Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Translations
- Introduction
- Part I The Great Discourse on the Future
- 1 Utopians and Utopian Thought
- 2 Futurists and Futures Studies
- 3 Utopian/Dystopian Writers and Utopian/Dystopian Fiction
- 4 Science Fiction: The Nexus of Utopianism, Futurism, and Utopian Fiction
- Part II German Science Fiction in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 5 Some Preliminary Thoughts on German Science Fiction
- 6 First Contact: Martians, Sentient Plants, and Swarm Intelligences
- 7 The Shock of the New: Mega Cities, Machines, and Rockets
- 8 Utopian Experiments: Island Idylls, Glass Beads, and Eugenic Nightmares
- 9 To the Stars! Cosmic Supermen and Bauhaus in Space
- 10 Visions of the End: Catastrophism and Moral Entropy
- 11 Virtual Realities: Caught in the Matrix
- 12 Alternative Histories: Into the Heart of Darkness
- 13 Big Brother Is Watching Us: Who Is Watching Big Brother?
- 14 Artificial Intelligences: The Rise of the Thinking Machines
- 15 Eternal Life: At What Cost?
- 16 Social Satires: Of Empty Slogans and Empty Hearts
- 17 Critical Posthumanism: Twilight of the Species or a New Dawn?
- 18 High Concept: Time, the Universe, and Everything
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Chronological List of German SF Novels—A Selection
- Appendix 2 Chronological List of German SF Films—A Selection
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The Shock of the New: Mega Cities, Machines, and Rockets
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Translations
- Introduction
- Part I The Great Discourse on the Future
- 1 Utopians and Utopian Thought
- 2 Futurists and Futures Studies
- 3 Utopian/Dystopian Writers and Utopian/Dystopian Fiction
- 4 Science Fiction: The Nexus of Utopianism, Futurism, and Utopian Fiction
- Part II German Science Fiction in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 5 Some Preliminary Thoughts on German Science Fiction
- 6 First Contact: Martians, Sentient Plants, and Swarm Intelligences
- 7 The Shock of the New: Mega Cities, Machines, and Rockets
- 8 Utopian Experiments: Island Idylls, Glass Beads, and Eugenic Nightmares
- 9 To the Stars! Cosmic Supermen and Bauhaus in Space
- 10 Visions of the End: Catastrophism and Moral Entropy
- 11 Virtual Realities: Caught in the Matrix
- 12 Alternative Histories: Into the Heart of Darkness
- 13 Big Brother Is Watching Us: Who Is Watching Big Brother?
- 14 Artificial Intelligences: The Rise of the Thinking Machines
- 15 Eternal Life: At What Cost?
- 16 Social Satires: Of Empty Slogans and Empty Hearts
- 17 Critical Posthumanism: Twilight of the Species or a New Dawn?
- 18 High Concept: Time, the Universe, and Everything
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Chronological List of German SF Novels—A Selection
- Appendix 2 Chronological List of German SF Films—A Selection
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
AT THE BEGINNING of the twentieth century, Germany was experiencing a social, economic, and technological upheaval. Industrialization, the move made by millions of people from villages into the rapidly growing cities, and the rapid growth of the working class are all reflected in the SF of the time, as is the realization that the authoritarian and militaristic attitudes unleashed by the forces of colonialism and imperialism were diametrically opposed to the romantic yearnings for more idealistic values held by those who felt threatened by the cold wind of modernity.
Paul Scheerbart (1863–1915) has only recently been rediscovered as an early writer of German SF. A call for papers for a panel at the 2018 German Studies Association Conference declared him “a significant figure in early modernism, one who may have inhabited the earth-star too soon.” His novels Die große Revolution. Ein Mondroman (The Great Revolution: A Moon Novel, 1902) and Lesabéndio. Ein Asteroiden- Roman (Lesabéndio: An Asteroid Novel, 1913) are exquisite leaps of the utopian imagination. They follow in the footsteps of Kurd Laßwitz's more playful short stories but add a unique allegorical and expressionistic aesthetic. Another, more typical example of the Zukunftsroman is Bernhard Kellermann's Der Tunnel (1913). This novel became a bestseller, selling one hundred thousand copies in the six months after its publication, and it continued to be read widely, particularly owing to the fact that it was made into a film, first in 1915 and again in 1933–35, when versions in German, French, and English were produced. The main theme of the novel is technological progress—in this case, a gigantic engineering project. A tunnel is built at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, linking Europe with North America. The idealistic engineer Allen is repeatedly thwarted, by losing the financial backing initially promised to him but also because the tunnel's construction is beset by problems. The army of workers revolts against the inhuman conditions in which they have to labor, and when the tunnel is finally opened after twenty-six years it is already obsolete because airplanes can cross the Atlantic in a few hours. Kellermann’s novel does not hold up well to scrutiny today: his characters are twodimensional, with the idealistic engineer Allen pitted against the scheming financier S. Woolf, who is painted in racist and anti-Semitic tones.
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- Beyond TomorrowGerman Science Fiction and Utopian Thought in the 20th and 21st Centuries, pp. 104 - 109Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020