Out Of This World

I had the recent pleasure of attending the opening day of the British Library’s new exhibition, Out Of This World: Science Fiction Not As We Know It.

As one would expect from the constantly elegant and self-affirming institution, the exhibition, despite being incredibly busy (and at times laid out with strange chokepoints where no-one could get past and one was confronted with the strange sight of people queuing to learn) was phenomenal. I think people often come to the BL exhibitions expected a more image-driven approach. You will read if you visit. A lot. And, to be fair, look at some pictures, but mainly you will be reading. Do not worry; we’ll do it together, in our heads.

From early Greek speculative map-making to the frankly wonderous home-made maps created by the Bronte sisters and their shadowy brother Branwell (at least shadowy in the public conciousness), the exhibition not only thoroughly schooled me on a subject of which I considered myself an expert, but served to swell my Amazon list to Liliputian proportions. 

The Bronte maps held a special resonance for me, perhaps because I am currently invested in dressing my own imaginary world in the meat and bones of culture, literature, ersatz religion and character for my Dungeons and Dragons campaign (to feature in a future post). The idea that they carried on this trend into adulthood is, at first, I am shamed to say, laughable, and then, having caught sight of a blued and tense version of myself in the plastic of the display cabinets I felt a certain something wonderful.

The exhibition runs until 25th September, and is free, of course. The link to the website resides here.