Investigating Battlestar Galactica
Flesh, Spirit, and Steel
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Average rating3
15
Flesh, Spirit, and Steel
Ratings1
Average rating3
"The West Wing" or "Generation Kill" in Space? A show about God-fearing sex-obsessed robots? Or a complex meditation on fate, dreaming and eternal recurrence? Of all recent television science fiction series, the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" is the most highly praised and consistently inventive and intelligent. Where the original show was a straightforward space opera, the new one is rich, strange and above all unpredictable. This book covers the new "Battlestar Galactica" from beginning to end, covering all of the show's principal themes from the depiction of sexuality in an era of artificial people and downloaded memories to what it means to be a member of a military organization when the stakes are not victory or defeat but survival. Like all the best shows about the future or the past - we are never sure when all this is supposed to be happening - "Battlestar Galactica" is a series about the present; chapters here cover its depiction of the post-9.11 world and such issues as abortion and worker's rights. This definitive book on the full new "Battlestar Galactica" also includes an interview with Jane Espenson, co-executive producer of the show's last seasons and writer/director of the "Battlestar Galactica" prequel film "The Plan", with a complete episode guide.
Reviews with the most likes.
All of this has happened before and it will happen again. Someone already wrote in here: this book is amazingly uneven.
There are some AMAZING essays around here, mixed with some that does not have the same analytical sophistication.
I still do not like the introduction and the final chapter. I think if you don't like the show or, if you want to criticize this BSG in a collection of academic essays like this, you have to do a better intellectual investment than just pouring out you didn't like the show just because it ended badly.
I didn't like the end of BSG and I agree with the editors in all of their statements, but I think these articles (and that one by Ryman) are kind of out of place. But I MUST point out those essays that I did love. Here they are:
“Frak Me Reproduction, Gender, Sexuality”, by LORNA JOWETT;
“Real-imagining Terror in Battlestar Galactica Negotiating Real and Fantasy in Battlestar Galactica's Political Metaphor”, by STEVEN RAWLE;
“Butch Girls, Brittle Boys and Sexy, Sexless Cylons Some Gender Problems in Battlestar Galactica”, by MATTHEW JONES;
“Sci-Fi Ghettos Battlestar Galactica and Genre Aesthetics”, by SÉRGIO DIAS BRANCO
I believe if you like BSG and you want to read something interesting about the show, you should read this collection of essays I pointed out. It's a nice book.
