Science Fiction: slavery stereotypes, and a new M. John Harrison

Space

Science Fiction: slavery stereotypes, and a new M. John Harrison

From challenging stereotypes about slavery to the necessity of finding any kind of exit from a mundane life, escape dominates new sci-fi

By Abigail Nussbaum

4 December 2017

window — Exit strategy, when family, jobs and life in general is just too mundane
Hilary Walker/Millennium Images, UK

THE generation ship story has been enjoying a minor resurgence in recent years. Writers like Kim Stanley Robinson and James Smythe have used its confined setting to convey feelings of claustrophobia, and to explore what happens when humanity tries to craft a habitat and society from scratch.

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In her debut An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon uses the generation ship setting to craft a challenging narrative of inescapable racial prejudice. In an explicit rejection of sci-fi’s typical futurism, Solomon transposes the antebellum…