Class and Humanity in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

In the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, he uses many classic tropes of science fiction and turns them around to comment on class and humanity to tell his story of loose androids, called “andys” and the cop hunting them, Rick Deckard. Dick cleverly uses two perspectives to tell his story of a post-apocalyptic San Francisco and the class divisions it entails. In the novel, since World War Terminus has rendered most animal species extinct, having one shows a sort of upper-class style, even if the animal is not real and is electric. This is shown in a scene from most of chapter one, where Rick discusses his electric sheep he owns with his neighbor Barbour, who owns a real horse. “He wished to god he had a horse, in fact any animal. Own and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one.” (Dick, 7). Dick is showing us in this how owning a real animal is a sign of status in this world, showing how above one could be. Then, in the next chapter, he shows us the low class, being John Isidore, a man who is determined “special,” someone “classed as biologically unacceptable” (Dick, 14). John is someone with almost no social skills, who has the menial job of fixing the electric animals that people such as Deckard own. He’s put in a “special” job because people like him are not allowed to leave the Earth. In this law, Dick is showing us how humanity has become in the future, not even allowing people to leave if they’re deemed “unfit” to live in the human colonies on planets such as Mars. I believe that this, combined with the way Deckard feels about androids, comparing them to the electric animals he owns on page 40, as they “had no ability to appreciate the existence of another.” Specials, and androids in this world, as “human” as one can consider them, are just thrown to the bottom of all classes, not being allowed to do what they want and being restricted by so called “better” or “more human” people, which itself is an injustice in my eyes. Specials are still human, and should be treated as such, and if androids can develop humanity, why put them down? The class both are put into may as well be slavery (well, the androids are technically slaves) and it isn’t fair to beings who still have some semblance of a conscience.

Dick, Philip K. Blade Runner. New York: Del Rey, 2007. Print

The Triumph of the Sharers of Shora and Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind

Both the novel A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, as well as the animated film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind directed by Hayao Miayzaki portray worlds in which strong female characters go against the work of man to help save the environment and its contributing factors to their world. The thing I find interesting is how both the Sharers in “Ocean” and Princess Nausicaa in the film both know of certain creatures that are dangerous to humans in their respective properties but, unlike everyone else, they understand the necessity of these creatures and what they do for the world. Nausicaa realizes the importance of the giant “Ohmu” creatures and the insects in the Sea of Decay, which is they absorb the toxins from the world in an attempt to cleanse it, and Merwen discusses the importance of even fleshborers having their “place in the web” (Slonczewski, 124). Other characters, such as Realgar in “Ocean” or Princess Kushana of the Tolmekians in “Nausicaa” do not understand the importance of the environment and seek to destroy what is not theirs and they simply do not get how everything is on the earth and plays an important role for a reason. Realgar attempts to use a virus strain to wipe out the Seaswallowers but the Sharers of Shora attempt to keep them alive because it “had its place in the web” (123). At one point in “Nausicaa” the Ohmu are described as “the fury of the Earth herself.” All of these creatures have a certain niche they must occupy, and this comes up frequently in most science fiction novels about the environment. The one’s who understand the importance of the web of life and know what must be done in order to keep that web spinning are the one’s who win out in the end. With all of his military power at his side, Realgar could not overtake Shora and make the Sharer’s comply to the standards of the Patriarch, and Kushana could not use “The Giant Warrior”, a bio-engineered war creature, to wipe of the Ohmu and the rest of the insects because Nausicaa protected them. She, like Merwen and Spinel and the rest of the Sharers, all understand the web of life and the place every creature has inside of it.

Slonczewksi, Joan. A Door Into Ocean. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1986. Print.

Takahata, Isao. Miayzaki, Hayao. 1984. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Japan: Top Craft. 

Advancement and Ecological Relationships within A Door into Ocean

An interesting theme I find in science fiction is that, when it ventures to a more “fantastical” side, those who are in touch with the environment seem to be more advanced and smarter than those who are not. This is explored in novels such as Dune, as well as Joan Slonczewski’s A Door into Ocean. The novel tells of a young man named Spinel from the planet Valedon who ventures as a sort of recruit to the all female planet Shora as a way to learn from the “Sharers” who live there, under the protection of the one he lives with, Merwen, and her family. On page 33, Slonczewski writes that “ Their ‘lifeshaping’ skills in particular were advanced, she believed, the incomprehensible to Valan doctors.” I found this particularly interesting because on a planet of nude, all female fish-like people, they are much smarter and have access to more advance technology than regular human doctors. This is even brought up when a sharer almost gets devoured by creatures called “fleshborers” and they use a lifeshaping chamber to recreate her limbs. “She had barely a head and chest left after we fished her from the fleshborers. But she’s growing back, now.” (152). These creatures have technology that can help a person regrow limbs, and it’s all from their relationship with the environment. With Shora being an all ocean planet, the Sharers have to live on rafts that constantly regrow and change and the Sharers have learned to adapt better than most people anywhere. With their “learnsharing” language, as well as having a keen touch within the environment, they also get along better as a people, with them living in peace for at least ten thousand years.” (33). As a result of their ability to “learnshare” from each other and adapt to their ever-changing environment, it seems this had made the Sharers of Shora an extremely advanced people. While the Sharers are not perfect, and will often argue with each other over certain things, their abilities to listen to each other and interact have kept them advancing more than any other civilization out in this novel’s universe, it seems.

Slonczewksi, Joan. A Door Into Ocean. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1986. Print. 

Four Questions

1.  How does Herbert's use of language in Dune provide both a sense of familiarity on an alien world and is this familiarity hinder the novels estrangement? 

2. How does the Arthur C. Clarke's time in Imperial India affect the ways he views imperialism in Childhood's End?

3. How does exposition help or hurt the flow of a story, such as in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clark or "The New Atlantis" by Ursula K. Le Guin? 

4. In most science fiction stories, subjunctivity, or the meaning of the words in a sentence, creates a world much different from ours. Compare two authors and their use of subjunctivity to create "word-images" in their stories. 

Paul's Loss of Innocence

The loss of innocence is something that a person can find reading any book, and it is particularly one of the most common storytelling devices in literature. When Paul Atredes’ father is kidnapped and dies in Dune, at that exact moment Paul becomes the new Duke of the house of Atreides and must assume the complete mantle of responsibility, all at the age of fifteen. Even his mother, Lady Jessica, realizes this when she says “There is no more childhood in his voice.” (317, Herbert). I believe that, in a sense, this is the most extreme case of loss of innocence I have ever read in a novel. Paul is becoming something else entirely, almost a prophet and he combines his roles as Duke, Mentat, Kwisatz Haderach, and Bene Gesserit into the one Muad’Dib. I like to think that the “Muad’Dib” persona that Paul creates for himself perfectly signifies that this young boy is no longer able to play games, not have a care in the world, but he is a man with responsibilities and obligations now and he understands this. One can even say this alludes to the story of Jesus and how as a young boy he was thrust with the responsibility of being the son of God. Paul’s transformation into “Muad’Dib” is also interesting because I feel that since he was a child, he was trained in all these different forms of mental, physical, and spiritual aspects and when his father dies and he assumes command he immediately is able to use all of his training at once to keep himself and Lady Jessica safe. Paul’s character develops in such a short amount of time, and when we looking to the mind of Paul we see how calculated his every step is and how, even at fifteen, he knows exactly what to do and when to do it. Paul has skipped growing up and growing into his own person and has become a full-fledged adult. I’m interested to see more of this “skip” explored and Paul’s feelings on how he has stopped being a child and started being a man. 

Herbert, Frank. Dune. The Penguin Group, 2005. (Print)

Choice in the novel Dune

In the novel Dune by Frank Herbert, there are a number of themes and ideas presented by Herbert himself such a politics, environmentalism and more to be extrapolated from our world into his future world, where people are order in what one could call a feudal system and people are put their places as Dukes or Mentats (basically human computers) and I believe another theme that should be discussed would be choice. Present in the novel are opportunities to make certain choices (or not make said choices) and I think it presents an interesting conflict, such as Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto and Lady Jessica, fulfilling the prophecy of being the “Kwisatz Haderach” who is the “male who can truly become one of us” (41) meaning he becomes the leader of the Bene Gesseirt and can transcend space and time with his mind. Paul is also told he may become a Mentat as he is told by his fathering saying he “…may have Mentat capabilities” (74) and that the choice is his “whether to continue or abandon the training” (74). Even as a young boy, Paul has so much choice thrust upon him such as fulfilling a prophecy which he may have no choice or being a human computer and going to school for a very long time. All of his decisions, whether to ignore the prophecy, training, or whatever it may be, as a 15 year old boy this is a lot to have on one’s mind. These choices are also going to have a lot of effect on other people and he must decide what to do. The Lady Jessica is also presented with a slight predicament, when she discovers the peaceful irrigation room hidden where the Atreides are staying on Arrakis, a dry desert planet where water is extremely scarce. There is so much water to douse the plants, it is said it could “…support a thousand people of Arrakis – maybe more” (116). Lady Jessica has the choice of informing the Duke and the Fremen of this room, but the question is should she? If she does, the room could support thousands for water and make life a bit easier, but would the water run out, or could they build another room such as the same and maybe that can produce water to? There are so many options Lady Jessica has and each has its benefits and its cost and it all comes down to the choices these characters make, and how it will affect their future.

Herbert, Frank. Dune. The Penguin Group, 2005. (Print)

Form: Can it help or hinder exposition in a story and the world around said story?

In science fiction literature, and literature in general, form can really hinder or help a story in terms of its presentation to the reader and how much the reader can understand what is happening. For example, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s story “The New Atlantis”, she implores a first person narrative, with snippets of future characters asking what happened to the original main characters. I believe this is an interesting tactic, but it ends up providing no context for the story, in my opinion, and I believe she should have opened the world to a little more exposition instead and it would have brought me in more as a reader. Throughout the course of the story, there are subtle hints to the world not being the way it should be, such as when Belle describes the “National Forest Preserve” as the “…largest forest left in the United States…” (Guin, 318). The reader is then left to wonder what happened to the United States to have only one large forest, and with more details coming through such as Phil’s invention to harness solar radiation as energy and Belle even possibly being arrested for “unreported pregnancy” (Guin, 335) the reader must try and put together the pieces of what has happened in the world and caused the government and such to be this way. Personally, I’m not a big fan of this as I find heavy world building a much better way to talk about things in a story and while this creates a certain picture the way Guin does it, it most certainly creates a blurry one. In “Bloodchild”, a short story by Octavia E. Butler, she also provides a first person narrative in a story about long legged, almost centipede like aliens who use humans as hosts to bear their children, and then patch them up again. The story is presented from the view of a child, Gan, as somebody who was chosen by his T’lic alien T’Gatoi, to bear her children when the time comes. Now when exposition is needed to find out how humans came to be on this planet in their “Preserve” and used as these hosts Gan just thinks about what happened and explains it, such as firearms being illegal in the preserve because “ There had been incidents right after the Preserve was established – Terrans shooting T’lic, shooting N’Tlic” (Butler, 12) and this perfectly establishes the world and tells me, as the reader what happened. What I’m basically saying is worlds should be built, to an effect, and the form of the story and the narrative can either help with that, such as “Bloodchild” or hinder that, such as with “The New Atlantis”. 

Le Guin, Ursula K. The New Atlantis. 1975. Text. 

Butler, Octavia E. Bloodchild. Davis Publications Inc, 1995. Text.  

The Question of Transcendence and Whether it Benefit's Humanity Go to the Stars

In this week’s blog post I want to bring up the topic of transcendence. At the end of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, Childhood’s End, the children with their psychic powers join the Overmind, a great psychic entity who actually rules over the Overlord’s and sends them to do its bidding. Overmind does this in a way that turns the Earth into something Jan describes, “like glass- I can see through it” (210). I found this to be a very, for lack of a better word, weird way to have the Earth destroyed and it’s people absorbed into a psychic entity. Is this all that was left for humanity? I ask the question because for all of humanity’s worth, for all we’ve progressed, is it that even that much in the span of the known universe? In the novel, we are shown the two paths that life can take, one being the path of the Overlord’s, “They had preserved their individuality, their independent egos...” (199). The other path is the one of the Overmind who bore “the same relation to man as man bore to amoeba” (199). I argue that for all the merits and ways to go, transcendence into a higher power, or being, or whatever the Overmind may be, is a good way for humanity to go. We’ve showed in the past to be a destructive people, and even Karellen goes so far as to say, “All through that century, the human race was drawing nearer to the abyss- never even suspecting its existence” (175). We were on the brink of destroying ourselves and the Overlords saved us to help cross the bridge over into the next step of evolution, leaving matter behind completely and bonding with a complete psychic entity. I do find it interesting how much Clarke’s view of the next step of evolution (also referenced with Bowman’s transformation into the Star-Child) is into an entity with a hint of omnipotence and being all powerful. This contrasts even Well’s views on humanity’s next step with the split into the Morlocks and the Eloi. Clarke seems to think that humanity will push further than those boundaries. That there’s a better destiny than to just sit on Earth until we kill ourselves or kill the Earth itself. Now in the context of the novel, the Overlord’s make it seem like this path is the best one, to become part of the Overmind, but one must wonder could humanity have continued farther? Possibly even developed the psychic prowess presented further and used it to help the world and maybe even not have the Overlords there anymore. One will never know, but it’s an interesting question of just how far we could have gone.

The potential of Humanity in a future Utopia practically given to us; is it worth it?

In this week’s reading of Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, I believe Clarke, like Wells in the Time Machine, make’s heavy statements on humanity’s capacity to become lazy, as well as comments on labor and such in his novel. When the Overlords revealed themselves in book II and usher in the Golden Age of humanity, people just cease to work, only for “luxuries, or they did not work at all.” (64). Again, in a future like this, most production is said to be automatic and humans have all their necessities practically given to them. This alludes to the Marxist theory of “means of subsistence” in which humans have what they need (food, clothing, water, etc.) and need nothing else. If this is just practically given to them, is it really deserved? This may seem like just an American blue collar way to think about things, but I believe that the Utopia depicted in the novel isn’t just. One of the definitions of Utopia is an imaginary, indefinite region that is remote and ideally perfect. Now according to this definition, this is a Utopia, but shouldn’t a Utopia be a product, or the reward, of a race that worked hard to achieve it? Now the Overlord’s do not interfere much (specifically only twice in response to animal cruelty and racial relations in Africa) but I believe they do more behind the scenes work than presented. One could argue that they don’t really usher in the utopia and humans do most of the “work,” but I would say that since most things are given to them by the Overlord’s, there wasn’t much to be done. Now that isn’t to say that people still don’t believe in hard work or overachieving (such as Jan Rodricks sneaking away to try and find the Overlord’s homeworld out of pure curiosity) but I would say that people like Jan, or Sullivan who researches the ocean for the Overlord’s, are dwindling. This is alluded to at the end of book II, “And only Karellen knew with what inexorable swiftness the Golden Age was rushing to its close” (130). After the human race ceases to be curious, and is inevitably held back by the Overlord’s, with not being allowed to explore outside the Solar System, what’s next? Humans should be allowed to leave and discover what’s out there for themselves, to make mistakes and eventually reach equality with the Overlords. I would even liken them to a dictatorship, with a false sense of freedom. We are stuck like rats in a cage, not able to go anywhere and develop and go further, we’ve just hit the peak and after that there is nothing. Now it’s possible to assume the second half of the book delves more into this, but for then it could already be too late.

Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End. New York: The Random House Publishing Group. 1990. Print. 

Comments on Humanity and our potential to improve and grow

A common theme in science fiction literature is the usage of futuristic devices to comment on today’s problems. Things such as class division, direction of the human race, all authors of science fiction have something to say about it, such as H.G. Wells with his novel, The Time Machine. In the novel, the Time Traveler (as he is called, never referred to by name) goes into what he thinks will be the peak of human society, only to find, what else, class division between the Eloi, the simplistic small beings who live on the surface of the Earth, and the Morlocks, who live underground and are extremely threatening. Both of these species evolved out of human beings, and suffice to say it seems Wells thinks that maybe farther into the future humans will hit a peak, and maybe revert. I, for one, can see this. A future in which human beings get lazy and eventually just give up is unfortunately a plausible site today. For ever overachiever there’s just another trying to get by and do nothing with their lives, and I believe we should fight this. In Wells’ novel, the Morlocks even succumb to cannibalism by preying on the small, defenseless Eloi at night. An interesting point in the novel, that even the Time Traveler mentions, is that he does not know much about the Morlocks, and since they are the ones underground the “gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the capitalist and the labourer, was the key to the whole position.” (Wells, 41) He’s saying how even for all the efforts to peak in human capacity, we can still revert back to “someone always being better than the other”. There’s no compromise and it is bound to happen. Why, though? Why should humans go back and revert, which brings me to my point of people needing to live up to their potential. Human beings have an infinite amount of time to improve and grow upon the things that we learn. For humanity to devolve is the biggest insult we could give to society and life in general. This is why the beginning of the novel, which focuses on the narrator going to The Time Traveler’s house with a bunch of other colleagues to talk with the Time Traveler and his Time Machine, is important, because it shows how people view those who are eccentric. This got me thinking that just maybe we should embrace eccentricity a little more, because it can give us a path to follow that we may not have before, and it will help progress humanity and live up to our potential that we not just deserve, but it is our responsibility.  

Labor in Futuristic Societies: Who does it and why?

Most of the stories we read in class this week all had to do various commentary on hard labor and how it works in futuristic societies, as well as the class function associated with these labor roles. In Isaac Asimov's short story "Reason" as well as Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains," there's an interesting assumption that upon the design and building of artificial intelligence, it will automatically assume a lower position under humans and work for us.
          "Reason" definitely plays on this when "Cutie", the world's first self-sufficient and capable of thinking robot, cannot reason how two humans (Doctors Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan) were able to create a machine that's smarter and more efficient than they are. The only reason the robot eventually does work is because it dubs a converter as "The Master" and says how "The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually he replaced them with robots,  the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans" (166, Asimov). 'Cutie' believes himself to be a higher class than the humans and therefore better than him. In "There Will Come Soft Rains", a story about an intelligent house still doing its chores after the apocalypse has supposedly decimated humanity, and the story talks of how the house does all the work, even with little robot mice who "thudded against chairs, whirling their mustache runners, kneading the rug nap and sucking gently at the hidden dust." (236, Bradbury). The artificial intelligence does all the manual labor while the humans go about to day jobs, school or menial stuff like gardening. The authors are all imagining the robots to do work for them, no questions asked. This is in accordance with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, stated in the short story "Runaround", the second of which being "A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law." Asimov specifically believes robots should  be a class below us, tending to the whim of human beings, but in a sense QT-1 is right. Why should robots submit to humans when, in essence, they are better than us requiring no sleep, sustenance, and are infinitely smarter with the ability to learn and retain knowledge at a rapid rate. It brings up a question of ethics, because since robots can think and feel for themselves, should they be subjected to such low standards and not live up to their full potential? I personally  see a future where robots, if and when they have the ability to think like humans, co-exist, rather than be submitted to such menial duties, only because there is no reason to not treat robots the same, if they can think and do things for themselves.



Asimov, Isaac. "Runaround" I, Robot. Gnome Press, 1950
Asimov, Isaac. "Reason". 1941, Web.
Bradbury, Ray. "There Will Come Soft Rains.' 1950, Web.