The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction

The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction PDF Author: Maria Lindgren Leavenworth
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000915395
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction explores the ways in which the Arctic is imagined and what function it is made to serve in a selection of speculative fictions: non-mimetic works that start from the implied question "What if?" Spanning slightly more than two centuries of speculative fiction, from the starting point in Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein to contemporary works that engage with the vast ramifications of anthropogenic climate change, analyses demonstrate how Arctic discourses are supported or subverted and how new Arctics are added to the textual tradition. To illuminate wider lines of inquiry informing the way the world is envisioned, humanity’s place and function in it, and more-than-human entanglements, analyses focus on the function of the actual Arctic and how this function impacts and is impacted by speculative elements. With effects of climate change training the global eye on the Arctic, and as debates around future northern cultural, economic and environmental sustainability intensify, there is a need for a deepened understanding of the discourses that have constructed and are constructing the Arctic. A careful mapping and serious consideration of both past and contemporary speculative visions thus illuminate the role the Arctic has played and may come to play in a diverse set of practices and fields.

The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction

The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction PDF Author: Maria Lindgren Leavenworth
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000915395
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction explores the ways in which the Arctic is imagined and what function it is made to serve in a selection of speculative fictions: non-mimetic works that start from the implied question "What if?" Spanning slightly more than two centuries of speculative fiction, from the starting point in Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein to contemporary works that engage with the vast ramifications of anthropogenic climate change, analyses demonstrate how Arctic discourses are supported or subverted and how new Arctics are added to the textual tradition. To illuminate wider lines of inquiry informing the way the world is envisioned, humanity’s place and function in it, and more-than-human entanglements, analyses focus on the function of the actual Arctic and how this function impacts and is impacted by speculative elements. With effects of climate change training the global eye on the Arctic, and as debates around future northern cultural, economic and environmental sustainability intensify, there is a need for a deepened understanding of the discourses that have constructed and are constructing the Arctic. A careful mapping and serious consideration of both past and contemporary speculative visions thus illuminate the role the Arctic has played and may come to play in a diverse set of practices and fields.

The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction

The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction PDF Author: Maria Lindgren Leavenworth
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781003355588
Category : Arctic regions
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction explores the ways in which the Arctic is imagined and what function it is made to serve in a selection of speculative fictions: non-mimetic works that start from the implied question 'what if?' Spanning slightly more than two centuries of speculative fiction, from the starting point in Mary Shelley's 1818 Frankenstein to contemporary works that engage with the vast ramifications of anthropogenic climate change, analyses demonstrate how Arctic discourses are supported or subverted and how new 'Arctics' are added to the textual tradition. To illuminate wider lines of inquiry informing the way the world is envisioned, humanity's place and function in it, and more-than-human entanglements, analyses focus on the function of the actual Arctic and how this function impacts and is impacted by speculative elements. With effects of climate change training the global eye on the Arctic, and as debates around future northern cultural, economic and environmental sustainability intensify, there is a need for a deepened understanding of the discourses that have constructed and are constructing the Arctic. A careful mapping and serious consideration of both past and contemporary speculative visions thus illuminate the role the Arctic has played and may come to play in a diverse set of practices and fields"--

Iceling

Iceling PDF Author: Sasha Stephenson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698153081
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"A story that delivers action, conspiracy, and betrayal alongside a meditation on love, family connection, and humanity." —Publishers Weekly Sasha Stephenson's intriguing debut is a combination road trip story and sci-fi adventure about the strange, strong bond between two sisters. Fans of Under the Never Sky and The Darkest Minds will devour ICELING, the first book in a new and utterly original sci-fi series. Seventeen-year-old Lorna loves her adoptive sister, Callie. But Callie can't say "I love you" back. In fact, Callie can't say anything at all. Because Callie is an Iceling--one of hundreds of teens who were discovered sixteen years ago on a remote Arctic island, all of them lacking the ability to speak or understand any known human language. Mysterious and panicked events lead to the two sisters embarking on a journey to the north, and now Lorna starts to see that there's a lot more to Callie's origin story than she'd been led to believe. Little does she know what's in store, and that she's about to uncover the terrifying secret about who--and what--Callie really is.

Future Arctic

Future Arctic PDF Author: Edward Struzik
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610914406
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
In one hundred years, or even fifty, the Arctic will look dramatically different than it does today. As polar ice retreats and animals and plants migrate northward, the arctic landscape is morphing into something new and very different from what it once was. While these changes may seem remote, they will have a profound impact on a host of global issues, from international politics to animal migrations. In Future Arctic, journalist and explorer Edward Struzik offers a clear-eyed look at the rapidly shifting dynamics in the Arctic region, a harbinger of changes that will reverberate throughout our entire world. Future Arctic reveals the inside story of how politics and climate change are altering the polar world in a way that will have profound effects on economics, culture, and the environment as we know it. Struzik takes readers up mountains and cliffs, and along for the ride on snowmobiles and helicopters, sailboats and icebreakers. His travel companions, from wildlife scientists to military strategists to indigenous peoples, share diverse insights into the science, culture and geopolitical tensions of this captivating place. With their help, Struzik begins piecing together an environmental puzzle: How might the land’s most iconic species—caribou, polar bears, narwhal—survive? Where will migrating birds flock to? How will ocean currents shift? And what fundamental changes will oil and gas exploration have on economies and ecosystems? How will vast unclaimed regions of the Arctic be divided? A unique combination of extensive on-the-ground research, compelling storytelling, and policy analysis, Future Arctic offers a new look at the changes occurring in this remote, mysterious region and their far-reaching effects.

Imagining Extinction

Imagining Extinction PDF Author: Ursula K. Heise
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022635816X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
We are currently facing the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of life on Earth, biologists claim—the first one caused by humans. Heise argues that understanding these stories and symbols is indispensable for any effective advocacy on behalf of endangered species. More than that, she shows how biodiversity conservation, even and especially in its scientific and legal dimensions, is shaped by cultural assumptions about what is valuable in nature and what is not.

White Horizon

White Horizon PDF Author: Jen Hill
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791472309
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
From explorers’ accounts to boys’ adventure fiction, how Arctic exploration served as a metaphor for nation-building and empire in nineteenth-century Britain.

Horizon

Horizon PDF Author: Barry Lopez
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525656219
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES • NPR • THE GUARDIAN From pole to pole and across decades of lived experience, National Book Award-winning author Barry Lopez delivers his most far-ranging, yet personal, work to date. Horizon moves indelibly, immersively, through the author’s travels to six regions of the world: from Western Oregon to the High Arctic; from the Galápagos to the Kenyan desert; from Botany Bay in Australia to finally, unforgettably, the ice shelves of Antarctica. Along the way, Lopez probes the long history of humanity’s thirst for exploration, including the prehistoric peoples who trekked across Skraeling Island in northern Canada, the colonialists who plundered Central Africa, an enlightenment-era Englishman who sailed the Pacific, a Native American emissary who found his way into isolationist Japan, and today’s ecotourists in the tropics. And always, throughout his journeys to some of the hottest, coldest, and most desolate places on the globe, Lopez searches for meaning and purpose in a broken world.

Fauna

Fauna PDF Author: Christiane Vadnais
Publisher: Coach House Books
ISBN: 1770566554
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Book Description
In a near-future world ravaged by climate change, who will win in the struggle between humanity and nature? A thick fog rolls in over Shivering Heights. The river overflows, the sky is streaked with toxic green, parasites proliferate in torrential rains and once safely classified species – humans included – are evolving and behaving in unprecedented ways. Against this poetically hostile backdrop, a biologist, Laura, fights to understand the nature and scope of the changes transforming her own body and the world around her. Ten lush and bracing linked climate fictions depict a world gorgeous and terrifying in its likeness to our own. Fauna, Christiane Vadnais’s first work of fiction, won the Horizons Imaginaires speculative fiction award, the City of Quebec book award, and was named one of 2018’s best books by Radio-Canada.

Arctic Rising

Arctic Rising PDF Author: Tobias S. Buckell
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9780765358738
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
"Global warming has transformed the Earth, and it's about to get even hotter. The Arctic Ice Cap has all but melted, and the international community is racing desperately to claim the massive amounts of oil beneath the newly accessible ocean. Enter the Gaia Corporation. Its two founders have come up with a plan to roll back global warming. Thousands of tiny mirrors floating in the air can create a giant sunshade, capable of redirecting heat and cooling the earth's surface. They plan to terraform Earth to save it from itself - but in doing so, they have created a superweapon the likes of which the world has never seen. Anika Duncan is an airship pilot for the underfunded United Nations Polar Guard. She's intent on capturing a smuggled nuclear weapon that has made it into the Polar Circle and bringing the smugglers to justice. Anika finds herself caught up in a plot by a cabal of military agencies and corporations who want Gaia Corporation stopped. But when Gaia Corp loses control of their superweapon, it will be Anika who has to decide the future of the world. The nuclear weapon she has risked her life to find is the only thing that can stop the floating sunshade after it falls into the wrong hands."--Publisher's description.

Appleseed

Appleseed PDF Author: Matt Bell
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063040166
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 459

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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK · A PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER BEST OF THE YEAR “Woven together out of the strands of myth, science fiction, and ecological warning, Matt Bell’s Appleseed is as urgent as it is audacious.” —Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and national bestselling author of Get in Trouble A “breathtaking novel of ideas unlike anything you’ve ever read” (Esquire) from Young Lions Fiction Award–finalist Matt Bell, a breakout book that explores climate change, manifest destiny, humanity’s unchecked exploitation of natural resources, and the small but powerful magic contained within every single apple. In eighteenth-century Ohio, two brothers travel into the wooded frontier, planting apple orchards from which they plan to profit in the years to come. As they remake the wilderness in their own image, planning for a future of settlement and civilization, the long-held bonds and secrets between the two will be tested, fractured and broken—and possibly healed. Fifty years from now, in the second half of the twenty-first century, climate change has ravaged the Earth. Having invested early in genetic engineering and food science, one company now owns all the world’s resources. But a growing resistance is working to redistribute both land and power—and in a pivotal moment for the future of humanity, one of the company’s original founders will return to headquarters, intending to destroy what he helped build. A thousand years in the future, North America is covered by a massive sheet of ice. One lonely sentient being inhabits a tech station on top of the glacier—and in a daring and seemingly impossible quest, sets out to follow a homing beacon across the continent in the hopes of discovering the last remnant of civilization. Hugely ambitious in scope and theme, Appleseed is the breakout novel from a writer “as self-assured as he is audacious” (NPR) who “may well have invented the pulse-pounding novel of ideas” (Jess Walter). Part speculative epic, part tech thriller, part reinvented fairy tale, Appleseed is an unforgettable meditation on climate change; corporate, civic, and familial responsibility; manifest destiny; and the myths and legends that sustain us all.