Description
It is the paradox of science-fiction that fact and fiction are inevitably blurred. It is also the paradox of representing nuclear war. The blurring of fact and fiction renders the representation of nuclear war inescapably entangled with speculation and imagination. It is important to problematise this assumption of ‘authenticity’ that may be equated with the ‘truth’ of war and navigate how narratives that transcend the boundaries of realism can access a greater, more fundamental ‘truth’ that is missed in attention to the ‘facts’. Rather than resigning nuclear war to a space of fiction and myth, this entanglement presents an opportunity for change. Author Margret Atwood (2011) outlines the ‘unique affordances of science-fiction’ compared to other genres of fictionality. Using examples from popular culture across mediums and genres, as well as some of my own fiction-writing and artwork, I demonstrate how each of these affordances apply to the nuclear subject, and how they render science-fiction a powerful tool for understanding nuclear war and for questioning the nuclear status quo. I conclude with a three-part framework for narratives that contribute towards a better future: (i) reframing the past by recentring the stories we tell about the nuclear age on the nuclear mundane and the subaltern; (ii) reimagining the future by constructing nuclear-free protopian fiction, and (iii) remediating the apocalypse by embracing transmedia-oriented narratives. Staring at a future more unbelievable and overwhelming than most dystopian and apocalyptic fiction, “it seems appropriate that a work of fiction should be commissioned to find the solution” (Gyngell 2009, 8).
