Of surviving humans and apocalyptic machines: Studying the themes of human continuity and posthuman proliferation in the post-apocalyptic world building in Alastair Reynolds’s inhibitor phase

Indrajit Patra

doi:10.21744/lingcure.v5nS3.1645

Authors

Indrajit Patra An Independent Researcher and an Ex Research Scholar at NIT Durgapur, India

Keywords:

critical posthumanism, hard science fiction, new materialism, post-anthropocentrism, post-apocalyptic, revelation space universe, sentient machines, space opera, speculative fiction

Abstract

The article aims to critically examine the roles of humanity and posthumanity in Alastair Reynolds’s post-apocalyptic space opera Inhibitor Phase (2021). The study endeavours to show how in this post-apocalyptic and posthuman space opera, humanity emerges as the key player in determining the fate of the galaxy or even universe at large. In Reynolds’s masterfully crafted post-apocalyptic universe, is it not pure technological advancement sans human concern but basic human bonding that appears to be the determining factor when it comes to saving the final remains of the human or posthuman civilizations from the clutches of the nightmarish machines. It is by reassembling and regrouping the fragmented and isolated communities of survivors that mankind seeks to defeat a virtually unconquerable foe. In the process, the article also strives to show how the novel expands and extends the very scope of humanity and its definition and how through a fusion of posthumanism and post-anthropocentrism the agency and animacy of non-human entities also get redefined and redistributed. For the purpose of a theoretically enriched textual analysis, the author has adopted some important theoretical viewpoints from such thinkers as Rosi Braidotti, Deleuze and Guattari, Jane Bennett, Karen Barad and Gordon Coonfield.

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