After Human: A Critical History of the Human in Science Fiction from Shelley to Le Guin

by Thomas Connolly

From its earliest beginnings in Shelley's Frankenstein, science fiction has been concerned with defining - and redefining - what it means to be human and has explored the human relationship to technology and the natural world in far-reaching ways. Throughout these works, the human emerges as a liminal site where a range of anxieties and beliefs concerning subjectivity, embodiment, agency, and individuality come into play.

This book examines the history of the human in science fiction and the genre's complex engagements with humanism and posthumanism. Beginning with the nineteenth-century works of Shelley, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells, it ranges from well-known authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ursula Le Guin to less widely studied texts by authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, and E.E. 'Doc' Smith. The human that emerges from this tradition is a complex figure that ultimately comes to reflect the assumptions, beliefs, fears, and ambitions of a diverse range of authors and contexts, while science fiction itself can be seen as a radically - if problematically - posthuman mode of literature.

Genres: Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2021

Reviews

[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review forthcoming in Locus magazine.

[Ed Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engrossing study of science fiction, But very much an academic study & sometime arcane! Nevertheless, found the study clear & facinating.

[Sol]

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