Uneven Futures

Essays on speculative/science fiction explore the futures that feed our most cherished fantasies and terrifying nightmares, while helping diverse communities devise new survival strategies for a tough millennium. Essays on speculative/science fiction explore the futures that feed our most cherished fantasies and terrifying nightmares, while helping diverse communities devise new survival strategies for a tough millennium. The explosion in speculative/science fiction (SF) across different media from the late twentieth century to the present has compelled those in the field of SF studies to rethink the community's identity, orientation, and stakes. In this edited collection, more than forty writers, critics, game designers, scholars, and activists explore core SF texts, with an eye toward a future in which corporations dominate both the means of production and the means of distribution and governments rely on powerful surveillance and carceral technologies. The essays, international in scope, demonstrate the diversity of SF through a balance of popular mass-market novels, comics, films, games, TV shows, creepypastas, and more niche works. SF works explored range from Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi, 2084- The End of the World by Boualem Sansal, Terra Nullius by Claire Coleman, Watchmen and X-Men comics, and the Marvel film Captain America- The Winter Soldier, to the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin, and the Wormwood trilogy by Tade Thompson. In an era in which ecological disaster and global pandemics regularly expose and intensify deep political-economic inequalities, what futures has SF anticipated? What survival strategies has it provided us? Can it help us to deal with, and grow beyond, the inequalities and injustices of our times? Unlike other books of speculative/science fiction criticism, Uneven Futures uses a think piece format to make its critical insights engaging to a wide audience. The essays inspire visions of better possible futures-drawing on feminist, queer, and global speculative engagements with Indigenous, Latinx, and Afro- and African futurisms-while imparting important lessons for political organizing in the present. Contributors-Ben Abraham, Emmet Asher-Perrin, Brent Ryan Bellamy, Gerry Canavan, Andrew Ferguson, Fabio Fernandes, Dexter Gabriel, M. Elizabeth Ginway, Sean Guynes, Ouissal Harize, David M. Higgins, Veronica Hollinger, Allanah Hunt, Nicola Hunte, Nathaniel Isaacson, Ayana Jamieson, Darshana Jayemanne, Gwyneth Jones, Brendan Keogh, Sami Ahmad Khan, Cameron Kunzelman, Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, Isiah Lavender III, Caryn Lesuma, Karen Lord, Sarah Marrs, Farah Mendlesohn, Cathryn Merla-Watson, Hugh Charles O'Connell, B. Pladek, John Rieder, Lysa Rivera, Kim Stanley Robinson, Steven Shaviro, Rebekah Sheldon, Alison Sperling, Alfredo Suppia, Bogi Takacs, Taryne Jade Taylor, Sherryl Vint, Kirin Wachter-Grene, Ida Yoshinaga.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: It's the End of the World as We Know It—or So We Hope Ida Yoshinaga, Sean Guynes, and Gerry Canavan xi I Emergence 1 1 Samuel R. Delany, "The Star Pit" (1965) / Moving On, As Far as You Want 3 Kirin Wachter-Grene 2 Lionel Davidson, Under Plum Lake (1980) / YA Time Out of Joint 11 Rebekah Sheldon 3 Brian Henson and Rockne O'Bannon, Farscape (1999–2003) / Radical Compassion 19 Emmet Asher-Perrin 4 Shovon Chowdhury, The Competent Authority / CTRL+ALT+DELETE Humanity 27 Sami Ahmad Khan 5 Sofia Samatar, "How to Get Back to the Forest" (2014) / Shaping and Sharing Feelings 37 Steven Shaviro 6 Tade Thompson, Wormwood Trilogy (2016–2019) / Africanfuturism's Salvage Utopianism 47 Hugh Charles O'Connell 7 Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, The OA (2016–2019) / Science Fiction's Affective Praxis 57 Sherryl Vint 8 Craig Laurance Gidney, A Spectral Hue (2019) / #OwnVoices and Intergroup Solidarity 65 Bogi Takács 9 Jonathan Hickman, House of X and Powers of X (2019) / Ecological Activism and Radical Sovereignty 73 David M. Higgins 10 Rebecca Sugar, Steven Universe Future (2019–2020) / Camp Redemption 81 B. Pladek II Rupture 89 11 Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland (1884) / Unflattening Scientific Worldviews 91 Karen Lord 12 Karel Capek, War with the Newts (1936) / Comic Jeremiad Journalism 99 John Rieder 13 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan (1970) / Remaking the Bond 105 Sean Guynes 14 Joan Slonczewski, A Door into Ocean (1986) / Peaceful Ecological Defiance 111 Gwyneth Jones 15 SCP Foundation (2008–) / Collaborative Canons 119 Andrew Ferguson  16 Kléber Mendonça Filho, Recife Frio (2009) / Visualizing Disparity in Brazil 127 Alfredo Suppia and M. Elizabeth Ginway 17 Virginia Grise, blu (2011) / Queer Latinx Aesthetics of Apocalypse 135 Cathryn Merla-Watson 18 Claire Coleman, Terra Nullius (2017) / Aboriginal SF's Realities of the Imaginary 143 Allanah Hunt 19 Liu Cixin (2000) and Frant Gwo (2019), The Wandering Earth / Deimperializing Empire 153 Nathaniel Isaacson Interlude 163 20 Science Fiction Studies 3.0: Re-networking Our Hive Mind 165 Ida Yoshinaga  III Transformation 177 21 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974) / Permanent Feminist Revolution 179 Kim Stanley Robinson 22 Joanna Russ, We Who Are About To... (1976) / There Is No Planet B 187 Farah Mendlesohn 23 Eleanor Arnason, Ring of Swords (1993) / Queer-Feminist Peace Work 193 Veronica Hollinger 24 Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam Trilogy (2003–2013) / Interspecies Coalition-Building 201 Alison Sperling 25 Buried without Ceremony, The Quiet Year (2013) and The Deep Forest (2014) / Mechanics of Resolution 207 Brent Ryan Bellamy 26 Undead Labs, State of Decay (2013) / Crafting Community at the End of the World 215 Cameron Kunzelman 27 Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding (2019) / Reconnecting in the Time of Climate Change 221 Darshana Jayemanne, Brendan Keogh, and Ben Abraham 28 Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower (2020) / Links to Our Future-Present 229 Ayana Jamieson  IV Revolution 239 29 Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood (1902) / Antiracism and the Counternarrative of the Black Fantastic 241 Dexter Gabriel 30 Alan Moore, David Gibbons, and John Higgins, Watchment, no. 11 (1987) / Autonomous Collectivity against the State 249 Gerry Canavan 31 Tobias Buckell, Sly Mongoose (2008) / Inhabiting Hostile Futures 257 Nicola Hunte 32 Tochi Onyebuchi, Riot Baby (2019) / Black lives Matter SF 265 Isiah Lavender III 33 Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita, Lunar Braceros: 2125–2148 (2009) / Imagination against Resistance 275 Lysa Rivera 34 Boualem Sansal, 2084: The End of the World (2015) / Resisting Censorship 285 Ouissal Harize 35 The Russo Brothers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016) / The Patriotism of Raising Hell 293 Sarah Marrs 36 Princess Nokia, "Brujas" (2016) / Santería's Decolonial Futurisms 303 Taryne Jade Taylor 37 Lehua Parker, One Truth, No Lie (2016) / Indigenous Youth Activism through Mo'olelo and YA Literature 309 Caryn Lesuma 38 Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140 (2017) / Logistic Utopia 317 Fabio Fernandes 39 Na Kia'i Mauna, Ka Pu'uhonua o Pu'uhuluhulu at the Mauna Kea Access Road (2019) / An SF Sovereignty Story 325 Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada Contributors 333 Index 343

About the Author :
Ida Yoshinaga is Assistant Professor of Science Fiction Film at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Sean Guynes is Acquiring Editor, Lever Press. Gerry Canavan is Associate Professor of English at Marquette University. He is the author of Octavia E. Butler.

Review :
“A fascinating snapshot of what the science fiction community has become in the 2020s—as a multimedia genre, an area of academic study, a set of tropes to be made and remade by makers, or a form of political praxis.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “An invigorating and wide-ranging intellectual wallop.” —H-Net Reviews