Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research
https://fafnir.journal.fi/
<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>Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (Suomen science fiction- ja fantasiatutkimuksen seura ry)en-USFafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research2342-2009<p><span lang="EN-US">Content in <em>Fafnir </em>is licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License</a> (CC BY-NC 3.0).</span></p> <p><span lang="EN">Beginning in November 2019, authors retain full copyright without restrictions. By publishing with <em>Fafnir</em>, authors grant a non-exclusive license to <em>Fafnir</em> to distribute the publisher’s version of the work, and give <em>Fafnir</em> permission to grant reprint and/or translation requests in accordance with our open-access policy and our Creative Commons license.</span></p> <p><span lang="EN">Prior to November 2019, copyright for all published material is held by <em>Fafnir</em>, but authors have full permission to use their work as they wish (i.e., self-archiving, reprint requests, using for other projects, etc.).</span></p> <p><span lang="EN">In both cases, re-use or re-posting of material published in <em>Fafnir </em>must acknowledge original publication and include a link to the publisher version.</span></p>Conference Report: SFRA 2024
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155817
<p>Report on the SFRA 2024: Transitions conference.</p>Essi Varis
Copyright (c) 2024 Essi Varis
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202471–7671–76Interview with Nicolas Lietzau
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155825
<p>Interview with game developer and writer Nicolas Lietzau.</p>Evgenia AmeyGarrett Moore
Copyright (c) 2024 Evgenia Amey, Garrett “Wereyoi” Moore
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202477–8677–86Technonaturalist Speculative Fiction and Literary Affordance
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155865
<p><em>Lectio praecursoria</em>: Technonaturalist Speculative Fiction and Literary Affordance</p>Esko Suoranta
Copyright (c) 2024 Esko Suoranta
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202487–9287–92Call for Papers: Fafnir 2/2025
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/156057
<p>Call for papers for <em>Fafnir</em> issue 2/2025</p>Fafnir
Copyright (c) 2024 Fafnir
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024132132Science Fiction, The Future, and Now
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/156305
<p>Prefatory by Susan Mandala.</p>Susan Mandala
Copyright (c) 2024 Susan Mandala
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/20249–129–12Review of Space(s) of the Fantastic – A 21st Century Manifesto
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155595
<p>Punter, David and C. Bruna Mancini, editors. <em data-stringify-type="italic">Space(s) of the Fantastic – A 21st Century Manifesto</em>. Routledge Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780367681692.</p>Karl Bell
Copyright (c) 2024 Karl Bell
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202493–9693–96Review of Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155596
<p>Yoshinaga, Ida, Sean Guynes, and Gerry Canavan, editors. <em>Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction</em>. The MIT Press, 2022. ISBN: 978-0262543941.</p>Jeremy Brett
Copyright (c) 2024 Jeremy Brett
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202497–10097–100Review of The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155597
<p>Barbini, Francesca T., editor. <em>The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction</em>. Luna Press Publishing, 2018. ISBN- 978-1-911143-51-2.</p>Ananya BuragohainLakshminath Kagyung
Copyright (c) 2024 Ananya Buragohain, Lakshminath Kagyung
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024101–104101–104Review of The Rise of the Cyberzines
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155598
<p>Ashley, Mike. <em>The Rise of the Cyberzines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1991 to 2020</em>. The History of the Science-Fiction Magazines Volume V. 2022. 444 pages. ISBN 978-180085648.</p>Sabina Fazli
Copyright (c) 2024 Sabina Fazli
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024105–108105–108Review of Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155738
<p>Rosegrant, John. <em>Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey</em>. The Kent State UP, 2022. ISBN 978-1-60635-435-3.</p>Carol Franko
Copyright (c) 2024 Carol Franko
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024109–112109–112Review of Science Fiction Cinema in the Twenty-First Century
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155599
<p>Gómez-Muñoz, Pablo. <em>Science Fiction Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Transnational Futures, Cosmopolitan Concerns</em>. Routledge, 2023. ISBN: 9780367759063.</p>Aino-Kaisa Koistinen
Copyright (c) 2024 Aino-Kaisa Koistinen
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024113–116113–116Review of Gendered Defenders: Marvel’s Heroines in Transmedia Spaces
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155600
<p>Carr, Bryan J. and Meta G. Carstarphen, editors. <em>Gendered Defenders: Marvel’s Heroines in Transmedia Spaces</em>. Ohio State University Press, 2022. ISBN: 978-0-8142-5852-1.</p>C. Palmer-Patel
Copyright (c) 2024 C. Palmer-Patel
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024117–120117–120Review of Vision, Technology, and Subjectivity in Mexican Cyberpunk Literature
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155813
<p>Tobin, Stephen C. <em>Vision, Technology, and Subjectivity in Mexican Cyberpunk Literature</em>. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. ISBN 978-3-031-31155-0.</p>Michael Pitts
Copyright (c) 2024 Michael Pitts
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024121–123121–123Review of Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fiction: Amazing Antiquity
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155601
<p>Clare, Ross. <em>Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fiction: Amazing Antiquity</em>. Liverpool UP, 2022. ISBN: 978-180085-631-8.</p>Noah Slowik
Copyright (c) 2024 Noah Slowik
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024124–127124–127Review of Self-Reflective Fiction and 4E Cognition
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155605
<p>Polvinen, Merja. <em>Self-Reflective Fiction and 4E Cognition</em>. Routledge, 2023. ISBN 9781032263748.</p>Essi Varis
Copyright (c) 2024 Essi Varis
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/2024128–131128–131From Middle-earth to Duckburg, Worlds of Fantastic Mythmaking and Mythbreaking
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155824
<p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-US">Guest of Honour Speech, Finncon 2024. Jyväskylä, Finland. July 6, 2024. Keynote to Finncon Academic Track: “Worlds”.</span></p>Jyrki Korpua
Copyright (c) 2024 Jyrki Korpua
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202463–7063–70Ant Similes in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – an Analysis of Literary Technologies
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155861
<p>This article investigates the use of similes in J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing as literary-technological design that partakes in traditional means for narrative meaning-making repurposed for his fantasy in <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>. I argue that by focusing intensely on these features in Tolkien’s textual design, it is possible to support ongoing scholarship on the literary influences and sources of Tolkien’s legendarium with a less directly comparative method. This approach can illuminate, on one hand, Tolkien’s strategies in deploying traditional literary technologies, and on the other hand, the purposive redesign of these technologies for the specific storytelling needs of his fantasy writing. My analysis focuses on a series of similes in <em>The Lord of the Rings</em> that compare orcs to ants, showing that the similes are applied with a consistent overall strategy that highlights an important thematic strand in Tolkien’s legendarium. Through this analysis, I demonstrate how the adaptive use of similes exemplifies the idea of purposive design. On a more interpretive level, I explore the functional envelope of the simile as a narrative technology, and its implications for meaning-making within Tolkien’s storyworld and beyond.</p>Juha-Pekka Alarauhio
Copyright (c) 2024 Juha-Pekka Alarauhio
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202413–3013–30SF Estrangement in Literary Translation
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155675
<p>This study analyzes the translation of neologies in the literary translation of the science fiction (SF) novel <em>Dune</em> (1965). As one of the most important linguistic elements in SF, neologies contribute to the worldbuilding of SF and create the estrangement from reality that is characteristic of the SF genre. Evaluating the translation of neologies is hence used as a tool to evaluate the transfer of the source text’s (ST) estranging properties to the target text (TT). When the ST’s neological estrangement is retained as a genre-specific feature of SF in the TT, the ST estrangement becomes accessible also for the TT reader. The study reveals that the translation has predominantly retained neologies, thus retaining the neological estrangement of the ST in the TT. The material of the study consists of the neologies in Frank Herbert’s <em>Dune</em> and its Finnish translation <em>Dyyni</em> (2021 [1982]), which were analyzed to determine whether they retain or recreate SF estrangement.</p>Suvi Korpi
Copyright (c) 2024 Suvi Korpi
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202431–4531–45Ice and Ecotrauma in Isaac Asimov’s “The Martian Way”
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/156064
<p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-US">This article examines Isaac Asimov’s novella “The Martian Way” (1952) as a work that exposes the entanglements of the trauma of the environment with the ecological trauma of the humans. The narrative re-envisions the Cold War energy crisis for a future era and visualizes the pursuit of hydropower as the appropriation of one of the ice fragments of Saturn’s rings. In doing so, it problematizes space mining and the traumatization of the environment. I examine the infliction of varied forms of violence on ice in “The Martian Way” and underscore human blindness to nonliving or inorganic matter. This analysis of the novella also focuses on how human characters suffer the consequences of their own violence on the environment they transform. Mobilizing the concept of ecotrauma, I demonstrate that the ice in “The Martian’s Way” agentially responds to anthropogenic violence. This article contributes to ecocritical discussions on the ethical mattering of inorganic matter such as water. My analysis encourages thinking beyond a singular species and necessitates a critical environmental perspective that includes nonliving entities within the domain of ethical mattering and thus moves beyond life-centered environmental worldviews.</span></p>Faeze Rezaii
Copyright (c) 2024 Faeze Rezaii
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/202446–6246–62Editorial 1–2/2024
https://fafnir.journal.fi/article/view/155979
<p>Editorial for issue 1–2/2024.</p>Elizabeth OakesMerve TaburElise KraatilaJari Käkelä
Copyright (c) 2024 Elizabeth Oakes, Merve Tabur, Elise Kraatila, Jari Käkelä
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2025-01-212025-01-21111–2/20246–86–8