Sci Fi Isn't All Horrifying

You can ask pretty much anyone what the meaning of life is and 95% of people will probably answer “42”. I haven’t met someone who didn’t at least know what Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy was, and I’ve never met someone who read it and doesn’t recall it fondly. I attempted to read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy years ago and was, unfortunately, not able to really get into it. I followed it up with the movie years later and was also not really enthralled with the story. Now, having listened to the radio show, I still can’t say I really love it.

                I found it hard to connect with a character who doesn’t really seem to care about anything. And if he does care he cares in what my mom describes as a “quintessentially British way”, summed up by this clip from an episode of The Tick (00:50-00:55 - https://youtu.be/1Wh2CruhrKk?t=50 ). Funnily enough, the sidekick character in this show is also named Arthur. Arthur from Hitchhiker’s Guide cares about the destruction of Earth in much the same way that he cares about the destruction of his house, enough to leave in the middle of his own protest. While I do think this is very funny and I enjoy the overall comedic tone of the radio show, its hard for me to care about a character that doesn’t really seem committed to anything. For me, it didn’t provide enough of a logical bases for the main character before then bombarding me with crazy weird characters and circumstances. That being said, I think this satire of the Sci Fi genre is much more compelling now that I’ve read more serious Sci Fi stories.

                Much of what we’ve discussed about the futuristic Sci Fi genre is it’s ability to contextualize our own present. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale puts a lot of these radical abortion bill’s in harsh lighting. However, Hitchhiker’s guide spins that on its head when it introduces a computer that can answer the ultimate question. However, the element that’s supposed to deeply contextualize our own present is… “42”. This is followed by the computer claiming it needs the calculate the ultimate question. Not to get all preachy, but the satire of a genre so devoted to commenting on our own society via uplifting messages or warnings indicates to me that spending so much time trying to make sense of our own existence is stupid because humans are just a tiny tiny part of a huge universe. The world is going to end one day and whether our society was morally “good” or not isn’t going to matter. Besides, I’m not sure many people will care about the end of our moral society as much as they’ll care that that’s where we keep all our stuff.

Too Realistic for It's Own Good?

My first exposure to the story of The HandMaid’s Tale was from the acclaimed TV show on Hulu, starring Elizabeth Moss. I was very excited to watch this show and eagerly sat attentive to the screen, ready to soak up all the dystopian woman-hate. However, after about two seasons I realized that this show was very… boring. Don’t get me wrong there are many great things about it and I don’t doubt the creative team achieved what they set out to make, but the show is very slow moving. So when I saw The Handmaid’s Tale on the list of book to read this week I was pretty jazzed to give it a second chance. Hopefully, the book would give me a little more, right? Well, the short answer is no, but am I even right to ask for more?

                Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a story about a society in political unrest. The new form of government promotes a puritan ideology that places huge restrictions on women that prevent them from reading, watching TV, and being alone. Our main character, Offred takes the role of a Handmaid in this society, meaning her primary purpose is to bare children for a wealthy political couple. She does not hold any power outside of her ability to carry a child and this is basically all that protects her from being sent to Colonies. Throughout the story, she encounters characters attempting to break out of their restrictions, but she herself does very little. Her master forces her to break the rules by going to see him at night and play Scrabble, Ofglen asks her to gain information for the resistance, Serena set Offred up to sleep with Nick. People either force Offred to do things or things happen to her. She doesn’t do much at all. She displays very little agency in her own story. Which is what originally made it boring to watch and boring to read. HOWEVER, in a story where woman have no agency, no power, no choices they can make for themselves… is it right of me to expect the lead female character to contradict the entire theme Atwood has established? If anything, Offred’s lack of action enforces just how powerless she is. She CAN’T do anything. Even as the protagonist of the story, a role which is usually reserved for our Katnisses and Harry Potters and even Ted from Harllan Ellison’s ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’, all characters who upset the status quo, Offred doesn’t even have to opportunity to be a typical protagonist. So why should I want so much from her?

                I found this story upsetting to read, as I‘m sure it was intended to be. Atwood has stated that every aspect of the puritan society has happened in real life at some point in some culture. This provides a haunting base for her fictional dystopian future. It’s not a huge stretch to compare Gilead’s culture to our own, especially with some of the extreme laws surrounding abortions in some states and the restrictions of women getting their tubes tied. Many people tend to make comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale when the new proposed bill comes out and it says something like “doctors are required to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy”, a procedure which is impossible. The general spread of misinformation, lack of woman voices in law making, and religious beliefs invading a government that claims the “separation of church and state”, all seem very at home in Atwoods story.

                I admire Atwood for her world building and her attention to detail. Her future puts our present in a humbling context. However, I think I admire her most for writing from the perspective of someone who is not the hero. She is not the person who is going to overthrow the government or right the wrongs of an unchecked power structure. She is an average person who is stuck in an extremely restrictive society. She is what 99.9% of us would be in this situation. Not all of us can be Katniss. Not all of us will be Katniss. Offred is emotional and scared and powerless. She is what makes this one of the most realistic dystopian novels I’ve ever read. She is also what makes it so hard to enjoy. But there is nothing enjoyable about this dystopia. And that seems to be the point.

What if Windows 10 Doesn't Support Tragically Flawed Women?

William Gibson’s The Winter Market tackles the concept of immortality and the relationship to one’s body. The story focuses on a girl, Lise, and her talent for creating dreams and experiences that can be processed and distributed to other people for consumption. Lise is a drug addict and relies on an exoskeleton to move because of a progressive disease. She also has a cutthroat attitude and an obsession with being famous. When she is discovered by the main character, Casey, she becomes a start and is eventually given the opportunity to upload herself onto a computer, leaving her old decaying body behind. However, Casey struggles with whether the new computer version of Lise is really her or just a program.

                Lise is a supreme example of the tough, technologically modified, leading lady in a steam punk or cyberpunk story. She seems almost all powerful and Casey’s description of her functions as our tour through the strange futuristic world they inhabit. A world where what makes a person a person is beginning to be questioned. Casey is the editor of Lise’s dreams and function much like a music producer. Her makes her dreams palatable and easily distributable to a wide audience. He becomes so attached to her that he is distraught when she gives herself over to the computer is effectively “dies”. However, is he really gone? He is still expected to edit and release the dreams she produces from the computer. His life remains sort of unchanged. The death of his artist does not put him out of a job.

                I really enjoyed this story and its commentary on humanity in a future where people are becoming less and less human and more computer. Lise is a human at the start of the story but uses cybernetic enhancements to live. She even describes the suffocating feeling she gets when she takes off her exoskeleton. For her, becoming totally computer may not be a huge leap. I don’t think I could ever upload myself to a computer and expect the computer to actually BE the real me. But for someone who is almost all computer already, that may not be as hard of a decision to make.