scholarly journals Popular Science and Apocalyptic Narrative in Frank Schätzing’s The Swarm

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Dürbeck
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Environmental Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
Double Function ◽  
Human World ◽  
Swarm Theory

 This paper analyses the use of the rhetoric of the Apocalypse and the concept of nature's revenge in Frank Schätzing's eco-thriller The Swarm. Ecocritical research has identified these narrative patterns as characteristic of contemporary environmental literature. In The Swarm, the apocalyptical rhetoric fulfils the double function of providing thrill and pleasure to the readers and warning them about imminent environmental peril, thereby combining conventions from the two genres of eco-thriller and science fiction. Contrasting reviews have described the novel as either enlightening or pseudo-religious. This ambivalence is the effect of various strategies employed to popularise scientific knowledge in the novel. The narrative embraces various scientific fields, for example the depiction of a network in contrast to swarm theory. The key conflict in the story embodies conflicting concepts of nature - anthropocentric vs. eco-systemic - which are represented by two contrasting groups of characters: one aiming to extinguish the alien superorganism that attacks the human race, the other aspiring to integrate the alien organism into the human world and propagating a holistic view of the Earth. The concepts of a 'tragic' and a 'comical apocalypse' correspond to the double closure which first features a show-down, the annihilation of the 'bad' characters, and then, in the epilogue, a warning message delivered by a 'good' character which confirms - in contrast to, for example, Michael Crichton's State of Fear - the ongoing environmental crisis. Although the epilogue extensively appeals to the human ability to rethink attitudes towards nature, the novel's support for environmental concerns is limited, not only because this message remains rather abstract but also because the vision of a reconciled, pseudo-religious ecosystem as a holistic superorganism has a highly ambivalent meaning for humanity.   Resumen   Este trabajo analiza el uso de la retórica del Apocalipsis y el concepto de la venganza de la naturaleza en la novela de eco-suspense El Quinto Día de Frank Schätzing. Estudios realizados en ecocrítica han identificado estos patrones narrativos como característicos de la literatura medioambiental contemporánea. En El Quinto Día, la retórica apocalíptica cumple una doble función: proporciona emoción y placer a los lectores y les advierte sobre el peligro ambiental inminente - combinando así las convenciones de los dos géneros de eco-suspense y ciencia ficción. Reseñas opuestas han descrito la novela como instructiva o pseudoreligiosa, siendo esta ambivalencia el efecto de las estrategias variadas para popularizar el conocimiento científico en la novela. El relato abarca diversos campos científicos, por ejemplo, la representación de una red, en contraste con la teoría de enjambres. El conflicto clave en la historia incorpora conceptos contradictorios de la naturaleza - antropocéntrico vs eco-sistémico - que están representados por dos grupos opuestos de personajes: uno con el objetivo de extinguir el superorganismo alienígeno que ataca a la raza humana, y el otro que aspira a integrar al organismo alienígeno en el mundo humano y a propagar una visión holística de la Tierra. Los conceptos de un "apocalipsis trágico y cómico" corresponden con el doble final: en primer lugar se nos presenta una confrontación donde se aniquila a los "malos" personajes y, luego en el epílogo, un mensaje de aviso emitido por una figura "positiva" que confirma la crisis ambiental que continúa - en contraste con, por ejemplo, Estado de Miedo de Michael Crichton.  

scholarly journals Youth solving pandemics: hopeful futures in Maths Claesson’s novel Pandemic

Neohelicon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Ehriander ◽  
Michael Godhe
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Space Station ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Successful Solution ◽  
Young Adult Novel ◽  
Main Protagonist

AbstractAre representations of pandemics in fiction always bleak dystopian tales understood as nature’s revenge on the modern Faustian man, or could they also express hope and expand our imagination in a time of environmental crisis? In this article, we analyse the young adult novel Pandemic (Swedish title: Pandemi, 2018) by Swedish author Maths Claesson. Pandemic is the third novel in a trilogy (2013–2018) with 15-year-old astronaut-trainee Linux as the main protagonist. During his astronaut program on a space station, a pandemic breaks out on Earth. While scientists on Earth struggle to isolate the virus and find a vaccine, Linux and his fellow astronaut-trainees are asked by the WHO to try out a simulation, a computer game aimed at isolating a pandemic outbreak and finding a vaccine. Their simulation is successful and eventually becomes decisive for the solution of the current pandemic crisis on Earth. Departing from Critical Future Studies (Goode and Godhe, Cult Unbound J Curr Cul Res 9(1):108–129, 2017), we focus on the figures of hope (cf. Moylan, Demand the impossible: Science fiction and the utopian imagination, Methuen, pp. 1–2, 1986) for a sustainable future and analyse how the novel is widening the scopes of possible futures. We show how the computer simulation and the successful solution of the crisis serves as a vehicle for a broader discussion about what kind of future we want, a future where the conquest of space offers new opportunities, e.g. for solving the environmental crisis. While normally in Y/A speculative fiction, technology is almost exclusively depicted as ostensibly serving human needs, in Pandemic it is thanks to technology, and the younger generation’s particular skills, that the disease is conquered. In this sense, the novel is hopeful since it depicts the younger generation as being capable of developing different thinking patterns from those of the adult society.

Elite Domination and Lower Class Resistance in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One

Lexicon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dika Shafira Hidayat ◽  
Achmad Munjid
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The People ◽  
Class Grouping

This research examines Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (2011), a popular science fiction novel. The objective of this research is to find out how a massive company called IOI (Innovative Online Industries) runs its domination against people in the novel. Furthermore, this paper also studies how the people resist the company’s domination. This study uses Marxist Theory since it investigates class, class conflict and struggle, domination, and resistance. The elements of the theory are identified in the novel and therefore analyzed to reach the objectives. The results of the analysis show that conflict is the reason of class grouping. In Ready Player One, the capitalist wants to expand its domination by winning the easter egg hunt while the proletariat resists it. It is concluded that class struggle and conflicts brings the proletariat to work together to resist the capitalist’s domination.

scholarly journals Solaris and the Dao: The Reception of Stanislaw Lem’s Novel in the Sinophone World

2021 ◽  
pp. 121-151
Author(s):  
Zofia Anna Wybieralska
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
The Third ◽  
Philosophical Aspect ◽  
Stanislaw Lem

The most popular science fiction novel written by the Polish author Stanisław Lem, Solaris, was published in 1961. Although it was translated into English as early as 1970, the book was unknown to the Sinophone readers until 2003, when the first translation from English into Chinese was published, most probably following the popularity of the resounding Hollywood film adaptation from 2002. Still, Suolalisi Xing (which can be translated as ‘Solaris Star’) did not attract broader audiences in China or Taiwan, at least not until the third version of the novel, translated directly from Polish into Chinese, saw the light of day in 2010. The appearance of this translation coincided with the beginning of a New Golden Era of Chinese and Taiwanese science fiction, which undoubtedly had a significant influence on the positive re-reception of Solaris. In the paper, the author focuses on the philosophical aspect of Lem’s work and investigates which themes and concepts present in Solaris caught the imagination of Chinese-speaking readers. The author wants to show how this reception, while coming from a different historical, cultural, and linguistic background, can enrich our understanding of the novel and introduce a new way of looking at the important existential questions stated by the writer.

scholarly journals Ecological Destruction and Consumerism

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-46
Author(s):  
Clarisa Novello
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Public Agency ◽  
Current State ◽  
Human World ◽  
State Of Affairs

Literature that engages with the theme of anthropogenic climate change carries the potential of awakening the reader’s curiosity by creating a dimension in which the effects and impacts of the crisis are tangible. The urgency and unpredictability of climate change are articulated through reflections that combine societal, cultural and political issues associated to the phenomenon, hence encouraging a deeper understanding of the environmental crisis in today’s society. The article examines the novel EistTau by Ilija Trojanow to navigate the political and economic aspects of anthropogenic climate change. I reflect on the employment of fiction in finding ways to develop attentiveness to nature, whilst exposing how EisTau questions the power relations between culture, politics and economy, in a bid to influence the current state of affairs.  I argue that the depiction of the effects of climate change and the melting of glaciers enable public agency, whilst encouraging the rethinking of the environmental crisis and the acknowledgment of its connection to capitalism and to the constant accumulation of goods.  I observe how the exposure of the interconnectedness of climate change and capitalism encourages behavioural changes that lead to the adoption of alternative lifestyles that can halt the disastrous effects of climate change and prompts readers to develop a sense of care for the non-human world.

Encountering the Alien: Alterity and Innovation in North Korean Science Fiction since 1945

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-396
Author(s):  
Benoît Berthelier
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
Contemporary Novels ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
History Of

Abstract From the translations of Soviet sci-fi and biographies of foreign scientists published in popular science magazines after liberation, to the exotic settings and strange technologies of contemporary novels, the history of science fiction in North Korea is marked by an engagement with the strange, the foreign, and the novel. Retracing the history of the genre from 1945 to the present time, this essay attempts to understand how North Korean science fiction has managed its constitutive alterity. In so doing, it explores tales of space travel fused with socialist realist production novels, how Hollywood blockbuster tropes met North Korea’s nationalist rhetoric, and how juche literary theory assessed the legacy of writers such as H. G. Wells, George Orwell, and A. E. van Vogt. The production of works of science fiction in North Korea has evolved in relationship with the country’s cultural, social, and ideological trends. As such, this essay highlights how the political stakes of scientific progress have influenced the themes and narrative structures of the genre. Nonetheless, North Korean literature’s politicization has not excluded tensions and ambiguities, innovation and change, external influences and curiosity toward the other. The international or interplanetary settings of science fiction have thus allowed for the introduction of hitherto unseen affects, characters, and plot devices in North Korean novels and short stories.

A Compact Embodiment of Pluralities and Denial of Origins: Atwood’s The Year of The Flood

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Near Future

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.

The Novel Theology of H. G. Wells

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-123
Author(s):  
Stuart Bell
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The Novel ◽  
British Army ◽  
Rebecca West ◽  
The Way

Abstract “Lambeth Palace is my Washpot. Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” So declared the novelist and secularist H. G. Wells in a letter to his mistress, Rebecca West, in May 1917. His claim was that, because of him, Britain was “full of theological discussion” and theological books were “selling like hot cakes”. He was lunching with liberal churchmen and dining with bishops. Certainly, the first of the books published during Wells’s short “religious period”, the novel Mr. Britling Sees It Through, had sold very well on both sides of the Atlantic and made Wells financially secure. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (“Woodbine Willie”) wrote that, “Everyone ought to read Mr. H. G. Wells’s great novel, Mr. Britling Sees It Through. It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Yet, Wells’s God was explicitly a finite God, and his theology was far from orthodox. How can we account for his boast and for the clerical affirmation which he certainly did receive? This article examines and re-evaluates previous accounts of the responses of clergy to Wells’s writing, correcting some narratives. It discusses the way in which many clergy used Mr. Britling as a means by which to engage in a populist way with the question of theodicy, and examines the letters which Wells received from several prominent clerics, locating their responses in the context of their own theological writings. This is shown to be key to understanding the reaction of writers such as Studdert Kennedy to Mr. Britling Sees It Through. Finally, an assessment is made of the veracity of Wells’s boasting to his mistress, concluding that his claims were somewhat exaggerated. “Lambeth Palace is my Washpot, Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” Mit diesen Worten erklärte der literarisch außergewöhnlich erfolgreiche und entschieden säkular denkende, kirchenkritische Schriftsteller und Science-Fiction-Pionier Herbert George Wells seiner Geliebten, dass seinetwegen Großbritannien “full of theological discussion” sei. Nicht ohne Eitelkeit schrieb er es seinem im September 1916 mit Blick auf den Krieg geschriebenen und stark autobiographisch gefärbten Roman Mr. Britling Sees it Through von knapp 450 Seiten zu, dass theologische Bücher reißenden Absatz fänden. Auch war er stolz darauf, liberale Kleriker zum Lunch zu treffen und von Bischöfen zum abendlichen Dinner eingeladen zu werden. In einer kurzen Phase seines Lebens war – oder inszenierte sich – Wells als ein frommer, gläubiger Mensch. Sein damals veröffentlichter Roman Mr. Britling Sees It Through verkaufte sich sowohl in Nordamerika als auch im Heimatland so gut, dass der Autor nun definitiv finanziell gesichert war. Der anglikanische Priester und Dichter Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, der im Ersten Weltkrieg Woodbine Willie genannt wurde, weil er verletzten und sterbenden Soldaten in den Phasen der Vorbereitung auf den Tod Woodbine-Zigaretten anbot, empfahl die Lektüre von Wells’ “great novel” Mr. Britling mit den Worten: “It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Allerdings war H. G. Wells’ Gott ein durchaus endlicher Gott, und seine Theologie war alles andere als orthodox. Wie lassen sich dennoch seine evidente Prahlerei und die emphatische Zustimmung zu seinem Roman in den britischen Klerikereliten erklären? Im Aufsatz werden zunächst einige ältere Deutungen der Zustimmung führender Kleriker zu Wells’ Roman untersucht und einige der dabei leitenden Deutungsmuster kritisch infrage gestellt. Deutlich wird, dass nicht wenige anglikanische Geistliche Mr. Britling dazu nutzten, um höchst populistisch das umstrittene Theodizeeproblem anzusprechen. Auch werden die Briefe prominenter Geistlicher an Wells analysiert, mit Blick auf ihre eigenen Publikationen. Diese Reaktionen haben stark Studdert Kennedys Haltung zu Mr. Britling Sees It Through beeinflusst. Besonders aufrichtig war Wells mit Blick auf sich selbst allerdings nicht. Die Selbstinszenierung gegenüber seiner Geliebten war einfach nur peinliche Übertreibung.

"A Dismal Swamp": Darwin, Design, and Evolution in Our Mutual Friend

1994 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard W. Fulweiler
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
Dismal Swamp ◽  
Human World ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Our Mutual Friend ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Mutual Friend

Our Mutual Friend, published just six years after Darwin's The Origin of Species, is structured on a Darwinian pattern. As its title hints, the novel is an account of the mutual-though hidden-relations of its characters, a fictional world of individuals seeking their own advantage, a "dismal swamp" of "crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures." The relationship between the two works is quite direct in light of the large number of reviews on science, evolution, and The Origin from 1859 through the early 1860s in Dicken's magazine, All the Year Round. Given the laissez-faire origin of the Origin, Dicken's use of it in a book directed against laissez-faire economics is ironic. Important Darwinian themes in the novel are predation, mutual relationships, chance, and, especially, inheritance, a central issue in both Victorian fiction and in The Origin of Species. The novel asks whether predatory self-seeking or generosity should be the desired inheritance for human beings. The victory of generosity is symbolized by a dying child's "willing" his inheritance of a toy Noah's Ark, "all the Creation," to another child. Our Mutual Friend is saturated with the motifs of Darwinian biology, therefore, to display their inadequacy. Although Dickens made use of the explanatory powers of natural selection and remained sympathetic to science, the novel transcends and opposes its Darwinian structure in order to project a teleological and designed evolution in the human world toward a moral community of responsible men and women.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Lord Byron ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
William Godwin ◽  
Gothic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ◽  
Story Writing

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley conceived of the central idea for Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus—most often referred to simply as Frankenstein—during the summer of 1816 while vacationing on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It is her first and most famous novel. Although the assertion is debatable, some scholars have argued that Frankenstein is the first work of modern science fiction. Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein in response to a “ghost story” writing contest between herself, Percy Shelley, Percy Shelley’s physician and friend John Polidori, and Lord Byron, who were trapped indoors reading German ghost stories as the result of inclement weather. Polidori’s contribution to this contest, “The Vampyre: A Tale” (1819), influenced the development of Gothic literature. According to Shelley, she drew inspiration from a nightmare she had, which she attributed to discussions she overheard between Percy and Byron regarding experiments with electricity and animation. Shelley began working on the novel when she returned home to England in September, and the book’s first edition was published anonymously in 1818. Shelley’s father William Godwin made minor revisions for a second edition in 1821; and Shelley herself made more substantial changes for the third edition in 1831. The story is told through an epistolary frame, and follows Victor Frankenstein, a university student of the “unhallowed arts” who assembles, animates, and abandons an unnamed human-like creature. The creature goes on to haunt his creator both literally and metaphorically. Over the past two hundred years, the story has been widely influential, and re-interpreted in various forms of culture and media. In literary studies, scholars have discussed which edition of the text is the “truest” to Mary Shelley’s intended vision. The novel has been analyzed for its messages about human pride and hubris, the pursuit of knowledge, the nature/nurture question, as put forth by Rousseau, ethical questions in medicine and science, and family, gender, and reproduction, among other topics.

scholarly journals Amusing Ourselves until (Dis)appearing in La invención de Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-78
Author(s):  
Santiago Sevilla-Vallejo
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Preference ◽  
Adolfo Bioy Casares ◽  
The Way

La invención de Morel  reflect on how the use of technologies could be fascinating and dangerous at the same time; and the way the island seems to be a space of freedom while it is actually a place of prison and death. La invención de Morel presents a utopian situation that transforms into a dystopia. Characters, especially the narrator, project their desires along with the holograms, but they are deceived without realizing about their loss of reality. The novel uses phantasy and science fiction resources to reflect about the way humans self-imprison. This is studied by analogy to the effects of technologies in today's society. In this sense, the novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares is about a menace due to the human preference of imaginary life over real one. 

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