Introduction

Abstract

Introduction Phong Nguyen This title of this feature, “Human Future Fiction,” is inherently optimistic. It brings together three words, each of which separately has the potential to fill us with a vague sense of hope. Taken together, however, it gives name to the anxiety that many writers—humanists all—have about our cultural future under the rapid pace of so many life-changing technologies: namely, is the future of humanity human? As society gets ever closer to realizing the technologies which once were the domain of science fiction, writers are no longer answering this question with cerebral monologues delivered by self-serious androids, but with visceral narrative encounters, introspection, conscience, and humor. Characteristic of this shift in the way we explore the Human Future are the stories of George Saunders, whose compassion shines through his near-future landscapes populated by characters struggling to retain/realize their humanity. In his interview with Alexander Weinstein, Saunders calls stories “oomph-making machines” and “co-arising systems” that offer “a fresh look at the normal” and that can “startle us into increased personhood.” Fiction is a technology, Saunders implies, that can better connect us with our own humanity. In writing about the effects of imminent technology on humanness, we may not be doing anything to halt the progress of those technologies, but contained in the stories we tell is its own antidote: the technology of the story itself. By observing how previous generations of writers projected their visions of the future onto our era, many contemporary writers concede that The Future is already upon us, and use that awareness to write stories in which the future and the present are interwoven, creating a hybrid literature that is part current-events and part prophecy. Yet we scarcely need prophets to tell us what is already happening: drone surveillance, cloning, cybernetics, extra-planetary travel; such technologies already exist, some of which have been in use for some time. We need fiction, however, to alert us to the utter strangeness of our own condition, and to pose necessary questions about who we are becoming. What follows are six stories that grapple with humanity’s attempts to remain human in a world that is increasingly mechanistic, digital, and virtual. They represent a diverse group of writers at various stages of their literary careers, but with a particular bias towards writers who have yet to publish their first books (Anna Short, Megan Giddings, Pascha Sotolongo, and Brenda Peynado) and award-winning contemporary writers (Michael Nye and Alexander Weinstein). These writers represent the best of what is to come in a certain branch of American Literature called Human Future Fiction—they are the heirs of George Saunders, and by extension, of Kurt Vonnegut, Octavia Butler, Stanislaw Lem, Gary Shteyngart, Charles Yu, and many others. This feature was co-curated by Alexander Weinstein, frequent contributor to Pleiades and author of the marvelous new story collection Children of the New World, the publication of which, within a week of this writing, has already become a significant moment in the evolution of the genre we’re calling Human Future Fiction. So buckle your five-point harnesses and launch with me wide-eyed into the third millennium. [End Page 65] Copyright © 2017 Pleiades and Pleiades Press