Terraforming: Ecopolitical Transformations and Environmentalism in Science Fiction

263 Pages·2016·1.74 MB·English

by  Chris Pak

Terraforming
Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies, 55
Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies
Editor David Seed, University of Liverpool
Editorial Board
mark Bould, University of the West of England
Veronica Hollinger, Trent University
rob Latham, University of California
roger Luckhurst, Birkbeck College, University of London
Patrick Parrinder, University of Reading
andy Sawyer, University of Liverpool
Recent titles in the series
30. mike ashley Transformations: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazine
from 1950–1970
31. Joanna russ The Country You Have Never Seen: Essays and Reviews
32. robert Philmus Visions and Revisions: (Re)constructing Science Fiction
33. gene Wolfe (edited and introduced by Peter Wright) Shadows of the
New Sun: Wolfe on Writing/Writers on Wolfe
34. mike ashley Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazine
from 1970–1980
35. Patricia Kerslake Science Fiction and Empire
36. Keith Williams H. G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies
37. Wendy gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger and Joan gordon (eds.) Queer
Universes: Sexualities and Science Fiction
38. John Wyndham (eds. David Ketterer and andy Sawyer) Plan for Chaos
39. Sherryl Vint Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal
40. Paul Williams Race, Ethnicity and Nuclear War: Representations of Nuclear
Weapons and Post-Apocalyptic Worlds
41. Sara Wasson and emily alder, Gothic Science Fiction 1980–2010
42. David Seed (ed.), Future Wars: The Anticipations and the Fears
43. andrew m. Butler, Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s
44. andrew milner, Locating Science Fiction
45. Joshua raulerson, Singularities
46. Stanislaw Lem: Selected Letters to Michael Kandel (edited, translated and
with an introduction by Peter Swirski)
47. Sonja fritzsche, The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film
48. Jack fennel: Irish Science Fiction
49. Peter Swirski and Waclaw m. osadnik: Lemography: Stanislaw Lem in
the Eyes of the World
50. gavin Parkinson (ed.), Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics
51. Peter Swirski, Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future
52. J. P. Telotte and gerald Duchovnay, Science Fiction Double Feature:
The Science Fiction Film as Cult Text
53. Tom Shippey, Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction
54. mike ashley, Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction
Magazines from 1981 to 1990
Terraforming
ecopolitical Transformations
and environmentalism
in Science fiction
CHriS PaK
L i V e r P ooL U n i V e r Si T Y Pr eSS
first published 2016 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZU
Copyright © 2016 Chris Pak
The right of Chris Pak to be identiied as the author of this book
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents act 1988.
all rights reserved. no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
a British Library CiP record is available
print iSBn 978-1-78138-284-4 cased
epdf iSBn 978-1-7813-845-4-1
Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster
for irene, alex, and Dennis
Contents
Contents
acknowledgements ix
introduction: Terraforming: engineering imaginary environments 1
Shaping earth and the Solar System 3
Sf as environmental Literature 5
a Disciplined Thought experiment: Landscaping, Sf, and
Teraforming 8
The Lay of the Land 12
1: Landscaping nature’s otherness in Pre-1960s Terraforming
and Proto-gaian Stories 18
Terraforming as a Site for environmental Philosophical
relection 19
The War on nature in Wells’s The Shape of Things to Come
and John russell fearn’s ‘earth’s mausoleum’ 21
nature’s otherness and Terraforming in Stapledon’s Last
and First Men and Star Maker 28
Deism and Teleology in Stapledon’s essays of myth
Creation 32
Pre-1940s Proto-gaian Living Worlds 38
Proto-gaian Scientiic romance: m.P. Shiel’s The Purple
Cloud and Sir arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘When the World
Screamed’ 39
The Pulp Sf Proto-gaian Cluster 45
The Decline of the Living World motif in 1950s american
Pulp Sf 53
2: The american Pastoral and the Conquest of Space 56
The garden of the World in early 1950s Terraforming Stories 61
vii
viii Terraforming
The Burden of Hope in the garden of the Chattel: 1950s
Consensus Dystopias 78
moral extensionism in Terraforming Stories of the Late
1950s and early 1960s 89
3: ecology and environmental awareness in 1960s–1970s
Terraforming Stories 98
1960s–1970s Proto-gaian Living Worlds 102
Terragouging: Time and the forest 112
Terraforming in the 1960s–1970s 116
Terraforming and ecopolitics in the Dune Sequence 117
The garden in Dune 122
robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress 125
Ursula K. Le guin’s The Disposesed 128
ernest Calenbach’s Ecotopia 134
4: edging Towards an eco-cosmopolitan Vision 137
Building Critical Spaces: Pamela Sargent’s Venus Trilogy 143
Domes on Venus: Chronotopes of enclosure 146
The Pastoral in Pamela Sargent’s Venus Trilogy 151
frederick Turner’s Genesis: An Epic Poem 159
5: Kim Stanley robinson’s Mars Trilogy 168
gardens on mars 172
‘Stepping Back’ 174
Visions relected Back to earth 182
Closed Life-Support Systems, Soil, and Cybernetics 185
eco-economics and the Landscape as mirror 189
Science and nature 196
on martian myths 200
Conclusion 204
Coda 219
Works Cited 223
Primary Works Cited 223
Secondary Works Cited 227
index 235
acknowledgements
acknowledgements
This book grew out of research conducted at the Department of english
at the University of Liverpool. i owe a special thanks to andy Sawyer
for his mentorship, and for introducing me to the academic study of
science iction. The staff at the Special Collections and archives at the
University of Liverpool’s Sydney Jones Library also deserve a thank
you for their assistance in providing access to the research materials
available at the Science fiction foundation Collection that made this
book possible. i had the pleasure of exchanging emails with frederick
Turner, who generously answered many questions about his work and
about terraforming and landscape restoration, and who kindly agreed
to be interviewed for the SFRA Review. i also want to thank Siobhan
Chapman, David Seed, and mark Bould for their criticism of the PhD
thesis that eventually became this book, and Simon Hailwood for
introducing me to the domain of environmental philosophy.
i am indebted to my colleagues, both academic and administrative,
for providing an environment that helped shape my intellectual life
throughout the nine years that i spent at Liverpool. i have received
much encouragement and stimulation from many individuals, not
least Katherine Buse, molly Cobb, Barry Dainton (at the Department
of Philosophy), nick Davis, Leimar garcia-Siino, David mcWilliam,
glyn morgan, and michelle Yost. The Science fiction foundation, the
Science fiction research association, and the association for the Study
of Literature and the environment – UK and ireland were instrumental
in shaping my thinking about the intersections between science iction
and ecology. i would like to thank these organisations for their support,
and in particular Thierry Bardini, ritch Calvin, Paweł frelik, greg
garrard, Joan Haran, Ursula K. Heise, Larisa mikhaylova, T.S. miller,
John Parnham, adeline-Johns Putra, Louise Squire, Sherryl Vint, and
Liz Williams. Thanks are also due to mariano martín rodríguez, and to
ix
x Terraforming
Cathy rees, Chris Williams, and Phil franey, whose support throughout
my time at the university is much appreciated.
elements of the introduction appear in the journal publication
‘environmental Philosophy and Space in Literature: Landscaping and the
Chronotope,’ Brief: Online Journal of Snippets – American Literature, 1 (2011),
5–6 <http://www.brief.umcs.eu/american-literature/brief-1_american-
literature.pdf> (accessed march 2016).
elements of the irst chapter appear in the journal publications ‘“a
Creature alive but Tranced and obscurely Yearning to Wake”: gaian
anticipations and Terraforming in the european Science fiction of
H.g. Wells, olaf Stapledon and Stanislaw Lem,’ Revista Hélice: Reflexiones
Críticas Sobre Ficción Especulativa, 15 (2012a), 12–19; ‘“a fantastic relex
of itself, an echo, a Symbol, a myth, a Crazy Dream”: Terraforming
as Landscaping nature’s otherness in H.g. Wells’s The Shape of Things to
Come and olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men and Star Maker,’ Foundation:
The International Review of Science Fiction, 111.40 (2012b), 14–31; and
‘Terraforming and Proto-gaian narratives in american Pulp Sf of the
1930s–1940s,’ Eaton Journal of Archival Research, 1 (2013), 38–55.
elements of the ifth chapter appear in the journal publications
‘ecocriticism and Terraforming: Building Critical Spaces,’ Forum:
University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts, 10 (2010)
<http://www.forumjournal.org/site/issue/10/chris-pak> (accessed march
2016); and ‘“all energy is Borrowed” – Terraforming: a master motif
for Physical and Cultural re(Up)cycling in Kim Stanley robinson’s Mars
Trilogy,’ Green Letters, 18 (2014a), 1–13 <http://www.tandfonline.com/
doi/abs/10.1080/14688417.2014.890527> (accessed march 2016).