Abstract
Bruce Clarke explores Slonczewski’s Elysium Cycle through the idea of the posthuman comedy introduced by literary critic Mark McGurl. The reading proceeds in two phases. The first constructs the narrative fabula of the Elysium Cycle and discerns in that sequence a recurrent story event—the tribulations of establishing successful communication among different orders of beings. The second unfolds that mode of event by examining the arrival of intellectual microbes in the latter half of the Elysium Cycle. In contrast with Greg Bear’s Blood Music, these novels painstakingly and plausibly develop the efforts of micros and humans alike to communicate across ontological chasms. These instances point the posthuman comedy toward a goal of coexistence leading to merger through ecological and biopolitical integration.
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Clarke, B. (2020). Posthuman Narration in the Elysium Cycle. In: Clarke, B. (eds) Posthuman Biopolitics. Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36486-1_2
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