Editorial

Abstract

One of the fundamental characteristics of fantastic fiction is its capacity to penetrate apparently solidified textures, unravel the threads of canonical tapestries and reweave them into new patterns that complicate and problematize traditional notions of beauty as well as social, ethical and political premises. This inherent elasticity has also proven to be fertile ground for various kinds of generic cross-breedings – indeed, one of the most conspicuous features of such classics as Frankenstein (1818), Dracula (1897), The War of the Worlds (1897) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is the suggestive way in which they combine the genres of science fiction, dystopia and horror, to spectacular effect. Out of this generic mélange arise narratives that engage obliquely (albeit not less forcefully than works of social realism or naturalism) with contemporary social maladies. Shelley’s tragic tale, written at a time in which the ethical boundaries of science were called into question, revolves around the confession of a haunted scientist who refuses to take responsibility for the powerful creature he has unleashed; Stoker raises monsters from the dead in his portrayal of Victorian fears of colonial and female emancipation; Wells’ brilliantly imagined Martian invasion forces “civilized” readers to redefine the Other from the unsettling perspective of the colonized subject, and Orwell’s allegory of the perverse ménage-à-trois of totalitarianism, technology and propaganda serves to unveil the ugly reality behind contemporary political discourse.