https://fafnir.journal.fi/issue/feed Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 2025-07-30T15:34:23+03:00 Fafnir Editors-in-Chief editorsinchief@finfar.org Open Journal Systems <p><em><span lang="EN-US">Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary academic journal published online twice yearly by the <a href="http://finfar.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research</a> (Suomen science fiction- ja fantasiatutkimuksen seura ry) beginning in 2014. </span></p> https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/157116 “Attuned to Loss” 2025-03-18T13:11:04+02:00 Radvilė Musteikytė <p>This article analyzes two contemporary novels that reflect on the devastation of the Earth: <em>Bewilderment</em> by American author Richard Powers (2021) and <em>The Moonday Letters</em> (2020) by Finnish author Emmi Itäranta, arguing that both novels invite readers to engage with solastalgia – a distress caused by witnessing environmental changes. The evocation of solastalgia (as an environmentally-attuning readerly affect) is discussed by employing James Phelan’s rhetorical theory of narrative, particularly his and Matthew Clark’s model of three narrative components. Accounting for both content and form, the threefold analysis touches on the many similarities of the seemingly different novels: their Earth-centeredness, the theme of loss and how it is rescaled from personal to environmental, as well as storyworld-internal worldbuilding that repeatedly interrupts the progression of narratives. This reading contributes to discussions about the functioning and functions of fiction in the Anthropocene.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Radvilė Musteikytė https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/157185 Ecocritical Perspectives in Naomi Novik’s Uprooted 2025-03-05T13:44:56+02:00 Peter Melville <p>Eco-fantasy critics often celebrate what Gry Ulstein calls fantasy’s “intrinsic exploratory potential for ecocritical ideas.” It is, however, equally important to acknowledge the possibility of failure that a rhetoric of potentiality necessarily implies. As Ulstein admits, fantasy can reinscribe anthropocentric messaging just as easily as it presents ecological perspectives. Naomi Novik’s environmental fantasy novel <em>Uprooted</em> (2015) offers an example of a text that incorporates elements from both ends of fantasy’s spectrum of ecocritical potential. Specifically, it dramatizes a shift in perspective from an initially negative, human-centered depiction of nonhuman environments toward a vision in which humanity appears considerably less central or important. Capitalizing on fantasy’s capacity to focalize nonhuman points of view, <em>Uprooted</em> evokes philosopher Timothy Morton’s ecological concept of coexistentialism, a key principle of which maintains that within the course of negotiating relations between human and nonhuman beings, sometimes “the only thing to do is to treat beings as people, even if they turn out not to be.” Anthropomorphic gestures of this kind critically challenge assumptions of human exceptionalism and elevate the value of nonhuman life-forms, which in Novik’s novel includes the “heart trees” and magical creatures of the ever-expanding dark forest, whose reverse reclamation of human territories provides the principal antagonistic force of the narrative.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Peter Melville https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/159818 Review of Hot Equations: Science, Fantasy, and the Radical Imagination on a Troubled Planet 2025-03-13T12:57:04+02:00 Paula García-Rodríguez <p>Cohn, Jesse S. <em>Hot Equations: Science, Fantasy, and the Radical Imagination on a Troubled Planet</em>. University Press of Mississippi, 2024.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Paula García-Rodríguez https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/160595 Review of Animals and Science Fiction 2025-04-01T18:44:37+03:00 Megan Boothby <p>Castle, Nora, and Giulia Champion, editors. <em>Animals and Science Fiction</em>. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. ISBN: 978-3031416972.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Megan Boothby https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/161319 Review of Chinese Science Fiction: Concepts, Forms, and Histories 2025-04-28T19:03:53+03:00 Zichuan Gan <p>Song, Mingwei, Nathaniel Isaacson, and Hua Li, editors. <em>Chinese Science Fiction: Concepts, Forms, and Histories</em>. Springer International Publishing: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. ISBN: 9783031535413.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Zichuan Gan https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/157598 Review of Black Speculative Feminisms: Memory and Liberated Futures in Black Women’s Fiction 2025-03-05T18:51:09+02:00 Patricia Coloma Peñate <p>Jones, Cassandra L. <em>Black Speculative Feminisms: Memory and Liberated Futures in Black Women’s Fiction</em>. Ohio. Ohio State UP 2024.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Patricia Coloma Peñate https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/157055 Review of Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right 2025-02-15T12:26:11+02:00 Jaime Segura San Miguel <p>Carroll, Jordan S. <em>Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right</em>. Forerunners: Ideas First. University of Minnesota Press. 2024. ISBN: 9781517917081</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Jaime Segura San Miguel https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/156598 Review of Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood 2025-01-29T17:21:31+02:00 Maryem Ben Salem <p>Phillips, Leah. <em>Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood</em>. Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2023.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Maryem Ben Salem https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/160024 Review of The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien 2025-03-24T13:12:34+02:00 Paula Lobato Díez <p>Sherwood, Will, and Julian Eilmann (eds). <em>The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien</em>. Zurich and Jena, 2024 (Cormarë Series 51). ISBN 978-3-905703-51-1.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Paula Lobato Díez https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/156572 Review of J. R. R. Tolkien's Utopianism and the Classics 2025-01-29T17:48:05+02:00 James Hamby <p>Williams, Hamish.<em> J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics</em>. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. ISBN 978–1350241466.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 James Hamby https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/160753 Review of Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy 2025-04-20T22:40:11+03:00 Kristine Larsen <p>Bunting, Nancy, Seamus Hamill-Keays, and Toby Widdicombe. <em>Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy</em>. Walking Tree Publishers, 2024. ISBN: 978-3-905703-52-8.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Kristine Larsen https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/161360 Review of Mapping Middle-earth: Environmental and Political Narratives in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Cartographies 2025-04-29T17:09:43+03:00 David Brewer <p>Behrooz, Anahit.<em> Mapping Middle-earth: Environmental and Political Narratives in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Cartographies</em>. Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. ISBN: 9781350290808.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 David Brewer https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/159797 Review of Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy 2025-03-12T16:04:41+02:00 Rob Finnigan <p>Fimi, Dimitra, and Alistair J.P. Sims, editors. <em>Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy</em>. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. ISBN 9781350349995.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Rob Finnigan https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/156704 Review of Identifying Self through Society: A Socio-psychological Perspective of A Song of Ice and Fire 2025-02-01T17:48:20+02:00 Nicholas Wanberg <p>Dhantal, Smita. <em>Identifying Self through Society: A Socio-psychological Perspective of A Song of Ice and Fire</em>. Christ University, 2024.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Nicholas Wanberg https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/156641 Review of The Human Race Vs. the Minorities: Racism, anti-racism, and intelligent non-humans in the world architecture of speculative fiction 2025-01-30T19:50:47+02:00 Smita Dhantal <p>Wanberg, Nicholas. <em>The Human Race Vs. the Minorities: Racism, anti-racism, and intelligent non-humans in the world architecture of speculative fiction</em>. Tampere University, 2023. ISBN 978-952-03-2949-5.</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Smita Dhantal https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/163381 Satire in Egyptian Speculative Fiction 2025-07-20T23:30:52+03:00 Emad El-Din Aysha 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Emad El-Din Aysha https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/162745 Hengellisyys J. R. R. Tolkienin fantasiafiktiossa 2025-06-12T13:14:07+03:00 Jyrki Korpua 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Jyrki Korpua https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/163463 Call for Papers: Fafnir 1/2026 2025-07-29T18:17:01+03:00 Fafnir <p>Call for papers for <em>Fafnir</em> issue 1/2026</p> 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Fafnir https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/163278 The Cultural Work of Fantasy in the Anthropocene 2025-07-09T21:54:06+03:00 Marek Oziewicz 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Marek Oziewicz https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/163408 Editorial 1/2025 2025-07-24T18:16:39+03:00 Merve Tabur Elise Kraatila Jessica Norledge Jari Käkelä 2025-07-30T00:00:00+03:00 Copyright (c) 2025 Merve Tabur; Elise Kraatila, Jessica Norledge, Jari Käkelä