'Forget the Twentieth Century': Dystopia and Regression in Julian Comstock

Robert Charles Wilson's 2009 novel Julian Comstock is set in a 22nd century America which has suffered the collapse of the cheap oil economy, a widespread population die-off and a resulting resurgence in fundamentalist Christanity. Superficially, this places the novel within a lineage of postapocalyptic SF which posits the onset of theocratic fascism. In this article, however, I argue that, due to its complex narratology which conflates dystopia and regression, Julian Comstock
may challenge received understandings of the entire SF genre.