SFSignal.com has a useful, interactive flowchart to find something to read on NPR’s listener-compiled Best 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels here. The Science Fiction > Cyberpunk > Gritty Noir (William Gibson’s Neuromancer) | Neo-Victorial (Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer) | Samurai (Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash) seems to make sense–I suppose it illustrates that cyberpunk lives on in the popular imagination, beyond the movement per se.
SFSignal’s Interactive Flowchart to NPR’s 100 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels
October 19, 2011
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Science Fiction | Tagged: fantasy, npr, postaday2011, sciencefiction | 
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Posted by Jason W Ellis
Connect with the Science Fiction Research Association Online via Web, Email, Facebook, and Twitter
September 17, 2011The Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) is the oldest professional organization devoted to the study and teaching of science fiction and fantasy across all media, including print, film, television, and video games.
Besides joining the organization and receiving access to publications and journals, including SFRA Review, Extrapolation, and Science Fiction Studies, as well as qualifying for participation in the the annual conference (the next will be in Detroit, more info here), you can take part in the discussion through the SFRA’s online presence dispersed around the Internet. Here are four ways to learn more and stay in touch:
First, you can connect to the SFRA at the organization’s official website here.
Second, you can join the lively SFRA Email List conversation by following the instructions here.
Third, you can ‘like’ the SFRA’s Facebook page here.
Fourth, you can follow the SFRA’s Twitter feed (@sfranews) here.
I look forward to talking with you in cyberspace!
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Posted by Jason W Ellis
SFRA Panel at Dragon*Con Was a Success!
September 5, 2011On Sunday, the Science Fiction Research Association was represented by Lisa Yaszek, Doug Davis, Jason Embry, and myself at the 11:30am Dragon*Con panel in Atlanta, Georgia titled: “What Does Science Fiction Mean? A Conversation with the SFRA.” SFRA Publicity Director R. Nicole Smith coordinated with the Dragon*Con Sci-Fi & Fantasy Literature Track planners to make the panel a reality.
The panel was attended by approximately 20 Dragon*Con members, and the ensuing conversation between the panel and the audience was electric. We received comments from long-time science fiction fans who had taken classes in the 1970s, and we received questions from educators and creative writing teachers about the use of science fiction in the academy. As part of the conversation, we also shared the history of the SFRA and our own unique histories as SF scholars with the audience.
The session was a great success, because we had a delightful conversation that ran over our allotted time. It was a fulfilling experience to connect with Dragon*Con SF and fantasy fans, because they had compelling questions and unique experiences to share with us. The panel was also a success on another level, because it increased the visibility of our organization and the work of its members in an audience that should be a continuing part of our discourse in the SFRA.
Many thanks to the audience members who attended the panel!
Leave a Comment » | Personal, Science Fiction, SFRA | Tagged: dragoncon, fantasy, postaday2011, sciencefiction, SFRA | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis
Taiwan Science Fiction Novel Advertising: An Exercise in Exaggeration and Mathematics
September 2, 2011Y tuned me into the Taiwanese ad posted below for the Chinese version of Warren Fahy’s Fragment, which you can also find here:
With Y’s help, I translated the ad below (with some commentary):
Y explains to me that in Taiwan book publishers are notorious for making bold claims about authors and new books. In this case, the advertisement begins by proclaiming, “Father of Science Fiction Michael Crichton’s most legitimate heir was born” [meaning the author: Warren Fahy]. I have no complaint with Fahy, but I have never heard anyone refer to Crichton, the author of The Andromeda Strain, Westworld, and Jurassic Park, as the father of science fiction!
The bottom of the ad tries to link Fahy’s work with other, better-known science fictions. However, the copywriter goes above the call of duty and devises a clever algebraic equation to drive home the sheer brilliance of Fahy’s novel: “(Jurassic Park + Lost) x Avatar = So good that it makes you lose control!” I wonder how many U.S. readers would be able to work through the process of this equation? I love the fact that copywriters in Taiwan think highly enough of their readers to grok advertising like this.
I haven’t read anything by Fahy before. Can you recommend Fragment or another of his novels? If so, leave a comment below. Thanks!
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Posted by Jason W Ellis
Good Review of Practicing Science Fiction in Latest Extrapolation
September 1, 2011Last year, I contributed an essay titled, “Revealing Critical Theory’s Real-Life Potential to Our Students, the Digital Nomads,” to Practicing Science Fiction: Critical Essays on Writing, Reading and Teaching the Genre edited by Karen Hellekson, Craig B. Jacobsen, Patrick B. Sharp, and Lisa Yaszek.
Bill Dynes contributed a nice review of the book and mentioned my essay in his review in Extrapolation 52:2 (Summer 2011). He writes, “This slim volume will be of substantial value to teachers and scholars” (253). Then, in describing the first part, “Teaching with Science Fiction,” Dynes observes that, “Interestingly, these essays foreground teaching with sf rather than teaching the genre itself. Jason Ellis uses Mike Resnick’s novel Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future (1998) to teach the postcolonial critical theories of writers such as Edward Said, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze” (253). This is the power of science fiction that others including John W. Campbell, Jr. realize: it can accomplish many tasks including working through ideas of the real world that are themselves not necessarily science fictional. This is not to say that postcolonialism cannot be read as science fictional, but in the case of my essay, I see the use of science fiction as a tool to teach students about critical theory and its application to their lives in the real world.
I am glad to see Practicing Science Fiction continue to get some attention in the field. Click on the link above to visit the publisher’s website for additional information and for ordering.
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Posted by Jason W Ellis
The SFRA Invades 2011 Dragon*Con in Atlanta on Labor Day Weekend
August 31, 2011Actually, the Science Fiction Research Association isn’t really “invading” Dragon*Con with ray guns drawn, but we will host a panel titled, “What does Science Fiction Mean: A Conversation with the SFRA” on Sunday morning in the Hyatt’s Fairlie room at 11:30am. Thanks to the SFRA’s Publicity Director R. Nicole Smith, several SFRA EC members (Lisa Yaszek and myself) and SFRA Review editors (Doug Davis and Jason Embry) will hold a panel to let convention goers know a little bit about what we do in the SFRA. We will also invite attendees to join the SFRA and participate in the 43rd annual conference in Detroit next year. If you are attending Dragon*Con, stop by the panel and join the conversation. If you aren’t going to Dragon*Con but are in the Atlanta area and what to talk shop, drop me a line [dynamicsubspace now-what-goes-here gmailcom]–I will be in town from Friday until Sunday.
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Posted by Jason W Ellis
Find My Review of Eric Carl Link’s Understanding Philip K. Dick in the New JFA
August 30, 2011I received my complimentary copy of the latest Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts yesterday, because I wrote a very favorable review of Eric Carl Link’s survey of Philip K. Dick titled: Understanding Philip K. Dick. You can find my review on pages 114-116.
Besides all of the other great content in this issue of JFA, there is a review of Muhammad Husain Jah’s Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism (translated by Musharraf Ali Farooqi) by Anna C. Oldfield. I was happy to see this review of Farooqi’s translation, because I made the layout for two serialized excerpts from this work in Masood Raja’s Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies when I was the layout editor [read the excerpts in the first and second issues of the journal].
Leave a Comment » | Personal, Science Fiction | Tagged: postaday2011, Review, sciencefiction | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis
Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction CFP, Deadline Approaching
August 29, 2011The proposal deadline for Canavan and Robinson’s Green Planets is in two days. I wish that I had the time to contribute something, but I am writing my diss as if the Devil were on my tail. Read below for the details on this important project:
*CFP for edited collection: /Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction/*
Editors: Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson (ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com <mailto:ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com>)
*Abstracts due August 31, 2011*
*Final essays due Summer 2012*We are seeking proposals for an edited collection tentatively titled /Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction,/ with completed essays due in Summer 2012. We seek contributions that touch on any aspect of the relationship between ecological science, environmentalism, and SF, with particular attention to such topics as:
* ecological futurity and ecocriticism in SF
* visions of eco-disaster, eco-catastrophe, and eco-apocalypse
* strategies for ecotopia
* “the globe” and global thinking in SF
* science fictional critiques of global capitalism, consumerism, and ecological racism
* social justice as an ecological technology
* narratives of political resistance
* SF as it figures within current public debate about ecological science (climate change, Peak Oil, etc)
* philosophies and fantasies of Nature
* narratives of evolution, extinction, and extermination
* eco-feminist SF
* reproductive futurity
* ecology and Afrofuturism
* ecology, digitality, and techno-optimism
* terraforming and other narratives of space colonization
* aliens, alien worlds, xenobiology, and exo-ecology
* ecological thinking as a strategy for cognitive estrangement
* ecological critiques of particular unscientific or anti-ecological science fictions, or critiques of the history of the genre as a wholeWe hope to produce a collection that speaks to the long history of ecological SF, ranging from the climate change that prompts the Martian invasion in /War of the Worlds/ to /Oryx and Crake, The Wind-Up Girl, Avatar,/ and /WALL-E/ (and everything else before, after, and between). We likewise intend “SF” in its broadest possible sense, to include fantasy and horror literature alongside “science fiction” more narrowly construed, and hope to receive submissions that properly reflect SF as a diverse and global genre.
Please direct all queries, questions, and submissions to ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com. <mailto:ecologyandsciencefiction@gmail.com> Abstracts should be around 250-300 words; submissions should also include contact information and a short bio. Please plan for final essays to range between 4000-8000 words.
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Posted by Jason W Ellis
Gary Westfahl’s The Mechanics of Wonder
August 28, 2011I just finished reading Gary Westfahl’s The Mechanics of Wonder as part of the research on my dissertation’s important theoretical chapter.
I wish that I had known about and read this book a long time ago. I have heard some of the things that he argues about Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell, Jr. in other places, but I see now that those other places likely based or were inspired by Westfahl’s book.
Having read The Mechanics of Wonder, I am persuaded by Westfahl’s arguments that science fiction came to be what it was from the work of Gernsback and Campbell. Their delayed influence on the writing taking place in the genre appears to have had profound implications. For the most part, Westfahl’s rigorous approach to evidence and his claims based on that evidence are very well received.
This is not to say that I am giving up my Aldiss or Suvin. I find their work equally stimulating even if their historical claims might not always be on target. I believe that we can find earlier examples of science fiction even if they are not part of the modern instantiation of the genre itself. Can we not say that a particular work is science fictional? Can we not go so far as to say that a given work is part of the science fiction genre, because it shares all of the characteristics of the work even if it was not yet part of the genre due to its chronological deficiencies?
Likewise, I believe that structuralist approaches such as that undertaken by Suvin are useful for understanding the mechanics of the science fiction genre. In fact, Suvin provides an advantageous link between two different spheres of knowledge in my theory chapter. Westfahl’s careful reading does knock a few sizable holes in Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, but I will gladly salvage the concept of cognitive estrangement.
The Mechanics of Wonder is a must-read for everyone studying science fiction. Westfahl not only presents compelling evidence, he also provides a demanding model for scholarly rigor and engagement of evidence.
6 Comments | Science Fiction | Tagged: postaday2011, Research, sciencefiction | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis
CFP: NeMLA 2012 Panel on Apocalyptic Projections in Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy Literature for 2012 and Beyond, Sept 30 Deadline
August 12, 2011This cfp sounds interesting:
CFP: NeMLA March 15-18, 2012, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.
Apocalyptic Projections in Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy Literature for 2012 and Beyond
This panel provides an opportunity to explore the ramifications of the 2012 doomsday prophesiers on cultural behavior as witnessed within the genre of science fiction literature and cinema. The term apocalyptic may include any means of total or near-total destruction, whether it is caused by humans, aliens or Nature. Papers analyzing the role apocalyptic sci-fi and/or fantasy have played and continue to play in literature, cinema, theater and other aspects of culture will be the main emphasis of this panel. Focus can be on apocalyptic visual arts and cinema, but written literature is also appropriate.
Please send e-mail abstracts of 250-300 words in MS Word to Annette M. Magid, SUNY Erie Community College <a_magid [you know what] yahoo.com>.Deadline: September 30, 2011 Please include with your abstract: Name and Affiliation
Proposed title for your paper E-mail address Postal address Telephone number A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)
Visit the website at Http://www.nemla.org/convention/2012/
Leave a Comment » | cfp, Science Fiction | Tagged: cfp, fantasy, postaday2011, sciencefiction | Permalink
Posted by Jason W Ellis
