When Strange New Worlds Are Strange Old Worlds by Ross Clare (review)

Reviewed by: When Strange New Worlds Are Strange Old Worldsby Ross Clare Rick Cousins When Strange New Worlds Are Strange Old Worlds. Ross Clare. Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fiction. Liverpool UP, 2022. 252 pp. 130. 00 hc. Just as the world of today continues to uncover surprises about the world of antiquity, a statement that Ross Clare makes near the end of Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fictionreveals a lot about what he has said in the pages that precede it: "What is SF if not a reflection of the present using imaginative futures and alternative worlds for some inherently optimistic purpose? " (225). Well, "a reflection of the present using imaginative futures and alternative worlds for some inherently pessimisticpurpose" comes immediately to mind, but perhaps that is a story for a different time and a different book than the one Clare has assembled. The idea of the ancient past as a storehouse of uplift is far from unique to sf: the opening number of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) reassures us that what follows will involve "no royal curse, no Trojan Horse, and there's a happy ending of course. " Readers of Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fictioncan rest assured that whatever royal curses and Trojan Horses they encounter will lead to some sort of happy ending, thanks to the sheer enthusiasm of the author for both sf and antiquity. Clare's enthusiasm in no way diminishes either his study or its subject matter. His breezy tone makes this book a pleasure to read from start to finish. What makes the experience even more worthwhile is Clare's occasional shifting of the source of the breeze when his light and airy Zephyrus-like warmth gives way to chilly Boreas-like blasts of sarcasm. In these instances, one can sense Clare's hand being guided by Dike, the Chief Justice of Mount Olympus: say what you like in their defense, his targets definitely have it coming to them. To take one example, the original series of Star Trek (1966-1969) has much to recommend it, but it did tend to deal with the paradoxes posed by ancient mores and praxes as it dealt with other paradoxes, "by punching them in the face and disintegrating them with phasers" (156). Perhaps this has something to do with the "T" in "James T. Kirk"—"T" for "Tiberius, " by all accounts the most unsubtle problem-solver of the Twelve Caesars. To toss a little of my own frost Clare's way, he omits this fairly obvious classical allusion, in the same way that he fails to acknowledge all the stories directly referencing antiquity in the original series of Doctor Who (1963-1989) that are notThe One Where William Hartnell's Version of The Doctor Helped Nero Burn Down Rome ("The Romans, " 1965). (If Clare's a Whovian, he keeps it well hidden, or else he would have also noted that the series' first-ever episode ("An Unearthly Child, " 1963) mentions that the TARDIS had once been a Roman column. ) I let one of my personal fandoms loose on you just now for a purpose: to let you know that Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fictioncontains the full spectrum of what unabashed fandom can offer academic End Page 102writing. At its best, this means that you will never have to worry whether Clare is fully engaged with what he is writing about. As a lifelong advocate of the "study stuff you can have a little fun with" approach to scholarship, however, I recognize its limitations. One of them is that a magpie's instincts for latching on to interesting material can lead to scattershot writing with the kind of knowledge gaps I described in the previous paragraph. To his credit, Clare lays the groundwork for forgiveness of these lapses by cautioning the reader in his introduction that "your favourite SF story might well not be here" (5). Still, hardly anyone is going to get through this entire book without wondering "how'd he miss thisthing Iknow about? " I am still puzzled about. . .