Category: Nonfiction Reviews

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Many scholars have acknowledged the need to expand our current conceptualizations of the complexity and scale of climate change, and of the Anthropocene more widely. Matthew Schneider-Mayerson and Brent Ryan Bellamy’s An Ecotopian Lexicon takes an unusually direct approach to this task by offering a collection of essays, each of which makes a case for adding a specific new loanword to English from another language. In the foreword, Kim Stanley Robinson suggests that this text can function as “sourcebook, clarification, diagnostic, and stimulus” (xiv) for conceptualizing contemporary climate issues. Each of the thirty essays and fourteen pieces of art in An Ecotopian Lexicon draws attention to crucial issues through examining a specific loanword. Most helpfully, each essay begins with a pronunciation guide and an example for its respective loanword. These loanwords aim to broaden the imagination and are highly diverse in origin; some, such as “heyiya” and “terragouge” are derived from speculative novels and science fiction. Others, such “Qi,” “nahual,” and “solastalgia” find their roots in Confucianism, Mesoamerican cultures, and ecopsychology, respectively. What they all appear to share, however, is the ability to address an existing gap in the English language. In other words, each loanword provides a concrete term for an existing concept, emotion, or movement that engages with environmental challenges but has yet to be articulated by the English-speaking world.

            An Ecotopian Lexicon offers two ways in which to navigate these loanwords. The first contents pages alphabetize the essays while the second groups them into the following themes: Greetings, Dispositions, Perception, Desires, Beyond the Human, and Beyond “the Environment.” Many may consider the latter option more helpful, given the unfamiliar nature of loanwords. However, if reading this text in alphabetical order, ~*~ is the first loanword presented. According to Melody Jue, in the “Apocalypto” entry, this loanword is pronounced by blowing softly on the back of your hand (15). In addition to its curious pronunciation, ~*~ is the most glyphically unusual loanword contained in An Ecotopian Lexicon. Inspired by Dolphinese, ~*~ can be described as the “vibratory jouissance” (17) felt when dolphins use soundwaves to tickle each other, often across considerable distances. In terms of its practical usage, Jue suggests that ~*~ can function as a metaphor for figurative language in relation to the aquatic within terrestrial and human contexts. Indeed, the example she provides at the beginning of her essay elucidates her suggested usage nicely: “That USB comedy sketch about a BP board meeting struggling to clean up all the coffee spilled at their table really ~*~ me when I watched it on YouTube” (15).

            Through drawing attention to a method of communication used by Dolphins and why we should also make use of ~*~ as a metaphor, Jue inadvertently subverts the Anthropocentric binary notion of “us” (humans) and “them” (animals). As noted by Matthew Calarco, this idea has continued to pervade Western philosophies since Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics suggested an innate separation between humans, animals, and other forms of nonhuman life alongside a corresponding hierarchy (8). While many may consider the subversion of this idea to be a worthy ambition, particularly as it has been used to justify countless ecological atrocities against nonhuman species, practical utilization of ~*~ is potentially problematic in many circumstances. This, unfortunately, undermines its presence within a text that seeks to embed the usage of useful loanwords into the English language. While it may be relatively easy to type ~*~, as demonstrated by the example that Jue provides, using it in lectures, presentations, and more casual conversation would be somewhat tricky, thus diminishing ~*~’s potential for widespread usage.  

            Carolyn Fornoff’s essay, “Nahual,” occurs approximately halfway through the text, finding itself placed before ~*~ within Beyond the Human. It is not entirely clear why this essay was placed first (the decision was evidently not based on alphabetical order) but Fornoff’s exploration of the loanword “nahual” is both interesting and engaging, nonetheless. Like Jue’s essay, Fornoff’s criticises the notion of humans as being separate from the animal kingdom and the suggestion that “humans and nonhumans occupy separate, discrete realms of activity and knowledge” (163). The term nahual, which can be pronounced as “na-wal,” represents a Mesoamerican concept that suggests every human is linked to an animal alter-ego. In this sense, the daemons featured in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (1995-2000)could be considered reminiscent of this idea. For example, in both, the form of each person’s nahual or daemon is determined according to key characteristics of their personality. Understood metaphorically, nahualism, Fornoff suggests, can offer a crucial counterpoint to current Western conceptualizations of humans as separate from animals and provide a way of conceiving our human selves as innately bound to non-human life. Furthermore, she suggests that a better understanding of the inseparability between humans and animals can shift our ethical relationship with nature from one that is generated by individual moral codes to a relationality-based code of ethics (169-170). Indeed, nahualism has the potential to provoke decisive action against ecological degradation and what scientists such as Samuel T. Turvey have described as the Holocene extinction. Although this research on nahualism provides an interesting insight into Mesoamerican worldviews and a symbolic method of visualising the interconnectedness between humans and non-human animals, it does little to help us conceptualise the complex relationships that exist within ecosystems.     

            Destabilising separatist views is clearly a recurring theme within An Ecotopian Lexicon; in some essays, it is a key motif while in many others it is a more peripheral motif. Janet Tamalik McGrath’s thought-provoking essay on the loanword “sila” critiques this view through her examination of the English language at a structural level. Given that An Ecotopian Lexicon aims to harness the power of language to expand our conceptualization of climate change, essays such as this one seem appropriate for inclusion. The term sila, which can be pronounced as “see-lah,” is a noun derived from Inuktut (one of several Inuit languages) and, unlike ~*~ and nahual, is placed in Beyond “the Environment.” Although McGrath acknowledges the difficultly of a direct translation of this loanword, sila can be thought of as a concept that suggests humanity is responsible for preserving nature due to our ability, as a species, to influence its progress. Of course, concepts that promote this sort of stewardship are not unfamiliar to the English-speaking world and can be found in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish doctrines alike. However, according to McGrath, sila differs from these ideas as it can be thought of as a “superconcept” that emphasizes the interconnectedness between abstract ideas such as intelligence, spirit, and the cosmos. In this essay, McGrath also highlights how the linguistic structure of Inuktut is used to convey the highly relational worldviews held by many Innuits. Unlike English, Inuktut utilizes transitive verb agreement endings (subject and object as a single unit), is ungendered, and does not distinguish between animate or inanimate objects. In addition to being a highly relational language, Inuktut places the subject at the end of the sentence rather than the beginning as English does. For example, in English we may say “I am going to the store.” In Inuktut, however, the morphology would be more akin to “the store-going to-will-I” (260). Through exploring sila in the context of the linguistic structure of Inuktut, McGrath raises intriguing questions about how the structure of language itself has the ability to shape our perception of and relationship to the world. In addition, McGrath raises intriguing questions as to what effect putting ourselves at the end of the sentence may have on how we react to climate change.             Overall, this text is highly thought provoking and has the potential to be widely influential. However, its level of influence is altogether dependent on how it is used. For example, if those who read it actively incorporate these loanwords into everyday conversation, presentations, academic work etc., it could significantly develop our conceptions of climate change. Therefore, perhaps this book can be used most effectively by educators, academics, and researchers. That being said, those with an avid interest in climate change and the Anthropocene would be likely to find its contents interesting and informative. The inclusion of artwork to represent selected loanwords is also a nice touch and acknowledges the role that art, as well as language, can have in allowing us to better visualise climate change. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to expand their understanding of climate change as well as to those seeking to educate others on this topic. However, a revised edition of An Ecotopian Lexicon with further loanwords that address its complex temporal aspects, and perhaps even climate change denial, would be a welcome addition to literature on climate change and the Anthropocene more widely.

WORKS CITED

Calarco, Matthew. Thinking Through Animals. Stanford University Press, 2015.

Ray Davenport is a PhD student at Plymouth University, England. Her current research involves examining pretrauma and anticipatory memory within contemporary environmental fiction.

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Auteur’s Constellations series of short monographs on key SF films and TV shows is uneven. Susanne Kord’s 12 Monkeys, which focuses primarily on Terry Gilliam’s film but also devotes a short chapter to the TV show, is a strong addition to the growing series. Kord, a Professor at University College London and author of several books and articles on popular culture, especially film, demonstrates intimate knowledge not only of the film but also of the critical tradition surrounding it. While one might quarrel with the back cover copy’s claim that 12 Monkeys is Gilliam’s best film (a claim not made within the book itself), Kord argues persuasively that it is Gilliam’s “least understood film” (13) because audiences and scholars alike have failed to see past the ways the film “deliberately confounds viewer expectations” (13). Kord cites numerous reviews and studies that express bafflement about the film, noting that commentators can’t agree “even on plot fundamentals” to a “startling” degree (8). Kord sets out to untangle the film’s knots, and she does so by exploring carefully and thoroughly how it deals with the implications of time travel.

Key to Kord’s reading is an explication of how the film denies the idea that time is linear, choosing instead to follow Einstein’s ideas (Einstein is even referenced in the film) of spacetime. Though the film repeatedly has characters point out that time cannot be changed, Kord argues that the implications of this fact have been insufficiently recognized in studies of the film, which often want to read some sort of hope or optimism into it—to see 12 Monkeys as the kind of time travel story in which one can change the past (or the future)—despite the fact that the film itself forecloses on that possibility.  Kord’s chapter on the TV series notes that this is a key aspect of the film discarded by the television show, which is predicated on the notion that the past can indeed be changed, if only one finds the right antecedent event to undo. Following the first chapter, which offers Kord’s synopsis of the film, Kord provides two chapters, “Pushing the (Reset) Button: Why You Can’t Start Over” and “’Thank You, Einstein’: Why You Can’t Turn Back Time,” in which she offers a detailed reading of the film’s time travel theory and some of the implications of that theory for concepts such as free will and determinism, a subject to which she returns in chapter 6, “Free Will, Determinism and Doing What You’re Told.” These aspects of Kord’s study constitute her most significant contribution to 12 Monkeys scholarship and should be illuminating to anyone interested in the film, whether as a fan or as a scholar.

            Kord is interested in other questions raised by the film, notably about the implications of point of view and perception. The film itself provides a meta commentary on this topic when Cole, while in a movie theatre watching Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), comments on how the movie itself can’t change but that one sees something different every time one watches it. Kord reads this not only as a commentary on the nature of the relationship between films and audiences (a relationship endorsed by Gilliam himself, who Kord quotes in the book’s coda as believing that there are multiple equally valid interpretations of his films, regardless of his intent) but also as a commentary on the nature of time in the film: time itself is fixed and immutable, but how one perceives it varies. This is of course very much in keeping with Einstein’s relativity. Kord makes much of the fact that a key problem in the film is that what is true is very much a matter of perspective; what seems like Cole’s insane babbling from the perspective of Railly in 1996 is, from Cole’s perspective, literally the truth.

            Kord also looks carefully at Gilliam’s filmic technique. She devotes considerable attention to the ways Gilliam fills the screen with significant information. This ranges from visual elements such as set dressings and objects shown on screen through camera point of view (e.g. the frequency with which characters are shown contained or enclosed, or even viewed through obstacles such as fences), the color palettes (e.g. how Cole frequently blends into the drab surroundings in which he is placed, or how the absence of color differentiation creates confusion even about which time frame we are in), camera angles, etc. Gilliam is a master of cinematic form, so it is unsurprising that so much of the film’s meaning is communicated not by dialogue and acting but by the visuals, but Kord expertly demonstrates how this is the case in clear prose that makes Gilliam’s technique evident even to those who are not film scholars.

            Indeed, one of the most admirable aspects of this book is Kord’s clear, engaging writing. This book is not only insightful but also a pleasure simply to read for the vividness and elegance of its prose. Kord is adept at communicating complex scholarly ideas in understandable language. That she can say so much of value in a mere hundred pages is impressive. This book makes an important contribution to Gilliam scholarship and should be read by anyone interested in the study of his films, but it is also eminently readable by a general audience. Given its relatively low cost, it would make a useful resource for students covering the film in a course, but it would be a worthwhile addition to any library’s Film and/or SF studies holdings.

Dominick Grace is Professor of English at Brescia University College in London, Ontario. His main area of research interest is popular culture, especially comics and Science Fiction.

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Fans of speculative fiction are, by definition, those who enjoy the unknown, the hidden and the what-if. Science fiction and fantasy stories present fresh perspectives on what we think we know about the world and new realities for us to explore and contemplate. So when a book makes the tantalizing claim that it contains the secret history of the genre, it’s practically an irresistible temptation to anyone interested in the origins, growth, and development of SF. Despite its subtitle, however, Lost Transmissions is less a cohesive historical overview than it is a compilation of individual insights into little-known episodes in science fiction and fantasy that have taken place throughout the years. The book comprises articles, interviews, and guest essays on speculative fiction projects in a range of categories, such as literature, film and television, music, fashion, and more. This is not to say that readers won’t find interesting and engaging historical information in this book. In fact, there is plenty of that. It’s just that the history is delivered in independent presentations, rather than as a continuing and connected historical narrative. The fact that the subtitle may be somewhat misleading is recognized by both the author and by Jeff VanderMeer, the award-winning writer and editor, who provides the foreword. Although they both use the phrase “secret history” when describing the collection, VanderMeer refers to the collection variously as an introduction, a catalogue, and a jumping-off point for exploring SF, while Boskovich notes, with her emphasis, that “above all, this is not the secret history, but a secret history” (xi).

That being said, the presentation of Lost Transmissions delivers its material in a nice, semi-chronological order within categories. The first nearly hundred pages are devoted to literature, a perfectly reasonable starting point given that this is how most readers are likely to have become enthusiasts of the genre. Following a quick nod to Mary Shelley, there are entries on other lesser-known contributions to science fiction and fantasy writings, from the 1500s through to the twenty-first century. When the articles discuss writers who are perhaps more recognizable and better-known to the mainstream, such as C.S. Lewis, Harlan Ellison, and Philip K. Dick, it is in order to reveal backstories and information that, in all honesty and deference to the name of the book, could very well be considered to be secret histories. They are stories that are most likely unknown to anyone who is not at least a moderately serious reader of these writers. The section on film and television is not quite as robust, with entries ranging from Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) and Metropolis (1927), through Star Wars (1977), Dune (1984), and Aliens (1986). One feels that there must be many more unknown or abandoned speculative fiction projects in Tinseltown than what we are presented with here, but the stories that are included are interesting behind-the-scenes tales of the film industry. The categories of architecture, art and design, music, and fashion are all smaller sections, while the final category, fandom and pop culture, is nearly as large as the section on film and television, perhaps because it is somewhat of an umbrella term, encompassing comics, role-playing games, computer gaming, and more.

As noted previously, these are individual glimpses into and untold stories of the genre, not a comprehensive, linear discussion of the development of speculative fiction. For example, David Barr Kirtley’s essay on Robert Asprin’s Myth series is less about the books themselves than the influence they had on Kirtley’s life and career. Boskovich’s article on the art of Michael Whelan briefly touches on his role in the growing popularity of realism for fantasy and science fiction book covers in the 1970s and ‘80s, but misses the opportunity to discuss his work in context with his contemporaries, such as Darrell K. Sweet. But this sort of criticism is practically unavoidable in an endeavor such as Lost Transmissions. The more any reader knows about any given subject, the harder it is for the book to deliver fresh, new, “secret” knowledge. In his foreword, Vandermeer openly acknowledges that some readers are likely to feel that their own particular favorites have been overlooked or under-represented.

This is why one of Lost Transmissions’ strengths is its wide range of scope. Boskovich’s articles, nearly four dozen of them, vary in length from just two paragraphs to several pages. All are interesting and most contain information that will be new to the average reader. Another nearly three dozen guest essays are provided by contributors including well-known names and award-winning personalities, such as Charlie Jane Anders, William Gibson, Lev Grossman, Annalee Newitz, and Neil Gaiman, and they range in tone and content from academically informative to personally reminiscent. Four interviews with genre writers are all thoughtful and interesting glimpses into the lives of the authors. New or casual fans will find this book to be, as VanderMeer puts it, “an utter revelation,” (ix), while even the most scholarly of readers will be able to use the information here (including sources, credits, and a comprehensive index) as a resource to spark new avenues of inquiry. In the unlikely event that a reader finds no new or hidden knowledge, it is still fascinating to read what people like Gibson and Gaiman have to say about the genre in their own words. All in all, any quibble with the subtitle is ultimately a minor issue, and Lost Transmissions is a worthwhile addition to the collection of anyone who has more than a passing interest in science fiction and fantasy.

A non-Native native of the American West and a recent transplant to New England, Raymond K. Rugg works in Speculative Fiction, Speculative Nonfiction and Speculative Poetry. He presents regularly as an independent scholar at regional and national academic conferences and his writing has appeared or is upcoming in publications including Abyss & Apex, Asimov’s and Foundation, The International Review of Science Fiction. More information at RaymondKRugg.com.

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The edited collection The Cyberpunk Nexus seeks to explore the film Blade Runner (1982, 1992, 2007), the wider Blade Runner franchise, and the film’s enduring influence throughout popular culture. Published by the Sequart Organization, who specialize in popular (i.e. non-scholarly) criticism, the collection blurs the distinction between academic and non-academic criticism through its formal mimicry of academic norms: the inclusion of footnotes, a contributor section, and the use of ambiguous language. This ambiguity can best be seen in the collection’s blurb that states that the book is written by “film historians” and “subject-matter experts.” However, despite this, and in contrast to many other examples of popular criticism, The Cyberpunk Nexus seems far more comfortable with its non-academic pedigree, with arguments and observations that are self-consciously embedded in the personal or subjective, with only the occasional dalliance with pseudo-academic objectivity.

The book is broken into five sections that respectively cover the texts that inspired Blade Runner, the music and multiple versions of the film, the themes of the film, the further adaptations and spin-offs from Blade Runner, and a final section covering Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Most of the essays are a mixture of compendium and opinion from well informed fan-commentators/researchers. Among the many contributors to this 28-essay collection are popular critics, media practitioners, and academic scholars. With a foreword by Paul M. Sammon, it acts as a (sort of) companion piece to Sammon’s own Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner (1996), supplementing Sammon’s focused and detailed accounting of the ‘making of …’ with a broader discussion of Blade Runner as a complex and evolving intertext.

There have been two previous scholarly essay collections on Blade Runner. Retrofitting Blade Runner (1991), edited by Judith Kerman, focused more specifically on debates arising from the film itself with some attention paid to the adaptation process, while The Blade Runner Experience (2005), edited by Will Brooker, engaged in a wider discussion of the reverberating influence of Blade Runner throughout popular culture. Other than updating the discussion, and including responses to the 2017 sequel, the true value in this collection can be seen in the fan perspective many of the essays offer and the testimonials from creatives who have added their own texts to the ever-expanding Blade Runner intertext.

To highlight the non-scholarly nature of the fan essays that dominate this collection is not an attempt at stigmatization. Rather, it is to recognize that these essays have not been produced in light of academic stricture or in an effort to satisfy the machinery of analysis. Therefore, the use-value of these essays can be seen in the, sometimes quite lengthy, accounts of preferred textual readings. Whether this collection is indicative of the wider genre-fandom community or is a more limited reflection of the specific communities engaged with Blade Runner, there are two key takeaways to consider. The first is that, where adaptation has occurred, fidelity to the original persists as an important measure of success. Second, fidelity is not a straightforward measure, applied as it is in this collection with nuance and complexity.

Across the collection, contributors discuss the necessity and desirability of divergence from the source material, citing the vagaries of filmmaking and the expectations of cinema audiences as part of their justification for this. Whether these arguments are convincing or not, they reveal a sophisticated approach to adapted texts by engaged audiences. Therefore, fidelity is deployed to critique the success of any changes or divergences from the source, rather than being used to denounce the differences themselves. The engaged audience whose voice is well represented by this collection combine, as part of their critical apparatus, preferred readings of both source and adaptation while also juggling questions of authorial intention through engagement with extant critical (popular and otherwise) literature and paratexts. This sophistication somewhat flies in the face of the logophilia that continues to haunt Science Fiction Studies and the denunciation of fidelity criticism that remains a shibboleth of Adaptation Studies.

A further usefulness of The Cyberpunk Nexus is the inclusion of an essay by Bryce Carlson, who was part of the team that produced the graphic-novelization Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (2009) for BOOM! Studios. This memoir-essay covers Carlson’s evolving role in the adaptation from novel to comic book, as well as describing some of the practical and legal challenges that the project had to overcome. Carlson notes, with lawyerly finesse, that:

It wasn’t an adaptation because Blade Runner was the adaptation and had all the rights that went along with it. And it wasn’t an illustrated novel because we didn’t have novel publishing rights … It was a “graphic novelization” in the true sense of the term. (265-66).

This question of rights didn’t just affect how the project conceived of itself but also impacted the design choices available. Carlson goes on to state that they had “one big artistic obstacle … We were not allowed to do anything that looked like Blade Runner” (267). Rights ownership and exploitation is a hot topic right now within media studies generally and also within the hard sciences with discussion of vaccine patent ownership entering mainstream discourse. Therefore, this is a timely account by Carlson that will be of interest to any science fiction scholar engaged in the debates about copyright and its Janus-faced impact on contemporary creativity.

The primary weakness of this collection is in the lack of reliable citation or attribution in the essays that cover production and release histories. The usefulness of these essays is undermined by the inability to return to the origins of the data points. This is shame, as it turns exhaustive research and compiling into hearsay. And one would need to redo the research oneself in order to be confident in its veracity. Furthermore, and as already pointed out, this is not an academic collection. Therefore, any scholars seeking an academic introduction or interrogation of Blade Runner, adaptation, genre cinema, or cyberpunk as a cultural force are looking in the wrong place. Instead, this collection provides many valuable insights and signals a number of trailheads for future study, while also serving as a choice example of contemporary genre fandom that reveals a continuity with the origins of sciences fiction criticism; that is, criticism carried out by a community of highly motivated, articulate, and, mostly non-academic commentators.

Terence Sawyers is a film and media scholar who insists he is not a SF scholar; despite this the vast majority of his research continues to overlap with SF scholarship, go figure. His primary research area is the adaptation of SF writer Philip K. Dick into film and television. He also side-lines as a conspiracy theory theorist and is a dabbler in the history of occultism. When not sifting through layers of simulated hyperreality he can be found hosting About Film (aboutfilmedinburgh.wordpress.com), a regular public engagement event held in the meat-space that is Edinburgh, Scotland. 

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Robert Markley’s Kim Stanley Robinson is a wonderfully crafted and targeted introduction to one of the most significant writers in 20^th century science fiction. Robinson’s works of fiction depicting climate, interstellar travel, planetary politics, Martian terraforming, and utopic visions have been a vital backdrop in science fiction over the last 40 years which are only becoming more relevant today. Markley’s work in categorizing Robinson’s contributions to science fiction is the perfect volume both for an amateur who is new to Robinson and is unsure where to start, and for well-versed academics pursuing research within this field. Kim Stanley Robinson is neither a chronological index of Robinson’s work, nor is it a biography but rather a panning camera which zooms in and out to tastefully pull apart the key themes, messages, and lessons within Robinson’s major works. Robert Markley is a professor of English at the University of Illinois and is well equipped to write on Robinson, both with his friendship with the author as well as his shared interests. Markley has several publications in the field of climate change, science fiction, and the environment. These include “Ecological Footprints: Crusoe’s Island and Other Alien Environments,” in Eighteenth-Century Fiction; “Literature, Climate, and Time: Between History and Story,” in Climate and Literature; and “Nation and Environment in Britain, 1660-1705,” in Emergent Nation: Early Modern British Literature in Transition, 1660–1714 and represent a small sample of his larger canon of work and themes closely connected to Robinson’s own interests. In the Introduction, Markley examines the threads of ecological, utopian, and Buddhist threads in Robinson’s works. Markley’s volume balances deep literary analysis with a personal and engaging exploration of Robinson and his work. He devotes close analysis to Robinson’s works, treating them with the same weight he has given to other great works of literature such as Milton’s Paradise Lost (1674), whilst still emphasizing the impact of family, background, and connection to the land have had on Robinson’s fiction. This focused exploration reveals an extensive understanding of Robinson’s work and highlights why Robinson is truly a modern Master of Science Fiction.

Markley’s chapters are categorized by key works, with Chapter One being devoted to Robinson’s short fiction and Years of Rice and Salt (2002). Chapter Two and Three focus on the Three Californias Trilogy (1984-90) (which explores different visions of California) and the Mars trilogy (1992-96) respectively. Chapter Four defines Robinson’s Cli-fi through the Capital Trilogy (2004-07), an insightful exploration into this vital theme of ecology within Robinson’s canon. Chapter Five looks at four of Robinson’s novels, from both earlier and later in his career, which critique the familiar motif and celebration of intergalactic travel, unpacking the political and ecological conflicts Earth must face. Finally, Chapter Six looks at Robinson’s most recent works, Aurora (2015) and NY2140 (2017).

Chapter Six neatly tracks the direction of Robinson’s most contemporary works, focusing on two alternate futures for mankind. In Aurora, the ship narrates the lives of intergalactic explorers looking for their new home. The work problematizes and critiques the space fantasies so often explored in science fiction and asks questions about the nature of AI, environmentalism, and the problems of long-term ship life. NY2140 is a story from the perspective of a collection of different characters who try to survive in a highly capitalistic and flawed new society which has become a water-logged New York. The work is highly critical of our current passivity to climate change with a key character, the “citizen,” an unnamed everyman who berates previous generations for doing next to nothing to prevent the disasters of the new Anthropocene. Rather than producing a depressing pessimistic piece, Robinson offers hope through his depictions of people working together, sharing kindness and love, and dismantling capitalistic and selfish structures, remembering that it is vital that we take care of our environment.

Markley’s Kim Stanley Robinson is an affordable and vital exploration into the life, works, and impact of Robinson’s fiction. In the Introduction, Markley identifies the words “utopia,” “explore,” and “reframe” as key words which might arise if a word search were done on the book. In addition, I would like to add “ecology”; whilst politics, space exploration, sociology and science are key themes, Robinson (and Markley) remind us that mother nature always bats last. Robinson’s utopias and works over the last forty years are only becoming more and more relevant. Utopias are sometimes considered as pure fantasies, too removed from current situations. However, Robinson’s Utopias are grounded survival guides for a real-world future, which are only becoming more relevant today. Robinson reminds us the need and demand for skilled and ethically charged writers to create them.

Whether one is researching cli-fi or science fiction and wants to explore deeply the themes of Robinson’s works, or whether one is new to the author and unsure where to start, Markley’s introduction is both comprehensive and accessible.

The literary critic Wayne Booth states that we often “underestimate the extent to which we absorb the values of what we read” and that fiction can shape our ethics and understanding of the world (41). In a similar vein, Robinson believes that we as a society are all writing our own science fiction novel, collaborating together when we read his works. If this is the case, then what better work to mimic than one which promotes ecological conservation and community, and seeks to question capitalistic tropes.

WORKS CITED

Booth, Wayne. The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. The University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Tara B. M. Smith is a PhD student at the University of Sydney’s Department of Studies of Religion, Australia. Her PhD thesis explores the significance of Science Fiction in understanding the future and the way the genre is relevant and impacts cultural, social, religious and environmental landscapes. Tara’s interests include conspiracy theories, cli-fi, New Religious Movements, comparative religion and literature portrayals of the environment. 

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This overview of Joanna Russ’s life’s work is part of the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series, edited by Gary K. Wolfe, which has given a series of in-depth accounts of science fiction writers including William Gibson, Octavia Butler, and Arthur C. Clarke. In this volume, Jones surveys Russ’s career in extreme detail, bringing in the most relevant of secondary sources as well as interviews with those who knew her and worked with her. The book is organised into chapters that each cover a span of years in Russ’s career so that her critical works and reviews are given attention alongside the fiction of those years. This structure serves to foreground the skill of the reviewer to an unusual degree, giving some useful insight into Russ’s thinking at different periods of her life. Russ’s career as a critic was an expression of her love of and commitment to science fiction, and Jones’s structure conveys this to the reader, allowing the reviews to give a wider sense of the science-fictional context for Joanna Russ’s work. There are times where the format stifles the more interesting possibilities of such a survey. For example, the blow-by-blow account of The Female Man’s plot is perhaps a bit unnecessary; Russ’s most well-known work of fiction is recounted chapter-by-chapter and, while Jones’s descriptions are always well-written and engaging, this is perhaps not essential for a book that is still regularly to be found on book shelves and university syllabi. Perhaps this aspect of Jones’s overview will be welcomed by undergraduates and those seeking to discover Russ’s work for the first time, but if one wishes to know a text in such detail it might be wiser simply to read the novel. One might recall the final line of Russ’s short story about female writers, “Swordblades and Poppy Seeds”: “Are you truly curious? Then read our books” (quoted in Jones, 146).

Where this style does come into its own, however, is in Jones’s use of first-hand accounts of science fiction symposia, fan culture, and magazine culture. These elements, so crucial to science fiction’s production and reception, are not often given sufficient breathing space in academic accounts of the genre, and Jones redresses the balance here in some of the highlights of the book. The chapter on the Women in Science Fiction Event gives an account of the Khatru symposium, named after the magazine that organized this exchange of letters on feminism in science fiction between key figures, including Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, James Tiptree Jr., and Samuel Delany. Jones gives a good account of the flavour of these exchanges, offering the reader the context necessary to unpick the complex personality politics of the debate. Alongside analysis of the letters and context from the contemporary period, Jones gives information gleaned from later interviews with the participants so that their insight into the event decades after the fact gives an account of the importance of these exchanges in shaping the situation of women in science fiction today. This analysis is perhaps the highlight of the book, gleaning precious insight from texts that are not widely studied and available.

The study also gives space for some useful analysis of Russ’s role in the science fiction community, with Jones describing Russ’s situation through a reading of Sam Greenlee’s novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1969). Greenlee’s novel tells the story of the first black CIA agent and plays on the multiple meanings of the term “spook” to refer to ghettoized African Americans, spies, and ghosts. The idea of the spook who “sat by the door” is one who is displayed prominently to give a (probably false) impression of the organisation’s progressive credentials. Jones argues that Russ was, in many ways, treated as a “spook who sat by the door” as an uncompromising lesbian feminist in a genre that had a tendency to treat women as inferior. Jones’s commentary here is fascinating, and speaks to other situations in which the sf community tends to fixate on a singular individual in order to compensate for the genre-wide failure to integrate excluded groups – an example might be the profusion of scholarship, and placement on course syllabi, of Octavia Butler as a stand-in for African American women in general, a problem that is only now beginning to be eased through the rise of authors like N. K. Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor.

Another highlight of the book is the attention it pays to Russ’s feminist activism and writing beyond her commitment to sf. In particular, the section on her essays from 1981-89 (137-44) gives a particularly tantalising account of Russ’s engagement with feminisms during this period, an engagement that encompasses some of the movement’s key conflicts and contradictions, including the risks of essentialism and the tension between the violence of patriarchal sexuality and the urgency of finding an authentic female sexuality; a tension which Russ, in an unlikely move, negotiates through her love of Kirk/Spock slash fiction. The brief quotations from Russ’s essays of this period are an invitation to dive deeper and to discover the ways in which the contemporary debates in feminism shaped not just science fiction and literary criticism, but the parameters of feminist debate and women’s place in society today. Highlights such as these will make this book a valuable addition to any scholar seeking to understand Russ’s work in its literary and political context, while offering a detailed introduction for those approaching it for the first time.

Anna McFarlane is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Glasgow working on traumatic pregnancy and its expression in science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture (2019) and is co-editing The Edinburgh Companion to Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities. Her first monograph is a study of William Gibson’s novels, Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology: Seeing Through the Mirrorshades (Routledge 2021).

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The “Anglophone Bias” in science fiction consumption and scholarship is an unfortunate phenomenon whose validity, causes, and outcomes have been discussed at length. Indeed, select a science fiction aficionado at random from any English-speaking country, and generally they would be hard-pressed, if called upon, to provide any detail about the science fiction product of, say, Italy, or why they should know or care about any of it at all. This study provides that reader with a lively, coherent education while leaving a residue of unsated curiosity on their palate. Brioni and Comberiati’s book explores how the speculative fiction of modern Italy, be it in literature, film, or the sequential art narrative, has presented The Other, and to what end. The authors concede that Italian science fiction published post-unification (1861) may on its face seem to be derivative of more well-known English language works, but analysis of it informed by social and historical context reveals truths about definitions of Italian national and regional identity and how Italy’s minorities are perceived and valued. These insights extrapolate to postcolonial and neocolonial situations, and point the way to the latent value of science fiction, in “other” settings.

The monograph begins chronologically, with an examination of the relationship between colonialism, exploration narratives/travel writing, and early science fiction produced after the unification of Italy in 1861. Even before the birth of the nation, science fiction writers imagined an Italian future where outsiders such as Germany and the Vatican had been dispatched. Later, travel periodicals such as Giornale illustrato dei viaggi e delle avventure di terra e di mare [Illustrated Journal of Travels and Adventures on Land and Sea] (1878-1931) set up a dichotomy between the idealized civilized Italian explorer and the savage indigene. An important function of this dichotomy was to justify colonization and to represent it as a righteous endeavor so that the explorer was not merely appropriating land, resources, and labor, but instead providing scientific progress, order, and moral direction to beings who were perceived/depicted as little more than animals and thus lacking in any legitimate right to the exotic paradises they inhabited and the precious natural resources therein. Writers such as Paolo Mategazza, Emilio Salgari, and Yambo published science fiction stories in the early twentieth century that had all the trappings of travel writing, but these journeys were either to other planets or the Earth’s future; the protagonists continued to be Italian or European adventurers who were left to contend with and bring a civilizing force to aliens that were merely exaggerated contemporaneous racial stereotypes of Earth’s colonized peoples. Thus, early Italian science fiction provided some of the fabric in the curtain that was placed between “Italian-ness” and “Other.”

Later chapters look at narrative reactions and responses to the perceived challenges Italian national identity, calcified by tradition, faced by merely existing in the proximity of other cultures. In the decades following World War II, Italy endured a monkey’s paw-like material prosperity followed by profound political turmoil. Apocalyptic films explored the resulting fractures to Italian culture with varying levels of success and ambiguity. In Omicron (1963) the advance party for an alien invasion observes Italian society through the eyes of a southern migrant factory worker. L’ultimo uomo della terra (The Last Man on Earth [1964]) shows the last stand of an isolated white middle-aged male in the ruins of a world overrun by zombie-vampire hybrids in black shirts. In I cannibali (The Cannibals [1970]) a young heroine and her foreign companion push back against the constraints imposed upon them by the older generation in an authoritarian near-future Milan. The discussion of these latter two films affords the reader insight into how works from other times and places—Richard Matheson’s I am Legend (1954) and Sophocles’ Antigone (442 BCE)—translate into and comment on the anxieties of modern Italy.

Comberiati discusses Michele Medda, Antonio Serra, and Bepi Vigna’s dystopian science fiction fumetti Nathan Never (1991-present), which “focuses on the fear of contamination, and the borders that separate ‘pure’ humans and aliens, mutants, or cyborgs” (169). Never exists in a complex vertical society where the privileged live high above and away from the downtrodden. His adventures have him mix it up with the spectrum of social groups, and he sometimes serves as the “white messianic figure” that protects the helpless in a cyberpunk world (170). Another popular sequential art narrative, Stefano Tamburini, Tanino Liberatore, and Alain Chabat’s RanXerox (1978-97) features a title character who is as far from a charismatic white savior as one can get—he’s a hybrid of a human and a copy machine making his way in yet another vertically stratified and unequal society. RanXerox is more durable than humans in moving about his violently chaotic setting, and thus, useful to employers, allies, and friends, but is not valued as a human would be. As they move forward in time, Brioni and Comberiati explore anxieties related to the increasing presence of Chinese residents in Italy and Islamophobia in the wake of the September 11^th attacks. Tommaso Pincio’s Cinacitta (Chinacity [2008]) and Pierfrancesco Prosperi’s La casa dell’Islam (The House of Islam [2009]) speculate as to what an Italy ruled by Chinese and Muslim majorities, respectively, would look like.

Aside from demographic dread, uniquely Italian issues are discussed within the context of the contemporary science fiction narrative. One such example is the economic disparity and political tension between the North and the South. Booms and upswings have not distributed prosperity equally across the country. Antonio Pennacchi’s Storia di Karel (Karel’s Story [2013]) “is the struggle between those who want to modernize and those who want to maintain the traditional way of life, a key theme in debates on the Southern Question” (186). In Gabriele Salvatore’s 1997 film Nirvana, the separatist dreams of the Lega Nord have come to pass and the resulting Northern Conglomerate is the economic and political center of the world. Quando le radici [When the Roots 1977]) shows how even economic boom times can devastate rural communities. The protagonist of that story is able to find meaning and authenticity only by adopting the way of life of the Romani, an oft demonized, misrepresented, and thus, misunderstood minority that has inhabited Italy since the Middle Ages, and has been the subject of persecution for just as long.

The study closes with an exploration of alternate histories that struggle to reckon with the legacy of the Fascist Era. The revisions of Italian history focus on Italy, in one way or another, joining the Allies and exiting World War II as one of its victors. While works by Enrico Brizzi (L’inattesa piega degli eventi [The Unexpected Turn of Events, 2008], La nostra Guerra [Our War, 2009], and Lorenzo Pellegrini e le donne [Lorenzo Pellegrini and The Women, 2012]), and Stefano Amato repudiate fascism, Mario Farneti’s “Fantafascist Trilogy” (2001-2006) celebrates it as a source of energy and power that can repel potential invaders. In Amato’s Il 49esimo Stato (The 49th State [2013]), Sicily becomes the 49th state of the United States and is thus more baldly susceptible to neocolonialism and Cold War machinations (including the collusion of corporations, the CIA, and organized crime). Brizzi’s  version of postwar Italy gains new colonies in Africa and Europe, but when Mussolini, upon his death, is succeeded by the moderate wing of the Fascist Party, the result is a contemporary Italy that in many ways resembles our own.

Brioni and Comberiati’s text is of great interest to both the scholar and the general reader who has more than a passing interest in Italian history and culture, postcolonial studies, and the effective use of science fiction to explore and uncover the important social and political issues to yield insights. Even when coming to the book’s subject, Italian science fiction, with healthy skepticism and modest expectations, readers will find that the information presented here is quite fascinating and leaves them wanting to know even more. Since Italy has been home to such a diversity of political entities, institutions, and systems of government over time, contemporary studies of it are not interesting just for their own sake, but also may provide revelations that can be applied to other subjects. Going into the book, many readers will have no context for uniquely Italian terminology, concepts, and historical events such as “Piano Solo,” “Lega Norda,” and the EUR neighborhood, but the authors do an excellent job of quickly and clearly explaining them and their relevance. The book itself is well-grounded in postcolonial theory and by the end readers have seen, as promised, just who “The Other” is via the prism of one nation’s contemporary science fiction and are well-equipped to apply what was learned to other subjects. The authors have provided a sound template to anyone who might do a similar study featuring sf works from another country or region on a particular topic, and they offer up to the scholar suggestions of authors and works for study and possible future translation.

Sean Memolo is a lover of comic books, SF, jazz, Boston Terriers, and calcio. He studied and lectured at East Carolina University in the earlier part of this century and now works in the software industry but writes the odd review or conference paper about science fiction here and there. Currently he lives a rather happy quiet life with his wife, two children, and two dogs in the land of Northern Alabama.

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Erik Davis’s most recent foray into the weird currents of the post-war counterculture complements his previous examination of similar territory. Where TechGnosis (1998) unfurled the occult foundations of our modern information technologies and Nomad Codes (2010) offered a glossary of key ideas in contemporary occulture, High Weirdness is a collection of three case studies of key “counter cultural seekers” that places them firmly within the context of California in the early to mid 1970s (31). Taking a critical approach described as incomplete constructivism, Davis strives to map the dynamic forces that structured the first half of the 1970s and had such a profound effect on his three seekers: Robert Anton Wilson, Terence McKenna, and Philip K. Dick. His case studies for each of these authors focus, in turn, on extraordinary experiences that they each reported, and the various methods they each deployed to help them find meaning in those experiences. This is an intimidating book for many reasons, not least of all the 550-page doorstop physicality of the current hard-back edition, so Davis’s arguments and approach will prove challenging to many humanities scholars, especially those wedded to prevailing discourses within literary studies.

When approaching the epiphanic experiences of his three psychonauts (a term he uses throughout to collectively describe his three subjects), Davis takes “the risky move of trying to take them seriously without taking them literally” (6). Religious experience is not examined here at arm’s length or with any attempt to explain away the experiences, for example, as delusion, as hallucination, etc. Instead, it is taken for granted that in each case something was experienced, and there is no handwringing on Davis’ part about how to either taxonomize these experiences or provide ontological justifications for them. Instead, the focus is on producing maps of “influences, resonances and structural dynamics” that reveal the interrelated and looping lines of force that shape, and are in turn shaped by, these religious experiences (7). It is this post-critical approach that may prove incompatible with traditions of Enlightened materialism that have been so central to the discipline of science fiction studies.

This, more religious than literary studies, approach is influenced by William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). James’s text exemplifies the technique of incomplete constructivism by only partially committing itself to the tenets of social constructivism, hence its incompleteness. For James, and in turn Davis, strict adherence to social constructivism is too reductive, reducing all experience to the social forces that shape them while leaving no space for encounters from within or without; from within the biological bodies we inhabit or from a without that is situated outside of or beyond the frame of structured reality. Davis argues that these two spheres, the body and the cosmic, are not blank slates, with the consequence that although encounters will be structured–“organized and exploited” (23)–by social forces, they cannot always be reduced to them.

Davis’s transgressive engagement with the prevailing norms of humanities scholarship is furthered by his sympathy for the ideas of polarizing public intellectual Bruno Latour. Latour’s storied career has seen his arguments gain both vociferous attack and celebrated acceptance across the disparate schools that make up the broader humanities. For Davis, Latour is useful twice over. First, Latour’s mapping of the discourses of power that structure knowledge production and legitimization emboldens Davis in his position-taking as a primarily religious studies scholar, a sub-discipline that has (until recently) been in the proverbial doghouse. Second, Latour’s problematizing of cause and effects arguments through his concept of networks and forces of interrelation is a key tool that Davis deploys in order to unlock the interrelationships that produce, and are produced by, the various encounters explored as part of High Weirdness.

Though I have described Davis’s tome as intimidating, this can be somewhat pushed against. Though a dense text, filled with challenging ideas, the structure is designed to be modular, which is often aimed for in longform academic writing but rarely achieves this degree of success. Chapters are separated into sub-sections, and then into further entries that average out at about 4-5 pages each. Davis invites readers to jump about and read the entries that appeal to them, in the order they choose. Each entry is both discrete from its neighbors while also being one part of a larger jigsaw. This allows flexibility for the reader, who may be pursuing a specific narrow interest, may want to pore over the same entry repeatedly or may want to read the book cover to cover. There are three comparisons that I think are apt here when considering this modular reading as an actualization of potential: first is The Atrocity Exhibition (1970) by JG Ballard; second are the exegetical writings of Philip K. Dick, which are synchronistically covered as part of High Weirdness’ case study on Dick; third the Bible, and other religious books that invite one to move between procedural and selective reading.

The success of this modularity makes Davis’s work far more accessible than might be suspected. One does not need a strong foundation in occult literature or religious studies before tackling this text, nor is it necessary to be a keen reader of any of the three writers focused on: Wilson, McKenna and Dick. However, those already conversant in the existing scholarship are afforded the opportunity to see a leading scholar of religious studies act as part of the vanguard of an increasingly self-confident sub-discipline no longer satisfied with existing on the periphery of the broad humanities.

For science fiction scholars, critical frameworks being developed as part of the respective studies of the weird, the occult, and New Religious Movements can prove challenging to those wedded to secular Marxism and ideology critique (which both make up part of the foundational DNA of SF studies). For scholars who welcome this challenge, the post-critical approach used by Davis could open new approaches to SF texts as well as productively problematizing the boundaries of genre and of form that characterize speculative expression. In this respect, High Weirdness puts its money where its mouth is by including Philip K. Dick as its third, and most extensive, case study. Dick, who proved so important to the legitimatization of the nascent discipline of Science Fiction studies, may also prove, via the work of scholars like Davis, to be a key gatekeeper that moves SF studies into the weirder territory that lies beyond.

Terence Sawyers is a film and media scholar who insists he is not a SF scholar; despite this the vast majority of his research continues to overlap with SF scholarship, go figure. His primary research area is the adaptation of SF writer Philip K. Dick into film and television. He also side-lines as a conspiracy theory theorist and is a dabbler in the history of occultism.  When not sifting through layers of simulated hyperreality he can be found hosting About Film (aboutfilmedinburgh.wordpress.com), a regular public engagement event held in the meat-space that is Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Valerie Estelle Frankel takes on the daunting task of analyzing all of the women who appear in the Star Wars Universe in Star Wars Meets the Eras of Feminism: Weighing All the Galaxy’s Women Great and Small. The resulting study is a pleasurable and enlightening trip through the decades of Star Wars media, where one may be simultaneously cringing in agreement with the criticism while marveling at the many interesting ways of examining the representation of women. It is clear that Frankel has a solid grasp of the vast amount of material to be able to discuss women in the films and television shows, as well as the comics, novels, video games, and other media from the legacy expanded universe and the Disney canon. It is unfortunate that the book was published before the final film in the Sequel Trilogy was released, but there is certainly room for continuing studies as new media are produced. For those who have not had the time to keep up with the Star Wars Universe, this book may spark interest in reengaging with the franchise to discover characters such as rogue archaeologist Doctor Aphra, who currently only appears in the comics and an audio drama adaptation.

Frankel takes advantage of a variety of metrics in her analysis, moving between lenses such as the male gaze, the Bechdel Test, agency, and diversity to discuss the representation of women and intersectional issues of race and sexuality. The resulting richness and multi-layered nature of the analysis demonstrate the value in drawing from a wide theoretical pool. Her study brings together conversations and critical perspectives largely occurring in popular culture publications alongside theories and analyses found in academic articles and books. This provides a real sense of a larger picture unfolding in the world of science fiction and fantasy about the place of women and other marginalized people.

Frankel begins her study in section one, “The Original Trilogy Meets Seventies Feminism,” with a thorough discussion of Princess Leia Organa and other Original Trilogy women in relation to second wave feminism of the 1970s. She weaves together commentary on Leia’s costuming, changes in agency across the trilogy, and the extent to which she reflects tropes about princesses and damsels in distress. Frankel acknowledges the breakthroughs Leia represented in the historical time period, but she does not shy away from interrogating problematic areas. The analyses in this section of characters such as Leia, Mon Mothma, and Oola the Twi’lek are important in establishing the context for the discussion of women in Star Wars and also allowing for comparisons with later depictions of the same characters or species. Frankel thus carefully layers her arguments to be able to demonstrate some movement away from stereotypical portrayals of women.

In “The Girl Power Prequel Era,” Frankel moves into an analysis of women in the Prequel Trilogy and legacy multimedia and how they reflect aspects of third wave feminism and girl power. For example, her critique of Padmé/Queen Amidala reveals a complicated web of images that help explain the difficulty in labeling female characters in simple terms. Indeed, Frankel calls this “an era of contradictions, seen in the variously empowered and weakened character” (43). The analysis of Padmé’s complex costumes and the downward trend of her agency is insightful and further strengthened when placed in conversation with the idealistic markers of third wave feminism and key texts such as Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (1994).

In the final section, “The Fourth Wave Hits the Sequel Era,” Frankel covers the increased presence of women in the franchise since 2008 and explores the extent to which they align with fourth wave feminism. Moving fluidly between major characters, their expanded characterization in other media, and minor characters, she is able to show both progression and setbacks in the franchise’s movement toward greater inclusion of a diverse range of women. There is significant attention to female Force users such as Ahsoka Tano and Rey, and the increased diversity in the Sequel Trilogy and Rogue One. Even the more experimental media of the Forces of Destiny cartoons—designed as tasters of the larger universe for young girls—receive coverage. The closing analysis of the women in Solo shows a return to traditional archetypes; however, Frankel suggests that the droid L3-37 represents a stand-out character as “a delightful voice for empowerment” who, though cast as humorous, reminds the audience of the rights some characters must still fight for (318).

Accessible and engaging, this book offers a solid addition to the growing body of scholarship on Star Wars, and the representation of women and diversity in particular. One of its advantages is its comprehensiveness with regards to the sheer amount of media covered in both primary and secondary sources. The strength of Frankel’s arguments is fairly even throughout, though there are some rare places where her conclusions seem overly generous in trying to find positive representations. She relies on relevant direct quotations to support the thread of her analysis, which enables a multiplicity of voices to comment on the material under discussion. The study thus adds value by bringing key points of previous material in conversation with each other as filtered through Frankel’s perspective of each character, though sometimes the other voices dwarf Frankel’s own. This book would be useful to scholars and students in a cross-section of disciplines including science fiction and fantasy studies, feminist and women’s studies, film and media studies, and cultural studies. However, it is also presented and written in a way that can engage general readers with an interest in analyses of the Star Wars universe.

Kara Kennedy is a researcher and writer in the areas of science fiction and digital literacy. Her doctoral work focused on women in Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and she has also published articles on world-building in the series. She has forthcoming works on other topics in the series and posts literary analyses of Dune for a mainstream audience on her blog at DuneScholar.com.

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This small (3.5” x 7.5”) and short (120 pages) monograph is part of a brief series published since 2016; the first volume on Blade Runner by Sean Redmond had appeared first in 2008 as “Studying Blade Runner.”  Jon Towlson’s Close Encounters appeared in 2016, and all of the subsequent half dozen in the series appeared in 2019.  I was interested in reviewing this volume because, shortly after Christopher Nolan’s film appeared in 2010, I reviewed a 2011 volume of semi-scholarly articles on Inception (Extrapolation 54, Winter 2013, pp. 316ff.), and I wanted to see how critical views might have changed over those years.  What strikes the reader immediately, however, is that within the book’s ten numbered chapters plus “Notes” and “General Bibliography” are 57 titled sections and subsections—an average of some two pages per section; the “Contents” page alone lists seven of the subtitles. Clearly, the brevity of these sections would not do justice to a discussion of changing critical views. In a very brief “Introductory Remarks” that includes a “Synopsis” of Nolan’s films (7-8), Carter introduces us to “Christopher Nolan: The Director and His Work” (9-29) with summaries of his films from Memento (2000) to Dunkirk (2017) and stills from all the films but the second and third Batman films. After a very brief chapter 3 (“The Industrial Context of Inception from Production to Premiere” 31-32), chapter 4 (“The Question of Genre” 33-49) discusses “The Notion of  Genre,” “The Heist Film Genre,” and “The Sci-Fi Film Genre,” concluding with a brief “Note on Tech-Noir.”  In chapter 5 (“Dreams in the Cinema 51-78), Carter finally focuses on the title film Inception; after shorter subsections, he turns to “How Inception Uses Dream Theory” (54-78), illustrated with eleven images from the film.

In chapter 6 (“Cobb’s Emotional Journey: From Guilt to Redemption” 51-78), the only chapter with no subtitles, Carter provides a close analysis of the film itself. The only image is taken from the end of the film: the image of “The spinning top, now still” (88). The chapter concludes: “The final ambiguous image in the film of the spinning top and Cobb’s reunion with the children can therefore be interpreted as implying that maybe it does not matter whether the scene is real or not” (93).

The concluding chapters are very brief:  Chapter 7 (“Inception and the Arts,” 95-97) includes images by M. C. Escher and Francis Bacon. Chapter 8 (“The Ending:  Dreams, Reality and Ambiguity” 99-100) provides a narrative of the final minutes of the film, in which Cobb and the team apparently return to current reality; it includes an unidentified photo (100), titled “Dream or reality?” which looks like a desktop covered with obscure objects, perhaps toys. The penultimate chapter 9 (“Critical Reception” 101-103) briefly describes a few reviews, negative and positive. In the final chapter (“10. Further Lines of Inquiry” 105-108), the most interesting line provides a partial text, in both French and English, of the Edith Piaf song, a few lines of which one hears frequently in the film. The “Notes” section (109-113) contains the sources of texts referred to in the text, and the “General Bibliography” (115-116) lists “works recommended for further reading on specific topics.”

Since my university library does not own any of the monographs in this series, I cannot compare Carter’s study of Inception with the other publications in this series. The substance of the book is in chapter 4-6, but only chapter 6 deals exclusively with the film. What I found most interesting was the discussion in chapter 4 of Inception as a heist film, a concept new to me. Carter’s only direct reference for the film is to Daryl Lee’s 2014 The Heist Film: Stealing with Style; a check of its contents shows that Lee does not deal with Carter’s Inception. Carter fails to mention sources available on the internet, including an online article of 2018 (“The Best 25 Heist Films of All Time”) that mentions Inception as the 5^th best heist film. Wikipedia has a very detailed 30-page anonymous entry on Inception with 178 references; only some 30 of the references were published later than 2012. Carter’s “Notes” fail to mention the 2011 collection of studies I mentioned in the first paragraph; in that book, the essay by Sylvia Wenmacker is the most instructive writing on Nolan’s film than I have come across. In short, this little book is, for me a least, more frustrating than informative.

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