The Philosophy of Science Fiction by Burton, James -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Also available from Bloomsbury Title Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction

Philosophy and science fiction Bergson and Dick at the edge of the known The ethics of balking Philip K. Dick studies Note on terminology

1 Fabulation: Counteracting Reality

Mechanization and the war-instinct The biological origins of society Countering the intellect The morality of violence Open morality and the misdirection of mechanism True mysticism: Immanent salvation An incomplete soteriology Fabulation for the open Conclusion

2 Fabulating Salvation in Four Early Novels

Solar Lottery (1972 [1955]) The World Jones Made (1993b [1956]) Vulcan’s Hammer (1976c [1960]) Time Out of Joint (2003c [1959]) Conclusion: Super–everyman to solar shoe salesman

3 The Empire that Never Ended

A matter of life or (life under the sign of) death The open and the universal The life–death chiasmus The fictitious event The messianic tension The remnant and messianic time The magic of language Sci-fi: The genre of ‘as not’ Conclusion: Gnostic politics

4 Objects of Salvation: The Man in the High Castle

The fabulation of history Mechanization and paralysis Worldly remains Openings between worlds The tyranny of the concrete Objects of salvation Conclusion: Reality fields

5 How We Became Post-Android

The mechanization of pot-healing The alien god The saviour in need Robot theology Humans: The cosmic bourgeoisie Android and theoid Creative destruction Conclusion

6 The Reality of Valis

Salvator salvandus The believer and the sceptic The pharmakonic god Reduplicative paramnesia (time becomes space) The fabulative cure Recursion: Valis as limitlessly iterative soteriology Befriending god Conclusion

Epilogue: Soter-ecologies Notes Bibliography Index Copyright