Extreme Fabulations: Science Fictions of Life

An examination of science fiction narratives and the light they shed on human life, the unknowable future, and the vagaries of unforeseeable change.

With this book, Steven Shaviro offers a thought experiment. He discusses a number of science fiction narratives: three novels, one novella, three short stories, and one musical concept album. Shaviro not only analyzes these works in detail but also uses them to ask questions about human, and more generally, biological life: about its stubborn in...