A Curious Absence: 9/11-Inspired American Sci-Fi Literature

Concept art for Steven Spielberg’s 2005 adaptation of War of the Worlds

September 11, 2001, was a day that changed the world in many ways. On the geopolitical front, it defined the Bush administration’s policy for the remainder of Mr. 43’s term—with the declaration of a War on Terror, the passage of the PATRIOT Act, an increase in defense spending, the questionable detention and surveillance of suspected Islamic extremists, just to name a couple. 9/11, as it is now often referred to, also had ramifications in pop culture, particularly in the exports out of Hollywood. Curiously, as we shall see later in this essay, this same prolificacy did not seem to be as much in evidence with authors of science fiction (SF) novels and short stories.

Movies and television shows in the years following 9/11 bore the tropes of a paranoid populace, the fear of the “other,” and raised questions about the surveillance state, the possibility of invasion, and numerous other threats. David M. Higgins draws a connection between the events of that fateful date and the sudden proliferation of alien invasion films and series:

In 2005, for example, all three major networks released primetime sci-fi shows (NBC’s Surface, CBS’s Threshold, and ABC’s Invasion) that focused on Earth as a target for alien attacks. . . . In science fiction cinema, there was a pronounced return to the alien invasion blockbuster, often in the form of remakes of 1950s alien invasion films.

He then goes on to enumerate examples such as Signs, Spielberg’s The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and other films with similar themes such as The Mist, Cloverfield, and most notably, Marvel’s The Avengers.

Andrew Fox, however, lamented in a 2011 article that he doesn’t see that same level of productivity in the SF literary sphere: “Ten years have passed since September 11, 2001, and yet the destruction of the Twin Towers is referenced in only a handful of SF and fantasy stories and novels, and the resulting Global War on Terror in but a handful more.” Why is this so?

Higgins points out that prior to September 11, in the late 1990s, popular science fiction was dominated by “awakening-from-simulacrum stories.” Films such as The Matrix and The Truman Show, both of which took inspiration from Philip K. Dick’s 1959 novel Time Out of Joint, are vivid examples of this. Fox, on the other hand, goes back several decades and mentions how American science fiction writers were quick to incorporate the lessons of twentieth-century world-shaking events, such as the Second World War and the Cold War, into their works, whereas this same enthusiasm didn’t seem to translate as much with 9/11. He mentions stories like “That Only a Mother” by Judith Merril, published in 1948; “Thunder and Roses” (1947) by Theodore Sturgeon; and Wilmar H. Shiras’s novel Children of the Atom (1953). “A complete bibliography of atomic war stories from the 1940s to the 1960s would run many pages long and feature dozens of writers,” says Fox.

While Higgins notes how pop culture wasted no time in embracing the effects of 9/11, Fox questions whether the themes of that infamous date and its aftermath resonated more strongly with mainstream and literary novelists (such as Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which itself was adapted into a film in 2012; and Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children) than with science fiction and fantasy writers. Novels such as Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 were, after all, written in the decades following World War II—alternate history in the case of the former, satire for the latter. Fox then raises the possibility that perhaps the modern-day “taboos of science fiction” include an extrapolation of the potential danger of radical Islam, citing the experience of American science fiction writer Norman Spinrad, who, after receiving one rejection letter after another from skittish publishers, opted to self-publish his controversially titled novel Osama the Gun as an e-book instead.

Higgins draws a comparison between the rise of 9/11’s effects in movies and series and the capitalist and neoliberalist policies that emerged in the years leading up to the twenty-first century:

In the aftermath of 9/11, the yearning for an exterior authenticity in the face of enervating simulacra . . . is replaced by a simultaneous horror and fascination with the reality-effect of mediated disaster spectacles, and simulations . . . become a widespread feature of social totality.

He then sums up two major tropes he observes to have defined American SF in the wake of 9/11:

First, the trope of the alien encounter (or alien invasion) is reformulated and redeployed during this period to address an environment of spectacular and indeterminate omnicrisis that can imaginatively encompass threats ranging from terrorism and biological attacks to natural disasters . . . Second, an intensification of technoscientific advancement and neoliberal capitalist expansion leads to a pervasive experience in the West during this time that many Americans (and others) are themselves living in a science fictional milieu.

We thus see the two authors make two seemingly differing observations on American SF post-9/11. Fox, on the one hand, notes the absence of 9/11 themes in American SF novels and stories post-2001; while Higgins, on the other, faces no loss when linking pop culture, capitalism, and the consumer’s hunger for alien invasion and terrorist-themed films and series, both in the before and after phases of 9/11. But it’s worth mentioning, however, that his essay is significantly bare of literary examples, comic book titles notwithstanding. Fox also pins this absence’s blame on SF writer’s fears of irking another culture, lest they be labeled discriminating or be made targets of extremists.

In contrast to the crises of the twentieth-century, however, 9/11 was a more sudden event, one that rattled the relative lull that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of capitalist and neoliberal ideals. World War II lasted roughly five years, while the Cold War went on for five decades, and both wars saw the unprecedented rise of scientific advancement—great fodder for SF writers of the time. Both wars also pitted America against a distinct foreign enemy (Nazi Germany in World War II and the USSR during the Cold War), and both were examples of where American exceptionalism and patriotism (one could even say jingoism) could shine. Upon the defeat of the Soviet Union and its imminent collapse, it seemed as though America was unstoppable, unchallenged. Capitalism reigned supreme and with it the rise of what Nikil Saval called “office utopianism,” meaning offices that were designed to be cities in themselves and which white-collar employees would see no reason to leave; thus paving the way for the “awakening-from-simulacrum stories” which Higgins described.

9/11 changed all that. It rattled the drabness of office life—of capitalism—to its core, and soon people felt they were living in a world straight out of an SF read. Perhaps this is the reason why Fox decried the absence of 9/11 themes and tropes in more recent fantasy and SF literary works—less to do with the fear of infuriating religious fundamentalists, and more to do with not seeing its necessity in the modern age. Pop culture, conversely, was rapid in taking its cue from such a tragic event because consumers—movie-goers, TV viewers, comic book readers, and gamers—responded well to it.

One can theorize that perhaps the reason why the proliferation of 9/11-inspired themes has not translated as well in the SF literary sphere as it did in film and television is because authors probably see little need in treading territory that’s already well-worn by more visual, accessible mediums. Additionally, what point is there in writing SF novels and stories that allude to such a devastating event, and can only do so much in propelling imaginations, when our world already feels like its own dystopic reality?

Sources

Fox, Andrew. “The Absence of 9-11 from Science Fiction.” Fantastical Andrew Fox. N.p., 11 September 2011. Web. 22 January 2017. <http://www.fantasticalandrewfox.com/articles/absence-of9-11-from-sciencefiction/>.

Higgins, David M. “American Science Fiction after 9/11.” Eds. Eric Carl Link and Gerry Canavan. The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Saval, Nikil. Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace. New York: Doubleday, 2014.