Psience Fiction: The Paranormal in Science Fiction Literature by Damien Broderick

Abstract

171 BOOKS IN REVIEW BOOKS IN REVIEW Surveying the Psi Boom in Postwar SF. Damien Broderick. Psience Fiction: The Paranormal in Science Fiction Literature. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018. 244pp. $45 pbk. The first sentence of Damien Broderick’s new book, Psience Fiction, describes the prevalence of psychic powers or “psionics” as “perhaps the strangest aspect” of postwar sf (7). It is strange because the other two major themes—atomic power and space travel—were closely related to contemporaneous advances in science and technology, whereas the field of psychical research or “parapsychology” was never accepted within the scientific community. By embracing this “fringe” science, the subgenre of “psience fiction” thus presents a challenge to traditional theories of sf, which typically emphasize the genre’s inherent connection to the process of scientific discovery and innovation. In his introduction, Broderick also notes that this topic received the most attention during the 1950s and 1960s, due largely to the influence of editor John W. Campbell, who firmly believed in parapsychology and actively encouraged writers to submit stories on this topic. Campbell had personally volunteered to work in J.B. Rhine’s parapsychology laboratory while he was a student at Duke University in the 1930s, and in a letter to Rhine he explained that “I am trying to use fiction to induce competent thinkers to attack just such problems as the psi-effects” (qtd. 14). Campbell thus saw sf as a “frontier literature” that could be used “for both the investigation and promotion of psi” (15), as it encouraged readers to entertain theories that were rejected by the mainstream scientific establishment. Broderick’s introduction is followed by a series of detailed plot summaries of Anglo-American sf novels and stories that describe how psychic powers might work, how they might transform those who possess them, and how knowledge of their existence might transform society. These summaries cover a wide range of material, which makes the book a particularly valuable resource for readers and scholars interested in literary representations of parapsychology. Broderick also provides some cultural context by examining whether or not the texts conform or diverge from the extant scholarship in parapsychology. For example, he is particularly interested in tracing the parallels between literary representations of psychic powers and research on parapsychology within the US intelligence community. Some of the texts describe mind-wiping techniques that resemble those developed in the CIA’s “MK-Ultra” program, such as Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man (1953) and George O. Smith’s Highways in Hiding (1956), and others describe psychic espionage techniques that resemble those developed in the CIA’s “Star Gate” program, such as Wilson Tucker’s Wild Talent (1954) and Lucius Shepard’s Life During Wartime (1987). While the writers could not have been aware of these programs at the time, this does not necessarily imply any precognitive abilities; rather, Broderick argues that these writers were familiar with the field of parapsychology and were often able to extrapolate its potential applications. 172 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 46 (2019) He thus concludes that the prevalence of psychic powers in postwar sf simply reflects the widespread acceptance of parapsychology within the sf community. “Psience fiction” remains relevant, in other words, because it is one of the few places where this research is openly discussed and endorsed (as Campell claimed). This is certainly a compelling argument, as the texts under discussion often describe the existence of psychic powers as an accepted fact. Such an interpretation seems to assume, however, that writers always believe the ideas expressed in their works, thus obscuring the function of sf as a tool for imagining alternate realities. Moreover, it does not explain why these texts describe the social and political impact of psychic powers in such extremely different ways. Psychics are often described as superhuman or godlike beings, as in Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (1957) and Ingo Swann’s Star Fire (1978), which Broderick describes as a “sheer power fantasy” (71), but they are also described as socially awkward or sometimes even disabled because of their inability to understand or adhere to social conventions, as in Katherine MacLean’s “Defense Mechanism” (1949). Psychics are often described as the next stage...