Envisioning the Future: Science Fiction and the Next Millennium (Book Review‪)‬

Marleen Barr, ed. Envisioning the Future: Science Fiction and the Next Millennium. Wesleyan UP, 2003. 240 pp. $22.95 paper. This collection of essays (academic and personal) and fiction looks "at present culture's relationship to the far future space fiction portrays" (1). Thus, there is a conflict between what is suggested by its title--a desire to look at the state of science fiction as we enter the next millennium--and the actual contents which skip over this millennium and fast-forward to 3001, only to look back with a sigh of relief at a perilous time well put behind us. This desire precisely not to engage with the problems facing science fiction--not to mention humanity--as we begin this millennium is one of the book's chief flaws (with a couple of notable exceptions to which I will return).