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Theory Of Mind And Science Fiction
By Nicholas O. Pagan. 2014
Theory of Mind and Science Fiction shows how theory of mind provides an exciting 'new' way to think about science…
fiction and, conversely, how science fiction sheds light not only on theory of mind but also empathy, morality, and the nature of our humanity.Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven
By J. T. Mahany, Antoine Volodine. 2015
"The interconnected works of Volodine--think Faulkner, but after an apocalypse--constitute the most exciting project in contemporary French literature."--Maria ClementiThat is…
what we had called post-exoticism. It was a construction connected to revolutionary shamanism and literature. . . . It was an interior construction, a withdrawal, a secret welcoming land, but also something offensive that participated in the plot of certain unarmed individuals against the capitalist world and its countless ignominies. This fight was now confined solely to Bassmann's lips.Like with Antoine Volodine's other works (Minor Angels, We Monks & Soldiers), Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven takes place in a corrupted future where a small group of radical writers--those who practice "post-exoticism"--have been jailed by those in power and are slowly dying off. But before Lutz Bassmann, the last post-exoticist writer, passes away, a couple journalists will try and pry out all the secrets of this powerful literary movement.With its explanations of several key "post-exoticist" terms that appear in Volodine's other books, Lesson Eleven provides a crucial entryway into one of the most ambitious literary projects of recent times: a project exploring the revolutionary power of literature.Antoine Volodine is the author of dozens of books under a few different pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger. These novels--several of which are available in English--articulate a post-exoticist universe filled with secrets, revolutionary writers, and spiders.J. T. Mahany is a graduate of the University of Rochester's MA in Literary Translation Studies program and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas.Octavia's Brood
By Walidah Imarisha, Adrienne Maree Brown. 2016
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision,…
and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres-sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism-but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas.Cyborgs in Latin America
By J. Andrew Brown. 2010
A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, www. oapen.…
org . Cyborgs in Latin America explores the ways cultural expression in Latin America has grappled with the changing relationships between technology and human identity.Francia contra los robots
By Georges Bernanos. 1947
En 1948, el reconocido escritor de inspiración mística Georges Bernanos desapareció, dejando el manuscrito de un último libro, publicado póstumamente:…
Francia contra robots. Esta apasionada defensa de la libertad es un desafío a las idolatrías paganas de ganancia y fuerza, con una increíble actualidad. Esta diatriba contra la "sociedad de las máquinas" es un grito futurista, para señalar una sociedad en la que es posible llevar una vida digna de seres humanos.Esta visionaria obra señala una Sociedad futura donde la tecnología domina a los seres humanos y los deshumaniza. Atacando la conformidad burguesa en nombre de sus creencias católicas, el autor afirma "que no es ni de izquierda ni derecha" y los conflictos internos son especialmente la fuente de las maldades que disminuyen al hombre y todas las tiranías que lo aplastan.“El peligro no está en las máquinas, de lo contrario deberíamos hacer este sueño absurdo de destruirlas por la fuerza, a la manicura de los iconoclastas que, rompiendo las imágenes, se halagaron aniquilando también las creencias. El peligro no está en la multiplicación de máquinas, sino también en el número cada vez mayor de hombres, que desde su infancia, solo desean lo que las máquinas pueden proveer”.Hijos del miedo
By Trevor Shane. 2011
Regla número 1: Prohibido matar a transeúntes inocentes. Regla número 2: Prohibido matar a nadie menor de dieciocho años. Regla…
número 3: Prohibido tener hijos hasta cumplir dieciocho años. Rompe las reglas y te convertirás en objetivo. En un mundo terriblemente parecido al nuestro, dos bandos se enfrentan en una guerra secreta. Joe participa en ella como un soldado perfecto cuya misión es ejecutar los objetivos que le indican sus superiores, sin cuestionarse unas reglas que no acaba de comprender. De niño le explicaron que el mundo estaba dividido en dos bandos bien diferenciados: el bueno y el malo, pero cuando conoce a Maria esa frontera comienza a desdibujarse. Sus firmes y sangrientas convicciones se desvanecen al tiempo que se impone una la únicay terrible y única verdad: solo hay una cosa más peligrosa que luchar en una guerra: abandonarla. Reseña: «El trabajo de Shane es impresionante. Sabe, sin lugar a dudas, cómo encadenar escenas de acción y crea una tensión casi insoportable. Si lo que buscas es una lectura apasionante y vertiginosa Hijos del miedo es tu mejor opción.»The Saturday Evening PostEconomic Science Fictions (Goldsmiths Press / PERC Papers)
By Edited by William Davies. 2018
An innovative new anthology exploring how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics.From the libertarian economics of Ayn Rand…
to Aldous Huxley's consumerist dystopias, economics and science fiction have often orbited each other. In Economic Science Fictions, editor William Davies has deliberately merged the two worlds, asking how we might harness the power of the utopian imagination to revitalize economic thinking.Rooted in the sense that our current economic reality is no longer credible or viable, this collection treats our economy as a series of fictions and science fiction as a means of anticipating different economic futures. It asks how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics and provides surprising new syntheses, merging social science with fiction, design with politics, scholarship with experimental forms. With an opening chapter from Ha-Joon Chang as well as theory, short stories, and reflections on design, this book from Goldsmiths Press challenges and changes the notion that economics and science fiction are worlds apart. The result is a wealth of fresh and unusual perspectives for anyone who believes the economy is too important to be left solely to economists.ContributorsAUDINT, Khairani Barokka, Carina Brand, Ha-Joon Chang, Miriam Cherry, William Davies, Mark Fisher, Dan Gavshon-Brady and James Pockson, Owen Hatherley, Laura Horn, Tim Jackson, Mark Johnson, Bastien Kerspern, Nora O Murchú, Tobias Revell et al., Judy Thorne, Sherryl Vint, Joseph Walton, Brian WillemsNeoliberalism and Cyberpunk Science Fiction: Living on the Edge of Burnout
By Caroline Alphin. 2021
Caroline Alphin presents an original exploration of biopolitics by examining it through the lens of cyberpunk science fiction. Comprised of…
five chapters, Neoliberalism and Cyberpunk Science Fiction is guided by four central themes: biopolitics, intensification, resilience, and accelerationism. The first chapters examine the political possibilities of cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction and introduce one kind of neoliberal subject, the self-monitoring cyborg. These are individuals who join fitness/health tracking devices and applications to their body to "self-cultivate". Here, Alphin presents concrete examples of how fitness trackers are a strategy of neoliberal governmentality under the guise of self-cultivation. Moving away from Foucault’s biopolitics to themes of intensity and resilience, Alphin draws largely from William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon, along with the film Blade Runner to problematize notions of neoliberal resilience. Alphin returns to biopolitics, intensity, and resilience, connecting these themes to accelerationism as she engages with biohacker discourses. Here she argues that a biohacker is, in part, an intensification of the self-monitoring cyborg and accelerationism is in the end another form of resilience. Neoliberalism and Cyberpunk Science Fiction is an invaluable resource for those interested in security studies, political sociology, biopolitics, critical IR theory, political theory, cultural studies, and literary theory.The Three Secret Cities (Jack West Series)
By Matthew Reilly. 2017
Join one of the world's greatest adventure writers on a non-stop thrill-ride. * * * * *A SHADOW WORLD BEHIND…
THE REAL WORLDWhen Jack West Jr won the Great Games, he threw the four legendary kingdoms into turmoil.A WORLD WITH ITS OWN HISTORY, RULES AND PRISONSNow these dark forces are coming after Jack... in ruthless fashion.THAT IS REACHING INTO OUR WORLD ... EXPLOSIVELYWith the end of all things rapidly approaching, Jack must find the Three Secret Cities, three incredible lost cities of legend.It's an impossible task by any reckoning, but Jack must do it while he is being hunted... * * * * *JACK'S BACK. Catch up with him in the rest of the international bestselling series.SEVEN ANCIENT WONDERSTHE SIX SACRED STONESTHE FIVE GREATEST WARRIORSTHE FOUR LEGENDARY KINGDOMSExtreme Fabulations: Science Fictions of Life
By Steven Shaviro. 2021
An examination of science fiction narratives and the light they shed on human life, the unknowable future, and the vagaries…
of unforeseeable change.With this book, Steven Shaviro offers a thought experiment. He discusses a number of science fiction narratives: three novels, one novella, three short stories, and one musical concept album. Shaviro not only analyzes these works in detail but also uses them to ask questions about human, and more generally, biological life: about its stubborn insistence and yet fragility; about the possibilities and perils of seeking to control it; about the aesthetic and social dimensions of human existence, in relation to the nonhuman; and about the ethical value of human life under conditions of extreme oppression and devastation. Shaviro pursues these questions through the medium of science fiction because this form of storytelling offers us a unique way of grappling with issues that deeply and unavoidably concern us but that are intractable to rational argumentation or to empirical verification. The future is unavoidably vague and multifarious; it stubbornly resists our efforts to know it in advance, let alone to guide it or circumscribe it. But science fiction takes up this very vagueness and indeterminacy and renders it into the form of a self-consciously fictional narrative. It gives us characters who experience, and respond to, the vagaries of unforeseeable change.Enter The Expanse to explore questions of the meaning of human life, the concept of justice, and the nature of…
humanity, featuring a foreword from author James S.A. Corey The Expanse and Philosophy investigates the philosophical universe of the critically acclaimed television show and Hugo Award-winning series of novels. Original essays by a diverse international panel of experts illuminate how essential philosophical concepts relate to the meticulously crafted world of The Expanse, engaging with topics such as transhumanism, belief, culture, environmental ethics, identity, colonialism, diaspora, racism, reality, and rhetoric. Conceiving a near-future solar system colonized by humanity, The Expanse provokes a multitude of moral, ethical, and philosophical queries: Are Martians, Outer Planets inhabitants, and Earthers different races? Is Marco Inaros a terrorist? Can people who look and sound different, like Earthers and Belters, ever peacefully co-exist? Should science be subject to moral rules? Who is sovereign in space? What is the relationship between human progress and aggression? The Expanse and Philosophy helps you answer these questions—and many more. Covers the first six novels in The Expanse series and five seasons of the television adaptation Addresses the philosophical issues that emerge from socio-economics and geopolitics of Earth, Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance Offers fresh perspectives on the themes, characters, and storylines of The Expanse Explores the connections between The Expanse and thinkers such as Aristotle, Kant, Locke, Hannah Arendt, Wittgenstein, Descartes, and Nietzsche Part of the popular Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, The Expanse and Philosophy is a must-have companion for avid readers of James S.A. Corey’s novels and devotees of the television series alike.Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures
By Andrew Dana Hudson. 2022
Through speculative fiction, five interlocking novelettes explore the possible realities of our climate future.What is the future of our climate?…
Given that our summers now regularly feature Arctic heat waves and wildfire blood skies, polar vortex winters that reach all the way down to Texas, and “100-year” storms that hit every few months, it may seem that catastrophe is a done deal. As grim as things are, however, we still have options. Combining fiction and nonfiction and employing speculative tools for scholarly purposes, Our Shared Storm explores not just one potential climate future but five possible outcomes dependent upon our actions today. Written by speculative-fiction writer and sustainability researcher Andrew Dana Hudson, Our Shared Storm features five overlapping fictions to employ a futurist technique called “scenarios thinking.” Rather than try to predict how history will unfold—picking one out of many unpredictable and contingent branching paths—it instead creates a set of futures that represent major trends or counterposed possibilities, based on a set of climate-modeling scenarios known as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).The setting is the year 2054, during the Conference of the Parties global climate negotiations (a.k.a., The COP) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Each story features a common cast of characters, but with events unfolding differently for them—and human society—in each alternate universe. These five scenarios highlight the political, economic, and cultural possibilities of futures where investments in climate adaptation and mitigation promised today have been successfully completed, kicked down the road, or abandoned altogether. From harrowing to hopeful, these stories highlight the choices we must make to stabilize the planet.Our Shared Storm is an experiment in deploying practice-based research methods to explore the opportunities and challenges of using climate fiction to engage scientific and academic frameworks.Poli Sci Fi: An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction
By Michael A. Allen, Justin S. Vaughn. 2016
Poli Sci Fi: An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction allows readers, students, and instructors to explore the multiple…
worlds of science fiction while gaining a firm grasp of core political science concepts. This carefully composed text is comprised of sixteen brief chapters, each of which takes a prominent science fiction film or television episode and uses it to explore fundamental components of political science. The book is designed to serve as a supplemental text for undergraduate political science courses, especially Introduction to Political Science. The structure and content of the volume is shaped around the organization and coverage of several leading texts in this area, and includes major parts devoted to theory and epistemology, political behavior, institutions, identity, states, and inter-state relations. Its emphasis on science fiction—and particularly on popular movies and television programs—speaks to the popularity of the genre as well as the growing understanding that popular culture can be an extraordinarily successful vehicle for communicating difficult yet foundational concepts, especially to introductory level college students.Radiant Terminus
By Antoine Volodine, Jeffrey Zuckerman. 2017
Part post-apocalyptic adventure story and part scathing critique of humanity, Volodine’s award-winning novel takes place after the fall of the…
Second Soviet Union against a bleak, almost Tarkovskian landscape. A number of damaged individuals wander this nuclear winter seeking safety, both from the elements and from the psychotic Solovyei who invades people’s dreams and torments them for thousands of years.High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies
By Erik Davis. 2019
An exploration of the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and…
Robert Anton Wilson.A study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson, High Weirdness charts the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from the American counterculture of the 1970s. These three authors changed the way millions of readers thought, dreamed, and experienced reality—but how did their writings reflect, as well as shape, the seismic cultural shifts taking place in America? In High Weirdness, Erik Davis—America's leading scholar of high strangeness—examines the published and unpublished writings of these vital, iconoclastic thinkers, as well as their own life-changing mystical experiences. Davis explores the complex lattice of the strange that flowed through America's West Coast at a time of radical technological, political, and social upheaval to present a new theory of the weird as a viable mode for a renewed engagement with reality.The End of Mr. Y: A Novel
By Scarlett Thomas. 2006
A cursed book. A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere? Ariel Manto…
has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas and The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she mysteriously uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel is launched into an adventure of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. Seeking answers, Ariel follows in Mr. Y's footsteps: She swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere--a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination? With The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas brings us another fast-paced mix of popular culture, love, mystery, and irresistible philosophical adventure.The Choice: The gripping and thought-provoking story you need to read this year!
By Claire Wade. 2019
'This story is amazing, well crafted, and truly makes you think' NetGalley reviewer'Gripping and original. A timely dystopian, feminist novel'…
NetGalley reviewer'A cleverly crafted, and chillingly current novel' NetGalley reviewerImagine a world where...Everything you ate was monitored by the government.Every step you took was counted.Your children were weighed every day at school.Neighbours reported on neighbours and no one was safe from judgement.Sugar was illegal, and baking was a crime.Imagine if that world was here... What would you do?Toe the line or fight for your freedom...Westwind: The classic lost thriller
By Ian Rankin. 2020
THE CLASSIC LOST THRILLER FROM THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'Shockingly good' The Sun'A prescient, high-octane thriller' Daily Express'Totally on the…
money - and ripe for this republication' i Newspaper * * * * *It always starts with a small lie. That's how you stop noticing the bigger ones.After his friend suspects something strange going on at the satellite facility where they both work - and then goes missing - Martin Hepton doesn't believe the official line of "long-term sick leave"...Refusing to stop asking questions, he leaves his old life behind, aware that someone is shadowing his every move. But why?The only hope he has is his ex-girlfriend Jill Watson - the only journalist who will believe his story.But neither of them can believe the puzzle they're piecing together - or just how shocking the secret is that everybody wants to stay hidden...DISCOVER THE CLASSIC LOST THRILLER FROM THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER.* * * * *'Rankin is a master storyteller'Guardian'Great fiction, full stop'The Times'Ian Rankin is a genius'Lee Child'One of Britain's leading novelists in any genre'New Statesman'A virtuoso of the craft'Daily Mail'Rankin is a phenomenon'Spectator'Britain's No.1 crime writer'Mirror'Quite simply, crime writing of the highest order'Express'Worthy of Agatha Christie at her best'ScotsmanThe Novels and Selected Works of Mary Shelley Vol 1
By Pamela Clemit, Nora Crook, Betty T Bennett. 1996
These eight volumes contain the works of Mary Shelley and include introductions and prefatory notes to each volume. Included in…
this edition are "Frankenstein" (1818), "Matilda" ((1819), "Valperga" (1823), "The Last Man" (1826), "Perkin Warbeck" (1830) and "Lodore" (1835).The Choice: The most gripping and thought-provoking story you'll read this year!
By Claire Wade. 2019
'Electrifying' Christina Dalcher, Sunday Times Bestselling author of VOX'A cleverly woven tale' The Times*WINNER OF THE EAST ANGLIAN BOOK AWARD…
FOR FICTION 2020*Imagine a world where...Everything you ate was monitored by the government.Every step you took was counted.Your children were weighed every day at school.Neighbours reported on neighbours and no one was safe from judgement.Sugar was illegal, and baking was a crime.Imagine if that world was here... What would you do?Toe the line or fight for your freedom...'A captivating and thought-provoking debut' Heidi SwainNetGalley reviewers are falling in love with The Choice:'This story is amazing, well crafted, and truly makes you think''Gripping and original. A timely dystopian, feminist novel''A cleverly crafted, and chillingly current novel'