Imagining Apocalypse: Studies in Cultural Crisis

250 Pages·2000·29.89 MB·English

by  David Seed (eds.)

IMAGINING APOCALYPSE
Also by David Seed
THE FICTIONAL LABYRINTHS OF THOMAS PYNCHON
THE FICTION OF JOSEPH HELLER
JAMES JOYCE'S A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
RUDOLPH WURLITZER, AMERICAN NOVELIST AND
SCREENWRITER
ltnagining Apocalypse
Studies in Cultural Crisis
Edited by
David Seed
Reader, Department of English
University of Liverpool
First published in Great Britain 2000 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
First published in the United States of America 2000 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Imagining apocalypse : studies in cultural crisis I edited by David
Seed.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-62247-4 ISBN 978-1-137-07657-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-07657-1
1. Science fiction, English-History and criticism. 2. Science
fiction, American-History and criticism. 3. Apocalyptic
literature-History and criticism. 4. Literature and society-Great
Britain. 5. Literature and society-United States. 6. End of the
world in literature. 7. Social change in literature. 1. Seed,
David.
PR830.S35143 1999
823'.0876209372-dc21 99-14835
CIP
Selection and editorial matter© David Seed 2000
Text© Macmillan Press Ltd 2000, with the exception of
Chapter 5 © Patrick Parrinder 2000
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-312-22279-6
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
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written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Transferred to Digital Printing 20 II
Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
1 Introduction: Aspects of Apocalypse 1
David Seed
2 The Tales of the Last Days, 1805-3794 15
I. F. Clarke
3 The End of The Ages 27
Stephen R. L. Clark
4 Rewriting the Christian Apocalypse as a
Science-Fictional Event 45
Edward James
5 Edwardian Awakenings: H. G. Wells's Apocalyptic
Romances (1898-1915) 62
Patrick Parrinder
6 Acts of God 75
Robert Crossley
7 The Dawn of the Atomic Age 88
David Seed
8 Silo Psychosis: Diagnosing America's Nuclear
Anxieties Through Narrative Imagery 103
Charles E. Gannon
9 Pocket Apocalypse: American Survivalist Fictions
from Walden to The Incredibe Shrinking Man 118
George Slusser
10 'An Unrehearsed Theatre of Technology':
Oedipalization and Vision in Ballard's Crash 136
Nick Davis
11 Disguising Doorn: A Study of the Linguistic
Features of Audience Manipulation in Michael
Moorcock' s The Eternal Champion 151
Michael Hoey
v
vi Contents
12 Storm, Whirlwind and Earthquake: Apocalypse
and the African-American Novel 166
A. Robert Lee
13 Stylish Apocalypse: Storm Constantine's
Wraeththu Trilogy 181
Val Gough
14 Jews and Independence Day, Women and
Independence Day: Science Fiction Apocalypse Now
Evokes Feminism and Nazism 199
Marleen Barr
15 Future/Present: The End of Science Fiction 215
Veronica Hollinger
Index 230
Notes on Contributors
Marleen Barr is professor at Montclair State University and a pio
neer of studies in feminist science fiction. She has published Alien to
Femininity (1987), Feminist Fabulation (1992) and Lost in Space (1993).
In addition she has edited and credited a number of essay collec
tions including Women and Utopia (1983) and Future Females (1981).
In 1996 she received the Pilgrim Award for outstanding contribu
tions to science fiction criticism.
Stephen R. L. Clark is Professor of Philosophy at Liverpool
University. His publications include God's world and the Great
Awakening (1991} and How To Think About The Earth (1993). He has
also written on Olaf Stapledon, among other science fiction novel
ists, and in 1995 published How To Live Forever, a series of lectures
on immortality approached through the means of science fiction.
Professor I. F. Clarke pioneered the study of predictive and future
wars fiction in his The Tale of the Future (1961), The Pattern of
Expectation, 1763-2001 (1979) and Voices Prophesying War (1966,
1992). He is currently editing a series of early future wars narrative
which includes The Tale of the Next Great War, 1871-1914 (1995) and
The Great War With Germany, 1890-1914 (1997}.
Robert Crossley is Professor of English at the University of
Massachusetts, Boston and has published extensively on H. G. Wells,
Olaf Stapledon and related authors. His biography of Stapledon
Speaking for the Future was published in 1994 and in 1997 he edited
An Olaf Stapledon Reader.
Charles Gannon completed a Ph.D. on future wars fiction from
Fordham University after holding a Fulbright Scholarship at
Liverpool University 1996-7. He researches on narrative represen
tations of warfare, apocalypse, and advanced technology. He is
associate editor of the Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems and
is Associate Professor at Eckerd College.
Nick Davis is a member of the English Department at Liverpool
University and works mainly on narratology and early modern lit
erature. He is the author of the forthcoming Stories of Chaos.
vii
viii Notes on Contributors
Val Gough is a member of the English Department at Liverpool
University. She has edited two collections on Charlotte Perkins
Gilman: A Very Different Story (1998) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman:
Optimistic Reformer (forthcoming). She has published numerous
essays on women writers, gender and language, and science fiction.
Michael Hoey is a Professor of English Language at Liverpool
University. His publications include On the Surface of Discourse
(1983, 1991) and Patterns of Lexis in Text (1991), the latter winning
the Duke of Edinburgh award for the best book in applied linguistics.
Veronica Hollinger is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at
Trent University, Ontario. She is co-editor of Science-Fiction Studies
and co-edited the collection of critical essays Blood Read: The Vampire
as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture (1997).
Edward James is Professor of Medieval History at Reading
University. He is editor of Foundation: The International Review of
Science Fiction and the author of Science Fiction in The Twentieth
Century (1994) and co-editor of The Profession of Science Fiction (1992).
A. Robert Lee is Professor of American Literature at Nihon
University Tokyo. He has edited numerous collections of critical
essays for Vision Press on Faulkner, autobiography and African
American Literature. His more recent volumes include Making
American/Making American Literature (with W. M. Verhoefen) (1996),
The Beat Generation Writers, and Designs of Blackness (1998).
Patrick Parrinder is Professor of English at Reading University and
is the author of The Failure of Theory (1987) and Authors and
Authority (1991). He is a leading Wells scholar having served as
chairman of the H. G. Wells Society. He has published numerous
works on Wells, most recently Shadows of the Future which won the
Eaton Prize for the best book on science fiction for 1995.
David Seed is a member of the English Department of Liverpool
University. He has published criticism on a number of American
novelists including Thomas Pynchon and Joseph Heller, and is editor
Notes on Contributors ix
of the Liverpool University Press Science Fiction Texts and Studies.
His latest book is American Science Fiction and the Cold War (1999).
George Slusser is Professor of English at the University of California
Riverside and is director of the Eaton Collection of science fiction. In
addition to publishing monographs on Heinlein, LeGuin and oth
ers, he has edited science fiction by Conan Doyle, and co-edited
numerous critical collections on science fiction including Immortal
Engines (1996).