Chapter 7 - In Search of Revolution

Summary

The fictions in this chapter break from early twenty-first-century novels of revolution, in which the historical rupture was relativized or treated ironically: given imminent planetary disaster, they cannot afford to desert the prospect of a radical transformation of society. However, while all four novels are preoccupied with territory, they cannot imagine a history that might sustain a new kind of politics upon it. Walkaway by Corey Doctorow (2017) demonstrates how the difficulty of imagining revolution today is linked to genre and space, as a failure to locate the first causes the collapse of the second. Infomocracy by Malka Older (2016) portrays a world that has already achieved a radical transition, but the lack of economic change leaves this as global capitalism in territorial fancy dress. Zone One by Colson Whitehead (2011) occurs in the wake of a zombie apocalypse that only confirms the undead continuation of both neoliberal capitalism and the contemporary genre matrix. Finally, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009) sees a revolution split between territory and history, as it is unable to reconcile two elements of a potential revolutionary collective: the subjected citizen and the subjected refugee.