Marooned! On Mars With Matt And Hilary

One of the great things about this book is how it keeps you on your toes. Matt and Hilary do their best to keep up with its digressions and interruptions, following the flow into conversations about the state, democracy, capitalism, lizard men, and the collective joy of Pepsi commercials. For the first 24 minutes or so they despair over the election of Joe Biden and the vast political emptiness the 2020 presidential campaign seems to signify, so if you're not interested in that, skip it! But if you want to hear Jon Ossoff compared to the ghouls from THEY LIVE!, don't skip it! Then they ask you to stop listening to podcasts. THEN they talk about Crash Day: no more planes, no more cows. A big theme in this episode is the role of the state and the possibility for democratic processes to address the crisis of capitalism, and we'll talk a lot more about that in the next episode. Here, we talk about how America and India variously embody the notion of "nation." We talk about flows and dynamism, of human populations

In a shrewd bit of counter-programming, we're releasing this episode on the day of what we're told is the most important election of our lifetimes...since the last one, and until the next one. This chunk of chapters seems occupied with a breakdown in the metabolic functioning of the lifeworld, and it asks us to shit or get off the pot. The primary science fictional technology KSR seems to be deploying in this novel is one of political economy. We touch on carbon quantitative easing, but we're more concerned with issues of circulation and metabolism. Now that capitalism seems to have reached its terminal phase, entering an apocalyptic moment, as Mike Davis has recently argued, how ought we be managing the residuum, the surplus, the effluvia of goods, and of people?  Here we're interested in the surplus, excess, remainders, containment, entrapment, enclosure, capture, and incomparability. What happens when the taps run dry? (Society.) Would it help to hijack Davos? (Unclear, but it would be hilarious.) Do

In this (very long) episode we discuss roughly chapters 18-37, with a special focus on Frank. What does Frank want? Does he know? The gap between intention and action under capitalism, trapped in our subjectivity and ideology, is a focus of the first part of the ep. Then we run into the technical difficulties and pick back up to talk about the challenges this novel poses to us as a novel. If the realist novel of the 19th century focused itself through a charismatic main character with broadly heroic qualities, The Ministry for the Future is a significant departure from that. We talk about how TMftF challenges us to think beyond individuals and gives us a bigger picture of the multi-dimensional and multi-generational problems humanity will face between now and basically the rest of its existence. No charismatic megafauna are going to either save you or give you an adequate locus of your pathetic cathexis. Today, the challenge is to abandon liberal empathy as a criterion for deeming an other worthy of living an

We're back from the movies, ready to do our podcast old school, like a couple of old fools. We're SO EXCITED to start reading Kim Stanley Robinson's BRAND NEW novel, The Ministry for the Future! Matt has finished it, Hilary is about halfway through, so there are sort-of spoilers but not really, but you should try reading the whole book first before you start listening anyway. This book is expansive, complex, harrowing, hopeful, and above all provocative. It challenges the reader to confront the realities of our day related to the climate, our politics, morality, ethics, violent direct action, and the desire for the future that falls under the name "utopia." What is the situation that confronts us today, and what are the options available to us, today, to change it? This book is in many ways, especially its opening sections, a blunt instrument, refusing to let us escape from the seemingly intractable and overwhelming crises and catastrophes that confront us. In other ways, the book is subtle and sharp, cutting

We're still marooned at the movies, with John Carpenter, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, our friend Bill, a very special guest all the way from Slovenia, and a bunch of yuppie ghouls! That's right, today in this super-long episode Matt and Hilary welcome their friend Bill to help them ponder over the confectionary marvel that is John Carpenter's THEY LIVE!, his sci-fi, creature feature, action allegory that's either the most Marxist movie to ever come out of Hollywood or a dumb piece of nonsense. We talk class war, truth and perception, manifest material conditions, and ideology, ideology, ideology. We bravely ask the questions few dare to ask, like what do the ghouls want and what are they selling? What would Nada see if he were to look at a bulldozer? And why Wayfarers? Please excuse our audio quality on this episode, but we hope you enjoy the discussion of this great filim. We'll be back next time (in a week or so) with our first episode about THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE! Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonm

Hello! As we not-so-patiently await the publication of KSR's latest forthcoming masterpiece, The Ministry for the Future, Hilary and Matt embark on a bit of film chat, movie talk, cinema discussion, if you will. This week we discuss the early 80s punk-verité masterpiece Born in Flames, which asks, what if there was a revolution and nothing changed? Ten years after a successful socialist-democratic revolution (think Bernie Sanders winning the presidency), things are not looking so hot for certain members of society, namely women, LGTBQ+, and minorities--so, basically, everybody. And even the men ain't too thrilled, being forced into the new benevolent government's meaningless "workfare" jobs. In steps Adelaide Norris, a black queer female construction worker, rec league basketball player, and community organizer who's becoming increasingly militant. Adelaide is part of the so-called "Women's Army," a grassroots coalition of various women agitating for fundamental change in the organization of society and, impo

Look, here we are again! We start our final episode on The Years of Rice and Salt by talking about what's up next for the podcast. Short answer: probably a few standalone episodes on movies and KSR short stories, followed by a deep dive into the forthcoming The Ministry for the Future, followed by our next big project. But first, a short hiatus while we solidify plans and the school year starts to start. We reflect on rebirth and retribution, teaching and learning, and finding yourself in a small community and a large world. We talk about how the characters, K and B especially, attempt to become fully human, locating themselves between the Great Man and Mass Movement models of history. And we discuss the book's fantastic and uncanny elements, and try to keep the melancholy of ending a book at bay. Stay tuned to the end to find out whether or not we recommend this book! There were some extremely funky things happening with the recording this week, so sorry for any extra-weird hiccups in the recording and editi

The penultimate episode on The Years of Rice and Salt! (I just like saying "penultimate." You've got to seize the opportunity when it presents itself.) In this, one of the longer (the longest?) chapter of YoRaS, Matt and Hilary talk about science and feminism, the aftermath of war, the aesthetics of scent, the division of labor, and history. We talk about different knowledges and forms of knowledge production and the exclusion of certain kinds of people both from that knowledge production and from the acknowledgement that those certain kinds of people in fact engaged in those certain forms of knowledge production for, like, forever. We talk about history and revolution, and human living together, and of course we end up on some profanity-laced tirades about the state of the damn world and these institutions and politicians, and not to mention These Kids Today! Matt has some sage advice for college students that will certainly kill what's left of his academic career; thankfully, no one who would be in a positi

Shout out to our great listeners, especially when they email us, and when they email us, their emails are always thoughtful and stimulating, and Hilary almost always responds to them and Matt almost always reads them but doesn’t respond to them because he is, in fact, shy, but also, more importantly, lazy, other than the whole “producing and editing the show” thing. We kick this episode off with a convo about despair and hope, but the upshot is the gift of reading these novels in community with each other and our amazing listeners (you, the reader of this). “War of the Asuras” is a phantasmagoric chapter about The Long War—basically, what if World War I—trench warfare, mustard gas, etc.—was fought in Asia instead of Europe, and what if it (almost) never ended? The depiction of the war collapses the distinction between the bardo and reality, between metaphor and realism, and exposes the insanity at the heart of modern warfare. Matt and Hilary ponder over the nature of the space the characters find themselves i

In this week's cat-heavy episode, we examine the Kerala's global anticolonial revolutionary empire. We ask lots of questions: are novels the original Turing test? Is the Kerala the K character? What does revolutionary struggle look like in this book (in the absence of whiteness, Christianity, capitalism qua capitalism, a strong sense of private property) in contrast to what it looks like in the world? What is the meaning of diversity? What does imperial power look like under the Kerala, and how does it resemble what it looks like for us? Does Travancore constitute a cult or a culture? What are the novelistic modes that this and the previous book deploy? Finally, is this utopia? Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Book 6 of The Years of Rice and Salt is like a novel within the novel, depicting the intertwined lives of two brilliant figures in Robinson's alternate history: Kang Tongbi and Ibrahim ibn Hasam. Living in the late 18th-century, they come to realize they are part of the same jati that has been reincarnated throughout the novel, that they have known each other for 10,000 years. Through their intertwined intellectual endeavors they write poetry and history, develop theories of feminism and politics, and argue about religion. Matt and Hilary have a wide-ranging discussion that still only scratches the surface of this pivotal chapter. Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

"Warp and Weft" is one of the shorter of the books of The Years of Rice and Salt, taking place on Turtle Island/ Yingzhou nee North America, among the Hodenosaunee, a word Matt and Hilary definitely know how to pronounce. Fromwest nee Busho gets initiated as a chief in a beautiful ceremony and makes an amazing, prophetic, ecstatic speech that opens up a discussion about conceptions of history and the future, change and struggle, hope and kinship, and lacrosse and red eggs. Matt performs an exercise in grammar for your pleasure and recommends Dante again as a contrast to the bardo scenes, and Hilary reads from Nick Estes' incredible book Our History is the Future (Verso, 2019) (pages 248 and 256 if you have a copy). Can you spot the red egg that appeared earlier in the book? Let us know where it is, either over Twitter, at our email, or on Facebook. (Or you can leave us a voicemail on the Anchor app, but only if you want your message played on the podcast which, if you're like Matt and you can't stand the soun

We're pack, the science fiction literature podcast equivalent of tubing down a lazy river with a six-pack of beer! This week we talk about Book 4 of The Years of Rice and Salt, "The Alchemist," where Khalid, Bahram, and Iwang discover the secrets of the universe while attempting to placate the venal khan and suss out the political machinations of his treasurer Nadir Divanbegi. For a lot of readers, this is the chapter where the book really starts to click. As Hilary puts it, this is where she figured out the project of the book is really to tell the story of the emergence of modernity without a progress narrative and in the absence of Eurocentrism--because, of course, "Europe" doesn't exist! This book is also where we see how scientific knowledge develops alongside a different set of ideologies, both religious and political. Here, Robinson dramatizes how scientific “discovery” exists within other forms of knowledge and inhabitation of the world. Science is historically contingent and situated among other ways

In this somewhat delayed episode we discuss Book Three of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, "Ocean Continents," in which a Chinese fleet accidentally discovers Yingzhou, which we know as the Americas. Admiral Kheim, the fleet's doctor I-Chin, and a Miwok girl called Butterfly find each other and escape a pretty sticky situation with the Incan executioner god! Hilary and Matt discuss the differences between discovery and encounter, estrangement and the real, knowledge and superstition, structure and contingency, control and luck, and the phenomenon of abundance without surplus. Alas, they don't talk enough about the elements and the chapter's deep symbolism of earth, wind, fire, and water--but it's there! Moral relativism aside, we can all agree: Human sacrifice is bad, whether that’s to an Incan executioner god or the market. Recommendations: Tubthumping by Chumbawumba, Inferno by Dante We may have to take next week off, but will certainly be back after that! Thanks for listening! Email us a

Warning: we will not be doing this book justice! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Hello! We’re back. Sorry we’re late, but we’re back now, to discuss THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT, book-by-book. We recommend you read this book through once already if you’ve never read it before for its own pleasures. It’s a great, great, great book that you should just read and delight in. Then tune into our commentary for a re-read, which I assume is what a lot of you are doing. And in advance, thank you for listening! Matt apologizes in advance for his complete ignorance about Buddhism. “Awake to Emptiness” follows Bold Bardash and his adventures with the slave eunuch Kyu. Matt and Hilary talk about this book’s mode of narration, its unique mixture of materialism and spiritualism, and the way that, from the perspective of someone who has been raised in America in the American education system, it completely defamiliarizes the reader as regards world history and geography. Matt and Hilary compare this to the Mars books a bit and we talk about the patterns of subjectivity that emerge between characters. Chara

Pepsi Matt McDonald’s and Home Depot Hilary coming at you at the beginning of the after of the beforetimes, Phase 2 in full effect! The Hard Problem of this chapter is alternately deceleration, consciousness, love, and meaning, we we talk about it all! Ship is now fully the subject and the narrator of their own story, and Matt and Hilary discuss just how other or alien ship’s consciousness is from human consciousness. This takes Hilary into a vital detour into the greatest novel ever written, Frankenstein, and Matt into a self-indulgent Werner Herzog impression. We discuss the limits of consciousness, sensation, perception, meaning, love as a form of attention, narration as an effort to constitute oneself beyond just a mass of experiences, through language. Hilary doesn’t feel superior to her gut flora, which is what makes her a better person than Matt. Sustaining relationship to another gives the ship language, gives ship the language that allows it to say “we” Matt's seasonal Werner Herzog impression unders

In this episode, for the first 25 minutes or so we commiserate about corona quarantine and talk about how we feel upset. Matt and Hilary talk cooking and share their misadventures in sourdough, a profoundly alien yet living thing. We talk about the erasure of the boundary between work and leisure under capitalism, and particularly how attenuated it is under corona. We chat about mutual aid and the struggle to become the kind of person who does mutual aid and not just the kind of person who believes mutual aid is good. Discussing the willful change in habits that becoming a revolutionary subject requires finally gets us around to talking about the fifth chapter of KSR’s Aurora, “Homesick.” Ship and the gang are heading home to earth and everything is going really, really badly! The inhabitants of ship are confronted with a new set of material conditions that impose upon them new acts, practices, habits, and rituals that turn them into somewhat revolutionary subjects, but in a different way. They gradually arri

Lots of big and new thoughts in this one, where we discuss ship's sovereignty, the fantasy bribe of the future, constituting our selves politically after long periods of political hibernation, the return of the repressed, the memory of architecture, and the myths of neoliberalism. One of our intrepid listeners has purchased the domain householdersunion.org if you are interested in organizing a rent strike in your building and creating a new world. Hilary mentioned a story on Italian mutual aid in communmag.com. Matt was compelled to make a snide comment about Elizabeth Warren, but that's just because he's a bad person. Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space

In this episode, we try to avoid talking about the corona virus as much as possible. After the first ten minutes or so, anyway. We do talk about a lot of things! Many, many things, in fact, almost all of them concerning Chapter 3 of Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, "In the Wind." In the interest of getting this out in a timely fashion I'll leave the details as a surprise. But rest assured--there is talking in this episode! Thank you for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space