British Science Fiction 1990-2017: technology themed fiction in the light of the new millennium and speculative ‘Singularity’

Alan Colman explores the intimate connection between fiction and science and how this unique combination can shape public perception of innovation. By ‘pulp’ fiction, Alan Colman is talking about magazines like Amazing Stories (1926), Science Wonder Stories (1929), and Astounding Stories (1930), to name just three, all of which have their fair share of cloning narratives and many of them dystopic. As the twentieth century made way for the twenty‐first century, the science fiction (SF) imaginings of malleable life gained intensive scrutiny, especially in the genre. Previously fictionalized ideas of hybrids, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology were seen as achievable, as the imagined binaries between nature/technology and artificial/real became more complicated than ever before. Adam Roberts, a prolific British SF writer and critic, suggests that the SF genre ‘is better defined as technology fiction’