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Tue Dec 22
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KSR does hard Sci-fi very well, but holy ghost on a cracker, his ideas about government and economics are completely unrealistic. It's like he's good at realistic imagining anything so long as it doesn't involve a human brain. "Blue Mars" was like "Atlas Shrugged" from a parallel dimension, complete with garbled economic theory, utopianism, and soap-box soliloquies. Hopefully he checks those at the door in his next effort.
(Loved the Mars series, don't get me wrong. Just think that putting a bunch of Californians in a locked room with 6 ounces of weed and a copy of "Walden" is a terrible way to develop a system of government. . .)
The "Galileo's Dream" book is available in shops already, here in Australia at least. I've read it, and it is not good. Virtually unreadable. Galileo (the historical person) is written as a modern American, and the plot is incomprehensible. I liked the other books by Robinson, so I hope that Galileo was just a single misstep. Here's hoping...
@leftatmars002: Just to set things straight: Galileo's Dream is not part of the upcoming trilogy set in 2312. Also, the description of his being able to see into the future with a telescope is misleading. There is time travel to the 31st Century. I'll write more about this book later.
Might I say that the block quote says mankind has 'left' Earth not 'abandoned' Earth. Maybe man has abandoned Earth in 100 years in these books, but I'm guessing not. A nuclear-irradiated globally warmed hellhole Earth is still going to be more hospitable by and large than say, Mars for one. And that's our second best option!
@disatess: Heck, we can't even concentrate on making the Earth less hostile let alone Mars! It would be much easier (and cheaper) to "terraform" Earth by working to make it less toxic and greener. We can't even seem to agree that there's a problem. Good luck with getting the people that don't want to spend a dime on finding alternatives to the petroleum economy to agree to the billions it would cost to even get a single manned mission to Mars. I mean, I think we should ultimately terraform Mars as well, but mainly because the best way to heal the Earth would be to ship half its human population somewhere else.
The way we are going now I don't see too much space travel even in 300 years. P.K. Dick had it right in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". The only people that are going to leave the planet are the rich ones. Leaving the poor and middle class to fend for themselves.
@reddingofish: If it means that the people who run Wall Street get to go off and ruin their own planet with "financial devices" then more power to 'em.
@EdificeComplex: I'm conifdent they will build capitalist utopias, with no gods or kings, only man. After all, nothing could possibly go wrong with that, right?
In addition to science fiction I'm a huge fan of historical fiction. Put them both together and it's a win in my book. "Gallileo's Dream" sounds like it fits perfectly into that category. The only problem I see is that Amazon lists it as being released on Dec. 29. Why isn't this a pre-Christmas release publishers?
@daveNYC: Pfft - what did they ever discover except for the pythagorean theorem, displacement, the circumference of the Earth, the fact that the Earth is round and rotates on an axis, an understanding of planetary motion, heliocentricity, Euclidian geometry... Seriously, what science did the Ancient Greeks ever do?
Of course it's easier to write about a dystopia than a utopia. Dystopias are eminently believable, while trying to make a utopia seem like there's a chance in hell of it actually working is nigh-impossible.
-Kle. #kimstanleyrobinson
The funny thing about the Thomas More's Utopia is that the whole thing isn't what people think it is. It's very subtly satirical in places, and sometimes menacing. More's Utopia wasn't meant to be prescrptively perfect, but was meant to illustrate certain things about the world at large and human nature. Like Plato's Republic, or Dante's Paradise.
A great utopian fiction also covers all of the problems in society. But intellectually, subtly, subversively. It's not prescriptive except in the way that it teaches you how to look at the subtle currents in society as a whole, and examine the meanings in larger pictures.
Robinson is right that it's harder to do, but he doesn't fully get at why it's so much harder. Which is fair. He's an author, and author's don't study literature. #kimstanleyrobinson
Needless to say that I agree with you. Even worlds just tending towards utopia are a heavy work, though imho easier to build/use than "real" utopias because they still have to evolve.
25 years ago, two French writers, Michel Jeury & Philippe Curval, worked on an anthology of utopias short stories which was never published. But having talked with both writers, having read some of the stories written for this project, having myself written one, I'd like to say that the main idea, or feeling, that rose from this aborted project was that utopia could only be movement towards (unatainable ?) perfection, not stillness frozen in an eternal perfection. #kimstanleyrobinson
KSR has been getting a little preachy lately but I really like his stuff in general. he seems to be trying to right about how we got to the utopia in all his big works (Mars, 40/50/60, Rice and Salt) and that can certainly be an interesting story. #kimstanleyrobinson
Most science fiction I've read doesn't necessarily take place in a dystopia or a utopia but in some form of society that is pretty much somewhere in between.
Also there are science fiction stories where one civilization has spread out to include many cities, planets, or colonies where some are virtually utopias while others are very much dystopian factory worlds.
Also, a lot of stories I've read about utopian societies often suggest that there is something terribly wrong with the utopia at it's secret inner core or the author portrays a world where somehow people are no longer responsible for their own well being while still somehow retaining a great degree of personal freedom and growth while having almost no external challenges to overcome whatsoever. I think it'd be great if humanity could be so greatly self motivated but I imagine in such a world we'd look a lot like the fat people in WALL·E .
@strideo: Also, a lot of stories I've read about utopian societies often suggest that there is something terribly wrong with the utopia at it's secret inner core
I'm not trying to be snide here, but those are actually dystopian stories. They illustrate the abject failure of a utopian project. #kimstanleyrobinson
Another thing occurred to me though; not everyone's utopia would be the same now would it? What may seem like a blissful society to some may be felt as stifling and oppressive to others. #kimstanleyrobinson
@strideo: Well okay... I don't want to get into very elementary things about utopian fiction because we'll be here all day.
But in broad terms, Utopian fiction is a type of fiction in which although the project seems largely successful, underlying tensions and currents in the story and in the people involved reveal difficulties, fragilities, even subtle tyrannies in the structure. No Utopia is perfect. As a classical scholar More knew this well when he named his book. In Greek u topos means both "perfect place" and "no place". It's still a "good" place, but where you find difficulties in that "goodness" is where thought is provoked.
A dystopian book is the chronicle of the total failure of that kind project. An outright tyranny, or a miserable population, or one chemically controlled, etc. etc. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/24/09
(Loved the Mars series, don't get me wrong. Just think that putting a bunch of Californians in a locked room with 6 ounces of weed and a copy of "Walden" is a terrible way to develop a system of government. . .)
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Redqueenmeg beat me to the happy dance, dammit! I'm so unhappy!
However, I am also very happy about this.
11/24/09
*gonna go read all the KSR in her library now*
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and if we truly kept at for over 300 years ... we could make it a new planet for us .
but We humans can`t concentrate that long it seems .
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At the very least you've pissed of a large number of Greeks.
11/24/09
11/10/09
-Kle. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
A great utopian fiction also covers all of the problems in society. But intellectually, subtly, subversively. It's not prescriptive except in the way that it teaches you how to look at the subtle currents in society as a whole, and examine the meanings in larger pictures.
Robinson is right that it's harder to do, but he doesn't fully get at why it's so much harder. Which is fair. He's an author, and author's don't study literature. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
25 years ago, two French writers, Michel Jeury & Philippe Curval, worked on an anthology of utopias short stories which was never published. But having talked with both writers, having read some of the stories written for this project, having myself written one, I'd like to say that the main idea, or feeling, that rose from this aborted project was that utopia could only be movement towards (unatainable ?) perfection, not stillness frozen in an eternal perfection. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
11/09/09
+1, Kim. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
11/09/09
Also there are science fiction stories where one civilization has spread out to include many cities, planets, or colonies where some are virtually utopias while others are very much dystopian factory worlds.
Also, a lot of stories I've read about utopian societies often suggest that there is something terribly wrong with the utopia at it's secret inner core or the author portrays a world where somehow people are no longer responsible for their own well being while still somehow retaining a great degree of personal freedom and growth while having almost no external challenges to overcome whatsoever. I think it'd be great if humanity could be so greatly self motivated but I imagine in such a world we'd look a lot like the fat people in WALL·E .
11/10/09
I'm not trying to be snide here, but those are actually dystopian stories. They illustrate the abject failure of a utopian project. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
Another thing occurred to me though; not everyone's utopia would be the same now would it? What may seem like a blissful society to some may be felt as stifling and oppressive to others. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
But in broad terms, Utopian fiction is a type of fiction in which although the project seems largely successful, underlying tensions and currents in the story and in the people involved reveal difficulties, fragilities, even subtle tyrannies in the structure. No Utopia is perfect. As a classical scholar More knew this well when he named his book. In Greek u topos means both "perfect place" and "no place". It's still a "good" place, but where you find difficulties in that "goodness" is where thought is provoked.
A dystopian book is the chronicle of the total failure of that kind project. An outright tyranny, or a miserable population, or one chemically controlled, etc. etc. #kimstanleyrobinson