MARK BOULD, CHINA MIÉVILLERED PLANETS
Marxism and Science Fiction
Pluto Press, 20/7/2009
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 theorisations of and critical perspectives on the genre.
This is an accessible and lively introduction for anyone studying the politics of sf, 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.
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 Miéville is an independent researcher and an award-winning novelist. He is a member of the editorial board of Historical Materialism. Miéville's novel Perdido Street Station won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award.
