Ice-Sheet Collapse and the Consensus Apocalypse in the Science Fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson
The breakdown of what Donald Wollheim once called the ‘consensus future’ of science fiction – a spacefaring human civilisation migrating to the moon, Mars, the outer solar system, and beyond – has coincided with increasingly dire warnings about the true consequences of technological modernity on the...
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| Format: | Text |
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e-Publications@Marquette
2022
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| Online Access: | https://epublications.marquette.edu/english_fac/596 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009057868.012 |
| Summary: | The breakdown of what Donald Wollheim once called the ‘consensus future’ of science fiction – a spacefaring human civilisation migrating to the moon, Mars, the outer solar system, and beyond – has coincided with increasingly dire warnings about the true consequences of technological modernity on the planet. Where the future once seemed to be a site of unlimited possibility, it now appears to be a site of ever-worsening catastrophe and collapse. This chapter considers what might be called the ‘consensus apocalypse’, but also looks beyond it to consider techno-utopian and ecotopian visions of a non-disastrous future for humanity, with a thematic focus on figurations of sea-level rise due to ice-sheet collapse, especially in the work of Kim Stanley Robinson. |
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