Utopia falling into History in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars

Giovanna Ike Coan*

Abstract: This article analyzes how the concept of utopia appears in Kim Stanley
Robinson’s sci-fi novel Red Mars, a book that portrays the first steps of the planet’s
colonization by Earth. My purpose is to show that, even though science and
biotechnology provide the means for taming a wild landscape, the utopian solution
given at the end of the narrative seems to reinforce both the impossibility of creating
otherness, i.e., of giving an alternative to the social system, and the maintenance of
History and its flaws.
Keywords: science fiction, utopia, social alternatives, Red Mars.

According to Fredric Jameson, in our historical moment science fiction is

the locus where “Utopian thinking and radical social alternatives, about which Mrs.
Thatcher has so famously affirmed that none exist” (2005:212), can still be developed,
with the projections of different worlds, i.e., of worlds that represent Otherness and “our
deepest fantasies about the nature of social life, (…) as we feel in our bones it ought
rather to be lived” (Jameson, 1992:34).
Thus, as the American Marxist critic affirms, all ostensible Utopian
content is ideological for they reinforce – through a dialectical process – hegemonic
values of the present, of our reality, and, as Mannheim (apud Bobbio et al., 2000:1285)
points out:

(...) a mentalidade utópica pressupõe não somente estar em contradição com a

realidade presente, mas também romper os liames da ordem existente. Não é
somente pensamento, e ainda menos fantasia, ou sonho para sonhar-se
acordado; (...). Transcende a situação histórica enquanto orienta a conduta para
elementos que a realidade presente não contém (...). Utopia é, isto sim, inatuável
somente do ponto de vista de uma determinada ordem social já sedimentada.

Moreover, the analysis of science fiction narratives must consider the

projection of new worlds in light of Samuel T. Coleridge’s opposition between “Fancy”
and “Imagination” (apud Jameson, 2005), being the former the domain of the detail, the
style, and the latter the “narrative per excellence”, the totality, or, as for Jameson, “the
studium and punctum, so to speak, of the Utopian image” (idem: 218). As we are going
to see afterwards, such narratives, although highly ornamental and compelling in terms
of “Utopian Fancy”, tend to fail in the construction of the “Utopian Imagination”, i.e., in

*
Undergraduated student at the University of São Paulo. E-mail: gikecoan@yahoo.com.br.
presenting the closure, the alternative to the system, especially concerning the realm of
social order.
In the present article, the focus is on the utopian content of Kim Stanley
Robinson’s Red Mars (1993), the first book of an ambitious trilogy that portrays the
colonization of this planet1. Based on Marcuse (apud Bobbio et al., 2000:1286), who
proposes that “o termo utopista seja usado somente para designar um projeto de
transformação (…) considerando que a Utopia esteja ultrapassada porque hoje qualquer
transformação do ambiente técnico e natural é uma possibilidade real”, here we are
going to notice that even though the progress in science and biotechnology provides the
means for taming a wild landscape – or, using the novel’s terms, of terraforming it –,
the utopian solution given at the end of the story seems to reinforce both the
impossibility of change in society and the maintenance of History and its flaws.

1. “God gave us this planet to make in our image, to create a new Eden.” 2
Robinson’s epic tale of colonization, settlement and revolution takes
place on Mars, Earth’s fascinating neighboring planet, and thus differs considerably
from other sci-fi novels that are set in imaginary planets, such as the opposing Urras and
Anarres in Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. This choice not only strengthens the
sense of verisimilitude in such utopian plot – for it is not difficult to imagine the
colonization of the Solar System as the next step in the contemporary highly advanced
space programs –, but also catches the reader’s interest and awakes his fantasies
because, as it is indicated in the following passage,

(…) we are still those animals who survived the Ice Age, and looked up at the
night sky in wonder, and told stories. And Mars has never ceased to be what it
was to us from our very beginning – a great sign, a great symbol, a great
power. 3

As a conclusion, it is given that “And so we came here. It had been a

power; now it became a place.”; in this sense, the “we” of the passage may be
interpreted as all human beings, and not as the restricted “First Hundred” settlers of
Mars portrayed in the narrative. This has much to do with Ernst Bloch’s argument, in

1
Robinson’s “Mars Trilogy” consists of Red Mars (published in 1993), Green Mars (published in 1994)
and Blue Mars (published in 1996).
2
ROBINSON, Kim Stanley (1993). Red Mars. New York: Bantam Books, p. 171.
3
Idem, p. 03.
The Principle of Hope, that “the similarity, which so quickly became popular and was
indeed relative, of conditions of life on Mars with those on earth certainly encouraged
the assumption that the planet was a terra habitabilis [inhabitable country]” (1995:783).
Then, the sacred power of the unreachable red planet lost its force when
the symbolic battle between Nature and Culture, i.e., between the Universe and Man,
was won by the latter, who turned Mars into a mere place and, therefore, one of his
possessions. The next step was giving it an Earthlike atmosphere, i.e., to terraform it, to
build it identical to Earth.
Here, it is possible to approach our study to Roland Barthes’ analysis on
the “Martian psychosis” in Mythologies, for whom “mal foi criado no céu, eis Marte
assim alinhado pela mais forte das apropriações, a da identidade” (1997:38). The author
proposes that “toda esta psicose se funda sobre o mito do Idêntico, isto é, do Duplo.
Mas aqui, como sempre acontece, o Duplo encontra-se em avanço, o Duplo é Juiz”
(1997:37), however, a Judge that only diverges a little from a pure projection of the
Earth. In Red Mars, this image of the Double is seen, as mentioned above, in the
terraforming process, which, we might say, includes both the geographical and the
social dimensions of the settlement. With the collapse of the utopian “communal and
functioning society” and the revolution at the end of the book, the depiction of Mars
mirrors that of Earth’s history and confirms Barthes’ assumption that,

Provavelmente, se desembarcássemos por nossa vez no planeta Marte, tal como

nós mesmos o construímos, não iríamos encontrar mais do que a própria Terra,
e entre estes dois produtos de uma mesma história não seríamos capazes de
distinguir qual é o nosso. (1997:37)

Therefore, we come to the conclusion – which is one of the central ideas

in Jameson’s works – of the impossibility of thinking Otherness, or of “the future as
disruption”, in a present so deeply cut with the non-existence of social alternatives4.
But the idea of creating a new Eden on Mars expresses the desire of
creating a new start for humanity’s life, since the mythical Garden of Eden was the
location of the beginning of history, and its flawless state is connected to “the
geographical wishful realm of happiness, with a wishful age in which it is attained”
(Bloch, 1995:759). So here we observe the opposition between History (the sinful state
of the Earth) and Utopia (the return to the sinless Eden) in the realm of the Martian
4
Similarly, Barthes concludes that “uma das características constantes de toda a mitologia pequeno-
burguesa é esta incapacidade de imaginar o Outro” (1997:37).
colonization. Later on in this analysis, we are going to see that the unsuccessful
development of a new social order on Mars will lead into the search for a second
“Martian paradise” – which stands for the Biblical second earthly paradise of Canaan,
the Promised Land – represented by Hiroko Ai’s hidden community.
The desire for such an idealized social order on Mars is highlighted right
in the selection process of the “First Hundred” colonists, with the choice of
extraordinarily talented scientists in varied areas, who formed perfect symmetries
according to the colonist-psychiatrist Michel Duval. As the character Maya Toitovna
asks herself, “was this the rational society at last, the scientifically designed community
that had been the dream of the Enlightenment?”5, or as Arkady Bogdanov states:

We have been sent here by our governments, and all of our governments are
flawed, most of them disastrously. It’s why history is such a bloody mess. Now
we are on our own, and I for one have no intention of repeating all of Earth’s
mistakes just because of conventional thinking. We are the first Martian
colonists! We are scientists! It is our job to think things new, to make them new!
6

But as the narrative goes on, we see that the intervention of the
transnational exploitation companies and the massive influx of immigrants, i.e., the
influence of capitalism itself, disrupt the primary wish for scientific and rational control
over social beings.
In addition, one of the sources of conflicts in Red Mars is the disapproval
that part of the scientist team expresses of the terraforming process, which has as its
main voice the character Ann Clayborne, as observed in the following speech:

But it isn't right! I mean I look at this land and, and I love it. I want to be out on
it traveling over it always, to study it and live on it and learn it. But when I do
that, I change it – I destroy what it is, what I love in it. This road we made, it
hurts me to see it! (…) I don't want to do that to all of Mars, (…), I don't. I'd
rather die. Let the planet be, leave it wilderness and let radiation do what it
will. 7

Hence, Ann is against the image of “man playing God” and turning Mars
into a laboratorium Dei (laboratory of God), such as it is pronounced by the character

5
Idem, p. 31.
6
Idem, p. 61.
7
Idem, p. 157.
Sax Russell, “The planet is the lab”8. Throughout the narrative, we have access to
notably detailed descriptions of the action of taming this wild planet, i.e., of the
antithesis Nature/Culture, either in the portrayal of the scientists’ work – often called
“alchemists” – or in the technological achievements, such as the robots and the
“genetically engineered microorganisms (GEMs)”. The reference to alchemy is
interesting in the sense that turning ordinary metals into gold metaphorically stands for
humanity giving life to the stony reality of Mars, a desire that is present, again, in the
speech of Sax Russell: “‘The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind,’ (…) ‘Without
the human presence it is just a concatenation of atoms, no different than any other
random speck of matter in the universe. It's we who understand it, and we who give it
meaning.’ ”9.
Therefore, concerning the geographical approach to the terraforming
process, biotechnology makes possible the reversion of Martian status quo, or of the
meaning of the novel’s oft-repeated Japanese expression “Shikata ga nai” (“there is no
other choice”) – which promptly reminds us of Thatcher’s words. What we are going to
see next is that this conclusion cannot be applied to Red Mars’ utopian solution in the
realm of social order.

2. “Mars is not a nation but a world resource” 10

On the other hand, the novel shows us that an exclusively scientific new-
world colonization is also utopian, for in the capitalist (never-ending) system it will
always be mediated by the interests of business investments in exploiting the natural
resources. In Red Mars this role is performed by the transnational consortium (the
transnationals), with the support of UNOMA (the United Nations Organization Mars
Authority), which sponsored some of the scientists’ applied researches, i.e., the
pragmatic approach of their profession. Jameson’s conclusion that “technological
development is (…) on the Marxist view the result of the development of capital rather
than some ultimately determining instance in its own right” (1991:35) corroborates this
idea, which is also clear in the passage in which the character Arkady Bogdanov states
that

8
Idem, p. 263.
9
Idem, p. 177.
10
Idem, p. 516.
 (…) in reality, the [scientist] islands are part of the transnational order. They
are paid for, they are never truly free, there is never a case of truly pure
research. Because the people who pay for the scientist islands will eventually
want a return on their investment. And now we are entering that time. A return
is being demanded for our island. We were not doing pure research, you see,
but applied research. And with the discovery of strategic metals the application
has become clear. And so it all comes back, and we have a return of ownership,
and prices, and wages. The whole profit system. 11

Thus, it is given that some of the scientist-colonists were actually

consulting for transnational companies; for instance, Arkady informs that “Phyllis
consults for Amex, and Praxis, and Armscor. And Frank consults for Honeywell-
Messerschmidt, and GE, and Boeing, and Subarashii. And so on. They are richer than us. And
in this system, richer is more powerful.”12. Here, it is possible to make a connection with
Georg Lukács’ criticism on modern capitalism and the reification of the proletariat, for
the aforementioned description of the Martian team resembles the idea of “the split
between the worker’s labour-force and his personality, its metamorphosis into a thing,
an object that he sells on the market” (1976:99). Hence, we can come to the conclusion
that the commodity-structure has “colonized” Mars in the novel: not only in terms of the
commodity exchange of its natural resources but also in relation to the scientists
themselves, who, by selling their labour-force, were “becoming happy slaves for some
executive class, walled in its fortress mansion”13, and, we might say, slaves for “the
whole profit system”14.
At this point, we can make a brief observation on the possible link
between the novel and Guy Debord’s assertion, in The Society of the Spectacle, that “the
ultimate form of commodity reification in contemporary consumer society is precisely
the image itself” (apud Jameson, 1992). Both the nine-month simulation trip in the
spaceship Ares, at the beginning of the book, and the actual settlement on Mars are
depicted as sources of entertainment on Earth:

Media attention was a familiar part of every astronaut’s life, (…). Now,
however, they were the raw material for programs magnitudes more popular
than any space program had been before. Millions watched them as the
ultimate soap opera (…). 15

11
Idem, p. 342.
12
Idem, p. 343.
13
Idem, p. 344.
14
Idem, p. 342.
15
Idem, p. 39.
 Thus, even though Red Mars was published years before the arrival of the
“reality-shows”, the so-called “red soap opera” with “the first hundred’s media stars”
and “their existence as characters in an ongoing TV drama” deals with the idea of
factual images being covered with fictional masks, of real human beings being turned
into reified subjects by the media (TV, tabloid press etc), and, thus, sold as commodities
to the spectators.16
Then, the title of the chapter in Red Mars where the discussion of the
transnationals appears – “Falling into History” – fits perfectly the interpretation that all
utopian content (Utopia itself) – in this case connected with the building of a new Eden
on Mars – is impossible to occur because our capitalist present (i.e., the product of
History) has colonized the “future as disruption” (Jameson, 2005:211). Therefore,
whether in the present or in the future, whether on Earth or on Mars, “Money equals
power; power makes the law; and law makes government.”17. And dealing with this
theme is a remarkable achievement in Kim Stanley Robinson’s book.
Moreover, this correlation between money, power and
technology/science18 also appears in other sci-fi novels that attempt to create utopian
scenarios having as their starting point the reality of a known world, i.e., of our present
world. In Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, the Anarresti physicist Shevek observes
in Urras (the Earthlike capitalist planet) that he, as a scientist, had to serve the State,
“they owed him”, and an idea was a property of the State, in a land where people had
“no relation to the things but that of possession” (2003:132). As for Philip K. Dick’s
Ubik, the commodity-structure permeates every aspect of life and, ironically, in this
comparison with Red Mars, of the whole universe – it is, therefore, ubiquitous –, and
money replaces all values, as seen in the last chapter’s epigraph: “I am Ubik. Before the
universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the
places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. (…) I am. I shall always be.”
(1969:110).

3. “This is home. This is where we start again.” 19

16
As Jameson points out, “the contents of media itself have now become commodities” (1991:277).
17
Idem, p. 394.
18
According to Fukuyama (1992 : XIV), “technology makes possible the limitless accumulation of
wealth, and thus the satisfaction of an ever-expanding set of human desires”.
19
Idem, p. 572.
 As we have already mentioned, the power of the transnationals and the
massive influx of immigrants (the “newcomers” and their hopes and desires) disrupt the
ideal social order of the “First Hundred” Martian colonists; things, therefore, went out
of control and felt into History, as the following passage, related to the colonization
leader John Boone, clearly demonstrates:

(…) all in an attempt to inspire the people on the planet to figure out a way to
forget history, to build a functioning society. To create a scientific system
designed for Mars, designed to their specifications, fair and just and rational
and all those good things. (…)
And yet after every year that passed, it seemed less likely to happen the way he
had envisioned it. (…) events were out of his control, and more than that, out of
anyone's control. There was no plan. (…)
Social planning of some sort… (…) well, societies without a plan, that was
history so far; but history so far had been a nightmare, a huge compendium of
examples to be avoided. No. They needed a plan. They had a chance at a new
start here, they needed a vision. 20

Hence, as the novel indicates, “Red Mars was gone”, as well as the
possibility of man creating Otherness. In the final chapters of the book, riots and an
insurrection against the transnationals and UNOMA take place in the planet, until it
becomes completely wrecked. But the narrative shows that things were also falling apart
on Earth, mostly because of the permanent unequal distribution of the scientific
conquests between the rich and the poor, or, using the terms of The Dispossessed,
between the propertied and the unpropertied classes. And the cause of this last conflict
was connected to the gerontological treatment that was providing the lengthening of
human life, about which Frank Chalmers explains that “Now every corner shop has a
TV and they [the poor] can see what’s happening – that they’ve got AIDS while the rich
have the treatment. (…) [that] they die young and the rich live forever!”21.
Thus, such image of both planets being chaotically destructed at the same
time reminds us of Roland Barthes’ mythical conception of the Identical, the Double,
linking Earth to Mars. Moreover, as Jameson (2005:211) points out, we come to the
“reversion of difference and otherness into the same, and the discovery that our most
energetic imaginative leaps into radical alternatives were little more than the projection
of our own social moment and historical or subjective situation”.

20
Idem, pp. 283-4.
21
Idem, p. 429.
 Previously in our analysis, we interpreted that in the novel Mars stood for
a new Eden and the unsuccessful development of social order would awaken the search
for a second “Martian paradise”, i.e., Canaan, the Promised Land. In this sense, Bloch
proposes that “only at the end of history does Canaan appear complete” and “time itself
is the possible ship to paradise regained” (1995:759). So here we understand that this is
the role played by Hiroko Ai’s hidden community in the story, after the multiple hints
given throughout the narrative of her disappearance into the “unknown nation”, the
underground, a country that was “ready if needed” to be “a new start”.
And here we also identify the flaw in Kim Stanley Robinson’s book. Red
Mars’ last chapter is called “Shikata ga nai” (“there is no other way”), which implies
that the only way, the only alternative, was going to Hiroko’s hidden shelter.
Consequently, this is the Utopian solution given by the novel, even though the crises
that arose from the Earthly and Martian revolutions and from the “eternal present” of
the capitalist system end up having no closure.
As a matter of fact, it is possible to draw a parallel between Red Mars
and The Dispossessed in terms of the reproduction of History in the Utopian scenarios.
Both novels present a triple sequence of places in which one attempts to be a better
version of the other: thus, on the one hand we have Earth > Mars > Hiroko’s
community, and on the other Earth > Urras > Anarres. According to Jameson
(2005:226), these are “versions of a human diaspora scattered throughout galactic
space”, a diaspora that would be concluded in a harmonic land, for Urras was a new
social order founded upon solidarity, whereas Hiroko’s community (note that her
surname Ai means “love” in Japanese) was based upon the Areophany, “a kind of
landscape religion, a consciousness of Mars as a physical space suffused with kami,
which was the spiritual energy or power that rested in the land itself” 22.
Therefore, thinking that the solution of the hidden shelter is plausible –
that it is a “blueprint for change” – reiterates a problem that appears in many sci-fi
stories. Bringing back Coleridge’s dichotomy (apud Jameson, 2005), although the level
of decoration and creativity is highly explored in such narratives, we come to the
conclusion that the realm of the “Utopian Imagination”, which “turned out to have
much to do, not only with the closure of the system, but also with its nameability, (…)
with its chances of representation” (Jameson, 2005:227), remains opened, i.e., as a
desire.
22
Idem, p. 229.
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