Tag Archives: dystopia

Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination

Posted on August 10, 2018 by jananson

The monochrome cover of Dark Horizons is very dark, and its subtitle is Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination, but the agenda of editors Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan in this collection of essays is as much about utopia as … Continue reading →

Posted in science fiction | Tagged anti-utopia, Dark Horizons, dystopia, Raffaella Baccolini, Tom Moylan, utopia | Leave a comment

Jean Hegland’s Into the Forest

Posted on January 6, 2017 by jananson

I first heard about Jean Hegland’s novel Into the Forest in an Interzone review by David Pringle in 1998, two years after the book was published. Hegland is a West Coast author and Pringle positioned her novel in a subgenre … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Fiction, science fiction | Tagged California SF, David Pringle, dystopia, Into the Forest, Jean Hegland, Ursula Le Guin, utopia | Leave a comment

Like a Slow-Motion Car Crash

Posted on June 20, 2016 by jananson

I’ve sometimes wondered what it must be like to live in a time when you can see that your society is wilfully racing towards political disaster – war, say, or violent revolution, or fascist supremacy – and no appeal either … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, science fiction | Tagged Christopher Priest, dystopia, EU referendum, evolution, Fugue for a Darkening Island, migrants, Polly Toynbee, right-wing, science fiction, Stephen Baxter | 4 Comments

Right-Wing Dystopia

Posted on September 1, 2015 by jananson

The UK general election in May effected a further rightward shift in politics. Similar trends can be seen elsewhere in Europe. In a time of economic and environmental crisis the ensuing right-wing policies look set to head in exactly the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cyberpunk, dystopia, Ecology, evolution, general election, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Paolo Bacigalupi, right-wing politics, The Hunger Games, The Windup Girl, William Gibson | Leave a comment

Celebrating the Radical Imagination – guest post by Helen Moore

Posted on April 30, 2015 by jananson

‘Just imagine the world without … [insert brand]!’ Today, our capacity to imagine is frequently coopted, with advertising endlessly fuelling our sense of ourselves as consumers, rather than citizens of this Earth community. Industrial growth society systematically reinforces ‘monocultures of … Continue reading →