#91 = Volume 30, Part 3 = November 2003
ARTICLE ABSTRACTS
- Mark Bould and Andrew M. Butler,
eds. Voices on the Boom
- Andrew M. Butler. Towards a Reading List of the British Boom
Andrew M. Butler
Thirteen Ways of
Looking at the British Boom
Abstract--Various observers
have suggested that there is currently a Boom in British science fiction. This
article attempts to map out various contexts for understanding the Boom,
including the on-going long-term history of British sf, the current retreat of
American science fiction, the aesthetics of the Boom, and the sense that people
have been taking British sf seriously. The point is not so much to pin down the
Boom as something strictly defined, but to open up a range of discourse about
the Boom and its potential future.
Mark Bould
What Kind of Monster
Are You?, Situating the Boom
Abstract--. This article
attempts to situate the Boom in terms of several traditions in British
fantasy materialist fantasy, gnostic fantasy, and telefantasy_typically excluded
from discussions of sf. It then goes on to argue that one aspect of the British
Boom in sf and fantasy is concerned with breaking through the highly artificial
distinction between the two genres without losing respect for genre.
Roger
Luckhurst
Cultural Governance,
New Labor, and the British SF Boom
Abstract--. This essay explores
the resurgence of British sf in the 1990s in the context of the transformation
of British cultural life, in particular following the election of the New Labour
government in May 1997. The argument does not propose that the boom starts with
this election, only that Blairism consolidates trends in cultural policy that
had been nascent throughout the 1990s. In particular, recent political theory
about what has been called “cultural
governance” the
attempts to discipline culture to operate within a homogenized or “mainstreamed”
sphere helps articulate some of the reasons for the revitalization of sf,
fantasy, and the Gothic in Britain in the last few years. An examination of this
field of cultural and political theory provides the detailed context for key
works of the British Boom by James Lovegrove, Gwyneth Jones, Ken MacLeod, and
Justina Robson.
Matt
Hills
Counterfictions in the Work of Kim Newman:
Rewriting Gothic SF as “Alternate-Story Stories”
Abstract--. This essay considers
how possible worlds theory has been applied to science fiction,
arguing that such an approach has tended to obscure issues of intertextuality
within science fiction’s diegetic world-building. Rather than addressing sf’s
alternative histories as
“counterfactuals,” it is suggested that “counterfictionality” may also be
significant. This is defined as the process through which new texts borrow from,
combine, and rework the narrative worlds of existent fictions in order to pay
homage to, but also comment on, originating classics in the genre’s cultural
history. Taking the work of British writer and film critic Kim Newman as a case
study, the essay then focuses specifically on Newman’s gothic sf reworkings of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and on his retooling of
Dracula (1890) in the novel Anno Dracula (1992). Analyzing these
popular fictions intertextually leads into a consideration of how Newman draws
on literary/cultural theory to inform his counterfictions. His rewritings of
gothic sf are also critical re-readings: “Further Developments in the Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1999) is a queer reading of the original
Stevenson novella, while Anno Dracula challenges the imperial power
relations and foreign others of Stoker’s novel. Rather than addressing
“counterfictionality” simply as an example of postmodern, self-referential
fiction, it is argued that Kim Newman’s work indicates the need to carefully
consider the cultural politics and theories underlying “alternate-story
stories.”
Joan Gordon
Hybridity, Heterotopia, and Mateship in China Miéville’s Perdido Street
Station
Abstract--. This article
considers the ways in which China Miéville’s
Perdido Street Station (2000) exhibits its hybridity, by connecting notions
of hybridity to the grotesque. It goes on to consider the novel in terms of
heterotopia as Foucault discusses it. Last, it links ideas of hybridity and
heterotopia to the idea of mateship, as the novel uses dialectics to form an
interconnected and dynamic network.
Back to Home