American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction by Robert Yeates

Abstract

Reviewed by: American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction by Robert Yeates Michael Fuchs Ruined Cities. Robert Yeates. American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction. UCL P, 2021. ix+201 pp. $40 pbk. Open access ebk. In American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction, Robert Yeates sets out to show that “America has its own specific history with urban ruins in fiction” and that these “ruins have functioned in very different ways in the individual historical contexts of particular US cities and in relation to particular media formats” (16). After setting the stage by referring to studies ranging from those by Georg Simmel and Lewis Mumford to James Berger and Stephen Joyce’s much more recent Transmedia Storytelling and the Apocalypse (2018), Yeates explores representations of post-apocalyptic American cities in six particular cultural and media-historical constellations, from fiction in the early twentieth century to the transmedia storyworlds of the early twenty-first century. The opening chapter situates Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague (1912) in the context of “the inconsistent but vital relationship between the emerging genre of sf and the magazines,” which Yeates considers a reflection “of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century urbanization and industrialization of America” (47). This chapter presents a convincing reading of The Scarlet Plague as an extension of London’s nonfiction writings about the San Francisco earthquake, epitomizing the author’s turn “towards fantastic tales of possible future catastrophes” after 1906 (36). In addition, Yeates outlines the publication history of The Scarlet Plague, drawing on archival sources and providing great insights into Gordon Grant’s simple yet powerful illustrations. [End Page 129] The second chapter moves to the 1950s, when radio became the dominant medium due, in part, to changes in urban planning and transportation. As Yeates explains, whereas “the early twentieth-century commuter look[ed] to magazines for entertainment while aboard public transport, the commuters of the 1950s pilot[ed] private automobiles” and “found in radio an indispensable source of entertainment that could hold their attention without distracting them from their drive” (51). Next to the changes in media properties, Yeates emphasizes a distinct change in the causes of imagined urban disasters, as “wilful acts of sentient forces, whether human or alien” replaced chance and natural causes (55). The chapter discusses two episodes of the fantasy-horror series Quiet, Please (1947–1949) and three episodes of the sf anthology series Dimension X (1950–1951), highlighting the particular media properties of radio plays and demonstrating how these media artifacts negotiated scientific optimism and belief in technological progress with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Chapter three continues the exploration of Cold War anxieties, this time in the medium of film. Yeates’s focus turns to aerial warfare here, which was employed as a military strategy in World War II and then became a key element of how sf films of the 1950s and 1960s imagined urban destruction. Using The War of the Worlds (1953) and The Time Machine (1960) as his main examples, Yeates echoes Jennifer Fay’s analysis of “nuclear conditioning” through motion pictures in her excellent book Inhospitable World (2018), suggesting that sf movies of the 1950s and 1960s not only reflected the anxieties of their times but also allowed viewers to confront and ultimately overcome their fears of urban and nuclear destruction. The next chapter provides a structurally not entirely convincing yet nevertheless enjoyable detour to the Blade Runner franchise (centering on the 1982 film) that showcases “what about this franchise resonated at the different moments of its development, and how the texts’ differing contexts reveal the strengths of Blade Runner’s particular take on the post-apocalyptic American city” (91). Starting from the observation that “little has been written to situate [the original Blade Runner] film in the movement of the late 1970s and 1980s towards demonizing and policing sexuality in America’s major cities” (92), the chapter focuses on Othering and how marginalized characters “navigate the liminal spaces of the ruined city as acts of experimentation, improvisation and expression in resistance to the policing of their identities” (115). Using Wasteland (1988) and Wasteland 2 (2014) as a launching pad, the fifth chapter turns to videogames and their...