Comparison between Zoline's heat death of the universe and Calvino's cosmicomics There is a fundamental dilemma that, presumably, every person faces when they begin to develop an understanding of one's existence and identity that is something like, "What am I? Who am I? Where am I?" These questions are nearly identical because each addresses the same essential metaphysical question of identity: "How and why am I; why do I exist; what am I? What is the origin of the self? Where am I going?" The answers to these difficult questions, whether intellectually satisfying or not, come in the form of cosmologies. Cosmologies create systems by which we understand the existence of the phenomenal world and our own existence within it. They offer us a map, a concept of our existence, they tell us why we are here, where we are and, very often, where we are going. Of course, the most pervasive cosmologies are directly linked to particular religions, since religions are based on the same questions: identity, origin, purpose, structure. However, this is not the area of ​​inquiry I wish to pursue here, rather, I am interested in how the genre of science fiction creates, or recreates, cosmologies with which we might understand the universe and our individual meaning within it. How does science fiction create linguistic models of the cosmos, and what are the foundations of such cosmologies? If cosmological representations are created so that we can understand reality, in some sense, how is this done, and what questions do these cosmologies pose to their disciples? I will examine two works in particular for this investigation, Italo Calvino's cycle of stories, Cosmicomics, and Pamela Zoline's story, "The Heat Death of the Universe". I have chosen to focus my attention in... middle of paper... osmos may be infinitely vast and fantastic, but it is also as familiar to yourself as you are. Sources Cited Aldridge, Alexandra. The scientific worldview in dystopia. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1984.Calvino, Italo. Cosmicomics. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968.Hume, Kathryn. "Science and Imagination in Calvino's Cosmicomics" Mosaico: journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature. Winnipeg: Univ. of Manitoba, (34:1) 2001.Lefanu, Sarah. In the cracks of the machine of the world. Feminism and science fiction. London: The Women's Press, 1988. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphosis of science fiction: on the poetics and history of a literary genre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Zoline, Pamela. "The heat death of the universe." 1967. The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories. Kingston, New York: McPherson & Co., 1988.