Cyberfiction After the Future
Cyberfiction: After the Future explores a world where cybernetics sets the terms for life and culture - our world of ubiquitous info-tech, instantaneous capital flows, and immanent catastrophe. Economics fuses with technology to create a new kind of specu
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C y be r f ic t ion A f t e r t h e Fu t u r e
Paul Youngquis t
CYBERFICTION
Copyright © Paul Youngquist, 2010. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-62151-0 All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-38348-1 ISBN 978-0-230-10621-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230106215 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Youngquist, Paul. Cyberfiction : after the future / Paul Youngquist. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-349-38348-1 (alk. paper) 1. Science fiction, American—History and criticism. 2. Science fiction, English—History and criticism. 3. Cybernetics in literature. I. Title. PS374.S35Y68 2010 823⬘.087609—dc22
2009030404
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: March 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For the sci-fi geeks and dreamers of Engl. 191: travel the spaceways
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C on t e n t s
List of Illustrations
ix
Preface to Apocalypse
xi xvii
Acknowledgments
Part I 1
Speculative Futures
2
Cyberfiction
Yesterday’s Tomorrows 31
Part II 3
3
Otherspace
Crash-Body
57
4 Score, Scan, Schiz
77
5 Queer Science
105
Part III
Afterlives
6 The Space Machine
135
7 We Can Breed You
159
8 Stealth
187
Notes
227
Works Cited
233
Index
245
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I l lust r at ions
Figures 1
2 3
Cover image from The Atrocity Exhibition. Image copyright © Re/Search Publications (Illustration: Phoebe Gloeckner).
60
Panel from the Isenheimer Altar by Matthias Grünewald, closed.
69
Panel from the Isenheimer Altar by Matthias Grünewald, open.
70
Table 1
Trends in Lifetime Prevalence of Use of Various Drugs for Eighth, Tenth, and Twelfth Graders
80
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P r e fac e t o A p o c a ly pse
L
ittle Boy fell from the sky on August 6, 1945, unleashing the heat of a homemade sun. Its light still blinds the world. The story of the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima has become iconic: the city of 245,000 strangely spared from firebombing that had touched hell to 66 others; the lyrical approach of three B-29 Superfortresses, one of them (the Enola Gay flown by General Paul Tibbets) bearing a payload of a single “special” bomb; the silent flash, the crushing concussion, the winds of fire and crisping flesh; the pillar of ash rising 40,000 fe
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