Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction

8vo, br. ed. pp.288. Science fiction and socialism have always had a close relationship. Many sf novelists and filmmakers are leftists. Others examine explicit or implicit Marxist concerns. As a genre, sf is ideally suited to critiquing the present through its explorations of the social and political possibilities of the future. This is the first collection to combine analyses of sf literature and films within a broader overview of Marxist theory and critical perspectives on the genre. Covering a rich variety of examples from Weimar cinema to mainstream Hollywood films, and novelists from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross, this is an indespensible insight into how Marxism and science fiction go hand-in-hand.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. 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. L'autore 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 novelist. He won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Perdido Street Station (2000) and Iron Council (2004), the British Fantasy Award for The Scar (2002) and the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book for Un Lun Dun (2007). He is an editor of Historical Materialism.