The Boom & The Boom: Historical Rupture and Political Economy in Contemporary British and Chinese Science Fiction

This book compares the recent science fiction renaissances in the UK and China, known as the British and Chinese SF Booms, which emerged in the late 1980s. The author contextualizes the two booms within the transformative political and cultural histories of both countries, characterized by the politico-economic shifts initiated by Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping. In an era marked by the states retreat from society and the redefinition of social subjects through market competition, science fiction assumes a crucial counter position for cultural critique, envisioning alternatives and possibilities embodied in utopian hopes.
Emphasizing the «local» rather than the «global» nature of science fiction, The Boom & The Boom interrogates how boom writers in the UK and China respond to specific sociopolitical conditions in their respective regions. It contends that the British SF Boom serves as a political platform for leftwing writers against Thatcherite politics, seeking alternatives to capitalist realism. In contrast, the Chinese Boom, influenced by the rise of a mass public, grapples with a sense of doubleness, blending futuristic visions of non-capitalist alternatives with collective trauma from the past shaped by Dengist reforms. Only through this comparative lens can we come closer to understanding the «hyperobject» that has given rise to both Thatcherism and post-socialism. See more