Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right

by Jordan S. Carroll

Reveals the alt-right’s project to claim science fiction and—by extension—the future

Fascists such as Richard Spencer interpret science fiction films and literature as saying only white men have the imagination required to invent a high-tech future. Other white nationalists envision racist utopias filled with Aryan supermen and all-white space colonies. Speculative Whiteness traces these ideas through the entangled histories of science fiction culture and white supremacist politics, showing that debates about representation in science fiction films and literature are struggles over who has the right to imagine and inhabit the future. Although fascists insist that tomorrow belongs to them, they have always been and will continue to be contested by antifascist fans willing to fight for the future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Literary Criticism, Essays, Sociology, Literature

120 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 22, 2024

Reviews

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

'But perhaps the most formally sophisticated rebuttal to fascists comes in the unlikely form of Chuck Tingle’s queer absurdist science fiction erotica. Tingle has often parodied the far right: he created a fake version of Breitbart.com that included the “Top 5 Alt-Right Basements,” and after Trump was elected he went on a mission to reverse this “timeline mistake.”'

Wow, a really important eye-opener on how the alt-right has appropriated SF's 'licence to imagine' as an ideological and epistemological affirmation of 'white' technoscientific supremacy. Um, the Terminator as an ubermensch? Interstellar as promoting Aryan cultural superiority throughout TIME???

Carroll rightly points out that SF has always been vulnerable to being hacked by extremists and reactionary ideologues, simply because that's how the genre started out.

It’s how reasonable fans respond to such misguided incitement that will be the true test of the genre's continued relevance, readability, and appeal to a global audience.

#Decolonise SF!!! #AfricaRising

[Rachel Ashera Rosen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and chilling examination of the far-right's claim to science fiction. If you lived through the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies debacle or were baffled by the reactionary temper tantrums over Star Trek getting "woke," this won't be unfamiliar to you, but the author goes much farther in untangling the assumptions about time, technology, and colonialism that underpin sci-fi from its very roots. For antifascists who are also giant sci-fi nerds, this is a must-read.

[Silvana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the most readable book out there but an important one for the SFF genre. And maybe time to read those Chuck Tingle books if that is really the "most formally sophisticated rebuttal" to these fascists.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think all science fiction fans should read this book. Additionally, anyone who has ever giggled at elon musks “dark gothic maga” needs to be slapped in the face with this book.

[Dale Stromberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in straightforward prose but with scholarly rigour, this slim volume packs in a great deal of insight about how speculative fiction, particularly science fiction, has long been and continues to be ridden with a strain of white supremacist thought. Carroll traces out the illogic and the paradoxes of such thought, showing how it crops up not only in overtly racist fiction but in otherwise “respectable” Golden Age or libertarian sci-fi, as well as offering examples of how the progressive movements within the genre have successfully resisted “Faustian” fascist strains.

[Jessica]

Gooooood NIGHT. Chilling and very readable deep dive into the Alt-Right's "colonization" of science fiction and fantasy for their own purposes. Holding up utopias and dystopias as evidence of white supremacy, created beings like the Terminator as an "Ubermensch" and all the stuff that people with morals and souls would never in a million years think about.

*I am not rating books read for the World Fantasy Award.*

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a non-fic about which SFF books US alt-right consider a must read for their ‘cause’, their views and interpretations of mainstream SFF from Dune and Lord of the Rings to movies like Terminator.

The book starts with one James H. Madole, a science fiction fan who led the first major neo-Nazi party in the United States. Then it discussed several famous texts, not necessary fascist per se, but used by neo-Nazi to ‘prove’ their points, including but not limited to the ideas that only whites have imagination (both to invent in general and write SF in particular), they are endangered, their birth rate is artificially suppressed and similar nonsense.

The pluses of this book are that it gives what alt-right see e.g. in Dune, where they see a new feudalism and a white savior as ‘proofs’ of white superiority and return to good old times. It also gives the books cherished by this group but relatively unknows elsewhere, like French Archeofuturism and The Turner Diaries.

The minuses IMHO are related to often anachronistic views on older SF, simplifications like linking libertarians (who are individualists) with totalitarian (i.e. anti-individualistic), but yes, there are people who support both in the same time. Some views are just assumed right-wing, which actually shows lack of knowledge of e.g. Soviet pulp SF of the 1920s, which e.g. supported eugenics. A fun episode from the book: “Faye has less to say about the Muslim immigrants and other people of color who were ethnically cleansed at the founding of the Eurosiberian Federation. When a visitor from the Indian Empire asks what happened to them, the protagonist pauses for a moment before explaining that they were forcibly deported to Madagascar. Nazi official Adolf Eichmann considered this island as an evacuation site for Jews before he oversaw their deportation to concentration camps to be murdered. Whether Faye is engaging in irony or prevarication, his Faustian future expels almost all nonwhite populations from history.” In “Эскадрилья всемирной коммуны” (1925) after the communist revolution took the globe, all forces of darkness, including Mussolini, Rockefeller and Poisson, fortified at Madagascar.

Overall, an interesting research.

[sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

lowkey forgot i finished this but it was very good!! technically dense + reads like a thesis (I think maybe it is a thesis?) so if you're not into academic writing (understandable) this might not be for you, but I'm going to purchase my copy just for the wealth of citations alone. there were SO many things mentioned that could easily take you down an information rabbithole. i can totally see why this won a Hugo, it's a super important piece of work for a genre where a lot of racist tropes/themes/ideas still go unquestioned and rewritten. good stuff~

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for the Hugos, so I'd say I'm not really the target audience for this book (political science acadamia), but I'm not really sure what argument this book was trying to make, which means I don't know whether it succeeded in making it. There was a lot of information about selected people within the alt-right movement and their interactions with selected science fictional concepts, but you could make those sorts of connections between pretty much any movement and any genre. It felt more like cherry-picking to me than saying anything deeper about either the inherent nature of science fiction or the inherent nature of alt-right thinking.

Also, what is my takeaway supposed to be? Is there something I, as a progressive and a science fiction fan, am supposed to do about what I've read? If there was any sort of call-to-action in the book, I missed it.

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw this work’s title and the fact that it won a Hugo, I knew I had to read it. It’s long bothered me that the reading community for my favorite literary genre, speculative fiction, is overwhelmingly white and male. r/Fantasy and other related subreddits look like Antarctica with how white they are. Why is this?

Turns out it’s NOT just me, as Carroll unpacks for us in this academic thesis… except that this is really, really dense academic writing, which means that it’s not going to be most people’s cup of tea.

In the simplest of terms, Carroll argues that the ideology of “speculative whiteness” consists of these key tenets:

1. White people, and only white people, have the mental capacity to imagine and innovate. All other races are inherently concerned more/only with surviving day by day or indulging in base desires.

2. As a result of the above, speculative fiction is the realm of white people. All other people, be they authors or characters, don’t belong in this world.

3. White supremacist thinking is SO sure of their superior nature that they believe that a high-tech speculative future, such as the ones often described in sci-fi, are the inevitable due of white people. In other words, for them, the speculative future isn’t so much an imagination or a prediction as it is an inevitability. White supremacists read sci-fi as if those worlds of possibility are bygone conclusions for them.

4. Alt-right white readers therefore “read” this white supremacist version into almost all works of speculative fiction. Many of them are incapable of noticing irony or satire, such as when a sci-fi writer is actually critiquing fascism by writing about a fascist sci-fi future.

I find this fascinating because it makes it clear, to me, why there is no point in using facts to try to get these kinds of people to change their minds. Their neural pathways are LITERALLY programmed in a totally different way. This is why engaging in debates with people like He Who Must Not Be Eulogized in a Positive Light is fruitless. Their brains cannot ever conceive of a different reality in which people of color, women, etc are as equally capable and deserving of the future as themselves.

Now, it’s really too bad that “Speculative Whiteness” is written for a really niche (read: academic) audience. It’s only around 100 pages long but took me a loooong time to get through with how dense and academic it is. I mean, read the following and tell me if you understand it:

“Whiteness appears as consubstantial with speculative futurity.”

Confused? The whole thing is written like that. Fortunately I have extensive experience speaking academia, but it’s definitely not for everyone lol. Which is a shame, as the points are really important and illuminating.

[David H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, fascinating book about the alt-right's effort to claim science fiction for themselves (white people). Instead of being outsiders trying to hijack a "progressive SF," Carroll shows they were there all along inside fandom (as much as the rest of us may dislike it). I was intrigued by their willful misreading of books with fascist/totalitarian elements and pretending they were positive portrayals, and I appreciated Carroll's angle of time preferences and their delusions, which I hadn't considered before (because I usually try not to pay attention to white-nationalist thoughts).

It's a short read, though written in a more academic style than casual readers will be expecting. I lucked out in that I had read or was familiar with many of the SF works mentioned within, and having read many of Camestros Felapton's Debarkle articles which touched on a few similar issues in SF history.

[Stoffia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Petit essai des Presses Universitaires du Minnesota sur les liens entre la science fiction et les mouvements de suprématie blanche. L'essai s'oppose à cette vision de la SF comme un genre fondamentalement progressiste. Sans en faire un genre raciste par essence, il démontre comment les outils de la SF peuvent servir ses desseins plus sinistres.

L'essai explore plusieurs cas de figure : les supremacistes qui ont fait de la SF pour servir leur propos, et d'autres qui ont utilisé des "vrais" œuvres de SF pour en détourner le sens (ou parfois pour mettre de l'avant y sens qui y était réellement).

J'y ai découvert qu'il existait, par exemple, un sous-genre complet de la SF maintenant oublié d'histoires ou "les Blancs sont oppressés par des Noirs, ou des aliens à la peau foncée dont la société tombe en ruine parce que seul le génie des Blancs peut construire et maintenir une civilisation". Et quand je dis un sous genre complet, c'est une cinquantaine de nouvelles, romans, certains ayant gagnés des prix, et certains par des noms connus. Heinlein ou Niven, par exemple.

(Pour Heinlein, ça ne me surprend pas, je connais déjà ses histoires basés sur le "Péril Jaune". J'ignorais tout des politiques de Niven par contre et en fouillant... Ouf, ça ne s'est pas amélioré avec le temps. Il a travaillé au gouvernement américain sous Bush où il a proposé un projet pour réduire les coûts des soins de santé en faisant croire aux latinos qu'on leur prélèverait secrètement des organes s'ils se rendaient à l'hôpital. En 2007.)

J'ai appris que, si Le Monde des Non-A est le livre le plus connu de Van Vogt en français, en anglais c'est plutôt À La Poursuite des Slans. Et qu'une raison de ce succès vient d'une interprétation du livre qui a subi la réappropriation des supremacistes Blancs, avec tout plein d'organisations eugénistes où près du Klan se réclamant de Van Vogt. (Avec même un plan pour construire une ville eugéniste basée sur le livre, mais qui a dû se rendre à l'évidence qu'une bande d'hommes Blancs célibataires ça ne pouvait pas vraiment passer beaucoup de gènes.)

Je donne ici les exemples les plus marquants mais le livre en déborde. On y revient sur la polémique des Hugo entourant les Sad Puppies, on y parle de superhéros et tout ça. Le dernier long chapitre analyse plus en profondeur la "philosophie" supremaciste blanche, ses fondements et ses errements. Son "archéofutur Faustien". Cette section, bien qu'intéressante, s'éloigne un peu trop (à mon goût) du sujet d'origine du livre, qui reste très bon et fouillé malgré tout.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, the framing through the lens of scifi literary theory limits its scope and ability to discuss the more tangible impacts of fascism as it applies to technology, politics and science. The latter half of the second part seemed unfocused. However, it was very informative and a must-read for scifi fans.

The ideas presented are not surprising, but intriguing in a "finally, someone has connected the dots, this makes sense" way. The core of fascism is an appeal to authority and a racist belief that white people are the intellectually and culturally superior race. Carroll argues that fascist attraction to scifi is an extension of this - that white people are the only ones capable of technological advancement to the stars, while BIPOC are stagnant. Not only are white people the only ones who have the intellectual capability and desire to imagine a speculative future, but fascists actively seek to determine who is allowed to engage in speculation on our future.

Ultimately, I feel as if the framing puts this book into a box. Carroll mentions some of the real-world consequences of this connection - the fascism of Silicon Valley tech bros like Peter Thiel - but doesn't elaborate on this. Maybe it's an unfair thing to critique (at 120 pages, it's essentially a very long essay) but I think this would've served better as a long chapter or section in a larger work about fascism, technology and science. This is mostly a reflection of an issue I have with a lot of sociological criticism which is that it is more focused on theory and ideas rather than practical consequences.

[Charles Korb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book pretty annoying. For someone who wants to be so specific about the alt-right vs any of the other forms of right wing in his discussion he sometimes paints with a broad brush.

I didn't know that the alt right believed that the justification for their racism was that people of color had a steeper discount rate for future value than white people (ie they fail the marshmallow test). The section that pushed me over the edge on this book was lumping together this together with the EA longtermism which in turn is lumped together with Elon Musk's pro-natalism; none of which I think go together very well. There are other examples of him doing this in the book as well but this was the simplest and most egregious.

It's an interesting history of the intersection of the two fields but there's only so many times you can rest about some guy writing science fiction books where the future is dominated by white people and all the black people are savages

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is I need it to be longer!

[Gregory Amato · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful enough that the white supremacist Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale) tried to tear this book down, and inadvertently confirmed Carroll's central thesis in the process.

[Corrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

really interesting but i think it could’ve been organized a bit better / more clearly

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

University of Minnesota's Forerunners series allows academics to publish things that are in that weird intermediate space between the article and the monograph, but while that format may be liberating to the writer, it is often frustrating to the reader. While there is a strong argument here, the number of readings of right wing texts is limited, meaning that the argument relies more on assertion and citation of other secondary literature rather than primary material.

It is also remarkable how quickly much of the material on the alt-right became outdated—just to begin with, Richard Spencer no longer seems worthy of so much attention. I suppose this is another risk taken in publishing a work like this—something meant to be an intervention into the very recent past and immediate present.

OTOH, I have found this very helpful, and I hope Carroll moves on from this to a larger project on the conservative imagination.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have to take them seriously because of the very real danger they pose but it really is wild how every white supremacist is some weird little freak gremlin who doesn't know how to read.

[Sue Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this short book before it became a finalist for a Hugo Award for Best Related Work, and it’s a timely choice that deserves the attention the nomination brings.

The author, Jordon S. Carroll, discusses the ways that alt-right/fascist/White nationalists have long used popular culture to promote their ideas, including science fiction, fantasy kingdoms, and superheroes. Alt-right readers, he says, are willing to convince themselves that the future in science fiction is a blueprint for their hopes. This explains their objections to Lt. Uhuru in Star Trek. Black people don’t belong in their future.

Speculative Whiteness shows how these ideas really belong to the past, and how alt-right expectations are self-contradictory in any case. The book includes copious footnotes and ends on a hopeful note: “the alt-right promises a bold new future in space but it never achieves escape velocity from white supremacy’s perpetual present.”

However, the book was published in October 2024, and a lot has happened since then. The alt-right won the US presidential election and many other political offices, and our present seems to be slouching toward a future that only the alt-right wanted.

Here are some articles that extend the focus of the book into the present:

Interview with Jordan S. Carroll - Exploration Log 7: Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations
https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

China Miéville says we shouldn’t blame science fiction for its bad readers - TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/30/aut...

We’re sorry we created the Torment Nexus - Charlie Stross’s Diary
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...

How Trump and Musk Are Ruining Sci-Fi - Daniel W. Drezner on Substack
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/...

The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? - The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's probably appropriate I learned about this from the Hugo shortlist, because the main reason I started voting for the Hugos was my annoyance with the alt-right Sad/Rabid Puppy fiasco of the mid-2010's. I started reading this book to vote for the Hugos, and then waited to finish it until I had a chance to buy a copy. I'm glad I did! I'm also glad this won the Hugo for Best Related Work.

Carroll introduces the reader to just how deep the ties go between science fiction fandom and the alt-right. I learned a lot, and honestly I'm glad Carroll did this research, because it would probably be hard for me to spend much time with these primary sources. It's some despicable, deeply racist stuff.

Readers (especially non-academics) should probably be warned that this is primarily written in an academic style, particularly of cultural studies and literary theory. Occasionally I lost the forest for the trees in Carroll's discussions of the details, but usually I was able to follow a trail back to Carroll's main points about "speculative whiteness."

While paleoconservative white supremacism tends to look to a mythical past, the alt-right fosters "speculative whiteness," which locates the full expression of whiteness in a racist, fascist future; hence, the ties to science fiction. Speculative whiteness also has ties to old-fashioned racism, sexism, anti-semitism, as Carroll shows, but the main idea is that some inner-core of white essence will make the future great again. And therein lies the contradiction that Carroll identifies: speculative whiteness rests on a contradiction between an ahistorical immutable racial essence and the vast possibilities of future changes. This also, Carroll notes, makes for bad science fiction.

Here's a quote that I think summarizes the main take-away of the book: "... if we want to maintain our hope for a future that belongs to everyone, we must dismantle the limits imposed upon our utopian imaginations by speculative whiteness."

[Ken Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Available online here https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/spe...

Jordan Carroll looks into the murky underworld of White supremacism and its intersection with basement dweling, SF loving 'nerds'.

There are some uncomfortable insights into the rather pervasive 'whiteness' of much early pulp SF, and tendency of epic fantasy to tend toward stories telling of the restoration of a formerly glorious age, by agency of one of humble birth who (naturally) os a king in hiding, oppressed by lesser races who have overturned the rightful kingdom.

Some of the viewpoints of the many alleged genii of the alt-right are uniformly risible and poorly formed. Wishful thinking combined with an overestimation of their own ability is a common failing.

Nevertheless, the conclusion 'The Future is for Everyone, and recounting the seeming demise of the alt-right after the Charloteville riot, was perhaps overly optimistic.
Certainly, that rough beast is harder to eradicate than it should be, and its adherents, space cadets amongst them are still reaching for the stars, unaware of those that they need to stand apon in order to reach them. Hint. They are usually an impediment, rather than a help.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful and terrifying essay on the alt- and far- right’s obsession with fascist and authoritarian utopias in science fiction. This was nominated for a 2025 Related Work Hugo. I normally don’t read much non-fiction these days, but I decided to read these nominees, and I’m glad I did. This study was very eye-opening. The basic premise is that the fascists and white supremists had found a place in science fiction that supports their idea that only white people have the forethought for space travel and scientific innovation. Grounded in early science fiction, which was exclusively a white boy’s club, they revel in the ideas that many authors were parodying, criticizing, and ironically depicting. They ignore the endings where the hero topples or subverts the ruling governments or corporations. This a la carte reading, which in my opinion is so like the a la carte reading of the Bible by evangelical Christians, is what authenticates their belief that the world belongs to them and only by ethnic cleansing can humanity more to the next level of evolution.

Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...

[anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascists have no imagination, they only willfully read sci-fi literature “against the grain,” selecting depictions that confirm their own narrow interpretation of a sheltered utopia; i lost brain cells piecing together the pathetic mental gymnastics concocted by coddled white men coping with their ineptitude in a world that is indeed surpassing their imagination. you can’t have shit in this world without this willful misinterpretation, faux-“culture war” outrage, you name it. the iconography of science fiction is regularly conflated with an atavistic insistence on a primitive system of racial hierarchy and eugenics.

the core tenets of nazism never really left us, such is obvious in today’s day and age, and it is tightly intertwined with technocracy and capitalist extrapolation. it is ultimately self-defeating, though, because a politics of grievance, self-aggrandizement, and endless exploitation is not a sustainable force. nor is the fantasy of an interstellar civilization founded on these principles. and that is why the future will NEVER belong to fascists, white supremacists, or the alt-right.

[Norman Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

2025 Hugo Award finalist - Best Related Work

This scholarly dissertation shows how the alt-right uses science fiction in support of their racist ideologies. It's a challenging and often scary look at a segment of society that seems to be gaining traction. That the alt-right misinterprets most of science fiction to suit their preconceived notions is lost on them. Most science fiction, certainly good science fiction, posits that the future is for everyone. Hugo voters successfully fought off the alt-right during the Sad/Rabid Puppies debacle a decade ago and Carroll's conclusions are chilling reminders that we must remain vigilant against the alt-right lest it gain more of a foothold in the science fiction community and society in general. Luckily, there are authors such as Chuck Tingle who have turned the alt-right's vitriol against them with satirical antidotes such as Slammed in the Butt by My Hugo Nomination.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

My interview with the author: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"Why has the alt-right embraced Dune (1965) despite Herbert’s suggestion that “our desire for science fiction saviors […] leads straight to totalitarianism” (73)?

The alt-right loves Dune partly because it represents that combination of archaic and high-tech that they see as their future destiny. They also identify with Paul’s willingness to take existential risks—to destroy himself and the entire spice trade—in order to achieve greatness. Furthermore, they believe that only an authoritarian leader such as a God Emperor can plan for the distant future. Democratic societies, they claim, think only [...]"

[Aran Jaeger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wie der Titel sagt, geht es in dem Buch um das Verhältnis von Alt Right zu Sci-Fi. Vieles, was im Buch stand, wusste ich zwar schon. Einiges war mir neu. Was das Buch für mich wertvoll gemacht hat, ist, dass es in meinem Kopf viel Wissen miteinander verbunden und viele Zusammenhänge erklärt hat. Ich verstehe jetzt besser, warum sich Rechtsradikale manchmal ins Sci-Fi-Genre gefühlt „verirren". Die Erläuterung der explizit rassistischen und sexistischen Alt-Right-Literatur war für mich persönlich nicht mehr so spannend. Dennoch hat mir dieses relativ kurze Buch sehr geholfen, Dinge über mein Lieblingsgenre zu verstehen.

[Leonids · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incisive, interesting read about the influences of the far right on science fiction, common tropes, and the way the far right read sci fi. It was a short work, and I read it in two sittings and it was just generally a really good read (and free, available on the publisher's website!). I found it a little difficult to read in places - I never want to see the word Faustian again - but it was a very informative and clearly well-researched piece.

It unfortunately dates itself in calling itself dated at the end 😅 but otherwise a super solid piece of work.

[Thomas Noriega]

A grim but crucial book, Carroll reminds genre readers that the current landscape of SFF, populated by narratives of radical imagination, is one that authors and readers before us had to fight hard to create. Fascism is a political project based on flattening past and future into an eternal brutal present, and it is just as important to rebut reactionary futures as it is to debunk deterministic reactionary readings of history.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugo-best-related-work-2025/

A short, fascinating analysis of the extent to which the alt-right has drawn inspiration from science fiction, often from authors and works who would have been horrified that they were being used for these purposes. Alas, a very timely book given what has been happening in the USA of late.