Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions

Good scholarly critical survey of some recent SF novels as utopian essays. Jameson is world famous literary scholarly critic who wrote from a consistent theoretical viewpoint. In Jameson's hands, 'utopian' has fairly specific meaning. So this is also an extended essay on that concept. Serious readers will likely be rewarded by this immensely informed author's work .

A non-apologetist review of the science fiction genre through the eyes of America's leading postmodernist thinker. You will need to bring your knowledge of the Western Canon and contemporary philosophy with you in order to fully appreciate this text. Its division into books I and II enables regular science fiction readers to access straight forward reviews in Book II. Expect to learn from this book and don't expect him to enshrine SF into the Western Canon but rather to provide you with an understanding of the zeitgeist of the history of the genre and ourselves. Authors reviewed range from Dick to Robinson, Brunner to Le Guin. With a focus on utopianism and dystopia the subjects covered are sex and society, aliens and psychoanalyst, and the motifs and mechanics of this writing field. Jameson also remarks on the differences between hard science fiction and fantasy. He clearly traces the link between the utopian members of the Western Canon and the rise of science fiction's paraliterature, and the societal needs for these works and their roots in the human collective conscienceness. He also notes the limits of critical literature and the "drift" of high literature into the domain of science fiction in recent years as a result of our postmodern condition and the limits of critical literature to deal with the disassociative nature of the contemporary experience. The reader will be left with an understanding of the genre, our times, and our historical basis. He or she will also be perplexed as to how science fiction was replaced by fantasy as the popular literature of our times at the same moment it matured as a literary entity. One will also begin to understand how the internal dynamics of science fiction and its authors went from the popularizers of American modernism and imperialism to become the primary opponents of modernism in our times. Be forewarned that Jameson does not see Marxism as a bad word but rather a critical tool for evaluating society.

This book provides a thorough exploration of the concept of utopia throughout history and builds the foundation for the postmodern era's vision of the ideal community.

This book is interesting in that it is structure as theory for the first half (postmodern utopias, dystopias, and anti-utopias) and then a set of essays in the second half where Jameson is applying the ideas he’s talking about as he examines various science fiction texts. I read this because I was working on the idea of utopia in science fiction but eventually didn’t use it since my project went a different direction. It was worthwhile and I read through it a couple of times since it was good background in helping me develop a vocabulary for critically thinking about and writing about science fiction -- even if I didn’t understand half of what he was writing about.

I expected better from this author. I’d accept the dry and repetitive but on top of that isn’t not as insightful as it was clearly written to be

Fantastic title and fantastic premise but the writing itself is just terrible. It's one scholarly paper after another filled with references and quotes but very thin on imagination. You read one densely written paragraph after another and get nothing other then feeling you are reading someone's PhD thesis where that someone is trying to impress their sponsor rather then the reader with high minded ideas. This book could be fantastic in hands of a writer who has more flair for writing and cares about inspiring the reader with ambition of ideas.

Sat in the lounge, or the park, having a good book read. I love books. They're like t.v., if t.v. were shitter.

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My title is the front blurb from Terry Eagleton. It is indeed a wonderful and fascinating look into the linked forms of Utopias and S.F.. I might have thought I knew about the genres, yet the only Utopia I have read is Bacon's New Atlantis, and apart from some Clarke (who Jameson barely touches) little else in SF. Films, of course, yet not the Star's, Trek or Wars, and for me the first episode of An Unearthly Child (1963) is the only really interesting Doctor Who. Not withstanding therefore my ignorance, the book is persistently fascinating, and deserves to be re-read preferrably along with the works discussed; yet at the end I felt little enthusiasm to do so. The one book I might read is Gibson's Pattern Recognition, the least S.F. of the books discussed, but perhaps because partially set in a place I know (Camden High Street) and perhaps closer to (the non S.F.)Pynchon. So what of those other popular genres: the Noir, the Mystery, the Western; the Thriller and so on? Perhaps one day, Jameson can apply his powerful intellect to explaining their relevance. The last chapter is on the Mars Trilogy of Robinson beginning with Red Mars. I almost wrote Marx for Mars and Red Marx likewise, for the bearded German makes (far too) frequent appearances - truly some intellectual opiate.