Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, Volume 6, Issue 2, pages 5–6.
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Esko Suoranta, Laura E. Goodin, & Dennis Wilson Wise
Editorial 2/2019
Welcome to Fafnir 2/2019 – Special Edition on Speculative Climate Fiction. Guest edited by Dr Juha Raipola of Tampere University, the issue begins with his prefatory essay, which seeks an answer to the perennial questions: what is speculative climate fiction in the first place and how can it address what is possibly the most pressing question of our time?
The research articles of the special edition begin with Michael Fuchs’s “Vanishing Glaciers, the Becoming-Unextinct of Microorganisms, and Fathering a More-Than Human World: Climate Change Horror in the Alps.” He analyses Blugletscher (2013), an Austrian horror-SF film that imagines humankind’s end, but detects an optimism in such a prospect.
Next, Sami Ahmad Khan, in “Dom(e)inating India’s Tomorrow(s)? Global Climate Change in Select Anglophonic Narratives,” discusses the intersection of technology, politics, and environmental degradation in Leila (2017), Domechild (2013), and “Rain” (1993). His central concept of interrogation is that of the dome, which appears in the three texts, as a way to examine how Indian speculative fiction deals with political and environmental futures.
Third, Essi Vatilo’s “Climate Change in A Chromium World: Estrangement and Denial in Ted Chiang’s ‘Exhalation’” interprets Chiang’s short story as a climate- change narrative that can be seen to recontextualise climate change through naturalisation and world reduction. In her reading, the mechanical beings of the story encounter their demise in a way that resists different forms of denial. In the process, she argues, the story disentangles climate-change discourse from political polarisation.
The issue also covers two conferences: the Academic Track at the 2019 Worldcon in Dublin, held in August, as well as the “Forming the Future” conference at Plymouth University, held in September.
Finally, we present a collection of book reviews. Janice M. Bogstad reviews Iain M. Banks by Paul Kincaid; Gregory Conley reviews Frankenstein and Its Classics: The Modern Prometheus from Antiquity to Science Fiction; Andoni Cossío reviews Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth; Mick Howard reviews Being Bionic: The World of TV Cyborgs by Bronwen Calvert; Don Riggs reviews Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones by Shiloh Carroll; and Paul Williams reviews Fantasy Literature and Christianity: A Study of the Mistborn, Coldfire, Fionavar Tapestry and Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Series by Weronika Łaskiewicz.
While the call for submissions to our next issue is closed, we are very pleased to receive submissions for consideration for our 2/2020 issue; find the call for papers at https://journal.finfar.org/articles/call-for-papers-fafnir-2-2020/ and our submission guidelines at https://journal.finfar.org/for-authors/submission-guidelines/.
Once more, welcome to the Special Edition on Speculative Climate Fiction. We hope this issue prompts your own research and interest into the theme as well the study of speculative fiction in general.
Live long and prosper!
Juha Raipola, Guest Editor
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Esko Suoranta, and Laura E. Goodin, Editors-in-chief
Dennis Wise, Reviews Editor
Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research