In addition to the frequent use of the subjunctive mood, the shape of nextopia is tragedy turned comedy. Nextopias open with large scale death and destruction; everybody, or rather almost everybody, dies. Narrative critic Tzvetan Todorov explains that modern tragedy as a defining form “of literature is always subjective,” and that tragedies may still contain happy endings for some characters (Todorov 2026). He goes on to explain that some tragic events such as the deaths of specific characters can elicit a comedic (joyful) response in the reader.9 The losses suffered by each of the surviving characters in these three novels and in other nextopias is evidence of the changes that took place to usher in the next era of human history. The nextopia …show more content…
Sometimes considered a science fiction writer, Atwood dislikes the umbrella term noting, “It’s too bad that one term – ‘science fiction’ – has served for so many variants, and too bad also that this tern has acquired a dubious if not downright sluttish reputation” (Atwood). However, science fiction is growing and …show more content…
New Weird expands upon the advances in science fiction that began during the New Wave period in the same way that nextopian works expand on the notions of utopian and dystopian subgenres. Two of the featured novels, Stirling’s and Kunstler’s, are early examples of the New Weird period because they overturn "the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy" (xvi VanderMeer). Piercy’s novel predates New Weird science fiction, yet it exhibits this specific New Weird tendency. Some science fiction from both periods and some speculative fiction, as well as some movies and television series’ are nextopias.14 In Literature, nextopias often are bridge texts that span the gap between the periods and the