Nate Briggs's Blog - Posts Tagged "yuknavitch"
Sunday Literary Life - Science Fiction Smackdown!
Anyone acquainted with the self-publishing scene should be aware that there are literally hundreds of novels from hopeful authors which feature less-than-hopeful futures. The dystopian trend has been very strong for several years (for whatever reason) and I have joined the club a couple of times.
For one particular work, I was interested in how Class Struggle might play out in a dying planet – and wrote a one-act play called “The Last of the ‘51”. People who did me the favor of reading it universally dismissed the concept, however. “That would never happen”, was the most common reaction. “The Ultra-Rich aren’t angels. But they would never do something like that. Don’t be ridiculous.” (That play appears here: https://medium.com/@vagabondlover/sun...).
Now a more famous voice than mine – Lidia Yuknavitch – has offered a traditionally-published, and euphorically-reviewed novel which touches on several themes that I was discuss in the play.
In one sense discouraging: since that means “The Last of the ‘51” gets shoved into the archive. Producers will naturally think that my idea is borrowing from a better-known novel.
But encouraging, since the same ideas – when offered by a certified heavy hitter in the literary scene – gain credibility. Bottom line: I was not insane to think that this scenario could happen. At least one person agrees with me.
Speaking of agreement, let’s examine four areas of narrative similarity:
1) Do the Ultra-Rich bail on the rest of us? YES!
Accumulating a huge pile of money is not exactly a moral act: and both the novel, and the play, imagine the Robber Barons using their means to escape the surface of a ruined Earth – leaving the rest of us to die. In the novel, they take permanent refuge in a space station. In the play, the space station is just an interlude – since their final intended destination is Mars. (The recent chatter in the news about how “important” it is to get to Mars is not a coincidence. The Billionaires are looking for government funding for their escape).
2) Do the forces of Karma punish the Robber Barons for abandoning the human community? YES
In the novel, relentless radiation causes the space station residents to mutate into something like sexless babies. Their quality of life reduced to just survival, and no way to reproduce themselves. Unanticipated radiation is also a theme of the play: rendering the residents of the transitional space colony sterile, before killing them. The play ends as Axel, one of the leaders of the colony, watches his wife commit suicide by stepping out of an air lock. They’ve just finished the last bottle of the last vintage from Earth – 2051 – both knowing that the mission to Mars has failed – that ship totally destroyed. In both cases, there's a huge price to be paid for fundamental betrayal.
3) Does the Human Race survive on the Earth’s surface? YES
This is where the character featured in the title of the novel comes in. Joan is one of the human beings still living on the surface in very primitive conditions. Likewise, in the play humans survive the way they always have – but going back to subsistence agriculture and a strong prejudice against anyone having children, since the rising ocean levels and the wild changes in climate make the future very uncertain. An additional thread in the play: people on the Earth’s surface have heard rumors that the Billionaires in the space colony are dying. At the same time the survivors below can see the space colony – a gleaming star in the night sky – they understand that the Richest of the Rich are facing a gruesome end that they brought on themselves.
So: two independent minds, arriving at some very similar results. More evidence that great minds think alike? You be the judge.
For one particular work, I was interested in how Class Struggle might play out in a dying planet – and wrote a one-act play called “The Last of the ‘51”. People who did me the favor of reading it universally dismissed the concept, however. “That would never happen”, was the most common reaction. “The Ultra-Rich aren’t angels. But they would never do something like that. Don’t be ridiculous.” (That play appears here: https://medium.com/@vagabondlover/sun...).
Now a more famous voice than mine – Lidia Yuknavitch – has offered a traditionally-published, and euphorically-reviewed novel which touches on several themes that I was discuss in the play.
In one sense discouraging: since that means “The Last of the ‘51” gets shoved into the archive. Producers will naturally think that my idea is borrowing from a better-known novel.
But encouraging, since the same ideas – when offered by a certified heavy hitter in the literary scene – gain credibility. Bottom line: I was not insane to think that this scenario could happen. At least one person agrees with me.
Speaking of agreement, let’s examine four areas of narrative similarity:
1) Do the Ultra-Rich bail on the rest of us? YES!
Accumulating a huge pile of money is not exactly a moral act: and both the novel, and the play, imagine the Robber Barons using their means to escape the surface of a ruined Earth – leaving the rest of us to die. In the novel, they take permanent refuge in a space station. In the play, the space station is just an interlude – since their final intended destination is Mars. (The recent chatter in the news about how “important” it is to get to Mars is not a coincidence. The Billionaires are looking for government funding for their escape).
2) Do the forces of Karma punish the Robber Barons for abandoning the human community? YES
In the novel, relentless radiation causes the space station residents to mutate into something like sexless babies. Their quality of life reduced to just survival, and no way to reproduce themselves. Unanticipated radiation is also a theme of the play: rendering the residents of the transitional space colony sterile, before killing them. The play ends as Axel, one of the leaders of the colony, watches his wife commit suicide by stepping out of an air lock. They’ve just finished the last bottle of the last vintage from Earth – 2051 – both knowing that the mission to Mars has failed – that ship totally destroyed. In both cases, there's a huge price to be paid for fundamental betrayal.
3) Does the Human Race survive on the Earth’s surface? YES
This is where the character featured in the title of the novel comes in. Joan is one of the human beings still living on the surface in very primitive conditions. Likewise, in the play humans survive the way they always have – but going back to subsistence agriculture and a strong prejudice against anyone having children, since the rising ocean levels and the wild changes in climate make the future very uncertain. An additional thread in the play: people on the Earth’s surface have heard rumors that the Billionaires in the space colony are dying. At the same time the survivors below can see the space colony – a gleaming star in the night sky – they understand that the Richest of the Rich are facing a gruesome end that they brought on themselves.
So: two independent minds, arriving at some very similar results. More evidence that great minds think alike? You be the judge.
