This collection of essays draws out the ways in which contemporary science fiction literature and film has served as a prophetic vehicle for writers with ethical and political concerns. Acknowledgments ix Permissions xi Introduction. Dystopia and Histories 1(12) RAFFAELLA BACCOLINI AND TOM MOYLAN 1. Utopia in Dark Times: Optimism/Pessimism and Utopia/Dystopia 13(16) RUTH LEVITAS AND LUCY SARGISSON 2. Genre Blending and the Critical Dystopia 29(18) JANE DONAWERTH 3. The Writing of Utopia and the Feminist Critical Dystopia: Suzy McKee Charnas's Holdfast Series 47(22) ILDNEY CAVALCANTI 4. Cyberpunk and Dystopia: Pat Cadigan's Networks 69(22) DAVID SEED 5. Posthuman Bodies and Agency in Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis 91(22) NAOMI JACOBS 6. "A useful knowledge of the present is rooted in the past": Memory and Historical Reconciliation in Ursula K. Le Gum's The Telling 113(22) RAFFAELLA BACCOLINI 7. "The moment is here ... and it's important": State, Agency, and Dystopia in Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica and Ursula K. Le Gum's The Telling 135(20) TOM MOYLAN 8. Unmasking the Real? Critique and Utopia in Recent SF Films 155(12) PETER FITTING 9. Where the Prospective Horizon Is Omitted: Naturalism and Dystopia in Fight Club and Ghost Dog 167(20) PHILLIP E. WEGNER 10. Theses on Dystopia 2001 187(16) DARKO SUVIN 11. Concrete Dystopia: Slavery and Its Others 203(22) MARIA VARSAM 12. The Problem of the "Flawed Utopia": A Note on the Costs of Eutopia 225(8) LYMAN TOWER SARGENT Conclusion. Critical Dystopia and Possibilities 233(18) RAFFAELLA BACCOLINI AND TOM MOYLAN Notes on Contributors 251(4) Index 255