“A Form of Invasive Imagination”: Globalisation and Otherness in the Postcolonial Science Fiction of Ian McDonald and Paolo Bacigalupi

Abstract

Brasyl and The Dervish House by Ian McDonald and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi are science fiction novels with postcolonial themes, specifically part of the cyberpunk subgenre. Jennifer Langer and Adam Roberts argue that science fiction can be used as a vehicle for political ideas, and that the genre links art and science by materialising postcolonial concepts such as authenticity and the Other. McCalmont argues for a division between different stages of cyberpunk relating to their alliance with neoliberalism and response to globalisation. Ian McDonald’s fiction has a stronger alliance to neoliberalism, while Bacigalupi seems to abandon the neoliberal ideas and can be considered postcapitalist as well as postcolonial. Ultimately, McDonald and Bacigalupi moved on to write different kinds of science fiction, while mainstream science fiction such as Black Panther and The Shape of Water has adopted similar themes and setting as postcolonial science fiction.

Keywords: Bacigalupi, Capitalism, Colonialism, Globalisation, McDonald, Neoliberalism, Other, Postcapitalism, Postcolonialism, Science Fiction.