| Resumen: |
The Expanse is a series of nine space opera novels–Leviathan Wakes (2011), Caliban’s War (2012), Abaddon’s Gate (2013), Cibola Burn (2014), Nemesis Games (2015), Babylon’s Ashes (2016), Persepolis Rising (2017), Tiamat’s Wrath (2019) and Leviathan Falls (2021)– accompanied by a short fiction collection (Memory’s Legion, 2022), by American author James S. A. Corey, the penname of Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. The series, popularized by its SyFy/Amazon adaptation (2013-), narrates how captain James Holden and his crew deflect the threat posed by a protomolecule engineered by an extinct alien civilization. This protomolecule radically transforms human bodies, which rebel Martian Admiral Winston Duarte (who appears in the last three novels) takes advantage of to enhance his own body and establish a planetary military dictatorship after waging war for control of the portals linking the planets in the Solar system and elsewhere. Following my own work in Masculinity and Patriarchal Villainy in the British Novel: From Hitler to Voldemort (2020) and on masculinity and sf, I discuss how posthumanism and transhumanism help enhance warmongering patriarchal villainy. This chapter discusses thus how Corey's series is a warning not so much about hostile first contact with aliens but about the difficulties of progressing as long as warmongering male patriarchal villainy persists. The warning is manifested not only through Duarte but also through the villains Dresden and Mao, who run Protogen, the corporation illegally experimenting with the protomolecule before Duarte steals it. Duarte's difficulties to remain human and his megalomaniac decision turn humankind into a single entity to defeat a more powerful alien species, are the stuff of pulpish space opera. However, the popularity of Corey's highly entertaining series means that for many persons the ideas about the posthuman come basically from sf of this type, and not from intellectual debate, and that war remains a center of attention on connection with this topic. The Expanse is a series of nine space opera novels-Leviathan Wakes (2011), Caliban's War (2012), Abaddon's Gate (2013), Cibola Burn (2014), Nemesis Games (2015), Babylon's Ashes (2016), Persepolis Rising (2017), Tiamat's Wrath (2019) and Leviathan Falls (2021)- accompanied by a short fiction collection (Memory's Legion, 2022), by American author James S. A. Corey, the penname of Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. The series, popularized by its SyFy/Amazon adaptation (2013-), narrates how captain James Holden and his crew deflect the threat posed by a protomolecule engineered by an extinct alien civilization. This protomolecule radically transforms human bodies, which rebel Martian Admiral Winston Duarte (who appears in the last three novels) takes advantage of to enhance his own body and establish a planetary military dictatorship after waging war for control of the portals linking the planets in the Solar system and elsewhere. |
| Nota: |
This text is the pre-print version of the chapter published on 11 December 2025 in the volume Wars We Never Fought: Armed Conflict in Speculative Fiction, edited by Matthew B. Hill and Leigha H. McReynolds. London: Bloomsbury, ISBN 9798765121535 (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/wars-we-never-fought-9798765121535/). The text is uploaded in UAB’s repository with Bloomsbury’s permission. For any doubt, contact the author, Sara.Martin@uab.cat. Readers MAY NOT reproduce or circulate this text, which is protected by full copyright. The author invites readers to read and cite the original Bloomsbury volume. |
visitante ::
identificación
(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística)
