Atmospheres and science fiction

This article proposes to read science fiction through the lens of atmosphere. Atmospheres, of course, have gained increased critical interest in recent years, most noticeably in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s monograph Atmosphere, Mood, Stimmung, but also cognitivists like Peter Stockwell has discussed the use of atmosphere in literary studies. By turning to mood and atmosphere as ways of understanding and analyzing how science fiction worlds are realized, I am interested in the way that readers realize worlds on the basis of what Robert Sinnerbrink calls the “qualitative characteristics” of a world. The interest comes from a desire to shift away from sequential cognitive cues and into a far more environmentally oriented notion of how aesthetic worlds are produced and received. I discuss how aesthetic worlds are produced through an analysis of Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire’s Injection.