Urban Spaces in Dystopian Science Fiction

Abstract

The analysis of the urban paradigm allows us to distinguish the genre of dystopian science fiction from neighboring, openly anti-realistic genres, such as the Fantastic, the Marvelous and space opera. The city, as an explicit and perverted manifestation of post-enlightened ideals—progress, common wealth, pragmatism and ultimately, materialism—semiotically complements the epistemological doubt put forward by dystopian science fiction, which, unlike that expressed by the Fantastic, is based upon the predictable rather than the unpredictable. When it comes to the narrative function of the urban space within the universe of dystopian science fiction, Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and William Gibson’s Neuromancer constitute a highly representative corpus, for both works, each corresponding to a very specific and important moment in the evolution of the genre, incorporate the city as a determining factor within the semiotic economy of the narration.