Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction by Gerry Canavan (PDF)

Description

Contemporary visions of the future have been shaped by hopes and fears about the effects of human technology and global capitalism on the natural world. In an era of climate change, mass extinction, and oil shortage, such visions have become increasingly catastrophic, even apocalyptic. Exploring the close relationship between science fiction, ecology, and environmentalism, the essays in Green Planets consider how science fiction writers have been working through this crisis. Beginning with H. G. Wells and passing through major twentieth-century writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, Stanislaw Lem, and Thomas Disch to contemporary authors like Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, and Paolo Bacigalupi—as well as recent blockbuster films like Avatar and District 9—the essays in Green Planets consider the important place for science fiction in a culture that now seems to have a very uncertain future. The book includes an extended interview with Kim Stanley Robinson and an annotated list for further exploration of “ecological SF” and related works of fiction, nonfiction, films, television, comics, children’s cartoons, anime, video games, music, and more. Contributors include Christina Alt, Brent Bellamy, Sabine Höhler, Adeline Johns-Putra, Melody Jue, Rob Latham, Andrew Milner, Timothy Morton, Eric C. Otto, Michael Page, Christopher Palmer, Gib Prettyman, Elzette Steenkamp, Imre Szeman.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Very useful and informative. Great for anyone interested in science fiction and ecocriticism!

⭐Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in return for a review.In an afterword to this book, which takes the form of an interview of Kim Stanley Robinson conducted by editor Gerry Canavan, Canavan asks, “What might the people of 2100, or 2200, think about a culture that consumed stories of their radically transformed world as entertainment, while simultaneously refusing to act in the material realm?”A darned interesting question, and one that’s typical of the sorts of issues looked at in this anthology of essays dealing with ecology-themed science fiction.Being a collection of essays by different authors, the book isn’t as coherent and unified as a single-author book would be, but it does present a range of ideas and perspectives on the book’s subject, and most of these make for engaging reading.Some high points:Chapter 3, in which Gib Prettyman discusses the influence of Dowist thought on Ursula Le Guin’s fiction and in particular on her views on ecology and utopian societies.Adeline Johns-Putra examines “ecofeminism” and related issues in chapter 7, looking at the presumption by some theorists of the essential role of the feminine in ecological awareness and “caring.” The chapter focusses largely on Maggie Gee’s climate-change dystopia

⭐.In Chapter 9, Christopher Palmer looks at some examples of recent post-apocalypse fiction. I particularly enjoyed his excellent and insightful discussion of Margaret Atwood’s

⭐.Chapter 10, by Eric C. Otto, presents an excellent examination of Paolo Bacigalupi’s eco-dystopian fiction. Bacigalupi may be the most important name in this sub-genre of SF, and I found Otto’s analyses to be thoughtful, intelligent and very readable.And as is to be expected, there are some lower points:In chapter 8, Elzette Steenkamp looks at South African science fiction, and in particular at the novel Souvenir by Jane Rosenthal and the film District 9. While the chapter is fairly interesting, only one of those three topics, the novel Souvenir, has any real connection with ecology and environmentalism.Chapter 12, by Timothy Morton, examines the movie Avatar in terms of the philosophies of Heidegger, Hume, Kant, Spinoza, Hegel, and a host of others. This makes for some of the densest writing in the book, and I’m afraid the chapter will have little value to readers who aren’t used to slogging through hip-deep philosophy-lingo.I considered the low point of the book to be Chapter 11, in which Brent Bellamy and Imre Szeman discuss Alan Weisman’s 2007 book

⭐. They use muddled and overly dense language to present some downright silly ideas about the “real” environmental and philosophical meaning behind Weisman’s book, for the most part presenting these ideas without a particle of supporting argument. I found the chapter an annoying exercise in flaccid thought pretentiously dressed up in turgid prose.But overall the book is very good, and a fine contribution to its field. With environmentalism and climate change becoming ever more important issues in SF (as they are in the world) this book is pretty much a must-have for serious students of science fiction studies.

⭐An excellent collection of essays on SF.

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