American Cities In Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction

Description

Visions of the American city in post-apocalyptic ruin permeate literary and popular fiction, across print, visual, audio and digital media. American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction explores the prevalence of these representations in American culture, drawing from a wide range of primary and critical works from the early-twentieth century to today. Beginning with science fiction in literary magazines, before taking in radio dramas, film, video games and expansive transmedia franchises, Robert Yeates argues that post-apocalyptic representations of the American city are uniquely suited for explorations of contemporary urban issues. Examining how the post-apocalyptic American city has been repeatedly adapted and repurposed to new and developing media over the last century, this book reveals that the content and form of such texts work together to create vivid and immersive fictional spaces in ways that would otherwise not be possible. Chapters present media-specific analyses of these texts, situating them within their historical contexts and the broader history of representations of urban ruins in American fiction. Original in its scope and cross-media approach, American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction both illuminates little-studied texts and provides provocative new readings of familiar works such as Blade Runner and The Walking Dead, placing them within the larger historical context of imaginings of the American city in ruins. Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Table of contents List of figures Acknowledgments Introduction Modern cities and ruin A brief history of the end of the world in sf The pleasures of urban ruins State of the field Parameters of study Structure of the book Notes 1 Urban apocalypse in the magazines The Scarlet Plague Cycles of urbanization and modernization The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire The publication of The Scarlet Plague Critical responses to The Scarlet Plague The afterlife of The Scarlet Plague Conclusion Notes 2 Listening to ruins on the radio Audio fiction and the imagination The roots of radio’s golden age sf Post-war sf on the airwaves The heights of radio sf Conclusion Notes 3 Cinema and the aesthetics of destruction Urban destruction on film Aerial warfare and the imagination of disaster Destruction and renewal in The War of the Worlds Rebuilding the future in The Time Machine Conclusion Notes 4 Urban decay in the transmedia universe of Blade Runner Marginalization The glamour of decay: Los Angeles and New York City The policing of sexual identities Permeable boundaries Illicit relationships Deviancy and class Conclusion Notes 5 Playing in virtual ruins from Wasteland to Wasteland 2 Virtual space and the post-apocalyptic city Gameplay motivation and immersion Wasteland and 2D worlds 2.5D spaces and Fallout Choices in virtual worlds 3D game spaces Ruins in 3D worlds Narrative choices in Fallout 3 and 4 Wasteland 2 Conclusion Notes 6 Cities and sanctuary in The Walking Dead The Walking Dead as transmedia fictional world ‘We are the walking dead’ Atlanta Resurgens Unsalvageable cities Alexandria Gated communities Cities and violence Conclusion Notes Bibliography Archival sources Published sources Films, television and videos Radio episodes Video games Index