Abstract
This concluding chapter explores the dominant paradigm of contemporary German SF, but it also anticipates, and argues for, new directions. German SF in the twenty-first century tends to see the dystopian form as the ideal vehicle to explore the social and psychological consequences of scientific and technological progress. There is no point in denying that the ‘dystopian turn’ reflects the mood of our time, and that the first two decades of the new millennium have given rise to fears and misgivings about increasingly porous boundaries, conceptual paradigm shifts, and persistent global challenges that make our scientific and technological advances feel hollow. At the same time, one may wonder whether the endless depiction of depressing futures in recent SF may not in fact yield diminishing returns in terms of the intended warning function and instead convince its audiences to give up hope altogether. In this chapter I look at recent German SF novels (Thomas von Steinaecker’s Die Verteidigung des Paradieses and Sibylle Berg’s GRM: Brainfuck), to analyze why and how they establish their dystopian worldview. But, in contrast to most of the contributions to this volume, I am also looking at the green shoots of positive visions (Tom Hillenbrand’s Qube, Andreas Brandhorst’s Die Eskalation, Judith and Christian Vogt’s Wasteland, and Andreas Eschbach’s Eines Menschen Flügel). These give us glimpses of “concrete utopias” even as they contemplate the destructive impact of human activity on our planet. I argue that these latter works demonstrate a radical rethinking of the purpose of writing SF in the twenty-first century, offering a “progressive fantastic,” and a new hope.
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Notes
- 1.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians, Chap. 13, verse 12).
- 2.
For example: Thomas Lehr’s 42 (2005), Joachim Zelter’s Die Schule der Arbeitslosen (The School of the Jobless, 2006), Christian Kracht’s Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten (I will be here in Sunshine and in Shadow, 2008), Dietmar Dath’s Die Abschaffung der Arten (The Abolition of Species, 2008), Juli Zeh’s Corpus Delicti (The Method, 2009), Benjamin Stein’s Replay (2012), Reinhard Jirgl’s Nichts von euch auf Erden (Nothing of You on Earth, 2013), Valerie Fritsch’s Winters Garten (Winter’s Garden, 2015), or Karen Duve’s Macht (The Prepper Room, 2016).
- 3.
All translations of German original texts are mine.
- 4.
Barbara Korte and Christian Mair (2021, 2) point to the many ways the AI’s role in the novel can be interpreted: “[the] artificial intelligence pervades the novel even before readers become aware of its presence—and, arguably, not only through the character profiles. Many reviews of the novel noted its strange narrative tone in which even seemingly internal passages are always overlaid by an authorial voice. This might be the voice of a heterodiegetic narrator (or perhaps even a metaleptic presence of Berg as author, as a literary grime MC performing a 600-page novel), but perhaps it is also the voice of the AI.”
- 5.
I suggest the term Zukunftsbewältigung for this endeavor (Cornils 2020, 1–12).
- 6.
Recent examples from Germany include Tom Hillenbrand’s Drohnenland (Drone State, 2014), Marc-Uwe Kling’s Qualityland (2017), Andreas Brandhorst’s Ewiges Leben (Eternal Life, 2018), Frank Schätzing’s Die Tyrannei des Schmetterlings (The Tyranny of a Butterfly, 2018), Bijan Moini’s Der Würfel (The Cube, 2018), Andreas Eschbach’s Nationales Sicherheits -Amt (National Security Ministry, 2018), Theresa Hannig’s Die Optimierer (The Optimizers, 2017) and Die Unvollkommenen (The Imperfect, 2019), as well as Raphaela Edelbauer’s Dave (2021).
- 7.
In Germany also known as the Trisolaris trilogy: The Three-Body Problem (2006/2014), The Dark Forest (2008/2015), Death’s End (2010/2016).
- 8.
This holds true even for more empathetic explorations like Ian McEwan’s ‘Adam’ in Machines Like Me (2019), or the ‘artificial friend’ in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021).
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Cornils, I. (2022). Conclusion: Dark Mirrors? German Science Fiction in the Twenty-First Century. In: Schmeink, L., Cornils, I. (eds) New Perspectives on Contemporary German Science Fiction . Studies in Global Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95963-0_15
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