Famous Men Who Never Lived by K Chess | Science Fiction Analysis

Books received

Famous Men Who Never Lived (2019). K Chess. Tin House Books.

Famous Men Who Never Lived (2019) by K Chess tells the story of outsiders in America, those with minority and immigrant status. In our own 21st century America, the outsider is made to feel unwelcome. Trumpian chants for a border wall might as well be chants of hate for outsiders. Border wall chants confirm that our democratic government has been co-opted by a bigoted agenda to create lasting edifices of division. All those chanting for a wall would do well to study the result of widespread xenophobia in our country's history or in the history of world nations. Hint: stepping away from international leadership roles usually weakens economies and allows strongmen to rise.

The Island of Dr Moreau: Biopower and the Savage

By Joseph Hurtgen, Ph.D.

H. G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) is a postcolonial commentary on empire, examining Moreau’s biological construction and rule over a subordinate species. Moreau, mad scientist that he is, fails to civilize his subordinate species, but in his barbaric civilizing attempt demonstrates the savage nature of mankind, civilized or not. The Island of Dr Moreau demonstrates that civilization, created and sustained through war and strife, is savage.

Why We Need Science Fiction Books | Sci-fi and Social Critique

Science Fiction does an important job of keeping the institutions in society honest. In a world with too few whistleblowers, sci-fi sends off regular warning shots about a range of problems, including corporate greed, environmental concerns, military practices, technological application, and identity politics.

Philip K Dick Books | A Scanner Darkly & Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

This post will explore Philip K. Dick's recurring theme of the confusion of identity and its relation to Dick's life as well as its relation to larger social and economic forces.

Blade Runner 1982 and the Sublime | Science Fiction Movies

"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" - Gaff

I'm going to examine themes of birth and death in Blade Runner (1982) as they relate to the sublime. These themes are shared with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Indeed, you can view Blade Runner as a meditation on Frankenstein. Shelley was preoccupied with the sublime, a sometimes physical, sometimes metaphysical representation of the limitations of mankind.