|
|
Catastrophism, American style: the fiction of Greg Bear.
- Article from:
-
Yearbook of English Studies
- Article date:
-
July 1, 2007
- Author:
- Luckhurst, Roger
|
Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2007 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
ABSTRACTS
Greg Bear's fictions insistently stage moments of catastrophic species change, from the early novella Blood Music to the recent sequence of novels about posthuman species emergence, Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children. This essay will examine the array of models for this imagination of transformation, and analyse the kind of narrative propulsion it produces in Bear's work, from catastrophism in evolution theory through to ideas of 'technological Singularity' that emerged in the early 1990s.
**********
Greg Bear has produced over twenty novels and collections since 1979, garnered multiple science fiction awards, helped invent the imaginative language ...