Science Fiction and the Future of War (Routledge Studies in Conflict, Security and Technology)

This book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of important works of military science fiction from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and their implications for how we think about armed conflict and the future of war.

In so doing, the work re-examines classic novels such as Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. It reads these alongside works from the likes of Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, and Frederik Pohl, and also introduces modern-day classics such as Anne Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Dogs of War. It finally turns to Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe to explore some of the dark and dystopian implications that science fiction literature suggests. From the use of deep fakes in cyberwarfare to the ethics of drones and the pre-emptive killing of terror suspects from afar, the book addresses some of the key social, moral, and ethical implications of high-tech warfare, the warnings science fiction presents, and the lessons we can learn.

This book will be of interest to students of the future of warfare, technology studies, literary studies, and security studies.

Mike Ryder is a Lecturer at Lancaster University, UK. His research sits at the intersection between literature, philosophy, history, technology studies, and social science.