Carl Abbott is Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University and the author of Imagining Urban Futures: Cities in Science Fiction and What We Might Learn from Them. Other publications include Frontiers Past and Future: Science Fiction and the American West (2006); Imagined Frontiers (2015), which includes essays on Kim Stanley Robinson and on Firefly; and prize-winning books on the history of American cities and the American West.
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLES
Pasadena on Her Mind: Octavia E. Butler Reimagines Her Hometown
The ways Octavia Butler depicted Pasadena offer a window into her own thinking, but also into the power of race and class in the city that shaped that life....
“Islandia” and the Dangers of Globalization
Carl Abbott on the politics of utopia in Austin Tappan Wright’s “Islandia.”...
Beyond Blade Runner: Community in Cities of the Future
Carl Abbott on what science fiction can tell us not only about the city of tomorrow, but also today....
J. G. Ballard’s “High-Rise”: When We Feared Skyscraper Living
Twentieth-century fears of overpopulation are alive and well in “High-Rise,” J. G. Ballard’s classic science fiction novel and its 2016 film adaptation....
