Gothic science fiction

Gothic science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that, as the name suggests, also involves gothic conventions.

Some of the more obvious examples of the subgenre feature vampires explained in a science fiction context, commonly that vampires are alien or those infected by a disease as in (Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend), or products of parallel evolution (George R. R. Martin's novel Fevre Dream) or in (Kate Nevermore's novel Blood of the Living). Some feature entire planets of vampires, or vampire-like creatures (such as the comic book Vampirella).

In his history of science fiction, Billion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss contends that science fiction itself is an outgrowth of gothic fiction-- pointing to Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein as an example."cience fiction is the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science) and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mode."Originally published in Billion Year Spree (1973); The blend can also be detected quite explicitly in Jules Verne's novel Le Château des Carpathes.

Other examples of the subgenre feature other traditionally gothic tropes in new settings, such as:

• Damsels in distress in faraway future
• Gothic planetary romance
• Gothic futuristic romance

References

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