Rolling Thunder, was Re: Ha'penny

And now I've finished ROLLING THUNDER (well, actually, I finished it a couple of days ago), so a few words on this one.

I'd heard somewhere that this was the final volume in Varley's Heinlein-inspired Martian Series, and I hope it's not. Not merely because I've enjoyed reading it, but because I don't think this last volume makes much sense as a finale. It reads like a finale, with that cascade of Heinlein titles references toward the end, but, well, so much of it is inexplicable if this is the ending.

I'll note to start that I enjoy reading Heinlein-inspired work, but the limitation of them, of course, is that usually, the author can't go anywhere Heinlein didn't. They're trying to replicate, not to do something new, and while the results may be fun, they tend to be constrained. I liked ROLLING THUNDER more than RED THUNDER or RED LIGHTNING on that score, because it felt like Varley was using Heinleinesque characters and prose techniques to tell a Varley story -- it was Heinlein-inspired as far as craft went, but the story it was telling wasn't all that Heinleinesque. So it felt like Heinlein surface technique in service of something that wasn't pastiche.

I'm not putting this terribly well, but the bottom line is -- I liked the surface Heinleininess of it just fine, and also liked the fact that the story didn't seem to be trying to replicate Heinleinesque plot patterns, so I didn't have a lot of preconceptions of where it was going. Andit certainly went odd and unpredictable places.

And that brings me back to why I hope it's not the final volume. I can understand the Europan constructs being mysterious, but so much of the plot hinges on them, causing developments that never come back together, that it feels like setup without resolution. The Europan constructs' "whale songs" (for lack of a better term) are the source of Podkayne's fame, the reason for her blackouts, her link with Jubal and some sort of metaphysical pathway that may lead her to being able to do what Jubal does. But...

So what? Her fame doesn't get her much but wish fulfilment and money; it doesn't affect Earth or Mars or the crisis. The blackouts don't affect anything but her and Jubal. Her link to Jubal makes them a couple, but them being a couple doesn't affect the plot any. And by the novel's end, her potential ability to do what Jubal does hasn't led anywhere except to hints and possibilities. If this is the finale, it's all plate-spinning, no resolution.

I'm left wondering -- if they've identified a Europan "whale song," and a human has synthesized and expanded on it -- why don't they play it back to the Europan constructs? Play it slow, play it loud, whatever. Play it on Europa, play it to the constructs on Earth...if it's language, showing that we can replicate and modify it should be worth something. If it doesn't work, it's a dead end, but if it creates some sort of reaction, well, maybe that might save Earth. Instead, though, it's just treated as pop music, and the one person who seems to be able to do anything with the constructs' languages is heading out for parts unknown.

It just seems to be a complete lack of resolution. There are these things, they do weird stuff, they're wrecking Earth, and they affected the lead in strange ways, but none of that leads anywhere because she's leaving, and we're making no attempts to deal with the weird things. Just leaving. But hey, she got rich and famous before she went. Huh?

If this is part 1 of something -- the Rolling Thunder will be followed by the constructs, or the people left behind will play "Jazzie's Song" to the constructs, creating a reason for the Rolling Thunder to return, then that's fine, I get that. But if this is the end, it seems like a series of events, but not a story.

I enjoyed reading it -- the technique was pleasant, it read nicely, the pages turned just fine, I liked the characters. I just found it structurally unsatisfying if this is where the story ends.

I also wanted to re-address James Nicoll's comments about it being "nativist SF," now that I've read the whole thing.

His charges are:

"The book begins on Earth, where the protagonist is in charge of dealing with potential immigrants to Mars. As we learn, her real job is to keep of the filthy degenerates who populate the xUSA and other, lesser nations from tainting her beautiful homeland with their foul touch. In fact, it becomes clear that not only can _immigrants_ never truly assimilate but it is impossible for their kids to be anything but welfare cases dragging down the Martian economy."

This is a pretty skewed description of what actually happens in the book, and maybe I missed stuff, but taking it bit by bit:

No, her job isn't to keep the "filthy degenerates" from tainting her beautiful homeland with their foul touch, nor does she have responsibilities regarding non-former-US nations, nor are they presented as "lesser" nations. Her job is to screen applicants in "Western America" and -- we're told -- to discourage borderline applicants from pursuing things further. Presumably, others are screening applicants in other nations.

Podkayne does, in fact, let qualified applicants through, and is praised for doing so -- everyone she let through was an "A-1 citizen prospect." So Mars isn't anti-immigration, they're merely choosy, as befits a highly technological culture living in an artificially-created and -maintained setting. They need people who'll bring useful skills and temperaments to the venture, and don't need people who won't. This comes up over and over again in SF without being labeled nativist -- applicants to colonies and starships get screened pretty carefully to make sure they'll be a benefit to the venture.

The remaining citizens of Earth are not described with loving kindness, no -- though Varley reserves his ire mostly for governments and cultures, rather than individuals. We've had two novelsworth of governments presented as power-hungry and warlike, who'll try to use force to subjugate anyone they can't control. The citizens of Mars view the nations of Earth as a potential enemy because of that. And it's not theory -- in the previous volume, there was a war, ended abruptly by Jubal's technology, which has left the nations of Earth angry at Mars, and there was the kidnapping of Jubal and various other matters. They're not assuming Earth is the enemy because they're prejudiced. They're considering Earth the enemy because Earth has demonstrated that it's an enemy, stopped only by superior firepower, not by any peaceful intentions on Earth's part.

But the hostility of Earth is not extended to individuals -- the commander at Forward Base on Europa is earthborn, Podkayne's doctor is earthborn, that singer Podkayne likes is earthborn...the book is full of examples of earth people who are good people, including Podkayne's grandparents and the Broussards, for that matter.

So they're not anti-Earthpeople; they're anti-Earth governments, and have plenty of experience telling them why. They're selective about who gets let into their artificial environment, but that makes sense -- it's an artificial environment, not a wide-open frontier.

I don't recall anything in the book that says that non-former-US nations are worse than the former US nations -- the book's greatest ire is reserved for the Bible thumpers of the American heartland, and in the series so far, the US has taken the brunt of the criticism. That's another reason I don't think the book can be nativist SF -- the essence of nativism is "My nation is great, outsiders suck and will pollute our culture." And certainly, you can express that idea in SF through metaphor -- Planet X is the stand-in for the author's native land, and it walls out stand-ins for other lands. But Varley's Mars isn't his stand-in for the US. The US are the bad guys. The treatment of the US isn't nativism, it's if-this-goes-on-ism, and Varley's underlying position isn't "my country great, everyone else pooey," it's "Geez, the US sucks, if things don't stop, we'll destroy ourselves."

That's not nativism, that's criticism.

The other nations of Earth aren't presented as particularly better than the US, but not worse either, and mostly are ignored,

As to the business about the children of immigrants being unable to be anything but welfare cases, Mars and the other locations are full of the children of immigrants doing fine. I expect where James gets it is a scene on Mars, after Podkayne wakes up and finds that Earth has been devastated by the Europan constructs, and that Mars took in all the refugees it could (man, those horrible nativists) to the point that it couldn't support any more, and had to drastically reduce their own standard of living so that everyone could survive (what callous isolationists!). The people she sees aren't merely immigrants, they're refugees, and specifically refugees who, we're told, were living in grinding poverty on Earth, had no jobs there, and have no skills that are useful on Mars. It's hard to imagine that, having opened the doors to refugees, without screening them for useful skills at all, they'd get lots of people who weren't going to be able to thrive on Mars.

Their children, however, are healthy and energetic. We're not told more, which may have led James to assume that we're supposed to think of them as having no futures, but the book doesn't say that -- it says their parents have no hope of a productive future, which was true for them on Earth, as well. The parents are welfare cases, you bet. The kids, I would presume, are going to school, getting good nutrition, playing with others -- I don't see any reason to assume they're going to be lifelong welfare cases. What little we're told about them focused on the differences between them and their parents, not the similarities.

[There's an indication in the book that there's some prejudice on the part of Martian citizens against the "Earthie" refugees, but it's presented by the mayor, who is described as "not completely awful," and who is exhorting the populace to stay the course and band together in brotherhood, even if he's doing so inelegantly.]

So yes, the book does say that desperately poor and untrained refugees have no great future on Mars. To leap from that to the idea that no immigrants will ever thrive and that no children of immigrants will ever thrive on Mars doesn't seem to me to be supported by the book. Mars is an immigrant culture, and the book is full of Earthborn or Earth-descended people of many nations. And the worst criticism the book has to offer is aimed at the native land of the author. I don't see that as nativism.

Sorry to go on at such length, James, but since I was only about 100 pages in when you made the criticism, I read the rest of the book with an eye out for nativism, and wound up with too much to say...

kdb





On 2008-03-09 11:39:45 -0700, jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx (James Nicoll) said:

In article <2008030910242150073-kurt@busiekcomics>,
Kurt Busiek <kurt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-03-09 06:37:27 -0700, Howard <rayc_hrc@xxxxxxxxxxx> said:

On Mar 9, 12:10 am, Kurt Busiek <k...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Currently reading: ROLLING THUNDER, John Varley.

Rolling Thunder is on my to be read pile (just came in the mail last
week from Amazon),

I'm about 100 pages in, and so far it's a lot of fun.

Really? Because it's now my default example of what
nativist SF looks like.

The book begins on Earth, where the protagonist is in charge
of dealing with potential immigrants to Mars. As we learn, her real
job is to keep of the filthy degenerates who populate the xUSA and
other, lesser nations from tainting her beautiful homeland with their
foul touch. In fact,

SPOILERS



it becomes clear that not only can _immigrants_ never truly
assimilate but it is impossible for their kids to be anything but welfare
cases dragging down the Martian economy.


.

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