Visions of the American city in post-apocalyptic ruin permeate literary and popular fiction, across print, visual, audio and digital media. American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction explores the prevalence of these representations in American culture, drawing from a wide range of primary and critical works from the early-twentieth century to today. Beginning with science fiction in literary magazines, before taking in radio dramas, film, video games and expansive transmedia franchises, Robert Yeates argues that post-apocalyptic representations of the American city are uniquely suited for explorations of contemporary urban issues. Examining how the post-apocalyptic American city has been repeatedly adapted and repurposed to new and developing media over the last century, this book reveals that the content and form of such texts work together to create vivid and immersive fictional spaces in ways that would otherwise not be possible. Chapters present media-specific analyses of these texts, situating them within their historical contexts and the broader history of representations of urban ruins in American fiction. Original in its scope and cross-media approach, American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction both illuminates little-studied texts and provides provocative new readings of familiar works such as Blade Runner and The Walking Dead, placing them within the larger historical context of imaginings of the American city in ruins.
Author(s): Robert Yeates
Series: Modern Americas
Edition: 1
Publisher: UCL Press
Year: 2021
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 215
Tags: Cities And Towns In Literature; Apocalypse In Literature; American Literature: History And Criticism
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Modern cities and ruin
A brief history of the end of the world in sf
The pleasures of urban ruins
State of the field
Parameters of study
Structure of the book
Notes
1 Urban apocalypse in the magazines
The Scarlet Plague
Cycles of urbanization and modernization
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire
The publication of The Scarlet Plague
Critical responses to The Scarlet Plague
The afterlife of The Scarlet Plague
Conclusion
Notes
2 Listening to ruins on the radio
Audio fiction and the imagination
The roots of radio’s golden age sf
Post-war sf on the airwaves
The heights of radio sf
Conclusion
Notes
3 Cinema and the aesthetics of destruction
Urban destruction on film
Aerial warfare and the imagination of disaster
Destruction and renewal in The War of the Worlds
Rebuilding the future in The Time Machine
Conclusion
Notes
4 Urban decay in the transmedia universe of Blade Runner
Marginalization
The glamour of decay: Los Angeles and New York City
The policing of sexual identities
Permeable boundaries
Illicit relationships
Deviancy and class
Conclusion
Notes
5 Playing in virtual ruins from Wasteland to Wasteland 2
Virtual space and the post-apocalyptic city
Gameplay motivation and immersion
Wasteland and 2D worlds
2.5D spaces and Fallout
Choices in virtual worlds
3D game spaces
Ruins in 3D worlds
Narrative choices in Fallout 3 and 4
Wasteland 2
Conclusion
Notes
6 Cities and sanctuary in The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead as transmedia fictional world
‘We are the walking dead’
Atlanta
Resurgens
Unsalvageable cities
Alexandria
Gated communities
Cities and violence
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Archival sources
Published sources
Films, television and videos
Radio episodes
Video games
Index
