Red Planets

Introduction Rough Guide to a Lonely Planet, from Nemo to Neo, by Mark Bould Part One: Things to come 1. The Anamorphic Estrangements of Science Fiction, by Matthew Beaumont 2. Art as 'The Basic Technique of Life': Utopian Art and Art in Utopia in The Dispossessed and Blue Mars, by William J. Burling 3. Marxism, Cinema and Some Dialectics of Science Fiction and Film Noir, by Carl Freedman 4. Spectacle, Technology and Colonialism in Sf Cinema: The Case of Wim Wenders's Until the End of the World, by John Rieder Part Two: When worlds collide 5. The Singularity is Here, by Steven Shaviro 6. Species and Species Being: Alienated Subjectivity and the Commodification of Animals, by Sherryl Vint 7. Ken MacLeod's Permanent Revolution: Utopian Possible Worlds, History and the Augenblick in the Fall Revolution quartet, by Phillip Wegner Part Three: Back to the future 8. 'Madonna in moon rocket with breeches': Weimar sf film criticism during the stabilisation period, by Iris Luppa 9. The Urban Question in New Wave Sf, by Rob Latham 10. Towards a Revolutionary Science Fiction: Althusser's Critique of Historicity, by Darren Jorgensen 11. Utopia and Science Fiction Revisited, by Andrew Milner Afterword Cognition as Ideology: A Dialectic of Sf Theory, by China Mieville Appendices Left Sf: Selected and annotated, if not always exactly recommended, works Critical and theoretical works About the contributors Index Matthew Beaumont - University College, London Mark Bould - University of the West of England William J. Burling - Missouri State University Carl Freedman - Louisiana State University Darren Jorgensen - University of Western Australia Rob Latham - University of California at Riverside Iris Luppa - London South Bank University China Mieville - Birkbeck School of Law and Warwick University Andrew Milner - Monash University John Rieder - University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Steven Shaviro - Wayne State University Sherryl Vint - Brock University Phillip Wegner - University

Mark Bould is Reader in Film and Literature at the University of the West of England, co-editor of Science Fiction Film and Television and an advisory editor for Extrapolation, Historical Materialism, Paradoxa and Science Fiction Studies. His books include Film Noir: From Berlin to Sin City (2005), The Cinema of John Sayles (2009) and he is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction (2009). China Mieville is an independent researcher and an award-winning novelist. He is a member of the editorial board of Historical Materialism. Mieville's novel Perdido Street Station won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award.

This collection shows what science fiction criticism can do when Marxist critical practice is joined by science studies and the rest of theory. The results are tremendously exciting and powerful, explaining not just a genre but our world, from the financial crash of 2008 to the utopian impulses that remain always in us. -- Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars trilogy This collection marks a red shift in thinking about the history, form, and impact of science fiction literature and film. In robust dialectical manoeuvres, the essays, by a dynamic mix of scholars, simultaneously revive, critique, and transform the vibrant tradition of Marxist sf criticism. The book is a timely, readable, and incisive intervention in contemporary cultural critique. -- Tom Moylan is Glucksman Professor of Contemporary Writing in English and Director of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies at the University of Limerick. Red Planets is a highly readable and interesting collection of essays. Many of the pieces have completely new things to tell us, and will be of interest even to those who are antagonistic toward politically inspired criticism. -- Neil Easterbrook, Associate Professor of Critical Theory, Texas Christian University