Comments on: Farmer In The Sky

By: Claire L. Evans

Claire L. Evans — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:01:23 +0000

Robert, I think a postcolonialist reading of Heinlein is a tiny bit of a stretch, honestly, as Farmer in the Sky has an Andre Norton-esque gee-whiz innocence to it, something I call "Radio Flyer sci-fi." But who knows? Heinlein was a weird, smart, fucked-up guy and even his children's tomes have something sinister about them -- the thing about the ruins of a previous Ganymedian civilization is almost perverse (kids cutting their feet while plunging deeply into a dark inhospitable cave [ahem], finding inscrutable artifacts); it's tacked-on to the end of a fairly standard pioneer tale as if to remind the readers that nothing is without implications, nothing is unsoiled in a colonial situation. That said, it also kind of humanizes the whole "barren rock" notion of extraterrestrial colonies. Is that weird? That a colonizer/colonized dialectic is somehow comforting, maybe necessary, in a story like this? Like a place isn't a place worthy of plundering unless someone lived and died there before you?Greg, I haven't read the Altered Carbon series. I will, thanks for the recommendation. I love the idea of alien ruins; my first ever science fiction book was Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, which is kind of a primer on sci-fi tropes, and it uses the idea to great (and lasting) effect.

By: Greg Borenstein

Greg Borenstein — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:27:36 +0000

Claire, have you read the Richard K. Morgan Altered Carbon series? They have a great conceit of there having been an incredibly advanced Martian civilization that vanished before humans made it to the other planets. Our colonies are haunted by incomprehensible Martian artifacts and there are changing theories and arguments about how the Martians actually lived, some of which have consequences in terms of tech transfer and political theory.The other sci-fi this reminded me of is PK Dick's Martian Time-Slip. That's another frontier narrative, but the barely established human colony on a foreign world is more like a suburb than a mythical western town -- the suburbs being the 50s and 60s version of the frontier. Dick's suburbs are, of course, filled with mental illness, disturbing simulacra, and a general sense of epistemological unease.This quote of Geoff Manaugh's about JG Ballard applies, I think, equally well to Dick's take on suburban life:"It’s hard to say whether Ballard has actually contributed anything — perhaps a deranged enthusiasm for all things suburban? Maybe it’s more accurate to say that he’s taken something away: the naive belief that modernity leads to anything other than sexual deviance and violent nationalism or corporate sociopathology. Though I feel like a member of the Taliban, saying something like that. Ballard, we can’t forget, is perhaps suburbia’s biggest fan — not because he likes father-son bonding and family picnics and a good barbecue but because everyone comes out of there completely insane?"

By: robert

robert — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:31:58 +0000

cogent and insightful, as are all of the postings on this blog.i think you’ve touched on something really nice here. it hadn’t occured to me to read science fiction in a postcolonialist framework, but it makes perfect sense. if space colonies are a typical figure in sci-fi then why not apply postcolonialist theory? most postcolonialist theory holds that imperialism is justified through the colonizers feminization of the colonized. more specifically, postcolonialism suggests that the cultural artifacts of the colonizer embody the inextricability of masculninity and empire. when an empire reaches its zenith–england at the close of the nineteenth century, america during the cold war or under “w”–it belies a preoccupation with safegaurding the “maleness” of the members of its own society. it’s a self-preservation mechanism on the part of the colonizer–by gaurding the literal bodies of its members it ossifies the integrity of the social/political body. what kind of gender implications shine through in farmer in the sky? does the novel figure the colonized planet as something to be exploited? does the “boy scout” hero exhibit any kind of gender anxety? if the remnants of the civilization the hero finds are represented in repressive terms then i think this would be evidence that the text fits into this way of reading imperialist artifacts. but if the hero is portrayed as an anomaly or misfit within his own imperialist culture, then he could be said to be acting in unconscious collusion with the ideological aims of the colonizer. or, if the remains of the civilization the hero uncovers evoke his own culture, it could simply suggest the futility of any imperialist endeavor. i love that you’re posting pictures of 80s mass market papberback editions of these novels! and thanks for introducing a jaded reader to samuel delany. holy shit! did you know he grew up in the second floor of a funeral home? in harlem?robert