What question did this study set out to answer?

The objective is to review recent publications that discuss various themes in speculative fiction and their cultural implications.

March 3, 2026

Books Received

Key Points

The objective is to review recent publications that discuss various themes in speculative fiction and their cultural implications.
Analysis of recent book titles and their themes in speculative fiction.
Categorization of books by focus areas such as gender, economy, and environmental issues.
The books highlight diverse cultural perspectives including Afrofuturism and environmental concerns.
Emerging themes include masculinity, political economy, and dystopian narratives.
Recent publications reflect ongoing conversations about the role of speculative fiction in shaping human futures.

Abstract

Eric Aronoff. Culture’s Futures: Science Fiction, Forms and the Problem of Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. 410 pp. 159. 99 hc, 119 ebk. Philip Braithwaite. Time Lords and Star Cops: British Science Fiction Television in the 1970s-1980s. Manchester UP, 2023. 237 pp. £85 hc, £20 pbk. Aroosa Kanval and Shazia Sadaf. Contemporary Pakistani Speculative Fiction and the Global Imaginary: Democratizing Human Futures. Routledge, 2024. 170 pp. 152 hc, 54. 99 pbk & ebk. Maria Lindgren Leavenworth. The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction. Routledge, Routledge Studies in World Literatures and the Environment, 2024. 186 pp. 152 hc, 43. 99 pbk & ebk. Lyu Guangzhao. The Boom & the Boom: Historical Rupture and Political Economy in Contemporary British and Chinese Science Fiction. Peter Lang, World Science Fiction Studies, 2024. xvi+320 pp. 67. 95 pbk & ebk. Marco Malvestio. The Ecology of Italian Science Fiction. U of Toronto P, 2025. 256 pp. 70 hc & ebk. Samuel Manickam. Mexican Women Writers of Science Fiction: The Post-Female Novum. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. 192 pages. 129. 99 hc, 23. 99 ebk. Sara Martín. Masculinity in Contemporary Science Fiction: No Plans for the Future. U of Liverpool P, 2025. 272 pp. 120 hc & ebk. Lourdes López Ropero, ed. H. G. Wells: Contemporary Perspectives. THALiS Research Series, Universidad de Salamanca, 2024. 239 pp. €18 hc. David Seed. John Wyndham. Liverpool UP, 2025. 184 pp. 70 hc, 45 pbk & ebk. Nathan Abrams, Elizabeth Miller, and Christopher L. Robinson, eds. The Cultural Heritage of Blade Runner: “More Human than Human. ” Liverpool UP, 2025. 258 pp. 160 hc & ebk. Reynaldo Anderson. Afrofuturism and World Order. Ohio State UP, New Suns: race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Speculative, 2025. 208 pp. 99. 95 hc, 36. 95 pbk & ebk. James Boyle. The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood. MIT, 2024. 336 pp. 32. 95 hc, open-access ebk. Christopher Carter. The Rhetoric of Dystopia: Prophecies and Provocations in the Anthropocene. Lexington Books, 2024. 203 pp. 138. 15 hc, 110. 52 ebk. Leimar Garcia-Siniio, Sabrina Mittermeier, and Stefan Rabitsch, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek. Routledge, Routledge Literature Handbooks, 2025. 490 pp. 240 hc, 51. 19 pbk & ebk. Maia Gil’Adi. Doom Patterns: Latinx Speculations and the Aesthetics of Violence. Duke UP, 2025. 280 pp. 104. 95 hc, 27. 95 pbk & ebk. Matthew Leggatt. Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. U of Liverpool P, 2025. 208 pp. 130 hc & ebk. Angela Maria Monaco. Water Stories in the Anthropocene: Anglophone Climate-Change Fiction. Routledge, 2025. viii+191 pp. 144 hc, 45. 59 ebk. Derek J. Thiess. American Fantastic: Myths of Violence and Redemption. U of Wisconsin P, 2025. 206 pp. 79. 95 hc, 99. 95 ebk. Amanda Zehnder and David Brinley, eds. Icons of the Fantastic: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature from the Korshak Collection. U of Delaware P/Rutgers UP, 2025. Foreword by Guillermo del Toro. 172 pp. 44. 95 hc.

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Books Received

Key Points

Abstract

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