The slides for today outline the shift to “hard” SF over the 1940s, pushed forward in John Campbell’s Astounding Stories. Partisans of hard SF distinguished it from fantasy and “soft” SF, claiming more internally coherent treatments of science. Jennifer Ng, a present-day writer of SF, has condemned Campbell and Astounding for “setting a tone for SF that haunts this genre to the present day—stale, sterile, male, white, exalting the ambitions of imperialists, colonialists, settlers, and industrialists.” Do you see evidence for or against Ng’s claim in Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll” or Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy”? How does one of these stories depict manhood, womanhood, race, nationalism, or the role of corporations in an imagined future? Don’t address all of these categories, but write a paragraph or two that draws on specific language or actions in Heinlein’s or Del Rey’s work.
7 thoughts on “Astounding Stories and “Hard” SF–Group 2”
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Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy” has many parallels to the housewife we met in General Electric’s Roll-Oh film. Dave and Phil have just created a robot so complex it is capable of taste and thought. However, since this robot is gendered and considered a women it is only given chores around the house. This robot could have been dreamt to have any amounts of powers or knowledge, but instead because it is a women it falls in love with the man that created it. Helen then spends the rest of her days pining after Phil, instead of doing potentially anything else. This whole story defines womanhood by putting women into a box. Helen is capable of consuming large amounts of information quickly, however this story only has her digest love stories and then become fixated with Phil. Helens only goal and purpose seems to be the perfect house wife for Phil. At one point Dave explains to the reader that Helen’s cooking is great then goes on to say Helen is the perfect mesh between woman and mech. Implying that she is cooking because she is a woman and it is great food because she is a robot. I completely agree with Jennifer Ng that this story has perpetuated a “woman’s role” even when this robot is a fully functioning robot. Lastly, there is no surprise that two men created the robot.
I do agree with Jennifer Ng’s comment that a “stale, sterile, white male tone” has been set in SF and the story “The Roads must Roll” is reflective of that. I find these themes evident in the story throughout the fictional world and its dependence on the road systems. The story emphasizes how the US economy is highly dependent on this infrastructure that no other form of commerce could exist without it. The role of this corporation is ubiquitous in this fictional world which also seems to be dominated by white males. In various sections in the story, we can tell how high of a self worth the engineers of these roads assign themselves and how they live a stereotypical white male life by being the working male of a household and having submissive housewives cater to them. The conflict between the engineers and the technicians throughout the story continue to expose the flaws of this system and brings to light the issue of the embedded economic inequality. In a nutshell, the road system seems to be dominated by powerful white males who think of themselves highly in comparison to others because of their occupations in such a crucial industry.
Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy” is a perfect example of Ng’s claim regarding the stale, sterile, and male standards constraining ‘hard SF’ as it was understood by Campbell and his contemporaries. One could argue that the ‘mush’ readers of Astounding dislike is present in the story BUT what male readers (and writers) who dislike ‘mush’ seem to misunderstand is that it stems for the most part from the masculine imagination of womanhood. “Helen O’Loy” can in some ways be compared to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” they are both ‘origin’ stories that hint at Greek myths, but the similarities end here, and Shelley does a better job actually of reaching some of Campbell’s ideals than Del Rey (ironic considering she is a woman and Frankenstein is not exactly SF, though we could argue that it is in some ways). The eponymous Robot in Del Rey’s exercise in creation is purchased by the two men from Dillard’s choices of utility model mechs (as a homage to the great industrialists, and capitalists) and then is tinkered with by Phil and Dave ( as a homage to the status of white males in society). So the two friends and their newly birthed robot servant hint at the Greek myth from which her name stems only in that she is the “perfect woman” who exists within a love triangle between two men. Furthermore, the way Phil describes Helen’s psychological development goes against any idea of scientific coherence. How? How does Helen internalize her gender? How does she internalize concepts of humanness? Develop notions of love? Apparently, all a robot needs to become a woman is listening to serials, and reading adolescent books, being an amazing cook, a homely person, who enjoys shopping but can also fish in silence, and never get tired, or old. Why are robots gendered in the first place? Everything about Helen reflect how men understand womanhood, and how they write about it in shallow and performative ways says more about the writers than it does about actual women. The worst part is that there is no guarantee that the more interesting aspects of the story (robot/human relationships and the taboos that follow, or for instance the ethics of AI that have now emerged regarding their ethical, moral, and legal status) would have been explored in more appealing ways if the issue of “the perfect woman” was not at play. Counterfactually, if Phil and Dave had purchased a male or genderless robot, would it have made a difference? I don’t think it would unless they were able to put aside their contemporary understanding of the criteria mentioned in the prompt.
Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy” is fraught with the prevailing misogynist themes of its time. The story begins with a recollection of the fortuitous partnership of Phil and Dave, who unite based on a mutual desire to manufacture womanhood. The background is brief and casual in tone, and masks what to me is actually a partnership founded on a muted hatred of woman. In constructing their ideal woman, the men first endeavor to teach the machine their idea of the fundamental functions of a woman: domestic duties. They only grant the machine an endocrine system–and therefore more human agency–because they believe it will improve its functionality, not because they believe it deserves to experience consciousness. The Lena prototype reacts to her new wiring by throwing a tantrum, an illustration that shows what the author believes represents a woman’s histrionic default behavior.
Phil’s role in creating Helen displays a chauvinist intent related to his wishes about women ought to act. According to Phil’s logic, a woman’s undesirable behavior is due to an imbalance in her hormonal construction, a misogynistic stereotype similar to those referring to how women act during menstruation or while pregnant. Thus, Phil uses his knowledge of medicine to augment the Helen’s mind so as to be completely emotionally submissive. In terms of how the story progresses, despite having sentience Helen shows no material aspiration besides her infatuation with Dave. Perhaps this betrays the author’s belief that women are only interested in marrying and lack any other desires for self-actualization. When Dave returns to Helen at the end of the story, the author intends for Dave to look like a hero who charitably provides his robo-woman with the validation she–and by association every woman of the world–desperately seeks from men.
I agree with Ng’s opinion that in particular “The Roads Must Roll” is very problematic for science fiction and not just because of the bland whiteness initially displayed. As Ng mentions the story protagonist, antagonist and most major characters are white males and do very little to create an air of inclusivity in the story. In addition it is white men who hold positions of power and are arrogant in there work and ungrateful to the working class of men and woman who make this fantasy society function and the essential “roadtowns.”
This piece definitely took on the form of Hard Science Fiction through its gender dynamics as well as scientific rules. Roadtowns were a complicated scientific feat that would be extremely hard to replicate, but the structure that stands in place in Sacramento is very similar to the motifs we even see in daily life now. As in every time period there is a rift between the 1% (engineers) and the working class (technicians). The battle for power and wealth is always existent in every reality and this story is no different in that regard. In addition the relationship between men and women seems to follow a real life theme displaying power dynamics between genders very powerfully.
For this specific discussion post, I focus on the story “The Roads Must Roll”. I agree partially with Ng’s statement given the tone and character’s in this piece. Yet there are aspects of her claim that don’t seem to be as accurate in the context of this story as well.
To begin, I agree with Ng in terms of the Story being “sterile, stale, male & white”. The primary character’s in the piece are well to do, white (I presume), males presiding over the transportation system in the US. The story features chants similar to those that may be found in a locker room to ‘Keep the roads rolling’ from the technicians that are tasked with working it. In general, I felt as though the tone of the story was more measured and formal, then that of say ‘Martian Odyssey’. Additionally, the story takes a highly sexist stance towards the dynamic between husbands and wives, with the former frequently speaking to the latter in terms such as ‘Good girl’. In the above regards, I think that some of Ng’s comments regarding ‘Hard SF’s’ effects on the genre are true.
In this specific context, however, I am not sure that I agree with her sentiment that the sub genre goes to praise imperialism and/or colonialism. I say this mostly because of the issues the story exposes with regards to the moving roads system. The portrait of America painted by this is one of an entire economy dependent on the functioning of one singular system, and one that has failed significantly in the past as a result. While asking questions of Gaines, the Australian transportation minister exposes many of these potential vulnerabilities. Furthermore, the dynamic between Van Kleeck and Gaines demonstrates that those who control the system have significant amounts of power of those who do not.
Ultimately, it is my view that the story presents a vulnerable transportation system, ran by power hungry individuals. The story frequently exposes the inefficiencies of such a system, along with the negative effects on the underlying population. In this way, I feel as though it would be incorrect to say that imperialism, or any similar expansionist ideology is being praised here given the negative presentation of ideas.
The story “Helen O’Loy” by Lester Del Rey showed many realistic aspects that are similar to the “Astounding Science Fiction” by John Campbell. There are many aspects of Ng’s claims that appear in the story. The story definitely follows the Campbell aspect of having males dominate the story, since Phil and Dave are controlling the narrative and in control of both robots: Helen and Lena. Dave creates Helen and makes her the idealistic woman—able to perform all household chores with perfection (or very close to perfection), but soon she reads books and watches T.V. where she is introduced to romance. She falls in love with Dave, which then creates a weird dynamic between them as Dave does not want to fall in love with her. The story mentions that men want “flesh and blood, not rubber and metal”, which causes Dave and Helen’s relationship to be sterile. Dave eventually falls in love with Helen and they live on their own, where the story claims she is the perfect wife except that she can’t produce kids.
This story depicts both manhood and womanhood. With manhood, we see both Dave and Phil dominate the household—they work for the income, assign household chores (or simple other chores) to their woman robots, and control the narrative of the story. With womanhood, we see Helen manifest all of the qualities that were expected out of woman during this time period—to control the chores around the house, provide love and care for their husband, and to support the husband. Jennifer Ng’s quote is spot on in this story, and it provides context into how the relationships between the characters developed throughout the story.