As a professor of media and cultural studies and English, as well as an editor of the journal Science Fiction Studies, Sherryl Vint knows about the genre of science fiction, and she lends her expertise here to demystify it. Science Fiction is not an encyclopedia of the genre, but rather, an engaging exploration of the different ways in which the genre, across its history and development, can help readers think about technology, crisis, development and where the future might be heading.
Vint writes, "The social imagination and the stories we tell, the worlds we build with our stories, matter." She examines different broad themes around which the genre has coalesced, and around which her chapters are organized, such as utopia and dystopia; colonialism and the colonial imagination; robots, AI and transhumanism; and the environment, climate change and the Anthropocene, to name a few. She draws on examples from various authors including Sir Thomas More, Octavia Butler and N.K. Jemisin, as well as leading critical thinkers on the genre, tracing the development of science fiction and attempts to both categorize and shape it.
Her measured approach creates an accessible, thematic and historically organized overview of a complex literature. As such, it can be enjoyed by both neophytes and long-time fans alike. It also showcases the genre's relevance and importance to how society uses its imagination, and how that is tied to ways in which various technologies are then imagined. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer