Apocalypse Then: American and Japanese Atomic Cinema, 1951-1967 by Mike Bogue

Abstract

403 BOOKS IN REVIEW Technophobes, and Renegades,” “Aliens, Robots, Mutants, and Others,” “Going Inward: Science Fiction and Human Enhancement,” and “Conclusion: Great Power and Great Responsibility.” Throughout, he finds appropriate texts to develop his case. Moreover, he is reliable in handling his material. I occasionally raised an eyebrow, for example, when he described James Hogg (1770-1835), who wrote all or virtually all of his works after 1800, as an “eighteenth-century Scottish writer” (23), but I noted only a few clear factual errors, the worst of which is a reference to the author of The Body Snatchers (1955) as Hal (rather than Jack) Finney (132). Even so, the book would have benefitted from better proofreading, which would have caught an obviously erroneous 2014 publication date for Wells’s The World Set Free (154 n. 3), whose actual publication date, 1914, is cited elsewhere (e.g.,16). Someone might also have noted that on page 134 Blackford credits the British philosopher Stephen R. L. Clark (misspelling his surname as “Clarke”) with having asked “why we should necessarily side with our own species in conflicts with intelligent aliens” and cites his source as “Clarke 1995, 101”—but does not list any work by Clark in the references to that chapter or for that matter anywhere else in the book. There is a similar problem with a quotation from Isaac Asimov on page 142: the source is cited as “1981, 145” but the list of sources for that chapter does not include anything by Asimov. What I assume is the same book is quoted in three other chapters, however, each of which indicates that it is Asimov on Science Fiction (1981). That leads to my minor complaints about this book, which have to do with its documentation and indexing. If this were a collection of essays by different hands I could see why each chapter would have its own list of works cited, but what sense does it make to do that in a book with just one author—especially since some of those works, for example Broderick’s Reading by Starlight, will be listed several times? A comprehensive bibliography or list of works cited near the end of the book would be more helpful, at least for me. Even more puzzling is the index, which does not list any authors or other people, real or fictitious, or the titles of any literary works, movies, etc. Instead, it is limited to general topics discussed in the book: Abjection, AIDS, Alien infestation, Alien invasion, Aliens, Alternative history, Androids, Anthropology, Artificial intelligence, and Authenticity, for starters. That does call attention to the subjects of the mega-text, but it omits the writers who have given them their shape, which seems unfair both to the writers and to Blackford’s readers.—Patrick A. McCarthy, University of Miami Atomic Age Echoes. Mike Bogue. Apocalypse Then: American and Japanese Atomic Cinema, 1951-1967. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017. 316 pp. $39.95 pbk. Mike Bogue’s Apocalypse Then has a familiar ring to it. From its colorful montage cover, offering a host of familiar images from early sf cinema, to its combination of detailed filmographies and brief commentaries, to its 404 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 46 (2019) manifestly fannish appreciation of the good and the bad in sf cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, it recalls Bill Warren’s encyclopedic volume Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties (2010). In fact, Warren’s book is the most commonly cited source here, as well as an obvious model for much of what this book tries to do: to provide some very basic information (the filmography) about American and Japanese “atomic age” movies, to recount in varying detail the plots of these films, and to offer some modest commentary (and sometimes personal reminiscences) about them. That sort of combination, as Warren’s popular book has demonstrated, seems to work well for the avid fan of this era’s sf cinema. Certainly, it makes for an interesting—if a bit repetitious—read, one that, the author admits, is at least partly designed to evoke “a welcome nostalgia” (9), but that also should inspire readers to investigate some...