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For nearly two centuries science fiction authors have been playing around with an enormous variety of pandemic scenarios. While some stories focus on attempts to avert them, many explore their catastrophic consequences, or the plight of victims and survivors in-between, and the ways in which the most trivial daily routines and the simple facts of life we take for granted may be critically, perhaps permanently disrupted. From eerily prophetic accounts of origin and spread (Stephen Soderbergh’s Contagion) to post-apocalyptic tales of heart-wrenching loneliness (Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend), SF stories anticipate the plight that humanity is facing during the COVID pandemic. This volume invites us to reflect on the lessons from science fiction stories, and how they help us illuminate philosophically our present times.

Published: 2021-06-01 (June 1, 2021)

The question about choosing between harsh truths or willful ignorance is as old as Plato’s Cave; older perhaps, down to the Tree of Good and Evil. Science Fiction writers can be as illuminating as they can be ambiguous. In the original Matrix Neo took the Red Pill, choosing Truth – and got himself into a world of trouble. Wouldn’t the Blue Pill (of “Ignorance is Bliss”) have served him better? This volume examines the double-edged quality of knowledge, as explored in a variety of SF scenarios. Can a truth cause more harm than a lie? Can we live in self-deception? Is there a danger of knowing too much? Is knowledge something inherently good, worth seeking for its own sake, is it just a neutral tool, or is it, perhaps, something better left alone?

Published: 2020-03-31 (March 31, 2020)