Marooned! On Mars With Matt And Hilary

It’s Hello! Marooned on Mars with Matt and Hilary. We're turning 50! Hilary is in stereo, I think, and Matt seems to be in mono? This may explain some differences in our levels. Anyway. Recording via the internet remains a challenge, for us, at least. If our dialogue sounds somewhat stilted, it’s because Matt is recording from an unspecified tube at some undisclosed location in the world. Hilary is, presumably, in Chicago. This time we enter the home stretch and talk about five entries in The Martians. This selection really has a sense of being late in the day, a mixture of regret and loss, but something to move on toward and look forward to. Coyote Remembers Our relationship with Coyote ends on a kind of sad/ melancholic note. We discuss the setting of this story, or what we can extrapolate as the setting and the “you” it addresses. Themes of loneliness, “brotherhood,” and relation are foregrounded here. Coyote remembers and accounts for the people he has lost. What does it mean to be done with something, wh

We're back...again! We continue our discussion of The Martians, the stories "Sexual Dimorphism," "Enough is as Good as a Feast," and "What Matters." These are three amazing stories, deeply personal, comic and touching, personal and meditative. It seems these entries just get better and better. 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 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars-with-matt-and-hilary/support

Again we have some technical issues, which we’ve done our best to ameliorate in post-production. For the first hour and twenty minutes or so Matt might sound not-great. Thank you for bearing with us! We talk about Bernie Sanders for a bit and wish him well, self-identifying as proud identity cultists, hopefully not alienating some of our listeners. For your convenience, here are some pointers to when we start talking about which stories in this extra-long episode of Marooned on Mars! 12:30 — We finally start talking about something else besides the world sucking, namely, The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson. Start by going back a bit to the Michel in Provence chapter. 22:30 — Jackie on Zo Extremely touching story about Jackie’s relationship to her daughter, with a very sad ending. 43:00 — Keeping the Flame (Nirgal) Comparing Hiroko and Phyllis, their legacies, cults or practices of remembrance around them. 1:04:00 — Saving Noctis Dam Pseudo-Nadia story about saving a town from a hurricane with plywood - work

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR PODCAST PLAYER. We're using a new recording scheme, so at one point, Hilary sounds like a scary robot. But we're powering through! This week, we talk about "Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars," "Salt and Fresh," and the two sections on the Martian Constitution and Charlotte Dorsa Brevia's "worknotes." First we chat about teaching and the fine arts of giving advice, and having that advice ignored, and ignoring advice. Then we get into the most important thing, which is baseball and the communities it makes. Then we talk about "Salt and Fresh," which is very cool. Then we talk about the second most important thing, which is crafting a legal framework for governing a planet, and how it would be like if we controlled the terms under which we work and had a say in the kinds of labor we do, how the products are distributed, and what gets produced. SPOILER ALERT: things would be better. Then we end with a riff on trees and how good they are, in contradistinction to the governing bodies

We rejoin Roger Clayborne (no relation to Ann) and Eileen Monday as they're reunited for a climb up Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the solar system. A lot to talk about in this episode, including Heidegger and Sartre, Romanticism, post-Romanticism, and nature, colonialism and history, somatic experiences, misery tourism, and worlding. Way too much to summarize! 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 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars-with-matt-and-hilary/support

Hi! We’re still figuring out how best to handle our new remote recording and figuring out sound levels, etc., so if Matt is too loud and Hilary is too quiet—sorry! This is low-effort, low-tech, labor-of-love stuff. We appreciate you bearing with us! This week we talk about two short stories, “Coyote Makes Trouble” and “Michel in Provence.” Even though they’re short, there’s tons to talk about! First, some inane chatter about stupid techno-alternatives to walking, like Segways and electric scooters. And cars. That comes out of some delight in the fact that KSR writes SF stories about hiking, which reflects his commitment to the quotidian and everyday and something that really matters. In “Coyote Makes Trouble,” we talk about Coyote’s place within the revolution, as an agent who also has to mediate between conflicting tensions within the movement. He wants to go faster than Maya, but also is not happy with the aggressive stance of the Reds, and he’s also constantly at risk of having his spy network infiltrated.

Matt has overcome his rural inertia long enough to finally put out this episode! Hooray!  This is the first episode that Matt and Hilary have recorded remotely. As such, there are some technical difficulties that we're still working out, so please be patient. (They're very minor and you probably wouldn't even notice if I didn't mention it.) This time we discuss "Maya and Desmond," "Four Teleological Trails," and "Discovering Life." In "Maya and Desmond," Matt and Hilary talk about the way the books depict major events while at the same time giving a sense of everydayness, uneventfulness, and mundanity. We talk about the entirely different perspective this story gives us of the events of the entirety of the Mars Trilogy, as it appears to span most of the 200-or-so-year span of the original books. It makes a difference to know that Hiroko's farm crew abandons the First Hundred in Red Mars not because of Hiroko but because Maya tipped Desmond off that (essentially) the cops were coming. We talk about the wa

Hello! We’re back in Phase Two of “Marooned! on Mars” Matt and Hilary will be discussing the short stories, essays, fragments, poems, and other literary concoctions that comprise The Martians, published in 1999. This is kind of like the apocrypha of the Mars Trilogy, things that didn’t necessarily “happen” or aren’t “canonical” to the original trilogy, but that involve the same characters and are set in the same basic world with the same basic presuppositions.  M & H start by talking about the way we’ve been approaching the books in general, which must represent some synthesis of the different ways the two of us read texts. M admits to a predilection to close reading, which probably accounts at least in part for our focus on them as books populated by characters. H's approach to science fiction (M suggests) revolves more around Darko Suvin’s concept of the novum (which H has discussed a few times), so is more focused on the world created and the political-economic and social ramifications of the new

Hello! We are so happy and proud to present this episode, our wide-ranging interview with the man himself! Kim Stanley Robinson, avid listener of our Kim Stanley Robinson podcast, graciously gave us some of his time during a layover at O'Hare in Chicago--hence the no doubt at times bad sound, so please forgive us. Hilary and Matt met Stan at the O'Hare Hilton bar, where we chatted over numerous topics, related and unrelated to the Mars novels. We talked about the origin of the novels, the historical moment of their creation (the so-called "end of history"), and the process of writing them. Is Hiroko dead? The answer is in the last two pages of Blue Mars! We touched on Stan's method of pattern-making beyond the conscious level of the reader, including his use of color and elemental imagery (I think there's a dissertation there for aspiring English PhDs...[don't go to grad school]), and share a chuckle over the dimwittedness of the New York Times. We talk also about the pathetic fallacy and the pre-modernist se

We’re back! Reading, talking, and listening respectfully. And sometimes swearing. Being misheard and misunderstood. We talk about student papers and Matt yammers about some of the reception studies he received, including papers about Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own and Akira (that one’s interesting), but not for too long, just be patient or hit 15-second forward about 8 times. We chat a little bit about other science fiction things that we’ve watched and read in the meantime. THEN we talk about the future of the podcast. Some changes are in store! But for the immediate and foreseeable future it will still be KSR-centric. We’re going to have an interview with Stan, and then do The Martians, divided in larger episodes we talk about together, and solo episodes about the shorter chapters. Then probably the Three Californias. But Matt is moving to New England, not writing a science fiction trilogy, probably getting a lame job under lame capitalism. The podcast will continue, remotely, you lucky listener

In the penultimate chapter of the Mars Trilogy, Sax names colors with Maya, works on the memory problem at Acheron, and goes sailing with Ann--and Matt and Hilary talk about it! We talk a bit about the moments of adventure in the books, and speculate about what they're for and why they happen when they do. But mostly we have a freewheeling conversation about memory, knowledge, and longevity. We discover that, hey, isn't life the ultimate "experimental procedure?" Sax encounters Zeyk, strapped to a thingamajig that's scanning his Marilu Henner-style brain. We explore the parallels between the remaining First Hundred taking the memory treatment and a far-out drug experience. We argue over the origin of the phrase "Wherever you go, there you are" (it's Buckaroo Bonzai, not Hitchhiker's Guide, btw). There's stuff about political commitment and memory here, about not living in the past so that you can be present to the present so you can live toward the future (which is the route Maya opts for). And, of course, a

Hello yes! We're (finally) back (again) with a double-stuffed, one-year anniversary episode! Here we discuss the long Maya chapter from Blue Mars, "It Goes So Fast." Ironically titled, as this is our longest episode yet and it is full of pointless diversions and digressions that will no doubt frustrate and alienate everyone! What can we say--Matt has a hard time maintaining a train of thought, and we were drinking bourbon. Our discussion of this beautiful, sad chapter starts with a consideration of other angry, bristly women in KSR novels and other utopian science fiction, particularly that of Joanna Russ, a big favorite of Hilary's. We touch on the new conceptual schemas that Sax offers Michel to understand Maya--why not throw quantum mechanics into the mix of medieval humors and see what comes out? We talk about life and history, and the appeal of theater to Maya as an adjunct to politics. We FINALLY get to talk about why no one goes to the movies on Mars, and longtime listeners will be happy to know that M

Part Two of our discussion of Blue Mars Part 11, "Viriditas"! Last episode was about Zo. This episode is about how cool living on the other planets is, and how the politics of the solar system are congealing. We drank beers on this one, so it might be a little more scattered. Matt uses the word "grok." Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Rate and review us on iTunes Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor app (You can donate to the show if you insist, we won't mind) Music by The Spirit of Space --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars-with-matt-and-hilary/support

Matt and Hilary let you into one of our planning sessions, demystifying the amazingly shallow and slapdash way we decide what to talk about. This chapter is so rich that we figured we'd have to divide it up into two episodes. This episode focuses mainly on Zo and the kind of problems we have with her and the kind of problems that she presents to us. We ask really fundamental questions that the book puts to us at this point in the narrative, including about the nature of pleasure and freedom in a world that spans the solar system and in which humans can expect to basically live forever. The big question we seek to answer across this and the next episode (which we probably don't ever answer) is, as articulated by Hilary: What do we make of the relationship between the things we’re learning about the transformations in the solar system (accelerando/ explosive diaspora) and what we learn about Zo?   We talk about our problems with Zo. Both of us didn't like Zo at all the first time we read this book, and the

In this episode we discuss Part Ten of Blue Mars, Werteswandel, a Nirgal chapter. Nirgal is running around Mars--running in circles, running from something, outside and inside himself at the same time. Running looks like a new technology on Mars, just like the new technology discussed in the prologue, of super-fast interplanetary travel. The only thing comparable is...nineteenth century train travel (thanks, Wolfgang Schivelbusch!). Nirgal (literally) runs into a society of feral hunter-gatherers, who seem like they'd fit right in at the FYRE Festival. There he meets Zo, and, well...it's complicated. This is one of those really short chapters where Matt and Hilary get to really dig in and be very expansive. If you're not interested in hearing our end-of-quarter conversation about teaching and corrupting the youth by opening their minds to utopian thinking (or just thinking), skip the last twenty minutes or so. But if you'd like to hear Matt's groundbreaking bumming-students-out-as-pedagogy technique, feast yo

After another unexpectedly long hiatus, Matt and Hilary are back to talk about our favorite topics--Martian and Chicagoan politics and Martian and Chicagoan weather! "Natural History" is a Sax chapter, and finds our favorite jumble of rats in a lab coat juicing himself up with crocodile DNA. Sax is radically hybrid in both body and mind, but he's also still mystified by the women in his life. To Hiroko and Ann is added the math genius Bao Shuyo, and it's hard for him to wrap his mind around the hybrid she presents to him--a woman math genius! Who knew? "What's this Bao episode doing here?" Hilary asks Matt. Matt babbles for a while and stumbles into an answer about feared loss of patriarchal dominance. Of course this chapter is also about nostalgia and the passing of time. Sax stumbles onto a project to give Mars a new moon, Pseudophobos, a talisman in the sky that will concretize a past moment and prove he has control over things once again, as Hilary puts it. This appears to be a nostalgic project that re

We're back, after an unexpected and unexpectedly long hiatus! This chapter finds Nirgal trying to find himself, to locate and perhaps localize himself on the planet Mars, amid the network of force relations constituted by his family, the Martian political system, the changed and changing environment, and the mythology of his own existence.  Matt starts by making a joke about blackface, which is so last week. Hilary is teaching Aurora for the first time, and it's a very emotional book! It doesn't help that it's Winter Quarter at the University of Chicago, the longest and most stressful quarter there is. They also talk about the Green New Deal and how important and good and awesome it is. Then they get into it. Mars is, as predicted, working as a kind of psychological safety-valve for the people of Earth, or that's how it seems to William Fort and his crew. This chapter is about scale and scalability in many ways--how the problems of a single person, or two people, or a bunch of weird micro-micro-microo

In this episode, Matt and Hilary discuss the Nadia chapter "Making Things Work," as Nadia figures out what it means to be the first President of Mars, ponders what it will be like to have a new pinkie finger, and wishes she could get her hands dirty with some real work. Matt and Hilary share tales of the polar vortex, which include chickens coming indoors to roost and watching a bad-ish Mars movie from the late 1990s. Then it's on to the KSR talk. Nadia is frustrated for much of this chapter, as the groundwork is laid for the future political processes of Mars. Is process more important than outcome? This is a lesson hard-learned by Nadia. A different kind of groundwork is happening with the construction of soil, a task which Nadia is surprisingly able to lend a hand in. (Get it?) Nadia's regrowing finger gives us a picture of life as recursive rather than linear, but Art's desire for a child seems to point to a residual element of human living-together--the persistence of the couple and the family form! It s

This episode Matt and Hilary discuss the masterful chapter, "Ann in the Outback." Matt and Hilary love love love this chapter, perhaps to the point where words fail them. Well, words fail Matt. Hilary, as always, is killing it. It's very cold in Chicago--perfect, Marslike weather for discussing Ann and the many (two) bears she meets, her awkward conversation with Sax, and the shittiness of eco-tourism. Tune in until the end when one of the luminaries of New German Cinema makes a surprise appearance! Extra Extra! Head on over to iTunes where The Spirit of Space, composer of our theme song, is selling his wares. It's an album called--you guessed it--"Extra Extra"! Thank you for listening, and thank you to our donors! Rate and review us on iTunes Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Tweet us @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail using the Anchor.fm app! Music by the aforementioned Spirit of Space --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars-with-matt-and-hilary/support

This week, Marooned on Mars discusses Part 5 of Blue Mars, "Home at Last." In this part, Michel returns home to his beloved Provence to find everything changed and unrecognizable. Matt and Hilary ponder psychologist Michel's weird psychology, where his whole identity is wrapped up in the woman he's in a relationship with. In Matt's words, he sees himself as "a worm who eats uncured olives." We think about personal history versus world history, the curiosity of memory, looking at old photos of yourself, Roman aqueducts, and, of course, how to get Tom Hanks to give us a million dollars. Or maybe Sigourney Weaver. Email: maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Twitter: @podcastonmars Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you download your podcasts Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor app! Music by The Spirit of Space --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars-with-matt-and-hilary/support