The Ex-Human: Science Fiction and the Fate of Our Species

Bérubé (It’s Not Free Speech), an English professor at Penn State, serves up a thought-provoking examination of sci-fi novels and films that invite audiences to contemplate humanity’s “sorry fate from the vantage point of something other than human.” Studying Arthur C. Clarke’s 1968 novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bérubé argues that Clarke’s vision of a near-future humanity wracked by xenophobia suggests that the ostensibly villainous robot HAL, unemotional and devoid of prejudice, would have been a better choice for first contact with extraterrestrials than the novel’s human protagonists. Turning to Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood series, Bérubé contends that the novels encourage readers to view aliens’ attempts to merge humanity into their own species as a preferable fate to the “rape, gun violence, and murder” that characterize the remaining human colonies on Earth. Elsewhere, Bérubé asserts that it would make more sense for humans in the Matrix and Terminator film franchises to cede their devastated worlds to the machines, who are better equipped to survive in the wastelands. Bérubé brings welcome humor to the proceedings (he qualifies his defense of the Matrix’s murderous Cypher: “I don’t want to fail to acknowledge that killing one’s crewmates is suboptimal. I would even go so far as to say that it is morally wrong”), though the extensive plot summaries sometimes overwhelm the unorthodox analysis. Still, sci-fi fanatics will appreciate Bérubé’s offbeat takes. (May)