, where the Ministry of Time, a secretive government agency, manages “expats from history”, and 1847, through the perspective of Commander Graham Gore, a naval officer aboard the ill-fated Franklin Expedition. The protagonist, an unnamed “bridge”, works at the Ministry’s Language Department, guiding historical figures as they navigate the modern world. The novel explores how people from different eras perceive and interpret one another, balancing the ethical and emotional challenges of cross-temporal interaction. Chapters in the contemporary timeline are numbered in Arabic numerals, while historical chapters employ Roman numerals, signalling shifts in perspective and highlighting the contrasts between past and present. The novel arrived with considerable anticipation, supported by an extensive marketing campaign and a wide distribution of advance review copies, which meant it had already generated significant discussion before its official release. Its reception was further boosted by its longlisting for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Placed within the broader history of SF, The Ministry of Time aligns with a tradition in which speculative devices are deployed to probe ethical, social and philosophical questions. Bradley’s use of time travel emphasises moral responsibility and cross-temporal understanding rather than adventure or spectacle. Her focus on romance across temporal and cultural divides situates the novel within a lineage of speculative love stories, while expanding the form to encompass postcolonial and environmental concerns. Even the historical elements (references to the Franklin Expedition) participate in a long-standing SF practice of revisiting the past to illuminate contemporary anxieties, although Bradley foregrounds intimate human connection rather than survival or horror. Through these combined strategies, the novel contributes to the interest in character-driven, ethically and politically engaged storytelling, demonstrating how speculative narrative can illuminate questions of identity, responsibility and the consequences of human action. Unlike many earlier works of SF, often celebrated for their focus on world-building, The Ministry of Time situates its speculative premise in a world that closely resembles our own. This allows the narrative to devote more energy to character, emotion and moral dilemmas, while leaving some readers wishing for a fuller exploration of the mechanics of time travel itself.

The title, The Ministry of Time, immediately evokes associations with speculative and political literature, notably Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Both titles suggest governmental authority over temporal matters, positioning time as a domain requiring oversight and intervention. This framing aligns with Bradley’s exploration of a bureaucratic institution managing time travel and historical figures, emphasising the ethical complexities of such power. Additionally, the title may resonate with the Spanish television series El Ministerio del Tiempo, which similarly engages with time travel and historical encounters, though Bradley’s novel distinguishes itself through its focus on intimate, cross-temporal relationships and postcolonial themes. With some critics noting striking similarities between The Ministry of Time and El Ministerio del Tiempo, discussions around the novel have been complicated by a plagiarism controversy. While the publisher and author have denied any direct borrowing, the debate takes up questions of originality, adaptation and cultural borrowing.

It is also noteworthy how the novel has circulated internationally: while most translations retain a direct equivalent of The Ministry of Time, the Spanish edition avoids El Ministerio del Tiempo, the title of the TV series at the centre of the plagiarism controversy. Instead, it is published as Un puente sobre el tiempo (“A Bridge Across Time”), a striking shift that seems to signal both a distancing strategy and an attempt to reframe the novel for Spanish readers. This small but telling change does a lot: it raises questions of originality, intertextuality and ownership that shape the novel’s global reception.

While historical references appear, they primarily enrich the speculative backdrop rather than drive the plot. At its core, The Ministry of Time is a love story that explores the challenges and intimacy of relationships that span vast temporal divides. The bridge-narrator develops a profound connection with historical “expat” Graham Gore; through their story, the reader learns about both the dissonances and resonances that arise when individuals from very different times encounter one another. Through this central relationship, Bradley foregrounds questions of ethical responsibility, empathy and the consequences of human action: concerns that echo contemporary societal debates on postcolonial legacies and climate change.

Characterisation and emotional depth are central to the novel’s impact. Gore’s perspective conveys the physical and moral realities of nineteenth-century naval life, from survival and hierarchy to the assumptions embedded in imperial and colonial structures, while his encounters with the twenty-first century expose profound cultural dissonances and ethical tensions. The bridge-narrator reflects on her role with a mixture of fascination, care and responsibility: “It was so hard not to treat the expats like blank slates onto which I might write my opinions. […] Every time I gave Graham a book, I was trying to shunt him along a story I’d been telling myself all my life” (156). Her emotional engagement is inseparable from ethical reflection: in guiding historical figures, she must navigate the consequences of her influence, balancing empathy with moral responsibility. The romance between narrator and expat thus functions less as a conventional love story and more as a lens through which the novel examines moral agency, the ethical stakes of mediation across time and the lingering effects of colonial frameworks. By interweaving emotional intimacy with ethical and historical inquiry, Bradley demonstrates how SF can explore the complex interplay of personal connection, cultural understanding and human responsibility across temporal divides.

While The Ministry of Time clearly draws on SF and time travel tropes, its narrative structure owes just as much to the conventions of romance fiction. The novel is less invested in the technical details of time travel than in the emotional arcs that unfold around it. For many readers of SF, the absence of an explanation of the time-travel mechanism might be frustrating, but this absence also shifts the focus: relationships, intimacy and desire become some of the central motors of the plot. Reading the novel through a romance lens reveals how Bradley uses affect and attachment not only to anchor the speculative premise, but also to complicate questions of power, dependency and care across historical and cultural divides.

Bradley also engages thoughtfully with postcolonial and historical reflection. Gore’s nineteenth-century assumptions, his navigation of Arctic landscapes and encounters with Indigenous peoples reveal the legacies of imperial hierarchy and the categories imposed by colonial governance. The narrator reflects on this inheritance: “The great project of Empire was to categorise: owned and owner, coloniser and colonised… I inherited these taxonomies” (181). Through time travel, Bradley interrogates not only individual actions but the structures and epistemologies that shape historical events. Language again emerges as central: the act of naming, translating and interpreting carries moral and political consequences. By highlighting these stakes, the novel demonstrates how speculative narratives can illuminate the ethical and cognitive work involved in historical understanding and postcolonial critique.

A more troubling element lies in Gore’s attraction to the protagonist, which is explicitly linked to her resemblance to an Inuit woman against whom he has transgressed in the past. This “interchangeability” risks reproducing colonial logics, reducing both women to symbolic vehicles for Gore’s guilt and potential redemption. At the same time, it may be read as a deliberate narrative device to stress how thoroughly Gore remains trapped in the worldview of his own era: even as he is displaced into the present, he cannot shed the racialised and gendered assumptions that shaped him. Intentional or not, this aspect leaves a lingering feeling of unease with the reader and raises questions about the novel’s negotiation of colonial history through personal relationships.

Time travel (even though the novel could have done more in terms of explaining how it works) functions as a mechanism for ethical and philosophical exploration. The Ministry, ostensibly a bureaucratic institution, highlights the limits and responsibilities of human intervention across temporal contexts that are, by extension, social and environmental contexts. In this framework, language and cultural understanding become essential tools: “One of the many hypotheses coagulating in these early days of time-travel was that language infirmed experience — that we did not simply describe, but create our world through language” (56). This insight underscores the stakes of Bradley’s work as a bridge: guiding historical figures is not only a matter of translation but also of shaping their perception of the present, influencing how they act and how the world is subsequently understood. Bradley uses this premise to explore the ethical dimensions of mediation across time and, consequently, stresses the responsibility inherent in naming, interpreting and narrativising events. The language concerns that Bradley brings up also resonate with broader SF traditions, where language often functions as a lens to question the relationship between consciousness, society and reality itself. Ultimately, she links speculative narrative with philosophical inquiry and proposes that our engagement with the past carries both cognitive and moral weight.

The Ministry of Time resonates strongly with broader societal reflections on how nations reckon with their pasts. In Britain, debates around colonialism, restitution and reconciliation have intensified in recent years, and Bradley’s novel can be read as part of this cultural moment. By resurrecting a figure of imperial exploration and displacing him into the present, the novel forces readers to confront unresolved colonial legacies rather than allowing them to fade into comfortable amnesia. This mirrors wider movements, within Britain and globally, that insist on engaging critically with history, acknowledging its violence and considering possibilities for repair. At the same time, The Ministry of Time extends beyond national boundaries: it participates in an international literary conversation about the importance of grappling with the entanglement of past and present, recognising how colonial structures still shape today’s societies and futures. Similar questions are being asked in Canada, Australia and other (settler-)colonial contexts, where literature can become a key site for negotiating historical injustices and imagining new, more just futures.

Formally, the novel benefits from its dual timeline and alternating perspectives, which allow for nuanced explorations of temporal, ethical and emotional concerns. Vivid descriptions of Arctic landscapes and period detail provide texture and authenticity, while the focus on emotional and cognitive mediation ensures that the narrative remains both intellectually engaging and emotionally compelling. Bradley’s careful structuring, numerical versus Roman numeral chapters, reinforces the contrasts between past and present, which supports the thematic centrality of perception, interpretation and responsibility across eras.

While The Ministry of Time succeeds in its exploration of temporal ethics, linguistic mediation and emotional depth, certain narrative choices limit its impact in other areas. Readers with a particular interest in Arctic history or expedition narratives may find the historical sections comparatively brief and underdeveloped. The Franklin Expedition, though thematically resonant, serves more as a backdrop for cross-temporal ethical reflection than as a fully realised historical setting. This raises questions about why Bradley chose this particular historical context: the Arctic environment, survival challenges and the broader expeditionary framework are evocative but largely peripheral to the novel’s central concerns. While these choices are understandable given the novel’s focus on ethical mediation, language and cross-temporal encounters, the historical and geographic richness of the Arctic is not fully leveraged, leaving readers with the sense that the setting could have been more integrated into the narrative’s speculative and philosophical ambitions.

Beyond its literary and philosophical achievements, The Ministry of Time offers rich possibilities for scholarly engagement, particularly around the question of how understanding the past informs the present. The novel’s emphasis on cross-temporal mediation and responsibility encourages reflection on the ethical, environmental and social consequences of human action in the Anthropocene. Students and researchers could explore how Bradley’s narrative addresses the ongoing relevance of historical knowledge for contemporary challenges such as climate change, showing how interventions (temporal or societal) carry moral weight. Similarly, the novel’s attention to colonial hierarchies, historical encounters and the epistemologies inherited from empire invites analysis of how historical legacies continue to shape structures of power, cultural understanding and systemic inequities, including ongoing issues of racism. It is through the linking of speculative, historical and ethical inquiry that Bradley’s work provides a platform for discussions that span literature, environmental studies, postcolonial critique and social ethics. Doing so, she showcases how fiction can illuminate the stakes of grappling with history to better navigate present and future challenges.

Overall, The Ministry of Time is a richly imagined speculative romance that engages both the heart and the intellect. Bradley demonstrates how love across time can illuminate ethical, cultural and environmental stakes. Bradley shows that human connection, even across centuries, reflects ongoing societal concerns about climate, history and moral responsibility. The novel combines emotional resonance with intellectual rigor, making it a distinctive and compelling contribution to contemporary SF.

Lena Leimgruber is a PhD student in English Literature at Umeå University, Sweden. Her research examines representations of the Arctic in contemporary literature, with a particular focus on colonial histories, ecological crisis and more-than-human agency. Lena explores how speculative and environmental narratives challenge dominant cultural imaginaries and expose entangled legacies of imperialism and climate change.

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