A New Study of the Paranormal in Science Fiction Literature

Damien Broderick has published The Paranormal in Psience Fiction Literature (McFarland, 2018). It's available in paperback and in ebook editions.  He discusses many authors, including Alfred Bester, Robert Heinlein, James Blish, A. E. van Vogt, Lester del Rey, Robert Silverberg, Octavia Butler, Connie Willis, and Joan D. Vinge.

Neelam and Zaidi on a Postmodern Study of Environmental Conversion from Natural to Technological in Neuromancer Through the Lens of Ecocide @GreatDismal

Asma Neelam, National University of Modern Languages, and Saba Zaidi, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University, Department of English, have published A Postmodernist Study of Environmental Conversion from Natural to Technological in Neuromancer Through the Lens of Ecocide. Here is the abstract.

The pervasive urbanization and technology advancement has almost destroyed the natural order that has caused Ecocide. Humanity is facing a hard time of climatic change and habitat destruction. Although the level of public awareness related to environmental issues has been increased yet this is not sufficient enough to regenerate the old balance of nature. Deterioration in the ecosystem is depicted in most of the Postmodern literature as a constant shift from natural to technological. The cities of today that boast of steel and glass skyscrapers, flyovers, signal towers and elevated freeways (that have greatly influenced nature and humanity) are in an artificial state of make-believe, chaos and doubt. Gibson’s Cyberpunk novel Neuromancer (1984) is an apt example of such kind of chaos, fragmentation, doubt and artificiality that pervades in our society. Neuromancer is a depiction of reality/artifice and natural/unnatural. It is a prophetic discourse of our own not too distant future. This study aims to depict that how Neuromancer represents the artificial and synthetic world of our times. The study is based upon a Postmodernist stance of Ecocide that aspires to signify the depiction of today’s world in the Cyberpunk literature through the novel Neuromancer. Thereof, it equally aims to highlight the significance of Cyberpunk as a Postmodernist genre of literature that is representative of the contemporary society.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Legal and Political Themes in Battlestar Galactica

Over at Concurring Opinions, Dave Hoffman, Deven Desai, and I interview Ron Moore and David Eick, creators, producers, and writers of the hit television show Battlestar Galactica.

Battlestar Galactica chronicles the struggle for survival of a small band of humans who escaped a devastating genocidal attack by intelligent robots called cylons. The humans created the cylons for use as slaves. The cylons rebelled and a war erupted between the humans and cylons. But a truce was reached, and the cylons disappeared. But forty years later, the cylons launched a massive surprise attack, destroying the human society (called the Twelve Colonies) with nuclear missiles. Only a small group of humans aboard spaceships survived. The show depicts the humans’ difficult fight for survival and the tough choices they must make along the way. The cylons have developed technology to allow them to take human form, and some of the humans within the group of survivors are really cylons.

The show is heavily influenced by modern events, especially terrorism, war, and torture. In a time of emergency, how should we balance security and liberty? How do we deal with enemies who may be burrowed in among us? How does a society decimated in a war reconstitute its political, economic, and legal systems?

Our interview explores the legal, political, economic, and social ideas raised by the show.

From our post:

Our interview is structured in three parts. Part I, available in two files (see the end of this post to download), focuses on the issues of legal systems and morality. It examines the lawyers and trials in the show. It also examines how torture is depicted, as well as how the humans must balance civil liberties and security.

Part II examines politics and commerce. It explores how the cylon attack affected the humans' political system, and it examines how commerce works in the fleet.

Part III examines issues related to cylons, such as the humans' treatment of cylons, how robots should be treated by the law, how the cylons govern themselves politically. Additionally, Part III will explore the religious issues involved in the show.

Click here to listen to the audio files.