ABSTRACT
If we recognize sf as a literature forged in the rationalist revolution of the Renaissance and tempered in the secularist revolution of the Enlightenment, then the years after 1992 have seen the literature under more stress than at any time in its history. As religion becomes a major issue in world (as opposed to local) conflict for the first time since the seventeenth century and a potent force in the local politics of even such supposedly secularist states as Britain and the US, as global terrorism brings anxiety into every moment of daily life, and as environmental struggles gather pace, a literature espousing rationalism and secularism seems more and more out of step with the world. Increasingly, overtly sf works have incorporated gods, angels, or the supernatural. For example, in The Forever War (1974), Joe Haldeman, one of the most consistent sf writers of the period, wrote a rational and secular response to the Vietnam War, but in the sequel, Forever Free (1999), he brought God on stage to effect its climax. Jay Lake’s Mainspring (2007) presents a mechanistic universe in which God plays a direct and unquestioned role, and even John Clute’s Appleseed (2001), which describes a war against god, implicitly recognizes the role of God in the universe. Among the works of newer writers, M. Rickert being a prime but far from lonely example, angels proliferate. This chapter will look at how sf has responded to this change in context in three ways, by turning backwards, by becoming a literature of the irrational, or by trying to become a mundane literature.
