SF often imagines settlers becoming natives over time. “It is not blood and soil but history and imagination that make a settler into a native.” is provocative
Samuel R Delany's The Einstein Intersection turns The Martian Chronicles on its head. Aliens have colonized the Earth after we either abandoned it or destroyed ourselves. The aliens have tried to adopt our myths as best they can piece them together. They have a myth about Ringo, the one Beatle who could not sing, and how he went to the underworld to rescue his lover, Maureen. In the end all of the Beatles were torn apart by mad girls.
Yes! It’s a great novel, and the whole idea of reverse colonization is very interesting. I think I will write about it. There are other examples of aliens adopting human culture and mythology (Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus), but Delany novel is the first one I know of and arguably the best.
Think about most of Sheckley's stories - the natives on various planets are always 'off' - in one way or another. And the worst colonialist book, in my opinion, is "Robinson Crusoe".
He was very humble. Very grateful for attention. And he was in bad health and I gathered, in a bad financial situation. Believe it or not, he was an idol to SF fans in the USSR where his short stories were occasionally translated. When I told him about it, he was astounded. He passed away soon after I met him.
I am still "shook" whenever something reminds me of that line in Gene Wolfe's Fifth Head of Cerberus where it says: "My aunt, on the first occasion I had ever spoken to her, had referred to his theory that we might in fact be the natives of Sainte Anne, having murdered the original Terrestrial colonists and displaced them so thoroughly as to forget our own past."
Isn’t it a masterpiece? I taught it, and my student had difficulty understanding the novella and its sequels. But it is one of the greatest works of SF and of literature in general. Wolfe was an excellent writer (though occasionally pretentious), but this is his best work in my view.
Thank you! I actually tried to do two things: to talk about colonies on other planets, which I find absolutely fascinating, and about settler colonialism. Maybe I should have separated the two, but it seemed like a good connection.
Full Circle from the 1980 season, probably the season that most tried to be science fiction and not science fantasy or horror. (Yes, I remember every detail about every single story in the original run of Doctor Who...)
This was the twentieth century, pre-woke, Doctor Who! (Although they did do a story where King Arthur turned out to come from a parallel universe. But not Pakistan.)
That was amazing to read. I am going to buy Bedlam Planet.
Thank you! I would love to hear your reaction. You truly understand psychoanalysis, so it would be great to know what you think.
“Ours is a world substantially shaped by the opaque operation of abstract systems.”
is a sharp observation and provocative
SF often imagines settlers becoming natives over time. “It is not blood and soil but history and imagination that make a settler into a native.” is provocative
Samuel R Delany's The Einstein Intersection turns The Martian Chronicles on its head. Aliens have colonized the Earth after we either abandoned it or destroyed ourselves. The aliens have tried to adopt our myths as best they can piece them together. They have a myth about Ringo, the one Beatle who could not sing, and how he went to the underworld to rescue his lover, Maureen. In the end all of the Beatles were torn apart by mad girls.
Yes! It’s a great novel, and the whole idea of reverse colonization is very interesting. I think I will write about it. There are other examples of aliens adopting human culture and mythology (Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus), but Delany novel is the first one I know of and arguably the best.
Think about most of Sheckley's stories - the natives on various planets are always 'off' - in one way or another. And the worst colonialist book, in my opinion, is "Robinson Crusoe".
Thanks for reminding me about Sheckley! Unjustly forgotten today, he was a very interesting writer. I actually met him in the early 2000s.
One of my favorite writers of sci fi, and yet he can’t escape his cultural inheritance. What was he like in real life?
He was very humble. Very grateful for attention. And he was in bad health and I gathered, in a bad financial situation. Believe it or not, he was an idol to SF fans in the USSR where his short stories were occasionally translated. When I told him about it, he was astounded. He passed away soon after I met him.
Oh…poor man. Of course he was known in Europe and beyond I knew him and read his translated books when I was a teen. The nineties, in Bulgaria.
I am still "shook" whenever something reminds me of that line in Gene Wolfe's Fifth Head of Cerberus where it says: "My aunt, on the first occasion I had ever spoken to her, had referred to his theory that we might in fact be the natives of Sainte Anne, having murdered the original Terrestrial colonists and displaced them so thoroughly as to forget our own past."
Isn’t it a masterpiece? I taught it, and my student had difficulty understanding the novella and its sequels. But it is one of the greatest works of SF and of literature in general. Wolfe was an excellent writer (though occasionally pretentious), but this is his best work in my view.
I probably need to read it several more times to absorb more of what's packed into it.
Thank you! I actually tried to do two things: to talk about colonies on other planets, which I find absolutely fascinating, and about settler colonialism. Maybe I should have separated the two, but it seemed like a good connection.
There was a 1980s Doctor Who story where that was one of the big twists!
Do you remember which one?
Full Circle from the 1980 season, probably the season that most tried to be science fiction and not science fantasy or horror. (Yes, I remember every detail about every single story in the original run of Doctor Who...)
Very impressive! Thank you! I’ll get it.
I think ‘obsessive’ is the correct word…
Did it turn out that King Arthur was a Pakistani Muslim? 🤣🤣🤣
What, you didn't know? 🤣
I thought he was “Palestinian”, like Jesus and King David
This was the twentieth century, pre-woke, Doctor Who! (Although they did do a story where King Arthur turned out to come from a parallel universe. But not Pakistan.)
🤣