Writer and ARTMargins' editor Raino Isto talks about monuments in science-fiction, referring to his groundbreaking essay "In the Valley of Time Tombs" recently published in "Science Fiction Studies," in which we learn about the symbolic and poetic power of monuments in SF: what do they represent? A riddle? A gate to another dimension? A testimony of an unknown civilization? An alien weapon? From this mental wandering, we come back to reality to discuss the problematic case of Confederate monuments.
References include H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine" (1895), H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (1936), Jack McDevitt's "The Engines of God" (1994), Robert Charles Wilson's "The Chronoliths" (2001). All music: (c) High Sci-Fi, except intro and outro: (c) Isao Tomita "Clair de Lune" (1974), and score excerpt from "First and Last Men" (2020) by Jóhann Jóhannsson's, read by Tilda Swinton.