In my “Critical Approaches to Sci-Fi” course, students analyze science fiction in depth, examining not just how the genre has been defined across different historical moments but also who has had the authority to define it. We analyze the power structures embedded in science fiction, investigating both its capacity to reproduce dominant ideologies and its potential for resistance. One of the approaches we take is considering the role of readers—the ways their beliefs, ideologies, and lived experiences shape their understanding of the genre and their sense of belonging within its narratives. Science fiction, in this sense, serves as a cultural battleground where questions of identity, power, and futurity are constantly negotiated. 

Jordan S. Carroll’s Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right contributes to this critical conversation by interrogating the ways in which white nationalist movements have long engaged with speculative fiction. As David Higgins has argued, science fiction is not inherently progressive; rather, its speculative possibilities contain a dual potential. While some narratives envision radical social change, others function as tools of reaction, reinforcing exclusionary myths of empire, racial hierarchy, and white supremacy. Carroll extends this critique by demonstrating how the alt-right has not simply appropriated science fiction but has actively shaped its discourse, using the genre to articulate and justify its racialized vision of the future.

Carroll begins with a striking historical example: the first major neo-Nazi party in the United States was founded by a science fiction fan, James H. Madole. Madole envisioned a future in which nonwhite populations were eradicated, allowing white Americans to reclaim their supposed technological destiny. While Madole’s vision is an extreme case, Carroll argues that it reflects deeper currents within science fiction fandom, where the idea of a hyper-intelligent, future-oriented elite has often been racialized. Science fiction, he contends, has served as more than just a pop culture reference point for fascist movements—it has been instrumental in shaping their ideological frameworks. A key concept in Carroll’s analysis is ‘metapolitics,’ the idea that political change begins with cultural transformation. White supremacists have long used popular culture to propagate their views—from The Birth of a Nation to Nazi propaganda films and white power music. The alt-right continues this tradition by treating speculative fiction as a form of ideological world-building. British fascist Jonathan Bowden, for instance, saw science fiction as a vehicle for rejecting egalitarianism and reasserting white dominance. 

Carroll argues that science fiction’s inherent ‘speculative indeterminacy’—its capacity to function as warning, blueprint, or counterfactual—has allowed the alt-right to interpret it as a directive rather than an open-ended exploration. For the alt-right, science fiction dictates the necessity of white supremacy; it is not merely a reflection of the present but a mandate for the future. Carroll introduces the concept of ‘speculative whiteness’ to describe an ideological framework that underpins these readings. This framework operates through a series of myths: that white people have a unique aptitude for speculation, that nonwhite populations lack this capacity, and that speculative genres inherently belong to white creators and audiences. These ideas have been weaponized in online culture wars, where white supremacists protest diverse casting in science fiction media, arguing that speculative futures should remain the domain of whiteness.

In the first of this book’s two chapters, “Invaders from the Future,” Carroll examines how science fiction has reinforced the notion that some people are biologically predisposed toward future-oriented thinking. Carroll traces this idea through both libertarian and fascist thought, highlighting how white elites in speculative fiction are often depicted as evolutionary mutants or posthuman beings besieged by an inferior majority. He connects this to a broader history of scientific racism, particularly the concept of ‘time preference,’ which claims that some racial groups are inherently more capable of long-term planning than others. Carroll illustrates how science fiction has frequently divided the world into those who have a future and those who are trapped in the past, positioning whiteness as the engine of progress while relegating nonwhite people to stagnation or decline. 

Chapter Two, “Whitey on the Moon,” explores the racial politics of space exploration in science fiction. Carroll examines how the alt-right and its predecessors have framed interstellar colonization as an extension of European settler-colonialism, casting white masculinity as the driving force behind humanity’s expansion into the cosmos. He engages with De Witt Douglas Kilgore’s analysis of space narratives as continuations of Manifest Destiny, arguing that these stories reinforce the idea that only white men possess the courage and vision to push civilization forward. Carroll critiques this reactionary vision by contrasting it with science fiction that challenges deterministic notions of history and progress. He highlights Star Trek as an example of a narrative that, despite its flaws, gestures toward a more inclusive and contingent future, one in which social structures are mutable rather than preordained.

In his conclusion, Carroll turns to contemporary anti-fascist speculative fiction, arguing that science fiction has become a key site of resistance in the wake of the Trump era. He notes the resurgence of interest in dystopian narratives such as The Handmaid’s Tale and the emergence of explicitly anti-racist speculative works. One of his most effective examples is Chuck Tingle’s absurdist sci-fi erotica, which he describes as a radical counterpoint to fascist temporality. Tingle’s multiverse narratives, in which reality shifts to accommodate queer utopian desire, disrupt the rigid, deterministic logic of white supremacist science fiction. Carroll suggests that these kinds of imaginative interventions are crucial in challenging speculative whiteness, offering alternative visions of the future that refuse the inevitability of fascist domination. 

While Speculative Whiteness is a powerful and necessary critique, its brevity leaves some areas underdeveloped. The conclusion, in particular, could be expanded into a full chapter, providing a more extensive engagement with anti-racist science fiction that counters the reactionary narratives Carroll analyzes. Despite this, the book makes a significant, and very timely, contribution to scholarship on science fiction, race, and political ideology. It will be of interest to scholars in American studies, cultural studies, race studies, and science fiction studies, offering a crucial framework for understanding the genre’s contested role in shaping the politics of the future.