Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, Volume 9, Issue 1, pages 5–6.
Laura E. Goodin, Essi Varis, Elizabeth Oakes & Dennis Wilson Wise
Editorial 1/2022
Welcome to 2022’s first issue of Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. The issue opens with Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay’s Prefatory on climate change fiction and cofutures, “Fictioning the Futures of Climate Change.”
This issue’s four research articles apply Finnish scholarship to a range of texts from a variety of perspectives. Saija Isomaa’s “Abandoning the Untrustworthy Risk Society: Salvage and the Critique of Modernity in Laura Gustafsson’s Post-Apocalyptic Novel Korpisoturi” argues that the novel combines conventions from speculative and mimetic literature. The article demonstrates how salvage and the critique of modernity blend with the depiction of protagonist’s psychological development to situate the mimetic portrayal of real-life survivalism within a post-apocalyptic scenario.
Kati Aakkonen’s “Kasvien vieraus ja ekofeminismin vaarallisuus – Poison Ivyn toiseuttaminen elokuvassa Batman & Robin” extends this issue’s contributions into Finnish-language scholarship. The article demonstrates how dangerous and threatening aspects of plant agency in plant horror open perspectives into the relationships between plants and humans, with a focus on how the character of Poison Ivy challenges the borders and hierarchies existing between plants and humans.
Minna Siikilä-Laitila’s “I’m just being a difficult lotr hardcore fan” delves into fan studies and reception theory. The article explores Tolkien fans’ sense of moral duty by describing their reactions to Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, the reasons for these reactions, and the actions they induced.
Veera Mäkelä’s “Courting Tragedy: The Lies of Locke Lamora, City Comedy and Revenge Tragedy” explores how aspects of Scott Lynch’s novel present as city comedy, English revenge tragedy, and Senecan revenge tragedy. In melding city comedy and revenge drama, Lynch furthers a political outcome and presents a philosophy of power structures.
In a welcome addition to this issue’s articles, we also bring you Elise Kraatila’s Lectio Praecursoria “Speculative Mimesis – Beyond Non-Mimetic Models”, in which she questions the boundary between mimetic and non-mimetic fiction. She argues that 21st-century speculative fiction stories model our fragmentary reality, demonstrating possibilities for giving meaning to the world around us and changing it for the better.
Longtime Co-Editor-in-Chief Esko Suoranta has blasted off for further adventures on stranger planets, and this issue is the first with Elizabeth Oakes along as a new Editor-in-Chief. In the Hail and Farewell interview, our editors relate their hopes for the journal, discuss its strengths, describe their love for speculative fiction, and tell why you should submit your article at Fafnir.
The issue closes with a brace of book reviews: Cait Coker’s review of Shawna Kidman’s Comic Books Incorporated: How the Business of Comics Became the Business of Hollywood; Dominick Grace’s review of Middle-earth, or There and Back Again, edited by Łukasz Neubauer; Everett Hamner’s review of Jim Clarke’s Science Fiction and Catholicism: The Rise and Fall of the Robot Papacy; Sami Ahmad Khan and Rahul Rana’s review of Suparno Banerjee’s Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity; Graham Minenor-Matheson’s review of Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery, edited by Sabrina Mittermeier and Mareike Spychala, C. Palmer-Patel’s review of Joseph Rex Young’s George R. R. Martin and the Fantasy Form; Abhishek Sarkar’s review of Sanjay Sircar’s translation Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore’s The Make-Believe Prince and Gaganendranath Tagore’s Toddy-cat the Bold; Amar Singh’s review of Susan B. Levin’s Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism; Jonathan William Thurston-Torres’ review of Carys Crossen’s The Nature of the Beast: Transformations of the Werewolf from the 1970s to the Twenty-First Century; Joseph Rex Young’s review of Bobby Derie’s Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E Howard and Others; and Essi Varis’ review of Fantasia: Lajit, ilmiö ja yhteiskunta, edited by Jyrki Korpua, Irma Hirsjärvi, Urpo Kovala, and Tanja Välisalo.
While submissions to our next issue, with a focus on the conference Specfic 2021 Time and History and a second area of focus on speculation, are now closed, we are very pleased to receive submissions for consideration for our next open issue; submission guidelines can be found at http://journal.finfar.org/for-authors/submission-guidelines/.
We hope the abundant thoughts and analyses of our contributors provide you with enjoyable reading this summer (or winter, as the case may be). As always, all of us at Fafnir hope this issue finds you well and inspires your research in the wide, wonderful field of SF.
Essi Varis, Laura E. Goodin, and Elizabeth Oakes, Editors-in-Chief
Dennis Wise, Reviews Editor
Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research