Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People 0203873890, 0415989515, 9780415989510, 9780203873892

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REPRESENTATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN SCIENCE FICTION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Children’s Literature and Culture Jack Zipes, Series Editor Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction by Robyn McCallum Recycling Red Riding Hood by Sandra Beckett The Poetics of Childhood by Roni Natov Voices of the Other Children’s Literature and the Postcolonial Context edited by Roderick McGillis Narrating Africa George Henty and the Fiction of Empire by Mawuena Kossi Logan Reimagining Shakespeare for Children and Young Adults edited by Naomi J. Miller Representing the Holocaust in Youth Literature by Lydia Kokkola Translating for Children by Riitta Oittinen Beatrix Potter Writing in Code by M. Daphne Kutzer Children’s Films History, Ideology, Pedagogy, Theory by Ian Wojcik-Andrews Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults edited by Carrie Hintz and Elaine Ostry Transcending Boundaries Writing for a Dual Audience of Children and Adults edited by Sandra L. Beckett The Making of the Modern Child Children’s Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century by Andrew O’Malley How Picturebooks Work by Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott

Brown Gold Milestones of African American Children’s Picture Books, 1845-2002 by Michelle H. Martin Russell Hoban/Forty Years Essays on His Writing for Children by Alida Allison Apartheid and Racism in South African Children’s Literature by Donnarae MacCann and Amadu Maddy Empire’s Children Empire and Imperialism in Classic British Children’s Books by M. Daphne Kutzer Constructing the Canon of Children’s Literature Beyond Library Walls and Ivory Towers by Anne Lundin Youth of Darkest England Working Class Children at the Heart of Victorian Empire by Troy Boone Ursula K. Leguin Beyond Genre Literature for Children and Adults by Mike Cadden Twice-Told Children’s Tales edited by Betty Greenway Diana Wynne Jones The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s Literature by Farah Mendlesohn Childhood and Children’s Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800 edited by Andrea Immel and Michael Witmore Voracious Children Who Eats Whom in Children’s Literature by Carolyn Daniel National Character in South African Children’s Literature by Elwyn Jenkins Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in Mary Poppins The Governess as Provocateur by Georgia Grilli

A Critical History of French Children’s Literature, Vol. 1 & 2 by Penny Brown Once Upon a Time in a Different World Issues and Ideas in African American Children’s Literature By Neal A. Lester

Enterprising Youth Social Values and Acculturation in Nineteenth-Century American Children’s Literature Monika Elbert Constructing Adolescence in Fantastic Realism Alison Waller

The Gothic in Children’s Literature Haunting the Borders Edited by Anna Jackson, Karen Coats, and Roderick McGillis

Crossover Fiction Global and Historical Perspectives Sandra L. Beckett

Reading Victorian Schoolrooms Childhood and Education in Nineteenth-Century Fiction by Elizabeth Gargano

The Crossover Novel Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its Adult Readership Rachel Falconer

Soon Come Home to This Island West Indians in British Children’s Literature by Karen Sands-O’Connor

Shakespeare in Children’s Literature Gender and Cultural Capital Erica Hateley

Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child by Annette Wannamaker

Critical Approaches to Food in Children’s Literature Edited by Kara K. Keeling and Scott T. Pollard

Into the Closet Cross-dressing and the Gendered Body in Children’s Literature by Victoria Flanagan

Neo-Imperialism in Children’s Literature About Africa A Study of Contemporary Fiction by Yulisa Amadu Maddy and Donnarae MacCann

Russian Children’s Literature and Culture edited by Marina Balina and Larissa Rudova

Death, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature Kathryn James

The Outside Child In and Out of the Book Christine Wilkie-Stibbs

Fundamental Concepts of Children’s Literature Research Literary and Sociological Approaches Hans-Heino Ewers

Representing Africa in Children’s Literature Old and New Ways of Seeing by Vivian Yenika-Agbaw The Fantasy of Family Nineteenth-Century Children’s Literature and the Myth of the Domestic Ideal by Liz Thiel From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood Children’s Literature and the Construction of Canadian Identity By Elizabeth A. Galway The Family in English Children’s Literature Ann Alston

Translation under State Control Books for Young People in the German Democratic Republic Gaby Thomson-Wohlgemuth Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People Noga Applebaum

REPRESENTATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN SCIENCE FICTION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

NOG A A PPL E BAU M

NEW YORK AND LONDON

First published 2010 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Applebaum, Noga. Representations of technology in science fiction for young people / by Noga Applebaum. p. cm.—(Children’s literature and culture ; 64) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Children’s stories—Themes, motives. 2. Children’s stories—History and criticism. 3. Science fiction—History and criticism. 4. Children—Books and reading. 5. Technology in literature. I. Title. PN1009.5.T43A66 2010 809.3'8762—dc22 2009003492 ISBN 0-203-87389-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-98951-5 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-87389-0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-98951-0 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-87389-2 (ebk)

To Ariel and Zohar with love. I couldn’t do this without you.

Contents

List of Permissions

xi

Series Editor’s Foreword

xiii

Acknowledgments

xv

Introduction Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

1

But Only God Can Make a Tree: Technology and Nature in Young SF

17

The Last Book in the Universe: The Fate of the Humanities in a Technological World

45

The Road Not Taken: The Impact of Technology on Narrative Structure

71

The World Upside Down: Technology, Power and the Adult-child Relationship

95

(Tech)Nobody’s Children: Clones and Cloning in Young Adult Literature

127

Conclusion: The Technophobic Legacy

151

Notes

161

Bibliography

173

Index

189

ix

x

List of Permissions

A shorter version of the first chapter was first published in Journal of Children’s Literature Studies 3(2): 1–17 Reproduced by permission of Pied Piper Publishing Ltd., 80 Birmingham Road, Shenstone, Lichfield, WS14 0JU, UK Part of the second chapter was fi rst published in An Invitation to Explore: New International Perspectives in Children’s Literature, edited by L. Atkins, N. Dalrymple, M. Gill and L. Theil, 2008–12–18 Reproduced by permission of Pied Piper Publishing Ltd., 80 Birmingham Road, Shenstone, Lichfield, WS14 0JU, UK

xi

Series Editor’s Foreword

Dedicated to furthering original research in children’s literature and culture, the Children’s Literature and Culture series includes monographs on individual authors and illustrators, historical examinations of different periods, literary analyses of genres, and comparative studies on literature and the mass media. The series is international in scope and is intended to encourage innovative research in children’s literature with a focus on interdisciplinary methodology. Children’s literature and culture are understood in the broadest sense of the term children to encompass the period of childhood up through adolescence. Owing to the fact that the notion of childhood has changed so much since the origination of children’s literature, this Routledge series is particularly concerned with transformations in children’s culture and how they have affected the representation and socialization of children. While the emphasis of the series is on children’s literature, all types of studies that deal with children’s radio, fi lm, television, and art are included in an endeavor to grasp the aesthetics and values of children’s culture. Not only have there been momentous changes in children’s culture in the last fifty years, but there have been radical shifts in the scholarship that deals with these changes. In this regard, the goal of the Children’s Literature and Culture series is to enhance research in this field and, at the same time, point to new directions that bring together the best scholarly work throughout the world. Jack Zipes

xiii

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Professor Kimberley Reynolds and Dr Lisa Sainsbury for their encouragement and guidance throughout the course of this project. I also thank Dr Liz Thiel, Madelyn Travis and David Kahn for their assistance, Dr Alice Bell and Dr Katherine Gillieson—my co-bloggers at The Science Project, the NCRCL staff at Roehampton University, Professor Jack Zipes and the team at Routledge. The research which led to this book was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to which I am indebted. Finally, my deepest gratitude to my wonderful parents, Professor Shalom and Dr Levia Applebaum for their immeasurable inspiration and support.

xv

Introduction No one is allowed on these premises if he is afraid of machines and if he still believes that literature, and perhaps even thought, ought to exorcise the machine, the two having nothing to do with each other. (Derrida, 1981: 292)

As Jacques Derrida asserts, literature should engage with and be influenced by technology. Implicit in this statement is the recognition that technology is interwoven with modern culture and cannot be separated from it. Modern technology in its many forms, from nuclear science to cybernetics, genetic engineering and Computing and Information Technology (CIT), has become an inseparable part of our daily lives, and as Denise Murray points out, “it not only transforms what we do, but also how we construct our world” (1995: 1). Technology’s presence has given rise to significant attempts to map its effect on culture, society and human identity,1 as well as its influence on the young.2 This book demonstrates that fiction written for children, specifically within the genre of science fiction (SF), engages with technology, yet in many of the works it is with the intention of ‘exorcising’ modern manifestations of the machine. Perceptions of technology as a corrupting force, particularly in relation to young people’s use of it, are related to the prevailing myth of the innocent child, as explored by Jacqueline Rose (1984), Anne Higonnet (1998), Jack Zipes (2000) and Henry Giroux (2000), to name but a few, and result in fiction written for a young audience which endorses a technophobic agenda. Concerns surrounding the interface between young people and technology are discussed and perpetuated through various platforms. Public policy, especially with regard to regulating the internet, has extensively deployed the myth of childhood innocence through constructing young internet users as potential victims in order to mobilise public support (Oswell, 1998). The media often seizes upon stories presenting technology as a threat to young people’s well-being, from health concerns over wireless technology (Lean, 2007) to sexual abuse via mobile phones (Horton, 2004), and, predominantly, harm 1

2 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People through use of CIT. For example, a recent report in The Guardian raised concerns that internet providers are not doing enough to protect children online (Dowell, 2008). On the same day, the Daily Mail ran a more sensationalist story, reporting teachers’ claims that technology is one of the signal causes responsible for the rise in suicide amongst children (“Exams, Technology and Family Breakups Are Driving Children to Suicide, Say Teachers,” 2008). Similar anxieties are also expressed in recurring public surveys relating to issues of childhood and technology. A British survey conducted by NCH (The Children’s Charity) in association with Tesco Telecoms emphasises the danger to young people’s welfare embedded in the gap between their own and their parents’ technological know-how (2006). In America, the Center for the Digital Future seventh annual report on internet usage shows that while Americans’ opinions about the internet are becoming increasingly positive, a growing trend has also been identified, in which “adults view some aspects of going online by children to be as troubling as their use of other media—or even potentially dangerous” (Center for the Digital Future, 2008: 1). Most adults interviewed in this report believe that online predators are a threat to the children in their households, and the majority feel “uncomfortable with the children in their households participating in online communities” (8). As a way of asserting their control, an increasing number of parents use the internet and the television as punishment tools, denying access to their children as a response to inappropriate behaviour (10). These findings correlate with Valerie Walkerdine’s earlier research on children’s use of computer games (1998). Walkerdine found that “parents expressed considerable anxiety about the breakdown of society, increased violence, drugs, crime and the breakdown of the family” as a result of children’s engagement with computer games; however she points out that “this anxiety about new technology was an entirely adult affair. For children, computers are simply a taken-for-granted part of their lives” (244). I have previously argued that children’s books reflect adults’ ambivalent attitudes towards children’s use of CIT (Applebaum, 2005). While publishers realise that children are attracted to this technology, thus featuring images of computers and techno-jargon on covers of books, often with no relation to their content (252–53), novels which do feature computers frequently present them in a negative context, and posit them as threats to their child protagonists’ physical and social well-being (253–56). These findings offer insights into the impact of technology on the relationship between children and adults, and how it is reflected in literature written by adults for young readers. The generational gap in terms of attitudes towards technology, and the acquisition of technological skills, highlighted in a number of studies and surveys3 certainly comes into play in literature “which rests so openly on an acknowledged difference, a rupture almost, between writer and addressee” (Rose, 1984: 2). This is one of the central conclusions of this book, engaging with the representation of technology in SF written for young people.

Introduction • 3 The relationship between science fiction and technology is inherent. It has become the literary genre “native to a culture undergoing the epistemic changes implicated in the rise and supercession of technical-industrial modes” (Broderick, 1995: 155). More importantly, “a piece of futuristic, extrapolated technology is most often the technological novum4 that distinguishes a story as SF” (Roberts, 2000: 146). In other words, SF is a literary genre preoccupied with modern technology. Moreover, as will become evident in the following chapters, technology often functions as the central metaphor in SF literature (147). As a genre, SF “includes significant themes and values that are a commentary on society in general and the impact of technology on human values in specific”(Greenlaw, 1982: 66). Therefore, SF offers a useful literary paradigm for this area of investigation. SF, however, has proven to be a slippery term,5 it is therefore necessary to explain how it is defined for the purpose of this book. As The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction notes, “a workable definition of sf,” which is “sufficiently inclusive to satisfy all or even most readers” may never be established (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 313–14). Nevertheless, Robert Scholes’ definition of what he terms as “structural fabulation,” an alternative name for science fiction intended to emphasise the genre’s significant place in the history of the novel by framing it within Scholes’ general poetics of fiction, encompasses many of the novels discussed in the following chapters. According to Scholes, in structural fabulation, [ . . . ] the tradition of speculative fiction is modified by an awareness of the universe as a system of systems, a structure of structures, and the insights of the past century of science are accepted as fictional points of departure. Yet structural fabulation is neither scientific in its methods nor a substitute for actual science. It is a fictional exploration of human situations made perceptible by the implications of recent science. Its favorite themes involve the impact of developments or revelations derived from the human or physical sciences upon the people who must live with those revelations or developments. (1975: 41–42) Scholes’ definition stresses the ‘literariness’ of SF, rather than its scientific methodology, and highlights the metaphorical function of technology within the genre. More importantly, it emphasises the function of SF as a vehicle for exploring contemporary dilemmas within the context of scientific and technological discoveries, a perception which is central to this book, which sets out to contextualise Young SF within current discourses of childhood in relation to technology. Scholes’ definition is also flexible enough to include works that follow current technological applications to new, though logical and often well understood conclusions, but also texts which do not strictly adhere to scientific accuracy, depicting technological and scientific advancements which can never be realised. Some novels discussed in this book revolve around

4 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People such nova. For example, time travel, which the physicist Stephen Hawking has discounted as impossible, because “we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future” (1993: 311), appears in Grace Chetwin’s Collidescope (1990), Kate Reid’s Operation Timewarp (2002) and Malcolm Rose’s Clone (2002). Other novels, such as Nicky Singer’s Gem X (2006), are inspired by, but stray from, normative scientific hypotheses about human cloning.6 Scholes’ definition is, therefore, wide enough to encompass these novels, as well as both dystopian and utopian works taking place in the present or the future, on Earth or other planets, all of which are represented here. This book is centred on representations of the types of cutting edge technology which are already budding today and likely to develop further in the future. Although technologies such as genetic engineering, nuclear power, cybernetics and virtual realities have been present in SF from its early days, at the beginning of the twenty-first century their realisation seems closer than ever, and consequently discussions about their nature and impact have increasingly entered public debate. The novels discussed all extrapolate from technology available or predicted at the time they were published, presenting a wide range of ‘new inventions’: from the ‘probes’—the next generation of consol game devices—in Rodman Philbrick’s The Last Book in the Universe (2000) to the internet-inspired ‘feed’ in M.T. Anderson’s eponymous novel (2003), as well as the anti-aging pill in Alex Shearer’s The Hunted (2005) and the ‘Kwik-Learn’ teaching system used on the clones in Chris Farnell’s Mark II (2006). For the purpose of this book technology is used as an umbrella term for any extrapolation derived from modern devices which affect our lives, primarily those in use within the domestic sphere, for example CIT. I perceive advanced genetic engineering and human cloning, extrapolated from current reproductive technologies, to be a part of this sphere although they operate outside of it, primarily because of their impact on kinship. Fictional technological societies are defined as those in which such extrapolations exist. As it is mainly non-domestic, nuclear power, a technology previously discussed in studies exploring post-holocaust scenarios in children’s literature (Esmonde, 1977; Brians, 1990) is deemed less relevant for this discussion, however, it is considered in the context of novels which employ its disastrous consequences as a premise for depicting futuristic societies, for example Brenda Vale’s Albion (1982) and Barry Faville’s The Keeper (1986). I have chosen to focus on SF written for young people in English after 1980—a significant year in the history of technology as it is the year in which both the first IBM PC and the internet predecessor BITNET were launched, commencing a fast-paced technological revolution within the domestic sphere (Pennings, 1997). This revolution has also changed the face of childhood, allowing new paradigms to develop as new communication technologies have enabled young people publicly to express themselves as well as become informed about the world around them, often outside the mediation of adults (Lee, 2001).

Introduction • 5 In the following pages I explore the impact of this change through discussing the representations of technology in a medium wherein information aimed at young people is still mediated almost entirely by adults: the children’s book, and particularly the Young SF novel.

Young SF: Critical History of a Genre As Peter Graham comments, “the golden age of science fiction is 12” (quoted in Hartwell, 1984: 3). Graham means that the first time that the SF fan encounters the genre is memorable, and nothing will diminish its glory, but his statement also implies that this encounter usually takes place in early adolescence. In fact, as demonstrated by Farah Mendlesohn’s review of SF picture books (2003), it can happen even sooner, as books employing the tropes of SF to various degrees exist for very young readers, initiating them into the genre. Despite the presence of texts aimed at a young readership, as Charles W. Sullivan III notes, SF “may well have a larger number of crossover readers, young adults who read novels written and marketed for adults, than any other genre” (1999a: 25).7 However, because my research is concerned with the ways and means by which adults communicate ideas regarding technology to children, it focuses on traditional, printed books published specifically with young people in mind by children’s book imprints and publishers. SF novels written for young readers are grouped by scholars and publishers under several names. Robert Heinlein’s novels for young people, which some critics claim to be the founding point of the genre (Molson and Miles, 1995), were marketed as Juvenile SF, while The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction’s dedicated entry on the genre is entitled ‘Children’s SF’ (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 214); elsewhere the genre is referred to as Young Adult SF (Barron, 1995). The confusion surrounding the labelling of SF written for young people was highlighted by the editors of a special issue of the British journal Foundation, dedicated to the genre, who note: “like the category of science fiction itself, the labels of the field are mutable and subject to the whims of publishers” (Mendlesohn and James, 1997: 3). To resolve the problem, they opted for the label “Young SF,” suggested by the author Diana Wynne Jones to them (3). As this book considers texts aimed at a broad age range (7–16), I also found this label to be useful for the purposes of my discussion. According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Young SF is “almost as old as the genre itself” (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 214). Indeed some of the texts considered today as precursors of Young SF have been published for a crossover audience, particularly the novels by Jules Verne as part of his Voyages Extraordinaires (Extraordinary Journeys) series, which included Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) among others. Verne combined didacticism with rollicking adventure stories, and, as they were generally abridged

6 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People (almost exclusively when first translated into English), his novels appealed to an even younger audience than originally intended (Bogstad, 2006). Indeed Verne is known today as both a SF pioneer and a children’s author. Under the influence of his publisher, Verne’s novels “valorized science as leading the inevitable progress of humanity,” yet Verne also “acknowledged the ability of humans to pervert that progress” (para. 5). This means that his novels retain a sense of technological wonder, while hinting at the consequences of misusing technology. As Michael Levy asserts, the first SF literature written specifically for children was in the form of series fiction published in periodicals such as the British The Boys’ Own Paper (1879–1967) and the American The Boys of New York (1875–1894) (2006: para. 4). The success of these series, especially Frank Reade and Frank Reade, Jr. (1892–1898) which relate the adventures of a young inventor-explorer, indicate that there was an enthusiastic audience, mainly of boys, for stories of this kind. It is credited with bringing about the Great Marvel series (1906–1935), a hardback, Verne-inspired illustrated series compiled of nine volumes, all of which were written under the name ‘Roy Rockwood.’ The publishers, the Edward Stratemeyer Syndicate, were also responsible for “the most popular boys’ books of all time,” the Tom Swift series (first published in 1910), written under the pseudonym Victor Appleton, focusing on another young inventor, the eponymous Tom Swift, sequels to which are published to this day (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 1172). As Francis Molson states, in Tom Swift, as in other proto-SF series fiction (which he aptly terms as ‘technological fiction’ for its focus on wondrous inventions and gadgets) before 1940, the embedded message is that “youth is capable of ‘wonder’ deeds, including the devising and performing of technological marvels” (1999: 19). By contrast, Robert Von der Osten criticises Tom Swift for approaching “technological invention through an ideological mystification that so stresses its inherent goodness that it masks both the social contexts that generate the technology and the possible impacts of the technology on people’s lives” (2004: 271). While this may be true, it is important to stress that the early series of Tom Swift displays a technological optimism rare in contemporary Young SF. In fact, later titles in this series, published in the early 1990s, do not manage to maintain this positive attitude; as Von Der Osten notes, “our cultural ambivalence fi nally caught up with the Tom Swift series as Tom’s scientific ambitions become laced with hubris and yield unexpected negative consequences” (281). Despite the popularity of these series, and although a few turn-of-the-century mainstream children’s novels, such as L. Frank Baum’s The Master Key: An Electrical Fairytale (1901) and Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolitttle in the Moon (1929), feature SF elements (Molson and Miles, 1995: 396; Levy, 2006: para. 6), Young SF as a genre was considered low-status literature, and so dismissed by the ‘gatekeepers’ of children’s literature—reputable publishers, parents, teachers and librarians. Only post–World War II did the genre break from

Introduction • 7 its confinement to pulp magazines, dime-novels and comics to attain mainstream respectability as a “clearly defined publishing category” (Levy, 2006: para. 7). This development is generally attributed to the publication of Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), the first of thirteen Young SF novels commissioned by Scribner, a distinguished publisher of books for young people, from Robert Heinlein, one of the predominant SF authors of the twentieth century. Other SF authors for adults soon followed in Heinlein’s footsteps, publishing novels for a younger audience; for example, Isaac Asimov’s Lucky Starr series (1952–1958) published under the pseudonym ‘Paul French.’ Some authors, including Ben Bova and Poul Anderson, who later became successful writing for the adult SF market, started their careers writing for a younger audience, especially within the series of novels published by the John C. Winston Company, all of which included educational introductions explaining the scientific facts behind the fictional speculation, in an attempt to win the approval of parents and librarians (Molson and Miles: 398).8 In the next two decades around one-third of all SF novels published for young people, and generally the best of them, were written by authors already established in the Adult SF market. (Molson and Miles: 398; Levy, 2006: para. 9). The result was a large number of ‘hard’ SF novels which emphasised technology (Levy, 2006: par 8). The prevailing attitude to technological progress in Young SF of the time can be summarised by the President’s speech in the final scene of Ben Bova’s The Weathermakers (1967), in which he refers to technology as “both a constant danger and a constant opportunity,” as “through technology man has attained the power to destroy himself, or the power to unite this planet in peace and freedom—freedom from war, from hunger, and from ignorance” (250). This statement positions technology as a tool in the hands of humanity which can be used or abused, depending on the agenda of those who deploy it. Thus, technology is not perceived as evil in itself, and its potential to create a better life for people is fully acknowledged. This stance is rare in contemporary Young SF, which frequently demonises technology as the cause of a range of ailments: from environmental damage to the death of literature, as well as perceiving it as a threat to personal freedom, family stability and social order. Moreover, in much Young SF the solution to the problem is a disengagement from or rejection of technology rather than utilisation of it for the greater good. The roots of this trend hark back to the 1960s and 1970s as SF authors dedicated to writing only for young people began to emerge. Young SF has become an established genre, as evident in the Newbery Award given to Madeleine L’Engle for her SF novel A Wrinkle in Time (1962). Although L’Engle’s novel does not feature technological gadgetry, but rather focuses on the possibility of warping the dimensions of space and time, somewhat ironically, it relates the victory of love and compassion over an oppressive, purely evil, disembodied brain called IT. The change of themes and attitude in Young SF of the time is signalled in an article written by Sylvia Engdahl, a prominent young SF author, in which she

8 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People presents SF as potentially an educational tool, preparing young people for the future. Engdahl believes that the genre should “lead [ . . . ] young people to view the future not with our own era’s gloom and despair, but with the broader realism of renewed hope” (Engdahl, 1971: 455). She also states that the feeling “that anything connected with science is cold and inhuman, divorced from the realm of spiritual values” is so “only when it is so presented” (450–51). Engdahl’s words emphasise the “didactic [ . . . ] nature” of young SF (Sambell, 1996: 13; Levy, 2006: para. 12),9 a quality the genre shares with much of children’s literature, which Peter Hunt notes, “can never be free of didacticism or adult ideological freight” (Hunt, 1995: xii). However, Engdahl also responds to a growing trend of dystopian writing for young people, and its subliminal rejection of science and technology.10 Levy comments that “children, teens particularly, often find the adult world enormously restrictive, and dystopian science fiction [ . . . ] can easily symbolize those concerns” (2006: para. 12). This explanation, however, does not account for the gradual darkening of Young SF’s representations of technology. Lillian Biermann Wehmeyer’s Images in a Crystal Ball (1981), the first published full-length study of ‘futuristic fiction’ written for young people between 1964–1979, asserts that “a majority of novelists strike a positive note in their attitude towards technology” (31). In the following pages I demonstrate that this attitude clearly changed in novels written after 1980. For example, while early dystopian novels from the United States, such as Poul Anderson’s Vault of the Ages (1952) and Andre Norton’s Star Man’s Son: 2250 A.D. (1952), centre “on the recovery of civilization through the rediscovery of lost technology” (Levy, 2006: para. 7)—a theme also dominating The Changes trilogy (1968–1970) by British author Peter Dickinson11—many of the novels featured in the first chapter, such as Monica Hughes’ Devil on My Back (1984) and Jeanne DuPrau’s City Of Ember (2004), demonise technological societies, offering instead a return to an idyllic primordial lifestyle which is not only unattainable today, but is unlikely ever to have existed. This trend makes contemporary Young SF radically different from post-modern SF written for adults, in which humans’ relationship with technology provokes a complex hybrid of fascination and unease, born of an attitude which perceives “the human and technological as coextensive, codependent, and mutually defining” (Bukatman, 1993: 22). Just such an ambivalent, intricate relationship between humans and machines exists, for example in Neuromancer (1984), William Gibson’s celebrated cyberpunk novel for adults. Case, the protagonist of Gibson’s novel, a “cyberspace cowboy” (a professional hacker who can plug his consciousness into the global computer matrix) lives “for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace” (12) and is grief-stricken when he is denied access: he’d cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in some coffi n hotel, his hands clawed into the bedslab, temperfoam bunched between his fi ngers, trying to reach the console that wasn’t there. (11)

Introduction • 9 Case is defined by technology, yet Gibson presents this relationship as neither positive, nor negative. As Dani Cavallaro points out, in cyberpunk works in general, and Gibson’s novels in particular, on the one hand, technology is viewed as a kind of magical mirror capable of multiplying human powers ad infinitum and of reflecting humanity in an idealized form; on the other, technology is associated with the engulfment of the human by the non-human. (2000:28) For Gibson, therefore, the “virtual interchangeability of human bodies and machines” (Cavallaro, 2000: 12) both holds a promise of liberation as well as a cultural and social challenge, rendering his work a poignant literary representation of the relationship between humans and machines in a high-tech age. Such nuanced representations are scarce in Young SF. Young SF published today is dominated by authors writing solely for a young audience. The literature these authors produce is often disconnected from trends within SF as a whole (for example, only a handful of Young SF novels can be classified as cyberpunk or steampunk).12 Significantly, authors writing for both audiences, a prime example being ‘Ann Halam,’ known in the adult SF world by her own name, Gwyneth Jones, often depict technology in more complex ways than those who write exclusively for a young readership, as the discussion of Taylor Five: The Story of a Clone Girl (2002) in Chapter Five demonstrates. The change in Young SF has been noted by a few critics, as reviewed in the next section; however, none of these studies highlight the shift in attitudes towards technology as the prime cause for this change, as is the main argument here.

Young SF: A Review of Critical Models A number of studies engaging with Young SF as a genre have been published to date. Several essays trace its history and development (Molson, 1984; 1999; Sullivan, 1999a; Von der Osten, 2004), some as extended encyclopaedic entries (Weber, 1986; Molson and Miles, 1995; Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 214–16; Levy, 2006). Two collections of essays edited by Charles W. Sullivan III explore the history and development of the genre in different countries and include critical analyses of works by influential authors (Sullivan, 1993; 1999b). Two sustained studies explore Young SF as a whole, emphasising the genre’s attitude to technology: Jean Greenlaw’s unpublished PhD thesis, “A Study of the Impact of Technology on Human Values as Reflected in Modern Science Fiction for Children” (1970) and Lillian Biermann Wehmeyer’s Images in a Crystal Ball: World Futures in Novels for Young People (1981). Both studies are not only dated, but are also chiefly concerned with proving SF to be a useful educational tool in teaching social sciences in school. To this end they rely on statistics derived from content analysis of their selected texts,

10 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People rather than in-depth critical study. For example, Greenlaw devised a questionnaire for a diverse panel of readers which assisted them in determining which human values are promoted in a sample of 133 SF texts, while the bulk of Biermann-Wehmeyer’s study is dedicated to an annotated bibliography of Young SF texts which classifies them according to themes and motifs as a convenient resource for teachers. In addition to these two sources, entire issues of major journals such as the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (1981 and 1985), Foundation (1997), The Alan Review (1992) and The Lion and the Unicorn (2004)14 have been dedicated to Young SF. However, only a handful of studies examining Young SF with a view to defining this genre from a critical perspective have been conducted thus far, one of which remains unpublished13 (Antczak, 1985; Sambell, 1996; Levy, 1999; Mendlesohn, 2004). Janice Antczak’s Science Fiction: The Mythos of a New Romance (1985) inadvertently exposes the problem at the heart of Young SF. Claiming that SF written for young people is a modern reincarnation of the ancient quest story, Antczak grounds Young SF within the traditions and archetypes of romance literature, attempting to raise its status from a dismissible popular fiction to a genre meriting serious critical attention. Antczak’s theory was heavily criticised for misrepresenting Young SF as traditional literature in a new guise rather than an genre which presents its readers with new possibilities through the mechanisms of estrangement (Nodelman, 1986; Molson and Miles, 1995: 402). While Antczak does generalise about Young SF’s use of a mechanistic framework which leads to simplistic analysis, the unintentional implication of her study—that Young SF is a conservative genre—corresponds with my own findings and analysis. I am, however, less interested in the genre’s use of traditional motifs than in the way Young SF functions as a socialising agent in the service of the child-adult power dynamic. The significance of Antczak’s study in the context of this study is that it highlights that in Young SF the preferable future is often merely an extension of the past. Other scholars have noted and attempted to explain the difference between contemporary Young SF and adult SF (Sambell, 1996; Levy, 1999; Mendlesohn, 2004). In a short article entitled “Is There Any Such Thing as Children’s Science Fiction?”15 Mendlesohn defines “full SF novels” as those constructed around the process of moving from dissonance, through rupture, to a resolution and a consequence (2004: 287). Mendlesohn relies mainly on Darko Suvin’s influential definition of science fiction as a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment. (Suvin, 1979: 8–9) In other words, a SF novel is one that revolves around a novum which is different from the real world. The novum’s existence, including the way it is

Introduction • 11 perceived within the text, renders the fictional world both unfamiliar and recognisable, yet inherently logical. The conflict generated by the novum must be resolved, but more crucially, it must bear wide-ranging consequences, beyond the personal circumstances of the protagonists (Mendlesohn, 2004: 287–89). It is the last part of this definition which Mendlesohn finds most lacking in contemporary SF for young people as she claims that novels written in this genre “direct the gaze away from the universe,” opting for domestic/personal resolutions (300). This, she claims, is a new phenomenon, as in early Young SF novels such as those written by Heinlein, “the resolution of the immediate problem opens out challenges for the future” (290), and the young protagonists “find themselves looking down on their parents from the new perspective of adulthood [ . . . ] or at least as equals.” More importantly, they “look out and away”(302). While I agree with Mendlesohn’s assertion that a fundamental change has occurred in young SF post-1980, I put the emphasis on attitudes to modern technology. Novels such as Peter Dickinson’s Eva (1988), Monica Hughes’ Invitation to the Game (1990), Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993) and Julie Bertagna’s Exodus (2002) contradict the trend suggested by Mendlesohn, as they end with the resourceful young protagonists leaving behind the world constructed by adults (in Hughes’ case this departure is not voluntary) and which they reject, in favour of new opportunities far from home. Yet, all these novels display technophobic tendencies, a characteristic recurring across Young SF written post-1980. A different and equally important argument counters Mendlesohn’s theory. Michael Levy refers to Mendlesohn’s claims as “controversial” (Levy, 2004: xi, 291), and he criticises her for not acknowledging that SF authors for young people are “not so much failing to write a better kind of book as [ . . . ] simply working within standard YA genre conventions” (cited in Mendlesohn, 2004: 293). According to Levy, “science fiction, with its emphasis on change, the discovery of new knowledge, and the conquest of new worlds, is a logical medium for the bildungsroman” (Levy, 1999: 117). This view is shared by Gwyneth Jones who maintains that SF “may be regarded as the quintessential fiction of adolescence” (Jones, 1991: 165). Levy’s theory offers a useful tool for distinguishing Young SF from SF written for adults. However, this theory does not account for the change which has gradually taken place in the genre, since early Young SF, epitomised by the work of Heinlein, is also often constructed around a comingof-age narrative structure. Kay Sambell’s unpublished doctoral thesis focuses on futuristic dystopias, a considerable body of literature within Young SF, suggesting that authors’ commitment to “maintaining a sharp focus on hope” is the fundamental difference between dystopian writing for adults and children, often resulting in “technical dilemmas” (1996: 13) which render the texts “lacking in artistic and pedagogic terms” (16). Sambell shares Mendlesohn’s view that “children’s science fiction seems to be limiting itself in some cases through an insistence

12 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People on didacticism, in other cases because of a perceived need to reassure children that the universe is stable, safe, and just” (Mendlesohn, 2004: 286). I agree that delivering a hopeful ending, or at least a hint of one, is common in Young SF, as it is in fiction written for children and young adults in general,16 wherein the children are often perceived as “emblems of hope and the future” (Hintz et al., 2003: 6). However, as the following chapters show, this sense of hope is often intertwined with a rejection of technology, and thus undermines itself; hope in children’s SF is often associated with an idealised, un-technological past, and as such bears no relevance in the face of rapidly technologised childhoods and their savvy inhabitants.

Methodology and Structure As Peggy Sullivan notes, although the future “is as new or unknown to the adults as it is to the children, it is the adults who tell the children what it is likely to be” (Sullivan, 1975: 12). Young SF as a speculative fiction presents possible future scenarios to its readers; significantly, these scenarios are mediated by adults and, as such, not only reflect adults’ concerns but also promote an adult agenda. Ultimately, the images that adults plant in young people’s minds regarding modern technology may determine the face of the future.17 It is therefore the aim of this research to investigate these images as they are communicated through Young SF, exploring whether, as SF author Brian Earnshaw claims, “much science fiction for children puts them off science and puts them off the future” (1983: 240). The Young SF novels and short stories analysed throughout this book are a sample selected from over 200 hundred texts collected and read in the course of research. As mentioned earlier, Young SF novels are not always marketed as such, and the labelling of titles is subject to marketing decisions. In order to ensure that the majority of the works investigated can be widely accepted as examples of Young SF, it was important to select texts identified by SF experts as belonging to the genre. Hence, a substantial portion of the original group of texts is gleaned from two editions of Anatomy of Wonder (Barron, 1995; 2004), the most comprehensive annotated bibliography of SF to date, which contains a recommended list of Young SF going back to the early days of the genre.18 Similarly, the list of past nominees and winners of the ‘Golden Duck Award’ for excellence in Young SF, which was founded in 1992 (http://www.goldenduck.org), provided another source of primary texts. As SF novels often depict future societies which can be classified as dystopian or utopian, texts were also sourced from the first annotated bibliography of utopian and dystopian fiction for young people, published in Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults (Hintz et al., 2003). This consists of a large number of novels which can be classified as SF according

Introduction • 13 to Scholes’ definition. Finally, Farah Mendlesohn’s Young SF review blog ‘The Inter-Galactic Playground’ (http://farah-sf.blogspot.com) brought to my attention a few obscure titles, mainly published abroad. In order to remain attune to the Young SF market, and give an accurate picture of the genre by including up-to-date texts, I also regularly read reviews on children’s literature websites (for example www.achuka.co.uk and www. writeaway.org.uk) and spent periods in bookstores, in this way unearthing some interesting primary texts such as Kate Reid’s Operation Timewarp (2002) and Emma Laybourne’s Clone Rangers (2003). Although these have not attracted critical attention, possibly because they were written by relatively unknown authors and published in a popular manner, they are useful here because they present technology in a more favourable light than works by authors commended by the gatekeepers of the canon of children’s literature— notably in this case librarians, reviewers and academics. I would like to suggest that the ‘controversial’ way these books address issues of technology and young people may be the cause of their marginalisation as back-listed ‘popular fiction’ by children’s book publishers. A conscious attempt was made to select texts from different Westernised Anglophone countries in order to test the hypothesis as widely as possible. Thus in the following chapters I discuss titles published in Britain, the United States, Australia and Canada. Texts were also selected from different periods within my overall timeframe in order to test the continuity of the attitudes under discussion over a span of years in which technology has advanced in major leaps. During the initial reading I identified several recurrent themes, discussed henceforth, which led to the current structure of my study, as each chapter is dedicated to exploring the representation of technology within the context of one of these key themes. The final selection process was guided, not only by the themes identified, but also by the way individual texts engage with technology. Thus, works detailing encounters with aliens or focusing on abstract science rather than concrete technology, as typified, for instance, by the novels of William Sleator, a leading contemporary Young SF author, were not included. As the majority of SF picture books relate encounters of the third kind—for example, Satoshi Kitamura’s UFO Diary (1989), Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross’ Dr Xargle’s Book of Earthlets (1990) and Nick Butterworth’s Q Pootle 5 (2000)—they were not appropriate for inclusion in this book; nevertheless, technophobia exists within literature for the very young, as my concluding discussion of the depiction of current technology in non-SF picture books demonstrates. Environmental concerns are an increasingly common topic in children and young adults’ literature (Hollindale, 1990; Lenz, 1994; Sigler, 1994; LesnikOberstein, 1998), and, as my investigation reveals, Young SF is no exception. The first theme, therefore, is the relationship between technology and nature, which dominates a large number of texts as a primary or secondary issue. In Chapter

14 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People One I explore Young SF novels which primarily engage with this theme. I frame my analysis within the context of Romantic constructions of childhood as innocent and savage, as well as critical works by contemporary environmentalist theorists which attempt to define possible models of the interaction between humanity, nature and technology. I identify those models promoted by Young SF writers in the selected novels and discuss the implications of their choices. This discussion reveals that the majority of texts negate technology’s vital role in repairing environmental damage, opting to assert their young protagonists’ place in a realistically impossible non-technological, primordial setting. The competition between reading and other, technological, forms of entertainment for young people’s leisure time may be the reason behind the prevalence of the second theme: this is the cultural rift between the Humanities and the Sciences. Chapter Two maps the way the Humanities (history, literature and music) have been represented in Young SF texts based in futuristic societies. Key texts by influential thinkers such as Benjamin, Heidegger and C.P. Snow that discuss the interaction between art and technology function as a springboard for this exploration, exposing a clear trend to perpetuate the split between technology and the arts despite the creative potential in the combination of the two—a potential fulfi lled by digital fiction, which fuses literature and multimedia into an exciting new genre. Digital fiction also plays an instrumental role in Chapter Three. As opposed to previous chapters which highlight dominant themes within the content of Young SF texts, in this chapter I turn my attention to narrative structure in order to discuss the impact of modern technology—especially digital media— on fiction written for a young audience. In Literacies across Media: Playing the Text (2002) Margaret Mackey has already studied in some detail the ways in which children successfully negotiate the diverse skills required when accessing both print and digital narratives, proving that new forms of literacy are rapidly developing in highly technological societies. Chapter Three uses literary analysis to explore whether books for young people have been influenced by these developments. It examines issues of remediation, often discussed in the context of digital narratives inspired by literary works, but here applied to the reverse process—the impact of digital narratives on novels. It goes on to define the unique characteristics of digital media and employs these characteristics as a framework for exploring the impact of new digital narrative structures on three innovative Young SF novels. These novels function as rare examples, highlighting a missing pathway in Young SF, which is predominantly conservative in terms of its literary structure, fending off the influence of technology. The fourth theme relates to constructions of childhood, touched upon in the first chapter of this book. Many novels depict futuristic societies in which the child-adult hierarchy is different from the one with which most of us are familiar. I suggest that this common theme reflects adults’ anxieties about young people’s use of technology, including repressed fears of becoming technologically marginalised by the younger generation. Chapter Four, therefore,

Introduction • 15 considers two paradigms of childhood and their construction in relation to the adult-child power dynamic, emphasising the function of technology within this relationship, and tracing the operation of this dynamic in a range of Young SF novels. The final chapter addresses the multitude of texts engaging with biotechnology, a theme that is becoming increasingly dominant in Young SF since the cloning of Dolly the sheep. Focusing specifically on human cloning—a technology close to realisation (or already realised, if the claims of the religious Raelian sect are to be believed)—I reflect on questions arising from our transition into what many scholars view as a post-human era, suggesting that an inherent paradox is embedded in the use of genetic engineering. This is that, while adults enlist technology in order to reinforce their control over the unpredictability of having children, the products of this technology— the clones—exist outside the family structure and thus have the potential to disturb one of the main institutions that underpins the adult-child power dynamic. Chapter Five explores the ways in which Young SF novels preempt this paradox and how these ultimately lead them to reject cloning. In the Conclusion I discuss my findings in the context of David Thorpe’s Hybrids (2007a), a recently published award-winning Young SF novel. I suggest that technophobia is not confined to Young SF and demonstrate this claim through a brief analysis of the representation of computer technology in picture books. I conclude by arguing that by choosing to depict technology as the villain, authors writing for young people not only do a disservice to their intended audience, but also act as socialisation agents in the service of the current adult-child power hierarchy. I perceive the increasing technophobia in children’s literature in general, and in Young SF in particular, to be a manifestation of the enduring allure of the myth of childhood innocence and its relation to Romantic notions with regard to the role of nature in children’s lives. The persistent attempts to hold on to such sentimental constructions of childhood are a form of resistance to the changing face of childhood and technology’s contribution to this change. Technophobic literature written for young people exposes a worrying trend as it disempowers its young readers by reinforcing adults’ agenda that the technologies these readers are likely to depend on in the future are potentially dangerous rather than beneficial.

Chapter One But Only God Can Make a Tree Technology and Nature in Young SF

In the middle of a room with no walls or roof sits a smashed television set, its innards overgrown with chickenweed and dandelions [ . . . ] nature has reclaimed the ruins of the human world. (Exodus: 137)

The relationship between child and nature has a long and complex history to which children’s literature has contributed through a diverse range of texts, from the sense of freedom that nature offers children in adventure stories such as Richard Jefferies’ Bevis, The Story of a Boy (1882) and Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons (1930), to its dark, metaphoric function in Alan Garner’s The Owl Service (1967) and David Almond’s Kit’s Wilderness (1999). Young SF as a genre engaging primarily with technology and its impact on society might be expected to renegotiate the conditions of this child-nature relationship, which plays a significant role in many of the texts explored in this chapter, and it is the extent of this renegotiation that is central to discussion here; a discussion that reveals the enduring, if not retrogressive, influence of some of the earliest theories of childhood. In Émile, his philosophical novel discussing the appropriate pedagogical methods of child rearing, Jean-Jacques Rousseau advises mothers to “cultivate and water the young plant before it dies; its fruit will one day be your delight” (1762: section 12).1 This metaphor, in which a growing child is compared to an element taken from the natural world, signifies the connection that Rousseau asserts between childhood and nature. Published in the mid-eighteenth century, Émile is a groundbreaking work in which childhood is established as a significant and legitimate stage of life, and parents are encouraged to “observe nature” and “follow the route that it traces” when educating their 17

18 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People children (section 65). Carolyn Sigler rightly observes that, “nature in Rousseau’s anthropomorphic ethos serves as a metaphor for the innate goodness, simplicity, and freedom of childhood” (1994: 148). Émile is a ‘natural child’ in the sense that he is encouraged to “cultivate a sense of self by turning to this idealized natural environment, as a moral guide to all that is humanly ‘good’” (149). Rousseau’s construction of the ‘natural child’ resonates in Romantic poems such as William Wordsworth’s “There Was a Boy” (1800) and “ Lucy Gray” (1800) and William Blake’s Songs of Innocence (1794), in which the poets depict children roaming carefree in a wild landscape. Such poetic images still influence the public discourse on childhood today (Higonnet, 1998: 16–17; James, Jenks and Prout, 1998: 13). In her essay on the development and implications of the myth of the innocent child, Marina Warner explains that “children are perceived as innocent because they’re outside society, pre-historical, pre-social, instinctual, creatures of unreason, primitive, kin to unspoiled nature” (1994: 44). Warner here echoes Jacqueline Rose, who compares Rousseau to the acclaimed children’s author Alan Garner, concluding that they both define childhood as existing “outside the culture in which it is produced,” and being “a primitive state where ‘nature’ is still to be found if only one gets to it on time” (1984: 44). According to Karín Lesnik-Oberstein this preconception, that a fundamental link exists between children and nature, is popular among other adults writing for young readers, as evidenced by the many children’s books engaging with environmental issues (1998: 208). Indeed, ecological messages can be found in texts written for children as early as the eighteenth century (Sigler, 1994: 149–50). While Rousseau’s Émile and Wordsworth’s Lucy Gray roamed freely through hills and dales, children living in high-tech societies in the twentyfirst century are more likely to roam urban or cyber spaces, equipped with mobile phones and PlayStations. This change, however, does not mean that today’s children are disconnected from the social and personal skills which Rousseau believed could be internalised by observing nature, but somewhat counter-intuitively that modern communication technologies offer them similar opportunities to acquire the same skills. Henry Giroux notes that “new electronic technologies allow kids to immerse themselves in profoundly important forms of social communication, produce a range of creative expressions, and exhibit forms of agency that are both pleasurable and empowering” (Giroux, 2000: 13). Despite the obvious opportunities for personal and social development which technology offers young people, adults often view it as a threat to children’s innocence (James, Jenks and Prout, 1998: 7; Giroux, 2000, 11–13). Ecology has also progressively become a significant theme in both Adult and Young SF (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 365).2 Pastoral SF, which “depicts an apparently simple and natural way of life, and contrasts it with our complex, technological, anxiety-ridden urban world of the present,” set in our world,

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 19 or other planets, in the past or future, is also a fully established sub-genre (915–16). However, SF pastoral writings for adults frequently celebrate “the joy and triumph of technological rediscovery and redevelopment” rather than dismissing technology altogether, as exemplified by the works of authors such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke (1203). Contemporary Young SF authors do not share this celebratory stance by and large, as their novels reflect adults’ tendency both to contextualise childhood within a natural framework and to posit technology as a corrupting force.3 There is a risk in setting up technology and nature as binary opposites, depicting technology as the enemy of the natural world, in books intended for a technologically savvy generation. Young readers, internalising this technophobic message, are in danger of learning to fear the future and the technologies that they simultaneously depend on, rather than viewing technology as their ally in the creation of sustainable living. Moreover, the persistent bias towards nature and against technology in Young SF sheds light on the extent to which the myth of the innocent child still influences adult ideas on childhood.

The Nodelman–May Debate In 1985 Perry Nodelman published an article discussing themes of nature and technology in Young SF, focusing on four novels published in or before 1980 (Nodelman, 1985). The novels discussed in the article are Andre Norton’s Outside (1975), H.M. Hoover’s This Time of Darkness (1980), Suzanne Martel’s The City under Ground (1964) and Ann Schlee’s The Vandal (1979). Nodelman discovers many similarities between the four texts as they all “deal significantly with ideas of constriction and freedom by representing them with closed environments and the open spaces outside them” (1985: 285). The closed environments described in these novels are technological cities, separated from the world outside, which is considered, for various reasons, too dangerous to explore. The people living in the cities are closely monitored, conforming to restrictive laws in exchange for the comfort of security (286–87). The young protagonists, rebelling against the closed mindedness of the society surrounding them, venture out of the city to discover that a new and exciting world awaits them. Nodelman considers this schema to be a slightly clichéd “metaphor for growing up and leaving the protected world of childhood” (286). However, his main concern is with the message embedded within these books regarding modern technology. The repressive and sterile environment of the cities is clearly linked to their man-made artificiality and their “avoidance of the natural” in favour of the technological. In contrast, the world outside is a natural paradise, unspoiled by human development (288).4 Thus, claims Nodelman, the authors of these SF novels “express a clear prejudice

20 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People against scientific knowledge” and are “close-minded about technology” (290). Moreover, by presenting the pre-human natural world outside as an ideal place, the authors insinuate that “the past is not just better than an imagined technological nightmare of the future, but also better than what we have now.” The protagonists are initially praised for their aspiration, self-reliance and creativity, the virtues which enabled them to break away from conformity. However, they arrive at a place in which these same virtues must be suppressed lest they spoil nature and recreate another doomed man-made world similar to the one they left behind (292). Nodelman concludes that the ambivalence of the Young SF novels he analyses sets them apart from distinguished SF written for adults because instead of demonstrating a “positive interest in possibility and change,” they merely promote “acceptance of things as they are” (294).5 In her response, Jill P. May accuses Nodelman of making inappropriate generalisations (May and Nodelman, 1986). May claims that the books chosen do not appear in any known bibliographical sources, and therefore are not typical (May and Nodelman: 225). Furthermore, she brings forward several examples of books which allegedly undermine Nodelman’s theory that Young SF promotes complacency (227–28).6 In May’s opinion, Young SF celebrates “youth, imagination, curiosity, and even denial of tradition, in the hope for future change” (228); however, she does not respond to Nodelman’s claim that Young SF demonises technology and idealises nature. In the ongoing debate carried out in Science Fiction Studies, Nodelman insists that the books he chose to focus on do represent examples of a wide-spread phenomenon. He further comments that although the young protagonists in the books brought forward by May rebel against the system, “the revolutionary fervor is always directed at destroying sophisticated and repressive technology and replacing it with trees and sunshine and flowers” (May and Nodelman: 229). Nodelman’s essay reflects his anxiety over the value system that adults communicate to children through the books they write and publish for them, or in his words “what we think they need to know” (Nodelman, 1985: 292). However, his essay focuses on books written before the use of personal computers became widely spread, and the negative attitudes that these texts display may simply reflect the anxiety which is associated with the anticipation or recent arrival of new technology.7 Also, the narrow scope of the texts that Nodelman analyses has already resulted in doubts being cast on the validity of his fi ndings. To counter these criticisms, this chapter focuses on a wider selection of texts written during the years in which a growing percentage of the population in developed countries started to use new communication and information technologies, and people have become accustomed to the existence of these technologies in their lives. These texts were created amidst changing attitudes towards the relationship between humanity and nature and the role of technology within this

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 21 equation, specifically among environmental scholars trying to assess the current global situation and reflect on possible paths for the future. The outpouring of environmental scholarship, especially in the last decade, renders an in-depth review of the current discourse surrounding ecological issues impossible within the scope of this chapter. I have, however, selected a few studies which offer indicative insight into past and present modes of thinking about technology and the environment rather than suggest a pragmatic plan for action.

Perceptions of Nature Past In Reinventing Eden (2003) the eco-feminist Carolyn Merchant argues that “Nature, wilderness, and civilisation are socially constructed concepts that change over time and function as stage settings in the progressive narrative” (Merchant: 143). In the pre-Industrial era, the predominant narrative was that of the fall from heaven and salvation—nature and humanity were both subservient to natural law. Humans strove to return to a pre-lapserian harmony with the natural world. As part of a primarily agricultural society, humans had to struggle to cope with nature and adapt in order to survive (Heinonen, 2000: 207, table 6). Merchant highlights two opposing images of nature which simultaneously dominated pre-Industrial culture. On the one hand, nature was identified as a “nurturing mother,” who benevolently provided for the needs of humanity. On the other, nature was increasingly perceived as a ferocious female capable of wreaking havoc in the world by inflicting natural disasters on humans. Merchant notes that “the metaphor of the earth as a nurturing mother gradually vanished as a dominant image as the Scientific Revolution proceeded to mechanize and to rationalize the world view” (Merchant, 1995: 77). The conflicting representations of nature as illustrated by Merchant correlate with popular perceptions of the child. In his study of social constructions of childhood Chris Jenks distils two modes of “conceptualizing the child” which he suggests exist throughout history and literature (Jenks, 1996: 70). Jenks chooses to represent these modes by the oppositional mythological gods Dionysus and Apollo. The Dionysian approach perceives children as a “wilful material force,” potentially evil, wild, seeking self- gratification and in need of taming (71), while the Apollonian approach worships children as the “source of all that is best in human nature,” possessing a “clarity of vision” lost to adults (73). Clearly, Jenks’ proposed concepts of childhood correlate to Merchant’s two images of nature previously mentioned: the Dionysian child resembles the image of nature as wild and in need of taming, while the Apollonian child is idolised as “The father of the man,”8 recalling the way nature is conceptualised as a nurturing mother. Thus, childhood and nature may be perceived as socially constructed interlinked paradigms.

22 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People In the seventeenth century, known as the Age of Reason, the narrative of fall and salvation was replaced with the modern idea of personal and collective redemption. Francis Bacon, an influential philosopher of the time and an ardent advocate of scientific progress, declared in 1620 that: [ . . . ] there cannot but follow an improvement in man’s estate and an enlargement of his power over nature. For man by the fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over creation. Both of these losses however can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences. (Bacon: Book II, Section LII) Humankind was to take control over creation and dominate nature. Science and technology were perceived as the tools that would allow humans to redeem the earth and enforce order on the chaotic natural world (Merchant, 2003: 63). Nature, therefore, was positioned in opposition to technology, as Sirkka Heinonen, a Professor of Future Studies, points out, “nature has been conceived in contrast to culture, technology, law, education. Nature has also sometimes been understood as something external to the inner area of human self-understanding and personal human experience” (2000: 56). This anthropocentric approach, placing Man in the centre of creation, has dominated mainstream discourse throughout the Industrial age.9 However, according to Merchant, in the late twentieth century mechanical science was challenged by radical new theories. For example, Chaos theory, an aspect of which maintains that our ability to quantify and predict nature is limited and that chaos is more the norm than order, and Complexity theory, according to which “chance operates in the realm between order and chaos to create complexity [ . . . ] complex biological and social systems are not controlled by central mechanisms and do not change in a linear manner” (Merchant, 2003: 215). These theories, Merchant argues, suggest a non-linear plot as opposed to the previous fall-redemption scenario; therefore they may lead to a new ethical dynamic when it comes to humanity’s relationship with nature today (205–20). Indeed, as Sigler notes, critical theory in the latter half of the twentieth century has moved from an anthropocentric viewpoint to a biocentric one which “explores the complex interrelationships between the human and the nonhuman” and “decenters humanity’s importance in nonhuman nature” (Sigler, 1994: 148). This move is reflected in global campaigns for a sustainable future, which includes the use of appropriate technologies. Significantly, as Professor of Environmental Health, Seymour Garte, notes, the growing support for sustainable technology “represents a real paradigm shift in the world views of many environmentalists and others who may have previously been advocates for a smaller, simpler, and less technological life” (2007: 245).

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 23 The End of Nature? The Current Environmental Debate Contemporary environmentalists continue to debate the impact of human technology on the natural world. In his challenging book about this subject, Bill McKibben laments the loss of unaffected nature: We have changed the atmosphere, and thus we are changing the weather. By changing the weather, we make every spot on earth man-made and artificial. We have deprived nature of its independence, and that is fatal to its meaning. Nature’s independence is its meaning; without it there is nothing but us. (1990: 61) According to McKibben, the essence of nature lies in its separation from human civilisation; when technology dismantled this barrier, nature became an artificial concept (68–69). In this reading, humankind has taken on the role of creator, as McKibben bitterly points out, “as a species we are as gods— our reach global” (84). For McKibben, the transformation of nature also has ramifications for belief in God’s divine power, especially in an age of advanced genetic engineering, since “it is the simple act of creating new forms of life that changes the world, that puts us forever in the deity business” (178).10 Other scholars do not share McKibben’s pessimism. James Lovelock, a leading environmental scientist, is said by McKibben to have claimed that “our species with its technology is simply an inevitable part of the natural scene” (67). Lovelock is the author of Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, first published in 1979, in which he offers an alternative hypothesis to “that pessimistic view which sees nature as a primitive force to be subdued and conquered” and “that equally depressing picture of our planet as a demented spaceship, forever travelling, driverless and purposeless” (2000: 11). The Gaia hypothesis claims that the biosphere is a single complex organism, which self-regulates the chemical and physical conditions needed for its survival, or in simpler terms, that the Earth is alive (Lovelock, 1991: 12). Unlike McKibben, who concludes that the man-made chaos in the natural world results in a decline in the status of God, Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis brings forth a sense of natural order bordering on teleology, since it implies that nature is an independent entity capable of purposeful planning.11 Lovelock also argues that “so far there is no evidence that any of man’s activities have diminished the total productivity of the biosphere” (Lovelock, 2000: 137). Where McKibben’s claims that human technology has ended nature, Lovelock believes that humankind is incapable of destroying the Earth (Charlton, 1997). In an interview conducted with him in 2000, Lovelock elaborates on this point, saying that “worries about genetic engineering may be unnecessary, from a Gaian perspective” (Joseph, 2000). Lynn Margulis, Lovelock’s collaborator on the Gaia hypothesis, confirms this belief by declaring that “nature has not ended, nor does the planet require

24 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People saving” (Margulis and Sagan, 2000: 242). Furthermore, Margulis dissolves the dialectic opposition between nature and technology when she considers the notion that robots could be defined as living beings (cited in McKibben: 67).12 This approach is also adopted by Garte, who claims in his optimistic upto-date review of the state of the environment, Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the State of Our Planet (2007) that “man is a natural creature and all his works are natural” (262). The cultural message embedded in the theories of Lovelock, Margulis and their followers is summarised in Heinonen’s assertion that “technology should not be seen in a dichotomy between itself and nature, nor between it and society, but as a driving force that needs control in shaping them” (Heinonen: 204). The need to employ rather than exclude technology in efforts to reverse environmental damage is further stressed by influential players within the political arena who impact environmental policies. In a recent interview David King, Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office of Science in the United Kingdom, criticised environmentalists who reject technology as the means by which the issue of global warming should be resolved: There is a suspicion, and I have that suspicion myself, that a large number of people who label themselves ‘green’ are actually keen to take us back to the 18th or even the 17th century. [Their argument is] “Let’s get away from all the technological gizmos and developments of the 20th century”[ . . . ] And I think that is utter hopelessness [ . . . ] What I’m looking for is technological solutions to a technologically driven problem, so the last thing we must do is eschew technology. (Burkeman, 2008: 37) Similarly, on the American side, Al Gore, former Vice-President and notable environmental activist states that one of the top strategic goals in his suggested global plan of action is a highly focused and well-financed program to accelerate the development of environmentally appropriate technologies that will abet sustainable economic progress and that can be substituted for the ecologically destructive technologies currently in place. (Gore, 2007: 317) The spectrum of opinion within current environmental debate is captured within the various models brought forward by three theorists attempting to define interactions between human society and nature, both present and future. Environmental philosopher Juhani Pietarinen (1994: 290–94), ecofeminist Carolyn Merchant (1995: 213–16) and Professor of Future Studies Sirkka Heinonen (2000) all classify humanity’s attitudes to nature into groups which by extension reflect possible modes of living wherein the balance between developing and using technology and preserving the environment shifts accordingly. The models suggested by Pietarinen, Merchant and

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 25 Heinonen encapsulate key concepts in environmental ethics13 and share many similarities. In order better to utilise these models to contextualise representations of the relationship between nature, humanity and technology in contemporary Young SF, I have simplified and grouped them, creating new, clearer categories. The first category includes works describing a fictional society in which technology is used to exploit and dominate nature, and/or where a clear natural hierarchy exists in which humanity equipped with technological power is placed at the top of the pyramid, at the expense of other living things.14 I term this model Mechanism. The second category, which I term Naturalism, relates to an agriculturally inclined fictional society, in which technology is unheard of or perceived as potentially dangerous. Nature may be held in reverence as either a divine or a morally superior force. Humanity seeks to commune with, or simply survive in, primordial nature.15 The third category, Equilibrium, is that of a fictional society in which a partnership has been formed between humanity and nature. This society enjoys the use of technology; however, it endeavours to refrain from using technological artefacts which may harm the environment. Nature and humanity are regarded as equally significant and valuable.16 All three theorists endorse this mode of living (or variations of it) as the ultimate solution to the looming environmental crisis.

Nature–Technology–Humanity in Young SF The three models, Mechanism, Naturalism and Equilibrium, distilled from current environmental discourses, apply to cultural and political attitudes towards the nature–technology debate. However, these models can also function as literary tropes, identifying recurring themes in Young SF texts and exposing the attitudes towards technology and nature embedded within them.17 Future societies depicted in such novels can be classified according to these tropes, while plot and textual analysis can be employed to expose the type of society which is favoured in the texts, and by extension, the model which is perceived as a superior mode of living. Implied metaphorical associations between children and nature within Young SF novels can also offer potential insights with regard to environmental ethics and the lingering myth of the innocent child. Journeys are a common theme in children’s literature, and as Nodelman points out, this is particularly true in SF written for children and young adults (1985: 286). Indeed all sixteen novels explored subsequently in this chapter depict young protagonists setting out on a journey or already in the midst of a quest, whether intentionally or accidentally, as part of a personal agenda or as representatives of a culture or society. This pattern symbolises

26 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People the development of the protagonists as independent beings, a process associated with the coming-of-age novel, which, as Michael Levy maintains, is an especially appropriate structure for Young SF, as themes common in the genre, such as the discovery of new worlds and the acquirement of knowledge, correspond with the tropes of the classic bildungsroman (1999). Upon examining the novels featured in this chapter, three common plot schemes emerge. These plot schemes naturally lend themselves to an analysis based on the three models of Mechanism, Naturalism and Equilibrium, for they all ensure that at least two societies and their values are compared and contrasted within the novel. The young protagonists’ reaction to these values and the consequences of their personal journey also reveal underlying environmental agendas.

Section I: Inside-Out—Enclosed Communities Although May questions how representative the four novels chosen by Nodelman to exemplify his theory regarding a recurrent theme in Young SF—that of breaking out from an enclosed technological environment to the outside natural world—are (Nodelman, 1986: 225), examination of post-1980 Young SF reveals a significant number of novels which follow this plot scheme, either fully or partially; certainly it is a prominent feature in my focus texts.18 The novels discussed in this section are, in chronological order, Monica Hughes’ Devil on My Back (1984), Alison Prince’s The Others (1986), Peter Dickinson’s Eva (1988), Caroline Macdonald’s The Lake at the End of the World (1988), Deborah Moulton’s Children of Time (1989), Gregory Maguire’s I Feel Like the Morning Star (1989), Stephen Bowkett’s The Wintering trilogy: Ice, Storm and Thaw (2001–2002) and Jeanne DuPrau’s The City of Ember (2004). Each of these novels begins with a young protagonist living in an enclosed community. In Devil on My Back, Tomi is a boy living in the domed city Arc One. In The Others, The Lake at the End of the World, I Feel Like the Morning Star and The City of Ember, the protagonists live in underground communities. The protagonist of Eva is a girl who lives in an overpopulated city in which people hardly leave their homes, while Kell, the protagonist of The Wintering trilogy, lives in Perth, a secluded and well-guarded enclave. David, the hero of Children of Time, initially lives in a devastated Earth on the brink of a fi nal war; however, he is kidnapped and brought to an isolated community—the impenetrable futuristic castle of Lady Grey. i. Mechanism

One of the chief characteristics of the model I termed Mechanism is extensive use and prioritisation of technology. While all the novels discussed here depict societies which use, and often depend on, technology, in three cases, Devil

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 27 on My Back, Children of Time and The Wintering trilogy, society is actually ruled by a computer. Communities described as living underground depend on technology to survive. For example, Ember is an electrically run city in which normal life is only possible due to artificial lighting: “When the lights were off, as they were between nine at night and six in the morning, the city was so dark that people might as well have been wearing blindfolds” (The City of Ember: 4). In Eva, people’s lives revolve around the ‘shaper’, a cross between television and virtual reality, and as Eva’s father remarks, “the shaper companies were the real rulers of the world” (Eva: 17). According to the logic of Mechanism, nature is conquered by humanity and exploited for profit or is simply pushed aside in favour of technology and does not rate highly on people’s scale of priorities. In the technological societies described in these books, nature is either exploited for functional purposes, is artificially recreated, or has ceased to exist entirely. For example, in The Others, the dwellers of Underhill grow food for the Others, the ruling class living in Air City, on “synthetic granules” above ground, as the soil is still radioactive after a nuclear accident which happened years ago (The Others: 15). Although a recreational park, growing on artificial compost, is at the disposal of the Underhills, they cannot fully appreciate natural beauty, as it “doesn’t come in the Scale of Usefulness,” the community’s only measurement for value (17). Ergo, the teenaged protagonist, laments the fact that the “sea was polluted, the sky as tightly controlled as a sponge, emitting rain as directed but remaining cleanly blue during daylight hours,” not to mention that the “earth was useless” (62–63). An even more extreme example of environmental damage is described in Eva, in which humanity has overwhelmed the planet, and the natural world with its jungles and animals is almost completely gone, and can only be experienced virtually on the ‘Shaper.’ The scant patches left “were always being nibbled away as somebody found a new method of exploiting them” (Eva: 20). The few trees left in the city are “tamed, guarded, numbered, precious” (28). As Junko Yoshida observes, society in Eva has adopted an “exploitative attitude towards nature” (Yoshida, 1997: 20). Unlike Eva’s world and that of Underhill, natural beauty seems to prevail in Perth, and the enclave is perceived by the community as a “paradise” (The Wintering I: Ice: 20). However, Kell soon discovers that the stars he cherished “were not the sprites and elementals” he imagined them to be, but “mechanical contrivances of spinning metal and glass,” functioning as surveillance devices (67). Similarly, the sun is artificial and the weather is controlled (58). Nature is recreated by technology for the benefit of the enclave’s inhabitants, and so is subordinated to it. The twin characteristics of dependency on technology and a disregard for nature, which comprise the Mechanism model, are found in each of the focus texts. How the reader is supposed to view such societies is conveyed via both explicit and suggested references within the texts: for instance, in the Mechanist mode, technology is thematically associated with oppression, as in all the

28 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People books it is used to monitor the population and/or to control and influence minds. A typical example is the way the Others “design-breed” the inhabitants of Underhill, irradiating them in the womb with “machine energy” (The Others: 57) and planting a chip in new-borns “which controls the way that person thinks [ . . . ] making sure they are perfectly in touch with what the system requires of them” (9). The Elders of Pioneer Colony similarly control its inhabitants by sending those who ask too many questions to be lisopressed, “an electrical-chemical therapy designed to neutralize antisocial behavior” (I Feel Like the Morning Star: 33), even though it has proven lethal in some cases. The enigmatic kidnapper Lady Grey, or ‘Mommy’ as she insists on being called, drugs the children she kidnaps and uses advanced hibernation technology which alters time and leaves them disorientated and helpless. She also uses technology to inflict nightmares: “She keeps you on the edge of sleep with the portable hybernator unit and stimulates some part of your brain with an electronic whip” (Children of Time: 97). From powerfully influential media (Eva), to mind controlling devices (Devil on My Back, The Others, I feel Like the Morning Star), reality-altering contraptions (The Wintering, Children of Time) or simply an inability to survive without it (The Lake at the End of the World, City of Ember), in the Mechanist mode, technology is demonised as an accessory to totalitarianism. Another technique used in the books to convey a disapproval of societies adopting a Mechanism-like approach is the depiction of the physical environment in which these societies exist as an extension of the depersonalisation brought on by technology. In six of the books, the protagonists wear uniformed clothing, robbing them of external individuation, while in Eva, the protagonist’s brain has been transplanted into a female chimp’s body and she is forced to deny her animal side and wear children’s overalls to “hide the sexual swellings” that people “always found bothersome” (50). Thus she is effectively robbed of self-expression. Furthermore, in order to maintain Eva’s image as a child, and so culturally constructed as sexually innocent, she is forced to suppress her sexually matured chimp body as it conflicts with popular notions of childhood. Eva’s city is described as dreary—tower blocks stretching to the heavens (14) with “crammed streets” and “crammed sky,” where “most people stayed in their rooms all day, just to get away from each other” (17). Similarly, Hector’s underground world is a maze of dark tunnels, his room “colourless,” filled only with functional furniture, and “there is no safe little spot to hide something” (The Lake: 21). Ember is described as a decaying city, its power structure as well as supplies are depleted and its appearance is drab and depressing: “Ember’s colours were all so much the same—grey buildings, grey streets, black sky” (Ember: 77). Another powerful image of a decaying, cold, artificially created space is Pioneer Colony, where the streets are “spotless corridors of molded plastic, steel floors and recessed lights,” fi lled with “mechanical hum” (I Feel: 13–14). Ella, Mart and Sorb, the teenaged protagonists, live

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 29 in cells surrounding a “drab” common room which has “slightly corroded creamy gray plastic walls,” is furnished with “a dozen identical chairs” and faded natural scenes are set in its viewless windows (28). In these depersonalised environments, it is hardly surprising that the young protagonists feel oppressed and depressed. For example, Sorb feels he is “buried alive in a tomb” (I Feel: 11), Ergo calls Underhill a “prison” (The Others: 63), Lina turns to her precious pencils with which she constantly draws an imagined, colourful world to cheer herself up (Ember: 136), while David prefers to experience a false sense of freedom in the castle’s artificially created grounds rather than return indoors (Children: 78). This unhappiness leads the protagonists in seven of the novels actively to seek a way out of their enclosed communities. The novels construct the successful escape of the young protagonists as both desirable and courageous. In most cases the teenaged heroes defy their elders and go through mental and physical challenges to succeed—a rite of passage structure typical of YA (Young Adult) fiction; for example, Lina and Doon solve a difficult puzzle (Ember), Kell outsmarts the All-Mother’s (the central computer system) violent minions (The Wintering), and Eva manipulates the powerful ‘shaper’ corporations (Eva). The protagonists’ rebellious mindset and courageous behaviour is designed to appeal to young people who are thus encouraged to identify with the protagonists’ plight and adopt their respective points of view. Through this point of identification, the texts convey their own value system to their readers. Using the structural and textual techniques described, these novels communicate a disapproval of the social attitudes illustrated by the Mechanism model. The fact that in all the novels the societies living in accordance with Mechanism are either destroyed (Eva, The Lake and Children of Time) or are on the brink of change instigated by the young protagonists (Ember, I Feel, The Others and Devil) further emphasises that these societies are objectionable. Mechanism is thus rejected as a desirable model for a nature–humanity relationship in the future. ii. Naturalism

By definition, the model termed ‘Naturalism’ characterises an agrarian society, or one that lives in a wild natural environment. In five of the novels protagonists find an alternative community when they escape to the outside, and three of these can be defined as agrarian; the farm in The Lake at the End of the World, the runaway slave community in the woods in Devil on My Back, and the mutants in Children of Time.19 In the remaining novels the escaped protagonists find a post-human environment in which wild nature flourishes. Technology in a Naturalist society is minimal or nonexistent. The agrarian societies depicted in the books grow or hunt their own food aided by basic tools; for example, the runaway slaves possess only one “ancient knife” (Devil: 63). In an article discussing Hughes’ works, J.R. Wytenbroek claims that in

30 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People this novel, “the free slaves have not refused technology but rather have not had an option” (1993: 151). However, upon his return to Arc One, Tomi chooses to send his friends outside saws, knives and needles—basic, unsophisticated survival tools—rather than modern technological ones, which illustrates his inclination to preserve the community’s lifestyle in its simple, non-technological form. In the same manner, Lina, finding the natural world such a “bright, beautiful place” does not understand “how could anyone have allowed such a place to be harmed” (264), indicating a willingness to keep nature as it is, in its primordial exuberance. In a symbolic scene Eva, now living in the jungle, gives up the sophisticated keyboard which enabled her to communicate with humans, signifying her full assimilation into a non-technological natural environment and her move from human to animal (Eva: 236). These examples demonstrate how the novels create a dichotomy between nature and technology, presenting the two as mutually exclusive. An integral characteristic of the Naturalist mode is the superior position of nature within it. The agrarian societies depicted in the books, as well as the protagonists themselves, often revere nature. In The Others, Ergo proclaims that the planet is “alive” and “a self-healing creature,” effectively an endorsement of Lovelock’s Gaia theory (185); however, he concludes, “the earth really does know better than we do. There’s no such thing as a perfect man-made system” (186). Nature, therefore, is shown as superior to humans. The runaway slaves frequently stop their daily tasks to gaze at nature’s beauty (Devil: 84), and as Tomi learns to appreciate their community, he joins their chanting “we are one with each other and with our Mother the Earth” (88). The most striking example, however, is found in The Lake at the End of the World, in which Diana and her parents tell escaped Hector three different stories about the lake that their farm borders. In the first story, a man fed up with city noise escapes to the lake, but as he cannot appreciate the beauty of the natural sounds either, he is punished by the lake and becomes deaf (39). In the second, a fisherman who cruelly boasts how many fish he has killed is turned by the lake into a fish, which is caught, and dies (53–55). The third story tells of Diana’s ancestor who sends any greedy developers interested in the lake to take a rowboat on the water, and they all drown in mysterious circumstances (75–77). Nature is therefore a force to be reckoned with, and those who try to conquer it, or who fail to appreciate it, pay a dear price. This is emphasised in the scene in which the lake, anthropomorphised as “a monster” or “a giant made of water” (175–76), floods the underground community and frees its inhabitants while drowning the tyrant Counsellor who planned to pump toxic waste into the water. The protagonists of seven of the books analysed escape, therefore, into worlds reflecting the values of the Naturalism model. The narratives’ endorsement of these worlds is yet again illustrated by textual and subtextual references. In general, the communities living in accord with the Naturalism model and/or the escaped protagonists themselves are depicted as happier within

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 31 nature. For example, Ergo feels “an exhilarating sense of realness” when he is outdoors (The Others: 62), and Hector, once he escapes his underground existence, declares he is “more alive than ever before” (The Lake: 6). The runaway slaves, depicted as a close-knit community sharing “laughter and hugs and kisses” (71), tell Tomi that “out here in the forest you are quite free” (62); nature is thus portrayed as a saviour. Nature is also depicted as a healer, as the escaped protagonists improve their physical as well as their mental aptitudes. Hector becomes a strong runner and swimmer (Lake: 71), which boosts his confidence to a point where he is willing to risk himself by returning underground to fetch medication for Diana’s mother. Tomi also transforms from a weak boy to a capable young man “lean of leg and stomach, tall and straight and brown,” but more importantly, “his eyes saw far and clearly,” as he has freed himself from the evil teachings of Arc One and willingly returned there to free others (Devil: 151). These representations hark back to classic novels for young readers such as Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911) and Johanna Spyri’s Heidi (1880) and so demonstrates the retrogressive nature of these novels. As discussed earlier, Romantic views of the child associate her with nature, both wild and innocent. Many of the books use metaphors borrowed from the natural world to foreshadow their protagonists’ escape into nature, as well as to enhance their association with it. In Children of Time, Irene guards her mysterious “secrets” until the last scene reveals them to be plant seeds intended to rehabilitate the earth devastated by nuclear war (198). Through carrying the seeds, Irene is linked with the nurturing image of Mother Nature. Similarly, Eva, a living hybrid between human and animal, is haunted by primordial nature in her dreams, “the trees in the dream had been wild, part of a forest no one looked after, tree tangled into tree, stretching on and on, a forest where people had never been, a forest before there were people” (Eva: 28). These dreams imply a subconscious connection with nature, which animals and children allegedly share, further emphasising Romantic perceptions of the child as savage. Lina and Doon’s affinity is symbolised by Lina’s little bean plant, which sprouts just as she is about to leave the city, and Doon’s worm, which almost simultaneously turns into a moth (Ember: 169, 198). The plant and the worm are crude metaphors for the growth of the protagonists as they mature into tomorrow’s leaders, showing their community the way out into nature. It is clear, therefore, that in these books, childhood and nature are closely allied with both being constructed as Edenic spaces, both innocent and savage, requiring preservation as well as taming. The child-protagonist is manipulated into the position of Other, existing outside civilisation and culture, which then become the rightful realms of the adult. Like nature, the child is then simultaneously adored and feared, and therefore needs to be protected and contained. Finally, the fact that the protagonists who find outside communities and environments conforming to the Naturalism model actively choose to live in

32 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People this manner affirms that these novels promote agrarian living bereft of technology. In Children of Time, Irene and her future partner David, the last nonmutated humans, stand hand in hand ready for the future. Like a modern-day Adam and Eve, they will plant their own Garden of Eden and start a new history while the snake, in the form of both the ‘Guardians’ and ‘Mommy,’ has already been defeated, suggesting that a state of pre-mechanical innocence may prevail in the future. In the same manner Dickinson’s novel reverses the familiar myth of the Fall, as the symbolically named Eva Adamson chooses to leave hell in the city and escapes into the Edenic jungle. Pat Pinsent points out that the image of trees with which the novel ends signifies, “the quality of life to which human society may well aspire, without the artificiality and commercialisation which beset their society—and ours” (Pinsent, 2003: 47). It seems that the authors who guide their protagonists through a journey from societies dominated by technology into raw nature all comply with Pinsent’s assumption regarding Eva. Since their protagonists are characterised as subconsciously linked with nature, transformed into happier, better people once they exchange societies predicated on the values of Mechanism for societies modelled on Naturalism, the novels reveal a bias with regard to the kind of lifestyle their readers should aspire to in the future. The return to a metaphoric Eden also evokes the theological discourse of fall and salvation, popular in pre-Industrial times, thus further emphasising how conservative these texts are. iii. Equilibrium

The novels discussed so far have all depicted a move from societies classified under the Mechanism model, to those classified under Naturalism. None of these novels attempts to depict a technological society which has formed a partnership with nature because the values of both are recognised, as is emphasised in the model termed Equilibrium. Unlike these novels, The Wintering trilogy does precisely this and so offers a vision of a more balanced future society. When Kell escapes from computer-controlled Perth, which was already shown as fitting the Mechanism model, the world he encounters outside is a post-technological one, in which any remains of human knowledge from before the Ice age are worshipped but not understood. Although the tribes he meets lead a simple, pre-industrial-like life, they revere the technological remains of the past, and incorporate them into their folklore and mythologies. Through repeated dreams, Kell fi nds that he has a semi-mystical ability to repair these technological remains by communicating with them telepathically: “he had not been afraid to join with the minds of other intelligences, whether they were constructed or natural” (Storm: 75). Technology is therefore presented as an independent force with a mind of its own: “perhaps all the great orbs were beings in their own right, invested with

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 33 awareness and an intelligence” (Thaw: 37). Unlike protagonists such as Eva, Kell is portrayed as subconsciously linked to technology and nature, the latter in the form of the ‘wulfen’ (genetically enhanced wolves) with whom he also communicates telepathically. Thus, he signifies a break from the myth of the innocent child, as he embodies both wilderness and civilisation, past and future, which positions him as a balanced person—a visionary, yet responsible leader-to-be. Kell also finds that the sophisticated interplanetary-travel vehicles he repairs were made in the pre-Ice era from weorthan glass, the same technological substance used in creating the All Mother’s reality-altering control devices. He realises that “weorthan itself is not evil. What is evil or good is the way in which it is used” (Storm: 92). Thus Bowkett suggests that technology should not be blamed for damage resulting from people abusing it. This suggestion is very much in the vein of SF writing for adults, which “always put the blame on the greed and vainglory of rogues, politicians, military men or business tycoons, never on the march of progress” (Clute and Nicholls: 1203). Telepathy in The Wintering trilogy is seen as a superior form of communication. As mentioned in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, this is a common theme in Young SF; however, while often in Young SF “psi powers (from within) are seen as opposed, and morally preferable to scientific and technological powers (from without)” (Clute and Nicholls: 216), in The Wintering trilogy, telepathy is artificially induced, the product of human experiments aimed to help animals survive the long winter. Thus, technology is presented as capable of drawing the potential out of raw nature and perfecting it, as exemplified by the increased “synerthic abilities” of the wulfen, abilities which now allow them to communicate and collaborate with other species (Thaw: 56–60). It is important to note, however, that certain kinds of technology are perceived as suspect, and are destroyed by the end of the trilogy. These are the technologies which try to mesh the organic with the mechanical; all cyborgs, including the All Mother, a female brain merged with a computer, becoming deranged as a result, are thoroughly rejected. Also, any genetic engineering of people which alters their human appearance is ethically questioned, but not so unambiguously negated, as exemplified by Kell’s calling the modification of the Hreaomus (bat-people) and the Dweorg (dwarfs) “an outrage,” while collaborating with them nonetheless (Thaw: 139). Throughout the book, it is implied that the technological knowledge that the humans and animals acquire will help them to create a new world now that the earth has started thawing. Thus technology is accepted as part of human life and technological achievements are celebrated, as long as they do not disturb the balance between the natural and the mechanical. The technology which helped preserve humanity through harsh natural conditions is helpful only as long as it is used in an ethical manner. In this way Bowkett’s novel can be classified as an example of the Equilibrist mode, as it offers a futuristic world which neither rejects technology nor endorses an exploitative attitude towards nature.

34 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People Instead, it opts for a partnership in which technology and nature are valued as equally significant to the development of humanity. Thus, it falls in line with current trends in environmental thinking which strive for a sustainable future, and so presents to its young audience a viable approach to resolving ecological concerns.

Section II: Travelling in Futuristic Landscapes As Northrop Frye asserts in his private notebooks, “the adventure pattern of so many romances is the quest for light, the wandering in the wilderness of the dark world” (2004: 155). The six novels featured in this section adopt this pattern, as their young protagonists travel in quest of answers or a safe haven, and in the process also explores future versions of their worlds. However, for half of these novels, as for the majority of the texts discussed in the previous section, the successful quest ends in the discovery of primordial wilderness. The books discussed here are Tom Browne’s Red Zone (1980), Brenda Vale’s Albion (1982), Robert Westall’s Futuretrack 5 (1989), Isobelle Carmody’s Scatterlings (1995), Janet McNaughton’s The Secret under My Skin (2000) and Julie Bertagna’s Exodus (2002). All of these texts portray a futuristic Western world. Four take place in futuristic Britain (Red Zone, Albion, Futuretrack 5 and Exodus), one in Australia (Scatterlings) and one in Canada (The Secret under My Skin). Five of the books describe this world as a dystopia, while only Albion depicts it as a utopia. i. Mechanism

A close reading of the novels in this section shows that five of them depict a society conforming to the Mechanism model.20 These are highly technologised societies; for example, in Futuretrack 5, twenty-first century Britain completely depends on “Laura,” the central computer, and all manual labour has been assigned to robots (12). In Red Zone, rich technocrats control twentysecond century London, and the inner zone where they live is comprised of tower blocks equipped with surveillance systems and house robots. Similarly, New Mungo is a sophisticated sky-city into which only the “most brilliant minds, the most technically skilled,” were allowed to enter when Britain was flooded due to global warming (Exodus: 196). It is characteristic of societies in the Mechanism model that nature has been conquered and often destroyed in the process of technological progress. The opening of Exodus recalls the past when people “grew greedy, ravaging the planet’s bounty of miracles” (prologue). An even more extreme example of an exploitative history is recounted in Scatterlings, where environmental scholars and activists were persecuted by the technological industry because they “cared more about trees than people,” the result being environmental

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 35 damage on a vast scale (226). In Futuretrack 5, nature is tightly controlled, and access to it is a social privilege. The Unnems (unemployed members of society) are confined to London where everything is “plastic” (121), while the Ests (upper classes, the establishment) live in weather-controlled enclaves and eat fresh food mass-grown in allocated agricultural zones. A powerful metaphor signifying the way technology has violently dominated nature is the abandoned bird reserve that Kit and Keri find, which is protected by “anti-personnel mines” and an “automatic, radar-controlled defence system” (161–62). Nature is thus depicted as a prisoner in the hands of technology. As in texts discussed in Section I, the authors depicting societies that fall under the category of Mechanism associate them with oppression and dreariness. New Mungo uses slave labour, based on kidnapped refugees that the city refuses to let in. The population in Fututretrack 5 is under constant surveillance by the paramils, circling the skies in their mood-radar, the “psychopter,” and sending anti-socials to be lobotomised. In the same manner the Citizens Gods in Scatterlings and the technocrats in Red Zone use technology to oppress and manipulate unprivileged members of their society. The environment which these societies inhabit is described as sterile. In the domed city of the Citizens Gods, the air is “cold and metallic,” and the trees are artificial, as, “there was no greenery, no trees or bushes or flowers, and no natural light to brighten the dreary city” (Scatterlings: 210–13). In Red Zone, the concentric zoned city is a hodgepodge of “drab mid-twentieth-century housing” (7), factories and nuclear plants manufacturing “mountainous spoil heaps,” “gutted buildings,” and heavily guarded “gleaming towers” where the rich and powerful live (9–10). In books describing enclosed communities, the protagonists’ rebellion and escape have been shown to manifest in structural form the disapproval of societies conforming to the Mechanism model. The books discussed in this section, however, are based on a quest as the central plot device, and the protagonists’ journey in search of a safe haven (Exodus and Red Zone), or of answers to questions regarding their own identity or the world they live in. (Albion, Futuretrack 5, Scatterlings, Secret under My Skin). Yet, the protagonists in five of the books eventually choose not to live in Mechanist societies by either finding or establishing an alternative community and/or by seeking to change these societies from within. Therefore five of the quest-based novels illustrate through the choices of their protagonists, as well as through physical description of the environment, criticism of the societies living in accordance with Mechanism which they feature. ii. Naturalism

Four of the novels depict societies which comply with the basic characteristics of the Naturalism model. The societies depicted are agrarian or live in the wild. For example, the Clan Folk in Scatterlings are nomads who developed

36 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People immunity to the radioactive environment, while the Treenesters in Exodus are led by old Candleriggs, who believes her people “should stick to the natural gifts of the Earth” (Exodus: 109). The Treenesters live off the land, hunting and growing their own food and sleeping in nests hung among the trees (120). All these societies use minimal technology or reject it completely. For example, there are “no wires or watchtowers, factories or estates” in the Fens (Futuretrack 5: 178) and the inhabitants are unaware of technologies such as phones or televisions (182). The Treenesters shun books and do not enter the ruins of the old university, as Candleriggs has taught them that learning brings “sorrow and heartache” (Exodus: 158). Since the community engages in poetry and storytelling believing that “stories are the world’s heartbeat” (127) while condemning the technologically advanced New Mungo, it is clear that the taboo relates to scientific knowledge. The rejection of technology in Secret under My Skin borders on the fanatical, as the High Commission, established after the planet was poisoned by exploitation, instigated the “technocaust” in which “techies” were blamed for causing the degradation of the environment, and “hundreds of thousands” of them were exterminated (76–77). Some of these societies have a reverential attitude towards nature; for example, the Treenesters believe that “tree killing is a terrible crime,” and that “a place without trees is a dead place” (Exodus: 172–74). In Futuretrack 5, an interesting twist occurs, as it is suggested that it is the technologised society which fears that nature has the ability to influence minds and to turn people into rebels, as illustrated by the ban on camping. Indeed, when Kitson breaks the law by camping out in the deserted Scottish Highlands, living in a wild natural environment makes him realise how claustrophobic the world he comes from really is: “suddenly, Scotland seemed enormous, England small as a zoo with its Wires and watchtowers” (159). This realisation fuels his desire to destroy the national computer. The depiction of nature as a source of inspiration harks back to Romantic ideas. Like Rousseau’s Émile, Kitson is portrayed as developing his sense of morality by observing nature. Three of the books depict societies living in accordance with the Naturalism model as morally superior in terms of human values such as openness, hospitality, and caring for others. The Treenesters’ tight-knit community and generous spirit stand in contrast to the “shallow and self obsessed, not interested in anything beyond here and now and having fun” society in New Mungo (Exodus: 248). In the same manner, the Clan people’s telepathic “mind-bonding,” which prevents any kind of deceit, is juxtaposed with the Citizen Gods’ “Wordbonding” which “permits lies” (Scatterlings: 105).21 The Fenmen are described by Keri as people who “mend things” rather than “kill things” (Futuretrack 5: 198). Like the Clan folk, the Fenmen are trusting people, their simplicity child-like, hence creating the association between nature and innocence which is usually reserved for children;22 however, both communities’ good nature and blissful ignorance leave them vulnerable to exploitation. The dark side of the myth of the innocent child is thus exposed, as “the

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 37 ascription of innocence largely permits adults to not assume responsibility for their role in setting up children for failure” (Giroux, 2000: 2). Constructing children as naturally innocent casts them in the permanent role of victim, which masks the adults’ part in disempowering them through a well-established social hierarchy. Interestingly, Secret under My Skin depicts a society which can be classified under Naturalism, but this society is not depicted as morally superior but rather the opposite, implying a rejection of this model as not only impractical but also potentially threatening humanity’s future progress. The High Commission’s regime is described as “old, corrupt, and weak” (63), responsible for mass murder as well as exploitation and deceit (38–39, 78). Rather than admit that the planet is recovering and that the atmosphere is safe again, the High Commission hides the facts from its subjects and retains control by reinforcing superstitious fears regarding technology. The protagonists of Exodus and Scatterlings eventually choose to live in a society organised according to the principles of Naturalism, while Kitson (Futuretrack 5) gives up the personal happiness he felt in the Highlands (167) and in the Fenmen’s rural “heaven” (187) in an attempt to destroy the oppressive system. These three books endorse societies that conform to the Naturalism model. The constructed ideological superiority of nature over technology is summed up by a powerful image from Exodus which depicts a broken TV set overgrown with weeds, and is quoted in the epigraph for this chapter (137). In contrast, the heroine of Secret under My Skin takes part in the struggle to topple the High Commission and create an alternative regime which is discussed next. iii. Equilibrium

Three communities described in these quest novels adopt an alternative approach, which integrates technology and nature in a balanced relationship as exemplified by the Equilibrium model. Plenty House, the green zone commune that Clem and Kara join, belongs to the Green Power movement that “believed that by living in small groups within their own land, those who desired could rebuild their own living units, grow fresh food, revive old skills and reduce material needs” (Red Zone: 97). Although they adopted an agrarian lifestyle, the members of Plenty House “combine old and new technologies” (98), using saws and horses but also “agri-lites” to extend plants’ growing season and “organic engineering,” an advanced healing system using “synthetic membrane” (113). Albion depicts a similar community but on a larger scale. A utopia is established in twenty-first century Britain in the aftermath of both an oil crisis and a nuclear holocaust on the continent, in which government is decentralised and land distributed to the people. In the tradition of utopian writing, Vale describes at length and in great detail how a sustainable balance between humanity, nature and technology can be achieved. In North Fen, John’s small village, as in other settlements in Albion, “all that was necessary for clothing and food and shelter was either produced at home or provided

38 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People by the exchange of labour,” as money has no value in this society (Albion: 27). Anything that cannot be produced in the village, such as “metal components and electronic equipment,” is imported from factories located “next to resources and the point of power production” (29, 31). John’s home is a picture of “comfortable functionalism,” complete with “solar heating systems” and a rainwater distiller, but also “radio and television equipment which linked with both friends and information” (20). Members of the community ride bicycles but use a “slurry plant” to produce gas for the farm vehicles they share, and a windmill produces electricity for the vans that carry goods to the local market town (25). The central computer system controls “the production and distribution of goods and food throughout the country,” and stores information for quick access (52). However, technology is used in accordance with the motto: “it is the people that matter and the system is only there to free them” (53). Some environmentally damaging technologies, such as “cars that messed up the atmosphere and nuclear power that produced all that radioactive waste,” as well as “doomsday type weapons” are thoroughly rejected (68). The communities described have respect for nature’s intrinsic value. The village run by the Weaver’s Guild, a powerful grassroots women’s organisation, has established a partnership with nature: “there’s a balance between us and the earth. We don’t just drain off resources like the cities do. We take what nature gives but we thank her as well” (Secret under My Skin: 137). People are encouraged to “avoid all but the necessary innovations” and to carry on living “close to the land” (102). Technology is used to measure the planet’s healing process, and the protagonist is proved a natural scientist because “she feels part of everything”; that is, she has an affinity with nature and she appreciates it (55). Albion’s fields and gardens are “tended and balanced with care founded on the study of the natural world,” and as a result “nature also flourished,” providing “unhindered and unthreatened” natural habitats for plants and wildlife (Albion: 132). Nature is depicted as the teacher of humanity in the manner depicted by Heinonen in her parallel model entitled “Epistemological Expansion” (2000: 112). The books classified as the Equilibrium model offer a positive attitude towards societies that can balance the virtues of nature and technology as is evident in the fact that all the protagonists choose to live in such a society. Partnership between nature, humanity and technology is not only depicted as a superior mode of living, but also as the only viable one. With the city “starting to die,” Plenty House is presented as the only sustainable alternative (Red Zone: 113). The High Commission, representing ignorance and superstition, is toppled in favour of sensible use of science and technology, thus suggesting that although technology is capable of damaging nature, it is also capable of protecting it when in the hands of environmentally aware scientists (Secret under My Skin). Vale’s use of the tropes of utopian literature23 in Albion illustrates her intention to highlight the consequences

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 39 of modern living by presenting a positive alternative for the future, one which incorporates technology, rather than rejects it in favour of a pastoral fantasy. Section III: Meeting of Minds—Cultural Encounter This section examines two novels depicting the meeting between protagonists from cultures that differ in their attitudes towards humanity’s relationship to nature and technology. H.M. Hoover’s Another Heaven, Another Earth (1983) takes place on the planet Xilan, where an expedition from Earth, sent to explore whether the planet is fit for colonisation, is surprised to discover the mutated descendants of humans sent to settle on Xilan 500 years previously. Grace Chetwin’s Collidescope (1990) revolves around Hahn, a highly advanced alien cyborg whose spaceship crashes into earth. Across time, Hahn accidentally interferes with the lives of both Frankie and Sky-fire-trail, two teenagers living on the island of Manhattan during modern and pre-colonial America respectively. i. Mechanism

Two societies represent the technological exploitation of nature as characterised by this model. In Hoover’s novel, the Earth people’s expedition wants to “plunder” Xilan for “mineral wealth” as well as inhabit it (Another Heaven, Another Earth: 15). Earth has already colonised closer planets when its own environment deteriorated (69). The natural world is “reduced to specimens and put into plastic bags” by this unappreciative scientific expedition, mainly because they “had no experience with nature” on their home planet and its orbiting colonies (24). Their interest in Xilan is a capitalist one, and they are fully aware that “they’re in it for the money” (100). They will stop at nothing to evacuate Xilan so that the big corporations can market it as virgin territory. On Telfar, Hahn’s home plant in Collidescope, “cities were sealed under quartz domes, their atmosphere fi ltered and controlled.” Watching present-day Manhattan, Hahn wonders, “how long since people on Telfar had walked down a street feeling the sun and wind directly on their faces?” (3). Although made with ‘bio’ parts, so technically alive, Hahn’s society disregards his humanity and treats him like a machine, “no better than a vacuum cleaner” (129). As both texts use the juxtaposition of two opposing cultures as the central plot device, the attitudes conveyed towards them are revealed primarily through the impact of an encounter on individual members of these societies as well as the way they negotiate their differences. In both cases, protagonists belonging to a society organised according to the values of Mechanism change as a consequence of meeting societies leading a different lifestyle, a familiar pattern found in novels grouped in previous sections. Leland comes to realise

40 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People that life on Xilan has “a sense of peace and time and self-assurance she herself had never known” (Another Heaven, Another Earth [AHAE]: 116) and some of her colleagues even consider staying (159), while Hahn is encouraged to return to his planet and fight for his human rights (Collidescope: 212–13). The Earth expedition is described as treating the indigenous inhabitants of Xilan with “less respect than Uri treats his pigs” (AHAE: 143), in other words, in precisely the same way as the members of Telfar treat Hahn. The lack of tolerance towards the Other, combined with unappealing arrogance (the expedition is amazed when the Xilans reject their offer to immigrate to Earth), suggests that these societies have flawed value systems that may well stretch to include their attitudes towards nature, which they also construct as Other. The influential post-colonial scholar Edward Said reminds us that [ . . . ] the facts of empire are associated with sustained possession, with far-flung and sometimes unknown spaces, with eccentric or unacceptable human beings, with fortune-enhancing or fantasized activities like emigration, money-making, and sexual adventure. (1994: 64) Imperialistic ambition, as defined by Said, is clearly represented by Earth’s future society in Hoover’s novel. Significantly, it has been linked in the past not only to oppression of indigenous communities, but also to the plundering of their natural resources. ii. Naturalism

In contrast to Mechanistic societies, both novels depict societies that can be classified as living in accordance with the Naturalism model. The people of Xilan live in nature and work the land. Their human ancestors were stranded and their technology has broken down. Society on Xilan has thereafter regressed over the centuries to a point where understanding of any of the technological remains has been lost, and the community has started to fear it (AHAE: 5). However, they deeply appreciate nature, as demonstrated by the outrage which Gareth, the community’s herbal doctor, feels when the expedition’s people tear down her favourite natural beauty spot in order to gain access to the old transmitter. The contrast between the cultures’ attitudes towards nature is emphasised by Major Singh’s dismissal of Gareth’s grief with the words: “you’ve got a whole world full of trees” (127). In Chetwin’s novel, the other side of the scale is represented by the Native American Sky-fire-trail (Sky-ft). Sky-ft’s people live in 1451 on the same site as the future Manhattan before America was colonised. Sky-ft is put through native rites of passage that reflect his people’s connection to nature. He dives into the river and returns, like the mythical muskrat, cupping mud from the bottom, the earth symbolising his people’s survival (Collidescope: 51). The Native Americans live close to the land in a physical as well as a spiritual way,

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 41 as Hahn explains to Frankie, a present day teenager: “to Sky-fire-trail earth is not what you think of as ‘dirt.’ To him it is respected, sacred even. A source of life and sustenance. It certainly would have great mystical value” (142). As she watches Sky-ft in his natural surrounding, Frankie realises that unlike her, he “belongs” (178). In contrast to the expedition’s lack of sensitivity, the Xilans are depicted as trusting people, welcoming the expedition “like animals that have never known predators” (AHAE: 58). The long history of anthropomorphic animal characters in children’s books demonstrates Warner’s assumption that “the child and the beast don’t stand at opposite ends, but are intertwined,” linked by their savagery and innocence (Warner: 49). The indigenous people of Xilan are therefore equated with children, reinforcing the ancient connection between nature, childhood and innocence. The image of trusting animals also places the Earth expedition in the position of hunters, as Gareth concludes, they “weren’t builders; they were destroyers” (AHAE: 155). It is therefore clear that Hoover sides with the Xilan community’s lifestyle. This agenda is summed up by Gareth’s conclusion that “she could understand why Earth people would want to come to Xilan, but she could not understand why anyone would want to go to Earth” (157). This bias is reinforced by Major Singh’s parting gesture—with the aid of technology he replants Gareth’s devastated park. The mechanical touch, however, ensures that the park would be “prettier than before,” but also “without its spirit” (174). In Collidescope, Frankie is the key to understanding where Chetwin’s sympathy lies. While Hahn lives in a technological future, reflecting the values of Mechanism, and Sky-ft in a Naturalism-like past, Frankie lives in the present, and seems interested in reading about both robotics (72– 73) and environmental issues (16, 19). At the beginning of the book, she believes that “the past and present needn’t be at odds” (30). Thus, she seems to sympathise with the attitudes presented by the Equilibrium model. However, while Frankie imagines herself in a futuristic city “going up in one of those mach-speed elevators to the umpteenth floor to gaze over the shining metropolis” (29), in reality she is depicted as one of Wordsworth’s children, who “couldn’t stand tall buildings too long” because “she needed trees, and open spaces” (106). Frankie’s sympathy towards nature does not stop here, as she also successfully convinces Hahn that he is human (130). Hahn’s humanity thus defeats his mechanical structure—he is the embodiment of the battle between nature and technology, and with Frankie’s help, it is nature that gets the upper hand.24 It is Frankie’s relationship with Sky-ft which reveals the most about Chetwin’s bias towards a Naturalistic lifestyle. Frankie is impressed by the young Native American, is strongly attracted to him and is envious of his connection to nature. When she time-travels to his past, spending a day by a peaceful lake, she wishes she could stay (179). Sky-ft does not return the favour—he is not impressed with Frankie’s comfortable lifestyle, as in a modern house,

42 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People “the sun never shines [ . . . ] the wind doesn’t blow, the rain never falls” (200). Sky-ft despises what he calls “the calamity,” to him, the unnatural modern city with its “monstrous beasts belching foul smoke” (199) seems a “dreadful world” which sadly his known environment “was to become” (96). As a result of their encounter, Frankie comes to realise that her personal problems at home are indeed “idle notions” as Sky-ft announces (187). Chetwin implies that children growing up in the technologically comfortable world seem to lose a sense of proportion, forgetting that their “world was threatened no less than Sky-fire-trail’s” (188). In Collidescope, our world at present, framed as it is by the past and the future, is at a crossroads. The past (nature) and the future (technology) are at odds, as Frankie’s mother points out (30), and through Frankie’s eyes, the novel suggests to its young readers that it is better to look backwards for inspiration on how our future should be shaped. Conclusion Using the three models developed in this chapter as critical tools has helped to clearly map social attitudes presented in sixteen sample texts, thus exposing a disturbing trend in SF written for young people. Fourteen out of the sixteen novels analysed depict societies conforming to the Mechanism model, presenting them as a possible way of life in the future. These societies are thoroughly rejected, as the novels are determined to warn that a future in which technology is developed at the expense of nature will only bring disaster. However, in the process of doing so they often associate technology, not only with the loss of anything green and living, but also with loss of individuality and civil, as well as personal, freedom. Thus, the novels often equate technology with oppression and misery, suggesting that technology is not only capable of oppressing nature, but also oppressing the humans who created it. Although the environmental experts presented in the first part of this chapter all offer models which attempt to balance the use of modern technology with nature conservation, only four of the books analysed depict such a solution as desirable, while the remaining twelve opt for a mode of life characteristic of the Naturalism model. The fact that three-quarters of the novels prefer to see children living in a non-technologised primordial world shows that the myth of the innocent child, and her innate association with nature, “still continue[s] to grow,” as Warner suggests (1994: 45). The frequent appearance of metaphors comparing children to natural elements within these novels demonstrates that the interconnection of childhood and nature through their presumed mutual state of innocence, outlined in early pedagogic texts such as Rousseau’s Émile and perpetuated through Romantic art and literature, still resonates in Young SF, rendering it a genre moving “forward into the past” (Nodelman, 1985: 285).

But Only God Can Make a Tree • 43 Lesnik-Oberstein states that “the child, through its identification with the natural, and with the fulfi lment of its own nature as the adult it must become, has been increasingly assigned the role of the agent of its own environmental redemption” (1998: 213). Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor also observes that modern children’s literature often encourages young readers to spearhead the campaign to preserve nature (1996: 143). The depiction of children as environmental saviours in books written for them is paradoxical, as the myth of the innocent, natural child establishes a clear hierarchy which actually robs children of their agency rather than celebrates it. Giroux points out that: by claiming childhood innocence to be natural as opposed to a “constructed” state, adults can safely ignore the power imbalance between themselves and children; after all, if children exist beyond the pale of adult influence, then they have neither agency nor rights, except to be constrained or protected from aberrant outside forces. (2000: 5) Through sending their young protagonists to lead the way into a world that is no longer viable, the novels inadvertently disempower their child readers by pushing them to achieve the unattainable. The ever-widening technological gap between generations serves as an ominous background to the bias towards pretechnologised nature, as interactions between young people and technology rapidly change the face of childhood, remapping the adult-child power dynamic.

Chapter Two The Last Book in the Universe The Fate of the Humanities in a Technological World If you’re reading this, it must be a thousand years from now. Because nobody around here reads anymore. (The Last Book in the Universe: 7)

In 2005 Lord Alec Broers, a leading electric engineer and pioneer of nanotechnology, presented the prestigious BBC Reith lectures. Lord Broers called his series of lectures The Triumph of Technology, illustrating both his enthusiasm for technological advancement and his intention to combat public misconceptions and fears regarding technology. The first lecture set the agenda, announcing that “the possession of an understanding of technology, just as with an understanding of music, literature, or the arts, brings with it great personal satisfaction and pleasure” (Broers, 2005: par. 16). It is not a coincidence that Lord Broers decided to link technology and the arts in his passionate manifesto calling for better public appreciation for the contribution of technology to human culture. His statement acknowledges that a rift exists between the sciences and the humanities, and attempts to bridge it by drawing positive parallels between these fields of human endeavour. That growing public concern regarding young people’s book reading habits in the face of increasing competition for their leisure time from technological pastimes, such as computer games and the internet, has been documented by surveys showing that children and teenagers prefer spending time online to reading books (NCRCL, 1996; MORI, 2003; Livingstone and Bober, 2005). However, these surveys do not take into consideration other types of reading, as well as artistic pursuits, such as creative writing, role-playing, graphic 45

46 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People design and composing, that young people engage in through their use of new technologies. As these technologies become more interactive, the creative possibilities for young people may well expand. The ways in which the fields of the humanities and the arts will develop and change in the future still remains to be seen; however, the ability to imagine this future, often by extrapolating from the present, is inherent in science fiction. SF may be seen as a meeting point between “science” and “art,” as the genre’s name suggests. As Brian Stableford points out in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, SF authors, themselves artists after all, often argue that “the emotional richness of art is necessary to temper and redeem the cold objectivity of science” (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 53). Nevertheless, some SF authors associate art with strife and revolutionary ideas, which transforms it into a destabilising, anti-social force in their fictionalised future utopias; artists are therefore characterised as posing a threat to humanity’s peaceful existence and are cast out (54).1 Paul Deane notes that in an American fiction series written for children, “civilization and its glory—the humanities—have lost the game to science and its offshoot technology in the final innings” (1991: 154). This statement in itself exposes not only the dichotomy between the sciences and the humanities, but also the hierarchy in which they are placed within literature written for young people. Deane’s claim, based largely on analysis of popular SF series, such as Tom Swift and its sequels (1910–2008), is challenged in this chapter, which demonstrates that SF novels for children and young adults often depict the humanities and the arts not only as opposed to technology, but also assign them the role of saviour from the damaging influence of the latter. The anxiety over the decline in book reading among young people, as a manifestation of the strong association between children’s literature and education (Campbell, 2003: 34), is offered as one possible explanation for the way in which Young SF authors view the function of the humanities and the arts in a technological future.

The Humanities and the Sciences: Origins of the Rift For most of human history, art and technology were perceived as the same thing, as Melvin Kranzberg, a professor of the history of technology, points out, “the crafts of early man were both his artistic expression and his technical activity” (1979: 164). In the modern introduction to C.P. Snow’s renowned 1959 Rede lecture, The Two Cultures, Stefan Collini maps the history of the relationship between the humanities and the sciences, and notes that anxiety over the divide between these fields of human knowledge “essentially dates from the nineteenth century,” and was “barely intelligible in earlier periods” (Collini, 1993: ix). According to Collini, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, science, based on observation and understanding of nature, was considered “but one element in the all-embracing enterprise of ‘philosophy’” (x).

The Last Book in the Universe • 47 Similarly, the broadcaster and academic Anthony Smith, attempting to assess the impact of modern technology on culture, asserts that in the Renaissance there was no linguistic or cultural distinctions between the arts and the sciences. Moreover, artists such as da Vinci and Michelangelo were aided by new discoveries in math and perspective, as well as anatomical dissection, as art shifted from “dependence on ancient models to researched discovery” (1996: 14). The term “fine arts,” encompassing all arts which imitate nature (e.g., poetry, sculpture and even architecture), only emerged in the eighteenth century. Art became institutionalised, the artist was attributed with the personal power of imagination, often self-represented as “rebel, as outsider, as criminal, but more frequently simply as a figure apart, offering his vision to an uncomprehending world” (20). At around the same time, scientific achievements started gaining prestige as they set “new standards for what could count as genuine knowledge” (Collini, 1993: x). The nineteenth century saw the emergence of public anxiety that “calculation and measurement generally might be displacing cultivation and compassion” (xi), as exemplified by Charles Dickens’ novel Hard Times (1854), a manifesto against the governing philosophy of the Victorian education system that “every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter” (288). The divide between the humanities and the sciences eventually began to structure the education system, with the former still being considered the appropriate education for genteel society, while the latter was stigmatised as a “vocational and slightly grubby activity” (Collini: xiii). The increasing gap in the perceptions of British scientists and humanists regarding what denotes proper education is exemplified by an 1880s public exchange2 between T.H. Huxley, founder of Imperial College, and the well-known Victorian man of letters and educationalist, Matthew Arnold (reviewed in Collini, xiii–xv); however, the view that these two fields are not only related but also indispensable to each other persisted elsewhere. For instance, the French physician Armand Trousseau wrote in 1869 that “every science touches art at some points—every art has its scientific side; the worst man of science is he who is never an artist, and the worst artist is he who is never a man of science” (cited in “Endpiece: Medicine: Art or Science?” 2000). In the beginning of the next century the rift between the sciences and the humanities was challenged by new forms of art which were influenced and eventually created by technological advancements such as fi lm and photography.

Art and Technology in the Twentieth Century Modern art (from the late nineteenth century to 1970) was to a large extent influenced by technological progress, as “modernists in all the art forms shared one chief objective: to find new modes of representation that might reflect the changed world around them” (Murphie and Potts, 2003: 43). In

48 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People her study of the influence of technology on the art of early Modern America and the incorporation of machine imagery into literature, Cecelia Tichi observes that “a technological revolution is a revolution not only of science and technology but of language, of fiction, and ultimately of poetry” (1987: 16). A striking example of the way art was influenced by technology is the work produced by the Futurist movement (founded in Italy in 1909), which was directly inspired by new machinery. The movement’s manifesto declares that “the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed . . . a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace” (Marinetti, 1909). Later examples include Pop Art, inspired by mass production, as well as work produced and displayed by technological means, such as video installations and Computer Art. In 1936 Walter Benjamin published his influential essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in which he reflects on the changing status of traditional art forms such as painting and theatre in an age of mass-production, and the influence of technology, in the form of the newly emerged arts of fi lm and photography, on our sensory perceptions of reality and our cultural politics. Benjamin fi nds that, “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art” (215). By aura, Benjamin generally means authenticity, a unique place in space and time; he does not, however, view this loss as necessarily bad, as it brings art down from its supercilious social pedestal and into the reach of the masses (217–18).3 As opposed to painting and theatre, photography and fi lm are hailed by Benjamin as potentially revolutionary art forms which bring nature closer to humanity due to their penetrative quality. Unlike the theatre’s visible stage and props, fi lm and photography deceptively elide the artificial means of their production, as well as abolishing the natural distance between us and nature, a distance consistently maintained in traditional paintings. In Benjamin’s view, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. (227) While Benjamin identifies the artistic potential embedded in technology’s impact on culture, some of his contemporaries felt threatened by the rapid changes taking place in the world. Twelve Southerners, a group of American poets and artists formed in 1930, saw a danger in the industrial view of nature as a utility, a view which the group claimed robs artists of the leisurely observation of nature that is integral to producing a work of art. In their neo-Luddite manifesto entitled I’ll Take My Stand, the group goes as far as to say that, “neither the creation, nor the understanding of works of art is possible in an industrial age” (Twelve Southerners, 1977: xliii).4

The Last Book in the Universe • 49 Two decades later, in “The Question Concerning Technology” (1954), philosopher Martin Heidegger tried meticulously to establish the role of art in a technological world. Through a complex series of logically evolving arguments, Heidegger concludes that “the essence of modern technology shows itself in what we call enframing” (328).5 Enframing, according to Heidegger is “the way in which the actual reveals itself as standing-reserve” (329). Put simply, this is an attitude we all share, and cannot opt out of, wherein we relate to the world and try to understand it through compartmental measurements which we can control, and which ultimately transform the world into a potential resource, a hoard of raw materials, existing solely for human exploitation. The possibly dangerous outcome of enframing is that people become nothing but a potential resource, with humanity under the misguided impression that it controls all being, developing a hubris which would prevent it from relating to the world in any other way. The result would be an inability to see the world for what it really is (332–33). Heidegger concludes that the saving power of humanity is art. Like a technological approach, an artistic or poetic orientation also seeks to understand the world; however, it does not transform it into a resource in the same way that enframing does. Therefore, art, or an artistic perspective, can safeguard humans from the dangers of enframing—the abstract essence of technology (339–41). As Andrew Murphie and John Potts point out, “ultimately then, for Heidegger, technology needs art as much as it needs science” (Murphie and Potts, 2003: 165). While Benjamin saw art produced by technological means as more appropriate to modern times, and Heidegger held that art and technology should be bound together for the benefit of humanity, Jacque Ellul rejected both ideas. In his influential work The Technological Society (1954), Ellul argues that in modern society art and literature “are tightly subordinated in different ways to technical necessities by the direct interference of technique” (128). Technique is defined by Ellul as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity” (xxv). Essentially, therefore, Ellul sees technology as a by-product of an attitude wherein rationalism, systemisation and efficiency are the ultimate values. The way in which modern cinema and literature are bound by their need for finance, leaving them under the influence of money or the state, resulting in censorship, is one of the examples that Ellul gives for the subordination of art by technique. Another is abstract painting, which for Ellul is the result of the threat posed by the invention of photography. In general, Ellul perceives the influence of machinery on art and music as tragic (128–29). Ellul’s ideas were formulated in the mid-1960s; however, his more recent writing shows that he still firmly believes that “the terms culture and technology are radically distinct. There can be no bridge between them. To associate them is an abuse of meaning” (Ellul, 1990: 147–48). Denouncing popular art forms such as comics and music videos, which he claims exist only due to

50 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People technological innovations (380), Ellul states that “technological marvels do not suffice for artistic creation and that the techno-sciences are not precursors of the arts” (377). The debate over whether technology’s influence on the arts and humanities is positive, giving rise to new modes of artistic expression, or negative, in the sense that technology subordinates and diminishes culture, continues. Smith, in Software for the Self, is optimistic about the artistic potential embedded within technological progress (1996). Where Ellul dismisses the music video as an art form, Smith believes it “fuses various earlier forms and gives expression to a number of fresh interdependencies between artistic skills” (25). John Paul Russo, on the other hand, laments “the power of technology and the omnipresence of the image,” claiming that “technology cannot give us a culture because of what it is doing to language—to literary language and symbolism, with their deep roots in the historical, cultural, and religious past” (2005: 35, 41). He strongly criticises Smith’s optimistic viewpoint, saying that “Smith’s title, Software for the Self, has an element of excruciating, cosy talk-show chatter: the software undermines the very self that it supposedly supports and entertains” (41). Although he agrees that “the use of image as a fully representational mode is having its effects on the very syntax of language,” Gunther Kress does not see this as posing a threat to reading, but rather as a different mode of making meaning; one which is not simplified, but rather more complex as it demands that the readers design their own reading path, a transformation which Kress views as “a move toward action in and on the outer world” (2003: 151–52). The influence of this new form of reading on narrative structure is discussed in the next chapter.

The Two Cultures No examination of the relationship between the humanities and the sciences can be complete without discussing C.P. Snow’s renowned 1959 Rede lecture, entitled The Two Cultures. Snow, himself a scientist by training and a novelist by practice, identified what he claimed was a widening gap between the sciences and the humanities as a result of specialisation within the British education system (Snow, 1993). This gap was also highlighted in Broers’ statement in the beginning of this chapter, proving that the rift between the humanities and the sciences is still an issue today (Broers, 2005: par. 16). Snow observed that between literary intellectuals and scientists lies “a gulf of mutual incomprehension—sometimes (particularly among the young) hostility and dislike, but most of all lack of understanding. They have a curious distorted image of each other” (Snow, 1993: 4). His lecture sparked a controversy as scholars from both sides of the debate argued over Snow’s conclusion that there are two distinct cultures, and that scientists have “the future in their bones” (10), while humanities scholars are “natural Luddites” (22). Spearheading the attack on Snow was F.R. Leavis, a prominent literary critic who spared no words to convey

The Last Book in the Universe • 51 his contempt for “the prophet of consumer society” (xxxiv), who spoke for that which reduces “human experience to the quantifiable, the measurable, the manageable” (xxxiii). The controversy carried on for decades, and it was not always scientists who backed Snow’s claims. George Steiner, a renowned man of letters, although not referring to Snow’s lecture directly, observed in 1971 that “it is not only that the humanities have been arrogant in their assertions of centrality. It is that they have often been silly”. Steiner concludes that in the history of science and technology one can find “topics as crowded with felt life as any in the humanities” (Steiner, 1984: 443). The debate between Snow and Leavis, as well as those between Huxley and Arnold and Smith and Russo discussed earlier, exemplify the extent to which modern and post-modern scholars have tried to negotiate the roles of, and relationship between, the humanities and the sciences in a rapidly changing world. None of the scholars deny that culture has altered as a result of technological advances; however, opinions vary as to the moral nature of this change and its impact on what is considered human. In fact, the very definition of what it is that defines our humanity is under investigation.6 Both sides equate humanity with creativity and morality. The discussion is, therefore, between those who oppose technology on the grounds that it dehumanises people, alienates them from each other and themselves, and produces or accompanies manipulative ideology7 and those who believe that “an advancing technology requires just as much in the way of human ingenuity, imagination, creativity, sensitivity, and skill as do achievements in literature, art, or the other accoutrements of high culture” (Kranzberg, 1979: 165) and who champion technology’s ability to bring culture to the masses, create new means for artistic expression as well as provide a better life for people, allowing them more leisure time to pursue the arts (166–67). Another element in the debate is the direction in which society should face in order to preserve its sense of humanity—whether it is backwards towards the past, represented by the accrued wisdom of philosophy, arts and religion, or forward into the future, as Kranzberg suggests, “redefining old values and creating new ones more in keeping with our technological and democratic civilization” (173). The positioning of technology as an emblem of the future and the humanities as representing the past, however, is problematic, as it further widens the gap between them. In the previous chapter, one solution to the polarisation of technology and nature took the form of a sustainable lifestyle indebted to both. Within current discourses on education a similar paradigm is developing wherein the humanities and the sciences are not regarded as mutually exclusive, but rather as confluent and dialogic. For example, pedagogic organisations campaigning for the incorporation of technological tools when teaching the humanities in school, such as the American ‘Center for Teaching History with Technology’ (http://thwt.org), or the British ‘Futurelab’(http://www.futurelab.org.uk), are paving the way towards striking such a balance. By encouraging teachers to use interactive interfaces such

52 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People as blogs, wikis and podcasts to engage their technologically savvy students, these organisations blur the borders between subjects such as literature and history with the sciences. The growing interest in new forms of art which employ modern technology, as exemplified by the numerous awards won by the digital novel Inanimate Alice (Pullinger and Joseph, 2006), and the commercial and critical success of computer-animated fi lms such as Ratatouille for children (Bird and Pinkava, 2007) and A Scanner Darkly for adults (Linklater, 2006), also suggests that the boundaries between art and technology are indeed beginning to blur, and that the general public is open to new artistic expressions enabled by technology.8 The creation of the international ‘Institute for the Future of the Book,’ which aims to chronicle the shift between the printed page and the network screen and “impact its development in a positive direction” (http:// www.futureofthebook.org/mission.html), is a sign that current intellectualartistic discourses are not shying away from technology, but are finding themselves intrigued and stimulated by it. Margaret Mackey’s research, exploring the process by which children create meaning across a broad range of media, shows that the younger generation has swiftly adapted to the remediation process characteristic of rapid technological innovation and the varied platforms it offers for interacting with text (2002). As she points out, the children observed “demonstrated a predilection not for ‘either/or’ when it comes to media but rather for ‘both/ and’” (93). These findings suggest that young people may be inclined towards a more fluid approach in which science/technology and humanities/arts are less rigidly divided. However, the next section demonstrates that contemporary Young SF texts, presenting aspects of the humanities and the arts in fictional, technological, or post-technological futures, are not as inclined to achieve such a balance, and in fact mainly reinforce the divide. A study of fifteen texts, analysing both representations of the sciences and humanities, or scholars/artists, within the narrative, as well as the fate of the art object or artistic talent in a technological environment, exposes their underlying attitudes towards the impact of technology on the humanities. The investigation into the scope of perspectives on offer in these texts raises serious questions regarding the upshot of the value systems promoted within them in terms of laying the groundwork for a better future.

History—Past—Memory “The past . . . It’s gone, lost. History drowned and we pulled up the ladder behind us,” says Dr Rémy Turcat, the archaeologist in Jan Mark’s Useful Idiots (2004: 18). This statement represents the state of affairs in three Young SF novels, Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993), Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines (2001) and Mark’s Useful Idiots, in which the loss of history, as collective memory

The Last Book in the Universe • 53 as well as a discipline, is employed as means of exploring the relationship between past and future. The futuristic societies described in the three novels are detached from their pasts. In two of the books this detachment begins as a result of a technological disaster. In Reeve’s Mortal Engines, the Sixty Minute War brought on the destruction of advanced civilization as well as the devastation of the planet by powerful technological weapons (7), while the scenario in Mark’s Useful Idiots is that a sophisticated computer virus has wiped out the records of the new Pan-European state to which the half-drowned British Isles belong (Useful Idiots: 16). The implication in both is, therefore, that technology poses a threat to history. In Mark’s book, the use of artificial memory is not seen as liberating, “freeing the mind to pursue other goals” (Murphie and Potts: 159), but rather as a dangerous dependency. In all three books, the technological and post-technological societies, especially their governing bodies, choose to remain detached from certain parts of their history. In Useful Idiots archaeology is the rediscovered “lost science” (10),9 confined to the local university together with history, “an undersubscribed specialism” (72). However, archaeology, “in the view of the general public could remain lost” (10–11). Having genetically improved the length and quality of life, the new society has closed the museums, which served as constant reminders that “life might be prolonged indefinitely but no one had yet come up with a way to make it infinite” (11). In Mark’s novel, advanced technology offers people a healthier, better future, however, this leaves them less equipped to deal with their own mortality, for centuries considered a fundamental part of human experience, and as a result, the preoccupation of history and archaeology with death is considered primitive and viewed with “disgust” (71). It is not only the unreliability of technology as a means of storing human history which Mark alerts us to, but also that living in an advanced technological environment could cause society to become less interested in its own history, as evident from her protagonist’s declaration that it was “public indifference” that closed the museums (Useful: 162). This viewpoint corresponds with Russo’s claim that “some hidden connection exists between the ahistoricism of the technological system and the utter lack of interest in memory as an educational value” (Russo, 2005: 36). A further objection to researching the past in Useful Idiots is fear that it could give rise to racialism and nationalism. The government views the past as a potential threat since indigenous culture and a shared history may serve as weapons in undermining the homogeneity and Pan-European identity they strive to construct. The futuristic community described in The Giver has also faced the fear of diversity and difference leading to conflict and pain, and has chosen an extreme solution. The Elders of the community have passed on all the responsibility for long-term memory, in both the collective and the individual sense, to one person, given the title of Receiver, and for generations the community has no recollection of their own history. The Receiver is not a

54 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People machine, but flesh and blood, as the suffering he endures as a result of carrying the burden of memories is crucial to the point Lowry makes throughout the novel regarding the intertwining of pleasure and pain. It is also the key motivation in his attempt to change the community by the end of the novel. However, the act of relinquishing the responsibility to remember by transferring large quantities of historical data from one’s own mind to another receptacle is similar to saving records on a computer, and thus from the point of view of the community, the Receiver can be perceived as synonymous with artificial memory. This means that the disastrous consequences of relying on an outside source to retain history which unravel in the novel can be seen as a metaphor for the dependency on technological archives and imply that Lowry shares Mark’s views regarding the threat that technology poses to humans’ interest in and knowledge of history. The fact that the Elders of the community use technologies such as monitoring devices, mind altering drugs and genetic engineering to keep the community in check reinforces this assumption, as the author continually posits technology as an accomplice in the dehumanising process that the community goes through once they choose to disengage with their past. In The Giver, Lowry seems to make no distinction between collective history and personal memory. Jonas, the trainee, is exposed to individual memories such as a sledge ride in the snow or a specific family’s Christmas celebration (the old Receiver admits to having several versions of this), as well as to collective historical events, such as war and famine (Jonas experiences these as a participant). The fact that individual memories and collective history are presented as synonymous concepts within the novel emphasises the link that Lowry asserts between history and human identity. According to Lowry, our personal memory shapes us as human beings, as it provides us with the context which is vital for experiencing emotions such as love or anger in their full depths. In the same manner, collective history is the essence of humanity, without which society is bound to become brutalised. The relinquishing of collective history is as traumatic to the human race as is the loss of memory to an individual. Lowry’s novel depicts a whole society detached from its memory; Mark’s and Reeve’s novels portray subgroups resisting the move away from history. The aboriginals in Useful Idiots, known as the Inglish or by the derogatory nickname Oysters, strive to keep their national identity by holding fast to old customs and traditions while living in designated enclosed reserves in the manner of the Native Americans in the United States and many Aborigines in Australia today. Part of the aboriginals’ struggle to preserve their history includes a refusal to be genetically modified, even at the price of disease and early death. It is not only their physical appearance which distinguishes them from the society around them. They also dwell in cottages, maintain close familial relationships, and elect to live without surveillance, to the astonishment of Merrick Korda, the European archaeology student.10 In contrast, he

The Last Book in the Universe • 55 lives, as all Europeans do, on his own, in a newly built tower block which cannot be entered without passing through an electronic recognition system (Useful: 156). Frida, the aboriginal dancer, remarks that unlike the Europeans, whose surveillance systems collect preposterous amounts of useless information, her people “choose what to record” of themselves (158). Mark ironically implies that a technologically advanced society is so obsessed with collecting superficial physical information through devices such as CCTV (closed-circuit television) and DNA screeners that it becomes detached from its humanity and neglects to preserve the information that really matters, its historical and cultural heritage. However, the apparent gap between the aboriginal and European societies’ attitudes towards the past and the preservation of culture is suddenly narrowed by the end of Mark’s novel. The aboriginals were granted their special status after it was found that greedy Europeans had taken advantage of their unmodified immune systems to infect them with a disease causing the growth of valuable “pearls” in human joints which were then harvested after death (hence the pejorative name “Oysters”). A few generations later these crimes were forgotten and the aboriginals’ status became threatened again as part of the state’s campaign to uproot nationalism, the same campaign which closed down the archaeology department at the university. Korda, determined to remind the state of the past, although his understanding of it is dubious, infects himself with the disease, intending to use the “pearl” in court as evidence, but he is betrayed by the very people he is out to help as he seeks refuge in the reserve. He is abducted by the locals who wish to sell the pearl, is ‘rescued’ by Frida, who rapes him, steals the pearl, and leaves him stranded in the marshes. In her SF blog, Farah Mendlesohn comments that Mark’s book “refuses at the end to accept the hints it contains,” mainly that Korda’s actions must have wider consequences even though he failed in his mission, and thus offers a hopeless ending since Korda’s failure does not seem to change anything regarding the world he lives in (2005). Indeed, Korda leaves the reserve without his pearl, with nothing more than the bitter realisation that the aboriginals were “no more high-minded than any other Europeans” (Useful: 395), and that he was the only one interested in the truth (407). Korda’s ‘truth’ is rooted in historical events, which the Pan-European society, aided by technology, chose to suppress.11 The aboriginals’ betrayal exposes their own lack of interest in this ‘truth,’ and signifies a change in their attitude towards the past. This change may well be attributed to the influence of the society around them. The theft of the pearl, Frida’s “cold revenge against all Europeans” (405), emphasises the extent of this influence, as Frida rapes Korda using the vocabulary that was no doubt used by the Europeans who abused her countless times (403). This influence is made possible via technology, as the aboriginals, to Korda’s surprise, have installed screens in their homes (159) and use telecommunication ear studs (164). Ed, the aboriginal mayor of the reserve, comments that the younger aboriginals are “quite desperate to get away” (259), to assimilate, as

56 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People Korda’s own ancestors have done, losing interest in their ethnic identity (241). Technology, therefore, assists in the disintegration of indigenous cultures.12 In this sense, the ending of the book implies that society’s dismissal of history as a consequence of its fascination with technology may not necessarily result in violence, such as the unleashing of an aboriginal genocide, as Mendlesohn expects (2005), but rather in the slow decline of human values such as friendship and trust, which will leave people lonely and detached from their own communities, as Korda finds himself to be at the close of the novel. It is important to note that while both the Europeans and the aboriginals are depicted as untrustworthy and their motivations as sinister, the academics depicted in the book seem to have a genuine interest in the past, which they perceive as both “purely academic” as well as “natural” (189). Although the archaeologist, Turcat, fleetingly considers the idea of selling the pearls he finds to fund more research, he “redeem[s] himself” by trying to assist Korda in preparing the court case. Korda himself, persistently fighting to the point of self-sacrifice for historical truth and knowledge that have been suppressed by technological society and sold short by aboriginal materialism, is the embodiment of the humane academic, the keeper of truth, whose blazing idealism and childlike naiveté leave him vulnerable, a “useful idiot” in the hands of corrupt politicians and greedy opportunists (396). Ed ironically refers to Korda as “the man who saved the past” (167). Korda’s failure to do just that, despite his good intentions, suggests that Mark foresees a grim fate for the humanities in a technological age. An even more powerful literary manifestation of the split that C.P. Snow argued exists between the sciences and the humanities is found in Philip Reeve’s steampunk novel Mortal Engines. The traction city of London is divided into guilds, the two most prestigious of which are the Guild of Historians, who are based in the Museum of London, and the Guild of Engineers, who ensure the smooth running of the city. Reeve contrasts the guilds in both appearance and attitude and highlights their rivalry. The historians, to which Tom, the young protagonist, belongs, fi rmly believe that “history was just as important as bricks and iron and coal” (Mortal Engines: 14). In fact, they rate themselves even higher than the other guilds, as reflected in the speech delivered by Valentine, the Head Historian: “we Historians are the most important Guild in our city.” Valentine reasons that historians “create knowledge,” without which the other guilds would not be able to function as efficiently (16). For the Historians, therefore, the past always underpins the present and society must be looking “backwards into time,” as their guild mark, the blue eye, symbolises (17). By contrast, the members of the Guild of Engineers openly declare that they “are the future” (255), and their only interest in the past is Old-Tech, scraps from the civilisation which destroyed itself in the Sixty Minute War. Their attitude dismays the Historians: “countless centuries of history to learn from, and all they are interested in is a few ancient machines!” (201).

The Last Book in the Universe • 57 The Historians distinguish between ancient artefacts such as bones, paintings and books, all considered historically valuable, and old technology which is not perceived as a creative human endeavour and therefore does not share this prestigious status. Indeed the Engineers, headed by the ambitious Mayor Crome, have no qualms about burning the Museum’s art collections when more fuel is needed to feed the furnaces and keep the city’s fast pace going (201). Moreover, they choose to launch MEDUSA, a powerful experimental energy weapon capable of destroying whole civilisations, from St. Paul’s cathedral, a potent symbol of history, art and religion. The engineers are scientists; however, they are interested purely in destructive science and technology, building weapons and cyborgs for colonial purposes. The Historians, on the other hand, “had never been as quick as the rest of London to welcome new inventions” (199). Thus Reeve makes a hierarchical distinction between the humanists who seek to preserve culture and the scientists who destroy it. This distinction is further emphasised by the appearance and value system of the two guilds. Members of the Guild of Historians are depicted as musty, eccentric academics, devoted to their fields of speciality and stereotypically keen tea and biscuits consumers. However, they are also “kind,” as Pod, the escaped apprentice engineer, finds (200). Although they are untrained and confess that, “they had no idea how to stand up to the Guild of Engineers” (202), they are nevertheless determined to stop MEDUSA and show exceptional courage defending Katherine and Pod against the Engineers who break into the museum seeking to harm them (256–57). Throughout the book the Historians, Tom included, display qualities such as loyalty, friendship, selflessness, courage and care for human lives. When Tom kills a cyborg in self defence, he is guilt-stricken (193).13 His remorse stands in sharp contrast to Dr Vambrace, the Engineers’ security chief who “is always keen to find new and inventive ways to kill people” (198) and the easiness with which Crome is prepared to unleash the MEDUSA on unsuspecting cities, killing thousands of innocent people in order to “make London strong” (286). The Engineers with their white rubber robes, permanently shaved heads and rules against touching each other (173) display cruelty, disregard for human life, blind ambition, and a detachment from their own emotions. This twisted system of values eventually leads to the destruction of London and the annihilation of its citizens, including the Historians and the Engineers themselves. Thus Reeve not only depicts humanists and scientists as two rival cultures who fail to communicate with each other, as suggested by C.P. Snow, but clearly posits technology and those who develop it as a dehumanising force working against the best interests of civilisation. In this book Reeve implies, therefore, that humanity’s gaze must be directed into the past, the realm of the humanities, rather than into the future which he associates with technology and the sciences. Interestingly, Reeve, speaking at the IBBY-UK (International Board on Books for Young People-United Kingdom) conference in 2006, admitted that in the sequels to Mortal Engines he made a conscious effort to rectify the

58 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People blatant dichotomy between the historians and the engineers. Indeed in the last volume, A Darkling Plain (2006), the surviving historians and engineers collaborate to rebuild London as a peaceful hovering city. The three novels discussed in this section share a bias against technology on the grounds that it poses a threat to human history. In these novels the past is associated with positive human values. Moreover, it is perceived as an integral component in what defi nes humanity. Technology is associated with the future, and by extension is presented as a potentially dehumanising force. In relation to Snow’s concept of two cultures, these novels reassert that the humanities and the sciences—the latter often synonymous with technological progress—are indeed rival perspectives on the direction which humanity needs to take in the future. The books, however, represent the humanities in a favourable light, suggesting that although they are classified as science fiction, they are more comfortable with the latter, rather than the former part of the term. The next section will explore this idea further through an analysis of the way Young SF novels envision the reading habits of future societies.

Reading—Literature—Poetry As the epigraph to this chapter demonstrates, Young SF novels often foresee a pessimistic future in terms of reading, as six of the texts discussed in this section describe societies in which there are either a limited number of books, or books have ceased to exist. The texts analysed in the following pages are H.M. Hoover’s This Time of Darkness (1980), Jill Paton Walsh’s The Green Book (1981), Claire Cooper’s Earthchange (1985), Barry Faville’s The Keeper (1986), Patricia McKillip’s short story “Moby James” (1994), Rodman Philbrick’s The Last Book in the Universe (2000) and Nicola Morgan’s Sleepwalking (2004). In The Keeper, few books survived a nuclear catastrophe. After abandoning Earth as a result of an unspecified disaster, the new colonists on the planet Shine in The Green Book were only allowed to bring one book each to their new home. The Last Book in the Universe depicts a society that has became so immersed in virtual reality environments accessed through “mind probes” that it has lost all interest in books and reading (7). In both Sleepwalking and This Time of Darkness, a technologically advanced society actively discourages its members from engaging with literature. In the same manner, the “Boss” of Rose’s post-technological village in Earthchange forbids reading, and his followers burn all the books which survived from the “Old Days” (8). In contrast to these texts, “Moby James” depicts a society in which people can easily access literature, and where classic texts are still taught at schools; however, books as we know them do not exist and are replaced by “Viewers,” into which a “reading disk” is inserted (89). Notably, “Moby James” is the only text which separates the notion of literature from the book as an artefact. It is striking that although the texts depict futuristic societies, the authors

The Last Book in the Universe • 59 are still unwilling to see the medium of literature transformed into a format other than the traditional ink and paper. This fact is especially remarkable in light of the development of digital fiction, as well as Amazon’s recent launch of ‘Kindle’—a wireless, portable, reading device. It may well result from an inability to recognise technology as a cultural force, although Benjamin and other early twentieth-century theorists had laid the foundations for such a realisation, as discussed previously. Significantly, the young protagonists in all seven texts read and love books, and many engage in creative writing. However, often their reading and/or writing are kept secret from the society which surrounds them, thus casting these young people in the role of outsiders. In The Green Book, for example, Pattie quietly endures the scorn of the colonists for choosing to bring what they perceive as a worthless empty notebook, while never sharing with them the fact that she is secretly documenting their story in it (9). In The Keeper, Michael chooses to become a preserver of old books in a post-technological, hunter-gatherer community, although he notices that “there is always that particular tone of voice that people use when they speak to me that suggests I am not earning my keep” (15). He is also aware that if his creative writing is discovered he will be “punished” because it will be considered that he is wasting paper (7). In This Time of Darkness, Sleepwalking and Earthchange literacy is a “deadly secret” (Earthchange: 8) and endangers the life of those who acquire it. Although this is typical of dystopian literature in which governing bodies often seek to retain absolute power and control the masses through restricting access to knowledge, it is significant, as demonstrated later, that in these three novels this paranoid obsession is directed specifically at literature. In each of these novels love of the written word is what distinguishes the protagonists from their peers. Most of the protagonists in the texts acquire their literacy and/or love for literature from an older person who is not their parent; from Ryter in The Last Book in the Universe, to Janet in This Time of Darkness, old people serve as cultural gatekeepers and role models for the next generation. These informal socialisation agents avoid the resistance that teenagers usually hold towards their parents’ ideas and retain the more attractive status of friend-mentor. It seems that the authors of the texts cast themselves in a similar role in relation to their child audience as they in turn highlight the value of reading through their protagonists. Thus they imply that literature creates a bridge across generations, and perhaps unconsciously associate it with the past. This stance creates an internal paradox within these texts. Although the protagonists gain a sense of independence through their reading as it allows them to see the society surrounding them as ignorant or evil, their angst and drive for social change do not push them forward, away from the older generation and into the future, but rather backwards, closer to their elders and the past. While technological skills increase from generation to generation, with children generally being more comfortable with new innovations than their parents,14

60 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People literature in many of the focus novels seems to operate in the opposite direction, and thus the classic rebellion of youth against old traditions and customs is contained within the safe realm of what is known and familiar to adults, leaving the young protagonists disconnected from the future. This coincides with Roberta Seelinger Trites’ findings in Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (2000), as she concludes that in many novels “teenagers are repressed as well as liberated by their own power and by the power of the social forces that surround them” (7). In this light it is highly significant that none of the protagonists or their literary mentors is depicted as having technical abilities or an interest in science. The way these texts validate literature is typified by The Green Book, in which Pattie’s father trades hours of hard labour for a loan of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, since he believes that books are as important as food for the survival of a society (68). Similarly, Rose’s grandmother in Earthchange has “kept in touch with civilization” through the book she shared with her granddaughter, preventing her from “becoming a complete and utter savage” (88). In all the books literature is portrayed as much more than an enjoyable pastime. It informs the young readers about real life, helps them untangle their emotional issues and even saves their lives. In Sleepwalking, Livia outsmarts the computer which oppresses her people by guessing the password, which is Rumpelstiltskin. Her familiarity with fairytales allows her to hack the system and re-programme it. Rob, in “Moby James,” is able to negotiate a new relationship with his elder brother after reading the classic American novel Moby Dick and realising that, unlike Captain Ahab and the white whale, “the ocean was big enough” for both his brother and himself (98). In Earthchange and The Keeper, information about nature and the behaviour patterns of animals obtained from fictional works such as The Wind in the Willows allows both Rose and Michael to survive within a hostile natural environment. For Amy and Axel in This Time of Darkness, literacy is a matter of life and death. Being the only ones who can read the wall signs, they manage to escape the decaying underground city; as Amy remarks “if you couldn’t read [ . . . ] you couldn’t open this door if you had to” (52). Thus literature is constructed as a means of understanding life and a key tool in adjusting to new and unfamiliar realities. In this sense it is positioned as a superior alternative to science, which is traditionally regarded as a more practical, rational or systematic way of interpreting the world. Throughout the books the ability to read and have access to literature is shown, not only to make people more knowledgeable and improve their chances of survival, but also to cause them to become empathic and morally superior. The people in Rose’s village are superstitious and lack foresight, as exemplified by Boss’ decision to kill the only cow after it breaks his leg (Earthchange: 14). They believe that “no good comes out of books” and burn the few that survived after the collapse of civilisation (8). As if to confirm Heinrich Heine’s famous remark “where men burn books, they burn people also in the end”,15 they are also violent and nasty towards the weaker members of their

The Last Book in the Universe • 61 society, especially children. Rose’s care for Baby is sharply contrasted with his mother, Marilyn’s, impatience and disregard for him (13). In the same manner, Amy’s mother Valory is trying to get rid of her daughter, whom she considers “not normal enough” because of her ability to read (This Time of Darkness: 21). The street gangs who govern Spaz’s world are extremely violent and have no qualms about sending Spaz to rob old and helpless Ryter (The Last Book in the Universe: 9); and the Pols, in Sleepwalking, are “allowed to shoot Outsiders” who refuse to have a chip disabling creative language development implanted in their brain (14). In contrast to these negative qualities, the protagonists and their mentors are depicted as not only wiser, but also courageous and benevolent towards their fellow humans, as is demonstrated, for example, by Spaz’s kindness to the mute orphan he calls Little Face (The Last Book in the Universe), Amy’s compassion for the friendless Axel (This Time of Darkness), or Livia’s selfless rescue of Tavius (Sleepwalking). While literature is depicted as a creative activity which helps the protagonists grow both wise and good while connecting to their roots and culture, technology in the books is mainly a practical, unimaginative and often dangerous tool which has the capability to detach society from the essence of its humanity. In five of the novels it is technology which is responsible for the lack of books or people’s lack of interest in literature. In The Keeper and Earthchange, technologically induced disasters have resulted in the collapse of civilisation which the authors symbolise as the lack of books or the loss of literacy. In The Green Book, Pattie’s father prefers to take to Shine A Dictionary of Intermediate Technology rather than The Oxford Complete Shakespeare (4) as he believes that “in a world without machines, science wouldn’t be so useful; make do and mend would count for more” (38). However, he soon laments the fact that “there is not one Shakespeare” on the new Planet, as people did not coordinate their book choices or put much thought into them (42). Although the simple technological gadgets that the father creates help the community to survive their first year on the strange planet, it is Pattie’s literary account of their short history which signifies that they have really inhabited the planet. The Earth culture that the colonists have lost by underestimating the importance of books to their sense of identity has been replaced with a new one through the creative act of writing, rather than the invention of technological artefacts. Thus technology remains in the realm of practicality, a tool for sustaining the body, while literature is in the realm of creativity, sustaining culture and human identity. These sample texts consistently fail to acknowledge technology as a creative human endeavour. Three of the books overtly direct an accusing fi nger at technology for the loss of literature. “Technology has eliminated the need to read or write” says the narrator of This Time of Darkness at the beginning of the novel (4), while Spaz announces that “nobody around here reads anymore” and asks rhetorically “Why bother, when you can just probe it?” (The Last Book in the Universe: 7). In Sleepwalking, the devaluation of reading is not merely a

62 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People result of intellectual numbness brought on by the comforts of technology, but a designed outcome of a chip inserted in every citizen at birth which leaves them “with simple words and sentences with simple meaning” (11). The chip acts as a metaphor for the subjugation of literature by technology. This notion is further emphasised by the discovery that it is a computer which runs this society in accordance with data supplied to it by famous dystopian novels such as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). Livia realises that “computers can only do what they are programmed to do” (258) and that although they have stories at their disposal in their data bank, they are incapable of the creative act itself as “humans are cleverer” since they “wrote the language” (257). The computer is, therefore, represented as opposed to human creativity rather than part of it. Livia restores human control by programming the computer with a new story about hope. She exclaims that “it’s the story we write ourselves that’s important. And it’s stories and language that give us the power to do that” (278). These books typify a dominant theme in Young SF: technology dehumanises while literature preserves and gives expression to humanity. Fiction, indeed, is central to understanding many of the books. Sleepwalking, for instance, is replete with references to well-known narratives (The Wizard of Oz is one of the central themes). This means that young readers’ full enjoyment of the novel depends on previous reading experiences; for example, the way the novel ends implies that the mastermind behind the scenes is an ambitious and cunning butler. This semi-humorous twist depends entirely on the reader’s familiarity with the battered literary cliché ‘the butler did it.’ In many ways Sleepwalking’s narrative structure parallels the technique used by the computer; paradoxically, the effect is to demonstrate that what is considered creative licence for a human author is not acceptable for a machine, even a thinking one. This double standard exposes the anti-technological bias embedded within the novel. In both Sleepwalking and This Time of Darkness, literature and literacy are powers to be reckoned with. In Amy’s underground city, “literacy was not an official crime, but it was an affectation of superiority which the government tried to discourage among the lower levels, since it often led to unacceptable behaviour” (This Time of Darkness: 5–6). Similarly, the authorities in Sleepwalking tell their citizens that in the past, “it had been an unfair world, where some people had this creative power and others didn’t,” and these talented individuals abused their power to “create imaginary worlds inside people’s heads” as well as to “twist the thoughts of others” (10). Literary talent is constructed as a revolutionary force, and a threat to totalitarianism. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that writers are depicted in the books as rebel activists who spearhead the fight for change. Ryter, in The Last Book in the Universe, is a loner whose greatest possession is the book he is writing. For him, writing is synonymous with remembering (18), and memory is “the sense of who we are” (175). The extent of Ryter’s belief that literature is the essence of humanity is reflected in

The Last Book in the Universe • 63 his legacy to Spaz: “you’re the book now! You’re the last book in the universe!” (219). This is the ultimate manifestation of the idea that love of literature is an essential heroic quality since the hero’s identity and power are subsumed by literature as he becomes the book. For his disciple, Spaz, Ryter is “the real hero” whose main victory lies in successfully banning the use of probes (181). With his “white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big” (ibid.), Ryter is depicted as an ancient prophet whose vision is that “people will want to read books again, someday” (19). The fact that Spaz addresses his book to a future reader “a thousand years from now” (7), implies that Ryter’s attempt to retrieve a glorified past in which books take over from technologically enhanced narratives is not only successful in terms of the plot, but also a vision shared by the author of the novel. As contemporary young readers of The Last Book in the Universe are already likely to be familiar with forms of virtual reality such as online games, the novel is thus exposed as a cautionary tale, warning its audience of the danger that lies in their technological pastimes, which are perceived as inferior to books. The heroic status of readers is underscored in Sleepwalking and Earthchange by the fact that the central—and admired—rebellions are led by poets. In Morgan’s novel the eponymous Poet, “a man of passion and belief” (Sleepwalking: 41), borrows the words of Martin Luther King Jr. to explain his life’s mission: “I dream of a world where the old ways rule again” (44). As his words imply, Poet is a man of the past, his room in the deserted Balmoral Castle smells of “pipe, and firewood, and damp, and ancient books” (41). Poet’s literary friends—all named after famous writers—join his fight for democracy and free will. These humanists are linked with positive human values such as personal freedom. They struggle to liberate the human spirit and creative imagination from the oppression of technology, represented in the novel by a powerful computer which “de-languaged” society. Once again, technology is perceived by the humanities scholars in the book as a threat to language, reflected by Poet’s dismay that his young protégés had “picked up the City slang” by watching the “digi-screen” (50). The passionate inhabitants of the Scottish royal residence, Balmoral Castle, are contrasted with the technological City and the indifference of its citizens. C.P. Snow’s notion of two cultures is clearly visible; equally clear is which side the text supports. In contrast to Morgan’s depiction of art and technology as opposing spheres, Cooper’s Earthchange reflects an attempt to bring the two together in the figure of Jack Gibbs, Rose’s late grandfather. Jack was “a scientist and a poet” who governed Rose’s village until he was killed. His wife, Rose’s wise grandmother, explains to Rose and to the young reader, that “scientists and poets were wonderful,” and that having both talents made her late husband a positive leader who encouraged people to read books and walk in nature (44). Jack’s heroic character is contrasted with that of his niece’s, Gibbs, who governs the community on the hill. Described as having a “cold, scientific heart” (73), Gibbs has no respect for her uncle’s poetry (81), or compassion for people (83), as she

64 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People is utterly committed to her work. Although she is somewhat transformed by her encounter with Rose, Gibbs’ belief that people had to be “scientists to be important on the hill” (91) is challenged by her young protégé, who refuses to become a physicist herself. As with the majority of the focus texts, the message of Earthchange suggests that the coldness of science must be balanced with the warmth and humane nature of literature. This viewpoint signifies a return to a pre-Enlightenment Renaissance ideal. It is Jack’s poetic inclination that made the non-scientists on the hill forget that “he wasn’t one of us” (91). The distinction between the “good” and the “bad” scientist is further emphasised as their role in the environmental disaster that engulfed the world is unravelled. Rose’s grandmother explains to her that scientists understand what has happened to the world, and so will be the ones to “put it all right” (53). This positive image of scientists as healers is shattered, however, as Rose discovers that it was scientists opposing her grandfather’s theories who wrongly advised Earth’s leaders and brought about permanent winter (92). Jack’s rediscovered scientific research hands over the hegemony to ordinary people, further undermining the positive contribution of scientists to the world. As Gibbs explains, Jack’s legacy is that scientists can do nothing to repair the damage that they have created, but people can heal the earth by “planting trees and grass” (95). Science, therefore, has devastated culture by interfering with the natural world, and only by restoring the hierarchy, in which nature is superior to humanity, can “things go right” (95). It is the artistic side of Jack which brings him to this realisation, as implied in his last recorded speech: [ . . . ] towards the end, it wasn’t Jack Gibbs the scientist but Jack Gibbs the poet who began to speak, and Jack Gibbs the poet spoke of green hills, of fields golden with ripening corn, of gardens fragrant with flowers, of wildernesses rich with the variety of other animals, of woodland jubilant with the song of birds. (96) Although the novel creates a positive synthesis between the humanities and the sciences in the character of Jack Gibbs, it undermines this suggestion by implying that while science may lead to an understanding of the world, only the humanities can help humans find their place within it. While the novels discussed reveal a distinct authorial inclination towards the humanities, often via the demonisation of science and technology, McKillip’s short story “Moby James” opts for a more balanced depiction of the future. Rob, the young protagonist, lives on a space station, while his parents and other scientists are attempting to repair the ozone layer. Rob enjoys a range of creative, technological activities such as playing free fall basketball, listening to music on CD-shades or watching holo-vids, but he is also drawn into the world of literature via his new “viewing” assignment, Moby Dick. McKillip thus rejects contemporary adults’ anxiety that technology might cause children to lose interest in reading.

The Last Book in the Universe • 65 Rob fi nds that the novel he reads not only captivates his imagination but also reflects his own life; so much so that he borrows the novel’s opening line to begin his own narrative “Call me Beanhead. My brother did all the time” (87). Rob uses the mythic battle of wills between Captain Ahab and the white whale as a metaphor for two major conflicts in his own life. On the global level, Rob’s interpretation of the novel exposes his subconscious anxieties about the future of his planet. Casting himself in the role of the one legged Captain, he explains to his teacher that “the whale took Earth away” from Ahab, just like it was inexplicably taken from himself (92). On a personal level the battle between man and beast seems to Rob to be a reflection of his changing relationship with his elder brother, James. Rob’s understanding of the novel is deeply grounded within his own technological world: “Moby Dick was a mutated slime whale and it was Captain Ahab’s destiny to harpoon him right through his warped circuitry” (97). The wilderness of the ocean transforms in Rob’s mind into the endlessness of space as he imagines himself as Ahab sailing through “miles of space to catch the solar winds” as “galaxies shaped like fishes swam by” (96). McKillip thus implies that great literature is not anchored in the past but rather lives beyond the constraint of time, its imaginative power harnessed by readers to make their own world intelligible and made relevant in turn by the context the reader lends it. The story suggests that literature’s highest value lies in its adaptive and interactive qualities rather than in its format or identification with the past. As a result, the world’s technological progress is not presented as a threat to the appeal or relevance of classic literature. The exceptional positive attitude towards the fate of literature in a technological age in “Moby James” is a welcome corrective to the more common pessimistic viewpoint prevailing within the other novels.

Composing—Music—Harmony According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, music is the artistic discipline which most commonly appears in SF writing (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 844). However, it seems that in SF written for young people, literature, rather than music, is given more symbolic weight. This may be attributed to the fact that adults are more commonly concerned with the impact of technology on young people’s reading than their interest in music. Another reason is the wider cultural acceptance of technology’s integral role in the development of popular music, for example the influence of newly developed recording technology on the Beatles’ work (Morin, 1998). Although there were significantly fewer texts engaging with music as a major theme, three stories and two novels are relevant for discussion in this section: Nancy Springer’s “Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home?” (1994), Susan Shwartz’s “Beggarman” (1994), Jane Yolen’s “Ear” (1994), Sue Welford’s Starlight City (1999) and Sonia Levitin’s The Cure (1999). In all of these texts, music plays a vital role in the young protagonists’

66 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People lives. For many of them it is an expression of their inner selves, and the urge to play music is irrepressible. For example, living in a futuristic society which forbids musical expression, Gemm 16884 defies the rules as he feels “it is music that stirred within him, music he had to release—had to, or die!” (The Cure: 26). Similarly, for Jephed in “Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home,” “his music was his life” (23). While in the texts discussed in the previous sections history and literature are constructed as tools for acquiring knowledge and means for understanding the world, music is mainly depicted as linked to human emotions. Jily in “Ear” loves loud music that leaves her “no room to think, only room to feel” (132), while Jephed’s guitar compositions reflect his moods and zest for life (“Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home”: 26). Indeed in Gemm’s society, music is forbidden precisely because of its tendency to “inflame the emotions” (The Cure: 45). Furthermore, music is associated in some of the texts with the core being of the human player herself. For example, Jephed’s guitar, symbolically named Galahad after the purest and most spiritual of the Arthurian knights, is smashed by a street gang and the young musician feels “it may as well be his own body under the boot” (“Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home”: 35). Similarly, Jacob, Gemm’s medieval persona in The Cure, describes his own death as a merger into music (247), while Dr Stewart in “Beggarman,” describes classical music as a result of “human breath, wood, gut” and “talent,” thus positioning the instrument as an extension of the player’s own humanity (194). In many of the texts, music is used to communicate, bridging gaps across generations, ethnicities and cultures. In Starlight City, the human aliens visiting Kari’s planet find that both races share “a love of music” and they communicate this message by forming an orchestra with the musically gifted individuals they encounter during their stay (161). Jephed and his estranged father finally bond when the latter admits that he also had musical aspirations (“Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home” 37). In the same vein, the inhabitants of fourteenth-century Strasbourg, who sympathise with the plight of the Jewish community, show their feeling by playing their instruments loudly to drown the anti-Semitic chanting which accompanies the Jews to their death (The Cure: 244). Like literature, music is also represented as a revolutionary tool. The enlightened aliens in Starlight City create bonds with local musicians in the hope that they will become a positive force in society, helping their planet to “put aside violence and poverty” (161). In both The Cure and “Who’s Gonna Rock us Home?” an oppressive technological society undergoes a positive change through music. The Elders of Gemm’s community despise the past in which people thought that music and art could improve the world, as they believe that only technology in the shape of “genetics, drugs and therapy” can create a peaceful existence (The Cure: 45). The upshot of this point of view is a cold, dehumanised society which Gemm strives to change after his sensibilities are liberated by the power of music. Notably, it is his experience of the

The Last Book in the Universe • 67 medieval past that empowers him to rebel against the Elder’s authority and create a different vision for his community’s future. Similarly, as a member of the futuristic corporate society described in “Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home?” Jephed “could have shopped via television, socialized via computer” and spent his life sedated and “cocooned” in his home, a victim of the dubious comforts of technology (24). However, his musical gift empowers him to seek a different way, for himself as well as others. Music, like literature, therefore, represents in these texts positive human values. However, music mediated by technology is another matter altogether as the authors seem to share Ellul’s contempt for technologically generated sound (Ellul, 1964: 130). Throughout the texts, electronically produced music is regarded as inferior and uncreative. Jephed despises the “soft rock that crooned over the digital airwaves” which “was all made of computers and keyboard, all plastic” (“Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home”: 27). Defined by the technology which facilitates it, this music is a corporate tool, designed to lull people into indifference (25). Jephed’s own role models are Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley, past rockers who are already unfashionable among youngsters today. In this sense, “Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home?” falls into the disreputable company of futuristic stories mentioned in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, in which anachronistic cultural references undermine credibility by disabling the reader’s suspension of disbelief (Clute and Nicholls: 845). Furthermore, the author’s lack of imagination also exposes her bias against contemporary music which is often created with the aid of technological means such as sampling or drum machines. The same bias is reflected in “Beggarman,” in which Jommy experiments by playing Earth music (Dvorak and Bach) to one group of plants and “computer-synthesized squawks” to another, and documents their progress. Not surprisingly, the former group thrives while the latter “tended to shrivel and wilt.” The story makes it clear that classical music is superior to that which is electronically generated, as Bach “wrote in patterns more intricate than a computer programme” (“Beggarman”: 201). Jommy himself finds that “synthesizer music reminded him of spoiled tofu” (179), while Earth music “fully caught him” (197). Written in the early 1990s, it is quite clear that “Beggarman” indirectly criticises the musical trends of the previous decade, which heavily relied on synthesizers. The theme of technology as an undesired mediator is further emphasised in this story as Jommy prefers to be tutored in a natural environment than to study in the technologically advanced learning centre at the space station (199). Nature, human-made music, and the legacy of the past are bound together in “Beggarman” as the desirable alternative to technologised childhoods. Finally, Yolen’s story “Ear” is a blatant attack on the impact of technology on modern sound. The story describes a future society deafened by “loud music and vid ads” (“Ear”: 131). The state’s solution is artificial Ears, supplied only to the young aged twelve to thirty, to be worn after school hours. The Ears are trendy accessories, and since they distinguish between the “Olds”

68 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People and the young, they effectively symbolise youth culture as a whole, as evident in the young protagonist’s declaration “if it’s too loud . . . then you’re too old!” (138). However, the sound coming through the Ears is not pleasant. Jily and her friends are flooded by subliminal marketing messages and loud music created by Cyber Bands “fully chipped and plugged into their instruments” (132). These musical cyborgs die before their time as a result of the “great tidal pull of noise” they make (133). Thus technology is not only providing contemporary youth with an ugly and even dangerous sound, but also leaves them susceptible to corporate control.16 As in Springer’s story, music produced by technological means is not a creative expression of human talent, but an artificial commercial tool. The story’s attitude to technologically mediated sound could not be clearer as Jily’s friends join a new movement whose slogan is “Making the past the future,” a slogan which sums up the narrative stance of “Ear” (130). The movement’s members not only go earless, but also reject the mediation of technology in other ways. They establish non-technological schools where, as Jily’s friends report excitedly, “they read books. And discuss offline with real teachers” (137). Jily, however, is not convinced, and as a result she finds herself isolated from her peers as well as her family, accompanied only by her fears and the Ear in the “ever young night” (138). The author criticises her young protagonist and, through her, youth culture in general, for their adherence to what the story presents as a technologically laden culture which disregards the past and its values. The story is in itself a subliminal message to the young that the past is always a happier, friendlier place than the technological future. While Yolen depicts Jily as “drowning out her fear” in music, it is her own fear of the dominance of the young enabled by technology which seems to stand out by the end of this story. Although the majority of texts see music as opposed to technology, Welford’s Starlight City does attempt to bring the two together as a representation of a well-balanced society. The “aliens” from the futuristic Earth are not only musically gifted, but also technological wizards. Their headquarters has “computers . . . loads of them” (70), as well as music constantly playing in the background, and to teenaged Razz, who has an interest in both, it is certainly “what a heaven would be like” (71). These futuristic humans are bringing a message of peace to Kari and Razz’s planet, as they have already achieved a tranquil state on Earth. Welford chooses to represent this cultural superiority by the combination of music and technology, implying that the future lies in finding a balance between the sciences and the arts.

Conclusion The debate regarding the impact of technology on the arts and the humanities which began with the rise of the industrial age has continued throughout

The Last Book in the Universe • 69 the last century and into the current one. There is no disputing the fact that technology has indeed affected culture and as I have shown, there are well established arguments about the costs and benefits of the interaction between them. In Young SF, however, the argument is one-sided; the vast majority of Young SF texts as represented by the sample discussed in this chapter default to an anti-technology stance. All of the books associate the arts and humanities with positive values and present them as extensions or reflections of their characters’ humanity while the creative endeavours of the young protagonists posit them as outsiders in their futuristic societies, and enable them to rebel against oppressive systems. There is a note of warning in that these young rebels often find themselves drawn back into the past through their creative activity, their rebellion limited to recreating it rather than reinventing a future for themselves which is more in tune with the technological context they live in. However, even this limited success is shown as preferable to a technologised existence. In most texts, technology is depicted as opposed to the humanities, a destructive force, uncreative and dehumanising. Scientists and humanists are presented as rivals, effectively reflecting the notion of the two cultures described by C.P. Snow. Little effort is made to bridge this gap by presenting the arts and humanities and technology and science as dialogic—for instance, by depicting a society in which a balance between them is achieved. The objet d’art, whether literary or musical, retains, in the majority of the texts, an anachronistic format, and the authors seem incapable or unwilling to imagine its transformation as a result of technological progress, although history has already proved that this transformation is unavoidable and not necessarily unwelcome. Thus, the humanities in these texts remain firmly associated with the past and the medium by which they are communicated, specifically the printed book, remains untouched by the process of remediation: not influenced by, nor influencing new media forms. The texts discussed reflect apprehension about technology despite its proven appeal to the young, as they place their protagonists in the realm of the humanities, keeping them gazing towards the past, and harnessing their natural teenaged angst to attack technology. The sense of wonder intrinsic to the genre is thus undermined as the young readers are offered relics of the past such as books and classical music instead of a future rich with exciting innovative artistic expressions enabled by technological progress, a future which has already started to happen.

Chapter Three The Road Not Taken The Impact of Technology on Narrative Structure

The machine-age text does not contain representations of the machine— it too is the machine. (Tichi, 1987: 16)

The previous chapters largely focused on recurrent themes in Young SF, exploring how texts represent technology and young people’s use of it. This chapter, however, will discuss the influence of modern technology, especially digital media, on the narrative structure of Young SF. The fi rst part of the chapter focuses on the issue of remediation through attempting to defi ne the unique characteristics of digital media and employing these characteristics as a framework to explore the impact of new digital narrative structures on SF novels for young people. There are already a large number of studies dealing with narratology in relation to computer games (for example Sainsbury, 2000; Atkins, 2003; and Perlin, 2004; discussed later) however, the chief interest of this chapter is the way old media remediate new media, specifically books changing as a consequence of the encounter with computer games and other digital formats—a process that has yet to be given in-depth scrutiny. Therefore, this chapter does not analyse computer games but limits the analysis to printed books, focusing on two SF novels for young people: E.M. Goldman’s The Night Room (1995) and Lesley Howarth’s Ultraviolet (2001). The second part of this chapter is dedicated to the representation and use of technology in the construction of language and narration in M.T. Anderson’s novel Feed (2003). 71

72 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People Remediating Digital Narrative Structures In an essay discussing MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon/Dimension),1 Heather Bromberg suggests that virtual reality environments are reminiscent “of the kind of interactive, immersive stories that were told around the hearth with one’s kin group” (1996: 146). Bromberg, therefore, considers the virtual, technologically created narrative a part of the natural evolution of storytelling. Her statement suggests that new narrative formats, such as computer games or the internet, are not detached from more traditional literary forms, but rather are indebted to them. The question which arises from Bromberg’s assumption is whether the relationship between old and new media is reciprocal in the sense that not only is the latter influenced by the former, but also vice-versa, an assumption which corresponds with Julia Kristeva’s notion that “any text is the absorption and transformation of another” (1980: 66). Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin attempt to answer this question at length while defi ning the interplay between old media, such as fi lms and books, and new digital innovations (1999). They assert that “our culture wants both to multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation: ideally, it wants to erase its media in the very act of multiplying them” (5). New media, therefore, attempt to produce an immersive experience, in other words, to give the viewer/user the feeling that she is really “there,” thus eliminating the medium itself, leaving just the object viewed. This notion is not a new one, as it strongly correlates with the theories regarding fi lm and photography brought forward by Walter Benjamin in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936), discussed in some detail in the previous chapter. However, while Benjamin saw this immediacy as a positive contribution of technology, Bolter and Grusin consider it to be only half of a paradoxical equation, for new media, while trying to repress the presence of the medium itself, simultaneously swamps its users with new technologies which precisely enhance this presence (Bolter and Grusin give the example of split television screens or hypermediated websites using diverse media forms in their design) (1999: 5–6). Bolter and Grusin acknowledge that the attempt to bring immediacy and eliminate the medium started before digital technology, as painters often tried to create three-dimensional illusions, and manuscripts integrated graphics and texts in a similar manner to modern websites (11–12). This brings them to the conclusion that “new media are doing exactly what their predecessors have done: presenting themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media” (14–15). The process by which “one medium is seen by our culture as reforming or improving upon another” is termed “remediation” by Bolter and Grusin (59). Discussing their theory in relation to Benjamin’s, the authors assert that “remediation does not destroy the aura of a work of art; instead it always refashions that aura in another media form” (75). Remediation does not only apply to new media modifying old ones, but also vice-versa, as old

The Road Not Taken • 73 media adapt in response to new innovations. Indeed, according to Bolter and Grusin, the reciprocal exchange between different media is so fundamental to their development that ultimately “any act of mediation is dependent on another, indeed many other acts of mediation and is therefore remediation” (56). It is important to note, however, that although media forms compete with each other, the competition results in the development of a more versatile and original media market, as David Thorburn and Henry Jenkins point out, “to focus exclusively on competition or tension between media systems may impair our recognition of significant hybrid or collaborative forms that often emerge during times of media transition” (2003: 3). The concept of new media improving on, borrowing from, or being defi ned by older media is apparent in the abundance of critical work surrounding the influence of literature and fi lm on computer games and other forms of digital resources such as educational CD-ROMs or online interactive fiction (often referred to as ‘hypertext’). The debate revolves mainly around the concept of narrative and whether it can be applied when analysing these new digital forms. Critics such as Lydia Plowman (1996a; 1996b), Janet Murray (1997), Lisa Sainsbury (2000; 2003), Barry Atkins (2003) and Ken Perlin (2004) explore digital media as providing potentially new forms of narrative, borrowing concepts from literary and fi lm theory to assess the narrative structure of computer games, educational CD-ROMs, electronic books or virtual reality environments, as well as the user/player’s response to it. Atkins, however, having examined a range of games, concludes that “we can be so blinded by the sheen reflecting off our consoles and computers and by the hype of their public relations machines that we no longer see just how traditional the narratives on offer really are” (2003: 145). From this perspective it is clear that digital media is often no more than a refashioned mode of storytelling. In contrast to the studies previously mentioned, a branch of computer game theory, often referred to as ludology (from the Latin word ludus, meaning ‘game’) claims that computer games are a new medium requiring a new critical framework and cannot be discussed in terms of narrative structure as they do not share many of the key features which define novels or fi lms (Juul, 2001; Aarseth, 2004). Espen Aarseth, a leading ludologist, complains that “the (academic) discovery of computer games over the last decades is accompanied by the most smothering form of generic criticism: the attempt to reform games into a more acceptable form of art, literature or fi lm; i.e., as narratives” (2004: 49). As a result of this often heated debate, some critics (Ryan, 2001a; Pearce, 2002b; Jenkins, 2004) have attempted to find a middle ground, suggesting that while some forms of digital media do incorporate storytelling and narrative structures so that narratology as a critical tool should not be completely dismissed, there remains a need for a new critical vocabulary when it comes to the analysis of digital media—particularly games. As Marie-Laure Ryan points out,

74 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People the inability of literary narratology to account for the experience of games does not mean that we should throw away the concept of narrative in ludology; it rather means that we need to expand the catalog of narrative modalities beyond the diegetic and the dramatic, by adding a phenomenological category tailor-made for games. (2001a: section 5) In other words, while the study of computer games is accepted as a separate new discipline, this should not mean that critical tools borrowed from other disciplines cannot be partially applied within it. This approach allows both literary and computer game theories to remain separate disciplines while still enabling some common terminology necessary to assessing the influence they do or do not have on each other. As aspects of this chapter engage in such assessment, though relating to the field of Young SF literature, it relies on critical frameworks from both sides of the narratology/ludology divide. Bolter and Grusin’s theory that a dialogue exists between different forms of media is at the heart of the debate over the application of narratology to computer games and other forms of interactive software, with ludologists questioning the extent to which it can be applied. However, this is remediation in one direction, from old media to new ones. As for the reverse effect, it seems that while various critics have noted the impact of games on fi lms (King and Krzywinska, 2002), very little study has been dedicated to the effect of digital media on printed literature.2 Bolter and Grusin do explore how the internet has influenced the appearance of newspapers (1999: 39–41), but do not discuss any other form of printed texts, while Aarseth touches briefly upon literature with game elements; however, this is mainly to comment that all that a novel can offer is an “illusion of play” (2004: 53). This notion is reinforced by Sainsbury’s exploration of “elective gamebooks,” a popular genre of printed role-play adventures from the 1980s and early 1990s (2003: 159–62). Sainsbury concludes that “the printed text is too visible and accessible to support the gamebook’s multilinear network” (162). However, it is important to note that Sainsbury’s interest in these interactive texts is from the point of view of a post-modern interpretation of Bakhtin’s notion of the carnival rather than the influence of new media. This is hardly surprising as gamebooks were published at a time when computer games were in the early stages of development, and as Sainsbury points out, their popularity declined as more sophisticated digital games entered the market (162). The significance of adventure gamebooks for the study of the remediation process between new media and printed literature is therefore limited. However, when taking into account Bolter and Grusin’s theories, it seems unlikely that contemporary books will remain outside the realms of remediation as digital media progress rapidly and become widespread, especially in the Western world. Nevertheless, as shown in the previous chapter, many Young SF authors choose to focus on the tension between books and digital media rather than on the positive outcome of this tension as demonstrated by

The Road Not Taken • 75 their tendency to predict in their novels the death of literature by the hand of technological progress. In an essay which counters what she terms “premature obituaries for the bound book,” Priscilla Murphy Coit concludes that the majority of the doomsayers are “those whose professional lives as practitioners are at stake” (2003: 85, 91). She sees books as “intricately interrelated to the rest of the media system—economically, socially, intellectually, even symbolically” (92) and as such, it is highly unlikely that they will disappear from the media scene. However, while some children’s authors may continue to resist the influence of technology, over time it is likely that others—and particularly those who have grown up using the new media and experiencing narratives through them—will begin to embrace the technology behind them and attempt to create new narrative forms and writing styles which draw on new innovations, especially digital media such as computer games and the internet. Indeed, some critics have begun to identify children’s texts which demonstrate the influence of digital media (Nikolajeva, 1996; Dresang, 1999; Applebaum, 2005; Reynolds, 2007). It is important to note that all these critics approach the texts from a literary background, and as such, adopt the side of the narratologists rather than the ludologists. Each accepts that computer games and other forms of interactive digital media have narratives embedded within them, albeit introduced within a new and often radical structure, and that this structure has begun to influence children’s books. Chief amongst these critics is Eliza Dresang, whose extensive analysis of children’s books that she sees as being influenced by technology is predicated on a phenomenon she terms “radical change” (1999: 12). Dresang identifies the change in children’s literature as taking place in three key areas: • Connectivity—“the connections that readers make with hypertext— like links, both visual and mental, prompted by the changing forms and formats of handheld books” (12). • Interactivity—“The changing format of books enables a more active, involved reading” as they “encourage a wide range of different responses,” allowing readers to “approach the text in various nonlinear or non-sequential ways that the author does not determine in advance” (12). • Access—“the breaking of long-standing barriers” which “blocked off certain topics, certain kinds of characters, certain styles of language,” (13) as a result of the new digital ways of dissemination of information which offer more access to a wider range of people and opinions. Dresang creates a critical framework within which the changes in children’s books are categorised as one of three types. In Type One she includes books which incorporate new graphic formats, higher levels of synergy between pictures and texts, nonlinear or nonsequential organization and format,

76 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People multiple layers of meaning and interactive formats (19). Books belonging to Type Two are narrated from multiple perspectives or by previously unheard voices (24), while books belonging to Type Three deal with previously taboo subjects (26).3 While Dresang’s endeavour is an admirable one, it is not flawless. For example, with regard to taboo subjects and previously unheard voices, one may easily claim that the defi nition of “taboo” and “previously unheard” is relative, and that there are examples of children’s books which broke taboos existing at the time of their publication in terms of subject matter and choice of character long before the digital revolution. Examples of such books include Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), both depicting African American characters in a favourable light as well as using language considered inappropriate by the authors’ contemporaries, which were banned upon publication on social and political grounds (Karolides, Bald and Sova, 1999). Dresang’s strongest points are those related to the change in narrative structure and perspective, which she attributes to digital formats such as computer games in which nonlinearity and choice of player perspective often exists. Unfortunately, there is a gap between Dresang’s theory and the reality of the book market, a fact which comes to light when Dresang attempts to give concrete examples from the world of children’s literature to support her claims. Out of Dresang’s substantial annotated bibliography, including approximately 230 books, only fifteen fiction books are identified as having some degree of nonlinearity or are told from multiple perspectives. The bulk of the bibliography is dedicated to picture books, poetry and non-fiction which exemplify innovations in approaches to text and graphics. Although these innovative approaches are no doubt influenced by digital technology, especially the internet, it seems that when it comes to fiction, authors who adopt the playfulness of digital media are still rare indeed. Interestingly, none of the books in Dresang’s bibliography can be classified as SF. It seems, therefore, that although SF authors engage with technology at the level of content, they are reluctant to engage with it structurally and stylistically. This assumption was confirmed in the course of researching this chapter, as only two Young SF texts were found that clearly attempt to remediate digital media. Unsurprisingly, both texts engage with virtual reality as a main theme. In the next sections I will highlight the characteristics of interactive digital forms, mainly computer games, which I will then trace in these novels, so as to emphasise how technology can contribute to the creation of exciting and innovative narrative structures. It is important to note that some of the elements that I will discuss in relation to my textual examples, primarily interactivity and text-asgame, may be viewed in a post-modern context. I refer to the movement towards fragmentation of narrative structure in the latter part of the twentieth century, and anticipated by canonical works such as James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) or William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (1930), as well as the construction of narrative as an interactive puzzle or game, as exemplified by B.S. Johnson’s ‘book in a box,’

The Road Not Taken • 77 The Unfortunates (1969) or Jorge Luis Borges’ famous nonlinear short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths” (1941). The link made by literary theorists between interactivity and post-modern aesthetics is flagged up by Ryan in her investigation of the poetics of virtual reality (2001b: 6–9). According to Ryan, hypertext online fiction is regarded by leading critics as the ultimate realisation of postmodern thought and concepts (6). Although certain features of texts discussed later in this chapter may also support a post-modern reading, the presence of many of the features characteristic of computer games, together with the fact that the plots actually revolve around virtual reality devices/games, implies that the authors of these SF novels for young people are not merely intending to create a playful post-modern text, but are actively seeking to remediate narrative structures common in new digital media. As my interest lies in the influence of technology on written Young SF, I concentrate on the modes and methods used by the authors to achieve resemblance to electronic games. To this end I rely mainly on computer game theories rather than analysing the texts’ narrative structure from a purely literary, post-modern perspective as this enables me to highlight the process of remediation taking place within these novels.

The Characteristics of Interactive Digital Media In her article discussing educational CD ROMs, Plowman asserts that “the key features of narrative are temporality, causality and, by implication, linearity” (1996b: 95). In a corresponding article Plowman links these features with the Aristotelian requirements for narrative, which are “coherence, significance of all elements, and a fi xed sequence” (1996a: 44). These requirements construct a narrative in which the order of events is clear as they develop chronologically or through cause and effect; if the order is changed or events are omitted, the narrative loses its meaning. The order is determined by the author of the narrative. This model is exemplified, for instance, by author Philip Pullman’s description of the way he shapes his plots: “I begin with a picture of something intriguing happening, and I write to find out what led up to it and what the outcome will be” (2006). However, as Plowman explains, digital interactive media do not follow the traditional layout of narrative as defined by Aristotle (44). Although Plowman is discussing educational CD-ROMs, computer and video games as well as internet websites and online hypertext fiction4 also veer from traditional narrative structure. It is important to note that some forms of digital media, especially early games, electronic books5 and educational software, fail, however, to fulfi l the potential embedded within the technology, resulting in conventional narrative structures and unexciting products, as Atkins (2003), Sainsbury (2000) and Plowman (1996a) demonstrate. Examination of a variety of contemporary digital media reveals four distinctive features which characterise their structure: multi-linearity, interactivity, blurred or collaborative authorship and multiple perspectives.

78 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People Multi-linearity

As Margaret Mackey notes in her study of narrative remediation “it seems fairly clear that the idea of following the narrative thread from beginning to end of the story is now perceived very broadly as just one option of engaging with a fiction” (Mackey, 1999: 28). Digital narrative structure does not follow the linear model given that there is customarily more than one way of getting from one point of the story to the next (characteristic of computer games), there are multiple options for endings, or no ending at all, as in MUDs and other forms of online text-based entertainment, or god games such as The Sims (Wright, 2000). At times there is not even a clear point of beginning either, as in the case of a collaborative chat or discussion where a new member may enter at any point. Therefore, as Plowman points out, digital narrative structures are not merely non-linear, they are multi-linear. Plowman asserts that “the many branches of narrative with their secret pathways, different decision points and foci of interactivity show narrative as spatial rather than linear” (48). Thus, while a traditional narrative can be represented by a straight two-dimensional line, digital narrative structure may take the form of an intricate, multi-dimensional web, as demonstrated by the illustrated possible structures of interactive narrativity charted by Ryan (2001b: 246–56). Interactivity

As Mizuko Ito asserts in an article discussing MUDs, online text-based games “differ from novels in that they foreground interactivity” (1997: 93). While there is always some degree of interactivity in traditional narratives, as demonstrated by reader-response theorists such as Wolfgang Iser (1974), and many post-modern texts covertly demand a higher level of interactivity from the reader as they leave gaps to be fi lled or connections to be made in order to construct a reading, digital media take this interaction a step further as they emphasise the points in which the reader/user is overtly asked to interact with the narrative. Indeed, as Plowman points out, it is precisely this feature which makes this media appealing (48). Moreover, while traditional narratives may allow the reader to interpret the text differently on repeated readings but not to alter the order in which events are presented, digital media “can be suspended or altered at various decision points—the foci of interactivity—and a rearrangement of discrete elements gives rise to new text and new meaning” (48). Thus the meaning of a digital narrative can be actively altered through the interaction with a reader/user. However, as Ryan observes in her study of immersion and interactivity in literature, cinema, drama and electronic media, interactivity is not a “phenomenon made possible by computer technology,” but has its roots in oral storytelling (2001b: 204). This means that it is possible to identify forms of interactivity in some non-electronic texts, as will be discussed later.

The Road Not Taken • 79 Blurred or Collaborative Authorship

While traditional narratives usually keep a clear boundary between author and reader, the first constructing the narrative, the latter deciphering its meaning, digital media blur these boundaries as readers/users collaborate in the authorship of the narrative through interacting with it. Sherry Turkle, a MUD specialist, identifies the collaborative nature of this type of digital narrative when she states that “MUD players are MUD authors, the creators as well as consumers of media content” (1995: 11–12). Similarly, Celia Pearce affirms in her review of the development of interactivity in computer games, “it is not authors but game designers who have been able to innovate most boldly in the author-creator control negotiation” (2002a: 27). Digital texts indeed offer, as Mackey points out, “forms of storytelling where no one narrator is completely in charge” (1999: 16). This “displacement of the author” is not merely an expression of a post-modern concept, claims Plowman, but “a consequence of the medium itself” (1996a: 45). The interactive nature of digital media allows the reader/user to expand her role and take an active part in constructing the narrative. Multiple Perspectives

Although Dresang rightly attributes the prevalence of multiple perspectives in recent children’s books to the influence of digital media, her explanation for this phenomenon is that television and the internet have “made a multiplicity of points of view instantly available on almost any topic,” which allows children a more in-depth understanding of the world (1999: 125). Dresang does not take into account the influence of the popular schema of computer and online games which allow players to choose different characters as points of entry to the game world, or indeed to re-programme the abilities and personality of the same character before starting a game. For example see the Sega game, Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 2005), in which the player can decide whether the character will be good or evil. Enabling the reader/user to take on a different persona, or indeed several of them, is not confined to gaming, as many interactions in cyberspace present the opportunity to masquerade one’s true identity and to try on alternate ones. Digital media, then, allow fluid perspectives as readers/users can choose to narrate through multiple points of view. The distinctive characteristics of digital narrative structures can serve as a framework by which literature can be analysed to examine whether any process of remediation has taken place. It might be assumed that Young SF authors, who engage with technology and write for an audience not only familiar with digital narratives,6 but, also, according to Mackey’s observations, one which “move[s] easily in a complex textual world, shifting gears both appropriately and nonchalantly as demands change” (2002: 14), would be more receptive to the influence of these media and keener to remediate them into their own

80 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People books. However, an overwhelming majority of titles display surprisingly little or no evidence that any process of remediation has taken place. It seems that digital media have barely influenced Young SF authors’ loyalty to the traditional Aristotelian narrative schema. Of the original group of books read for this study, only two can be said to display engagement with digital media. These two exceptions to the rule are explored here in-depth since my concern is to show not just that it is possible for books to remediate digital media, but that this process can enrich SF texts, making them more challenging and attractive to the PlayStation generation. At the same time these experiments in remediation complement the technological discourse existing within their narratives with a suitably technologically infused literary framework, thus creating a synergy between story and narrative discourse (or in formalistic terms, fabula and sujuzet).

The Night Room E.M. Goldman’s The Night Room (1995) is a Young SF novel which revolves, as required by Darko Suvin and other SF scholars, around a novum, a new device/thing which marks the difference between the fictional world of the novel and the real world as we know it (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 313). This novum is Argus, a highly developed scientific program which attempts to give participants a virtual glimpse of their possible future based on questionnaires and interviews conducted with them in advance. The participants in this instance are a group of seven American high school students who are invited to use Argus and experience their hypothetical, yet highly believable, tenth reunion party. Although the students arrive at the university lab as a group, they each experience their future on their own; having entered what is termed “the night room” one by one in alphabetical order. The premise of the novel already exposes its affi liation with digital narrative structures as it allows the shift from one character’s perspective to another. In order to explore how Goldman’s book responds to the narrative structure of new media, it is important at this point to briefly introduce key concepts in game theory which relate to the notion of time. These concepts, which differ from notions of time as attributed to traditional narrative, will be used to highlight the affinity between the structure of The Night Room and the structure of a game. In a traditional narrative we are aware of two modes of time co-existing simultaneously. The events taking place in the story (fabula) happen within story time and are always chronological. However, the way in which these events are recounted may not be chronological at all, and may be slowed down or speeded up, creating discourse time (sjuzet) (Porter-Abbott, 2002: 14–17). A similar distinction takes place in computer games. Jesper Juul, a game theorist, terms event time as “the time taken in the game world,” and play time as “the time the player takes to play” (2004:

The Road Not Taken • 81 para. 2). Unlike traditional narratives, in which story time and discourse time co-exist for the reader/viewer who has no influence over either, in games, play time directly corresponds with event time through a process that Juul terms mapping, in which “the player’s time and actions are projected into a game world” (para. 13). Thus, the player’s actions happen simultaneously in her reality (she clicked with the mouse) and the game’s reality (she killed a monster) and influence the sequence and unfolding of event time. Mapping, therefore, is enabled by the interactive nature of the game, allowing the player a more active role than that offered to the reader/viewer in traditional narrative. However, many modern games include moments in which mapping becomes impossible, as the game time and event time disconnect. These instances are defined as cut-scenes, as Juul explains: Cut-scenes depict events in the event time (in the game world). Cut-scenes are not a parallel time or an extra level, but a different way of creating the event time. They do not by themselves modify the game state—this is why they can usually be skipped, and why the user can’t do anything during a cut-scene. (para. 18) Cut-scenes often serve as an introduction to the game or to separate sub-missions within the game. Applying the principal notions of time, as defined by Juul, to the narrative structure of The Night Room reveals a correlation between story time and discourse time. The events related in the novel (story) take place between November 28 and December 11. The chapters clearly announce the date in their title and at the top of each page, so that both story time and discourse time move forward in an orderly, self-pronounced chronology. This may be attributed to the author’s attempt to recreate the immediacy of digital media and the congruence between event time and game time. Goldman’s text can also be perceived as moving between interactive sections and cut-scenes in a similar manner to modern games, as shortly demonstrated. In Hamlet on the Holodeck Murray states that: To be alive in the twentieth century is to be aware of alternative possible selves, of alternative possible worlds, and of the limitless intersecting stories of the actual world. To capture such a constantly bifurcating plotline, however, one would need more than a thick labyrinthine novel or a sequence of fi lms. To truly capture such cascading permutations, one would need a computer. (1997: 38) Ryan too believes that the “strongest manifestations of interactive textuality” are those set in an “electronic environment” (2001b: 207). However, Ryan does not dismiss the existence of immersion and interactivity in literary narratives and other forms of texts. She creates a framework into which texts, both

82 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People electronic and non-electronic, can be categorised according to the level of interactivity that they display (207–10). In order to achieve maximum accuracy, Ryan distinguishes between two features—interactivity and ergodic design, ‘ergodic’ being a term borrowed from Aarseth, who uses it to define literature in which a “nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text” (Aarseth, 1997: 1). Ryan further explains that “an ergodic design is a built-in reading protocol involving a feedback loop that enables the text to modify itself, so that the reader will encounter different sequences of signs during different reading sessions” (2001b: 206). According to Ryan, ergodic texts may not necessarily require input from the reader, as some can generate different meanings by themselves (Ryan gives the example of online poetry in which a word automatically changes every second to create new meaning). For this reason she employs the term ‘interactive’ when discussing texts which are sensitive to reader-participation (207). Using Ryan’s definition, The Night Room can be categorised as a an “ergodic, nonelectronic, interactive text” (209). Under this category Ryan proposes to include “the growing class of nonlinear, or multilinear literary print texts that offer to the reader a choice of reading sequence” (209). Although Goldman’s text does not explicitly invite the reader to read sequences in any order she wishes, the opportunity to do so exists. The first two sections of the novel, taking place on Tuesday, November 28, introduce the reader to the setting, the characters, and the novum, as the students’ attention is drawn to a note from their teacher reminding them of the Argus project and its aims, and inviting them to a briefing which takes place on the same day and for which parental consent forms are distributed to each one of the seven participants. At one level these sections can be understood as cut-scenes, since the reader cannot contribute to or alter the events or their order. However, sections three to eight present clearly divided text segments. In each segment readers can follow the goings-on in each home as the respective students discuss the project with their parents. The events described in these segments occur simultaneously, as the date at the top of the page makes clear (apart from one segment engaging with Mac’s father’s response, which takes place the following morning), and though each is narrated in the third person, the perspective shifts from one character to another. An example of how this works is seen when Sandra’s innermost thoughts about her future with her boyfriend Patrick are conflated with her mother’s worry that she’s becoming attached too young (Night Room: 22), while Graham struggles to explain the project to his mother, in the private knowledge that “if he tried to explain Argus to her, she’d never understand” (24). The reader could potentially access these segments in any order, or indeed skip any of them altogether. Ryan suggests that readers may choose to “submit input” to a text, electronic or non-electronic, for various reasons—she lists nine—from trying to determine the plot to wishing to participate in the writing of the text (210–12). In the case of The Night Room, readers may wish to be able to “shift perspective on the textual world” (211), and this wish motivates them to interact with the segments of the novel mentioned previously.

The Road Not Taken • 83 As for the author’s motivations in creating a text that can be interacted with, Ryan suggests six possible options, many of which refer mostly to electronic hypertexts, although one reason is simply to “provide background information” (213). In the case of The Night Room, it is clear that the segments occurring in the characters’ homes are intended to supply the reader with information regarding the protagonists’ backgrounds, which will offer insights into their behaviour throughout their virtual experience as well as their interactions with their peers outside of it. For example, we learn about Joy’s constant battle to lose weight and her dream of becoming an actress, two aims her family does not encourage. As a consequence, Joy feels isolated and has low self esteem, leaving her socially vulnerable, a fact which leads her to miss school for a few days after her virtual experience, thus postponing a crucial discovery about the mechanisms of Argus. However, even if the reader skips this introduction to Joy’s character, the events that occur later will still be coherent: the ‘game,’ so to speak, can still be played. At this point, the author introduces another segment, narrated from the perspective of a new character. For the reader it is not yet clear how Michael, the computer genius, is related to the main story, although there are clues as to his role in the events to follow, for example, his hatred of Argus and his violent treatment of his mother and girlfriend. Piecing these clues together, the reader would probably cast Michael as the villain-to-be. Segments following Michael as he forms his elusive revenge are spread throughout the novel, offering readers another narrative strand to follow, yet again narrated from Michael’s perspective. Thus readers can take the role of hero as well as of villain, gaining a wider perspective of the story world. Once the parental forms have been signed, the narrative moves again into a cut-scene as the characters assemble in the waiting room of the lab. It is important to note that although the cut-scenes are also narrated by a third person narrator, the narrative is focalised through one character only (Ira), and there are no insights into any of the characters’ inner thoughts, as opposed to the previous segments. Ira, therefore, is constructed as the protagonist in the cutscenes, while the “action” segments at home or within the virtual world of Argus leave the role open for any character to step into, allowing the reader more space to interact with the text. The main event in the novel is the virtual reunion party. The students enter this space one by one; however, once inside, they encounter older versions of their peers and interact with them. The space created by Argus is, in fact, another story world into which the characters venture, disguised as avatars of their older selves, but maintaining the consciousness of high school students. The world of Argus, therefore, is a game world for the characters, in which they take on the role of players. This automatically creates a second layer of story time; however, this layer is completely disconnected from chronology, as the events recounted never happened and never will, nor do they follow any order, as they happen simultaneously for each character. In this sense, The Night Room

84 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People departs from the traditional definitions of story or fabula and takes a step closer to digital narrative structures. The reader follows each character in turn, seeing the communal space from a different perspective every time, as a gamer would when choosing a character to enter the game world. The world created by Argus becomes a puzzle for the characters and, through them, the reader must piece together the fragments in order to create a full picture. The likely motivation to keep reading at this stage, therefore, is to “play games and solve problems,” a motivation which Ryan associates exclusively with computer gamers. However, in the same instant that Goldman’s novel moves closer to digital media, it pulls away. The segments taking place within the night room seem at first as interchangeable as those taking place in the characters’ homes: closer examination reveals that the author has deliberately withheld information from the reader. This information is available to the characters surveying their virtual surroundings, but remains elusive to readers. An example is Joy’s experience in the virtual ballroom. She chats to the older version of Mac, and asks him “do you know what happened to the others? I spotted Barbara over there. What’s she been doing?” Mac answers Joy’s question, but the narrator withholds his response from the reader; all that is documented is Joy’s response, “his answer surprised her” (Night Room: 59). Only when the reader enters the ballroom through Barbara is the answer revealed—the scientific over-achiever interested in “designer genes” has been incorrectly cast as a fashion designer by an absent minded interviewer. Instances such as this allow the author to create suspense—a vital ingredient of a thriller, for this is ultimately what the novel is, as the characters engage in solving the mystery of one of their peers’ (Sandra’s) virtual death. Just as in classic detective fiction in which some clues are given away to the reader while others are suddenly revealed by the detective in the final scene, Goldman withholds from her reader information available to her characters, thus shattering the illusion of full interactivity and denying the promise of collaborative authorship embedded within it. In this sense, The Night Room belongs to a group of novels which, as Aarseth claims, “are games only in the metaphorical sense; they tease us, but we are not real players” (2004: 53). Nevertheless, Goldman’s attempt to remediate games exposes an interest in new technologies as potential sources for literary inspiration and style, an interest which remains mostly unshared with her peers.

Ultraviolet Lesley Howarth’s novel Ultraviolet (2001) is set in a future Britain suffering the consequences of global warming as the sun becomes dangerously hot and whole communities are forced to retreat indoors, their houses connected by makeshift canvas tunnels. As in The Night Room, the novum which is central to the plot is a virtual reality environment; in this case a game (Quest) played

The Road Not Taken • 85 by the protagonist Violet (Vi) and her peers. Quest is not unlike modern computerised adventure games, complete with levels and scores; however, it is an advanced version which is fully immersive, equipped with “feelies”—props designed to enhance the player’s experience through her sense of touch. The latest version of Quest, as Violet explains, “lets you paste your world into the gameplan” (Ultraviolet: 15); in other words, players can create virtual scenes based on real experiences and populated by characters from real life. This feature casts the player in a godlike role, in a similar manner to popular simulation games such as SimCity and The Sims (Wright, 1989; 2000). However, in such games the player is not a fully realised character in the game world,7 while in Quest Violet actively takes part in the virtual scenario. Thus the player is simultaneously a character and a narrator, and the mapping process described by Juul is so seamless that it becomes invisible to the player herself, creating a hyper-immersive experience. Ryan states that, “as a generator of potential worlds, interpretations, uses, and experiences, the text is thus always already a virtual object” (2001b: 45). If a book is, as Ryan suggests, a non-technological virtual reality (VR), the potential of being immersed in another world, therefore, is also not exclusive to technologically created environments. Indeed, Ryan emphasises the correlation between a book and technological VR by pointing out that, “when VR theorists attempt to describe the phenomenon of immersion in a virtual world, the metaphor that imposes itself with the greatest insistence is the reading experience” (89). Ultraviolet plays with this notion as it attempts to capture the experience of total immersion in a technological virtual world, not only through its content but also through its narrative structure, as demonstrated in the following analysis. In this sense the boundaries between the virtuality of the novel and that of the Quest game it describes become blurred, and the reader experiences a sense of disorientation as a result of the encounter with this doubly immersive narrative. Ultraviolet reads for the most part like a standard, linear SF adventure novel. Violet, the daughter of a popular scientist working for a corporation producing BluScreen, an overpriced multi-purpose, anti-radiation plastic, is tired of being cooped up in her father’s house Questing. She decides to ‘leak’ outdoors in search of a missing boy, and this move starts a rollercoaster of events which lead Violet to betray her father by providing a group of rebels with the secret address of the BluScreen factory. The rebels plan to break into the factory and supply the population with the valuable plastic free of charge and Violet goes after them to witness the events. Throughout the adventure Violet meets different characters, new as well as old acquaintances, and tries to work through her frustrating relationship with her divorced parents. The adventure carries on at different locations both indoors and outdoors, and Violet Quests occasionally between events. The novel’s plot progresses in what seems like a chronological and linear order until it reaches the climax at the factory raid (210). Until this point, the reader experiences the book no

86 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People differently from any other suspenseful traditional narrative, eagerly awaiting the outcome of Violet’s betrayal. The twist takes place mid-raid. Violet’s adventure spins out of control as unexpected characters show up, including a dog that she saw run over only hours previously. The bizarre scenario ends with Violet fighting a samurai from one of her Quests as the headset is torn off her head and she discovers she was Questing the whole time. Violet’s shocked reaction mirrors that of the reader “you mean the Out never happened?” The potentially confused reader, like Violet, discovers she was duped by the immersive quality of the adventure. At this point it is significant to introduce two key metaphors for literary texts proposed by Ryan—the ‘text as world’ and the ‘text as game.’ The ‘text as world’ metaphor is connected with the aesthetics of immersion; as Ryan explains, “for immersion to take place, the text must offer an expanse to be immersed within, and this expanse, in a blatantly mixed metaphor, is not an ocean but a textual world” (2001b: 90). The reading experience, therefore, is an act of suspension of disbelief, as the reader accepts that the text opens up a window to a whole world, only fragments of which are visible to the reader. The ‘text as game,’ a metaphor developed in the second half of the twentieth century, suggests that post-modern texts can no longer offer the vastness of a whole world, and instead their fragments provide “the perfect material for play” (176). For the reader therefore, the ‘text as game’ offers an opportunity for interactivity, as she must distance herself and “is not allowed to lose sight of the materiality of language and of the textual origins of the referents” (193). The role of player denies the reader the immersive experience as emotions and suspension of disbelief are pushed aside in favour of “purely cerebral involvement.” Ryan attempts to find a synergy between the two metaphors which will result in the “participation of the whole of the individual in the artistic experience” as the critical mind and the immersed body both become involved in the process of deciphering the text (21). Ryan’s examples for such synergy include amusement parks, ritual, and, of course, electronic narratives, but not printed literary texts (20). However, I suggest that Ultraviolet can be seen as an example of such synergy. Because the text follows a traditional narrative structure at the beginning, the reader finds herself immersed in Vi’s world. To the reader, the events in the book are not ‘real’ in the sense that they are fictional, but the vastness of the literary creation, the details of the setting and characters, helps the suspension of disbelief. Thus the novel functions in ‘text as world’ mode, becoming a non-electronic virtual environment within which the reader can fully immerse. However, the discovery that the adventure outdoors was actually a virtual one is likely to cause confusion as readers need to readjust their understanding of what was previously read. Readers must go back and discover the clues left by the author, clues which probably remained unregistered on first reading. For example, near the beginning of the adventure appears the following description: “Vi has a feelie—a soft toy dog. It should crop up in her

The Road Not Taken • 87 gameplan, as she ‘sees’ the shape she feels” (11). A few pages later Vi ‘pastes’ in a new character she names Milt (15). More than a hundred pages later, a dog named Milt appears as a minor character in Vi’s adventure. By this point the reader, fully immersed in the events, is unlikely to remember this odd detail which of course insinuates that Milt, and by extension the whole adventure, are the creations of Vi’s mind in combination with the game. While this clue becomes visible on second reading, others remain elusive and open to interpretation. For example, during her adventure Violet is described several times as participating in different Quest editions in between her ventures outdoors, to the extent that Rawley, her potential step-brother, complains to Vi’s father that she will not give him access to her gaming (193). It remains unclear whether these scenes, and indeed Rawley himself, are part of Violet’s ‘real’ life, thus functioning as signals to the reader that a double narrative may be taking place, or whether they belong to her virtual adventure. Readers are invited to make decisions regarding these ambiguous scenes and in this way actively tailor the narrative according to individual preferences and understanding. The process of deciphering the novel pulls readers out of an immersive state and into an interactive one. Thus the same narrative shifts on a second reading from the metaphor of ‘text as world’ to ‘text as game’ and attains a symbolic synergy between immersion and interactivity. In a sense it is possible to see the blurring which occurs between the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’ in Ultraviolet as a manifestation of Jean Baudrillard’s notion of the disappearance of reality as a result of society’s infatuation with simulacra, proposed in “Simulacra and Simulation,” first published in 1981. According to Baudrillard, the image, aided by technology, has evolved in today’s world from “being a reflection of a basic reality” to bearing “no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum” (2001c: 173), so much so that “it is now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real” (182). Baudrillard still holds on to this idea in a later essay from 1996, where he claims that “it is the simulacrum which ensures the continuity of the world today, the simulacrum which now conceals not the truth, but the fact that there isn’t any—that is to say, the continuity of nothing” (2001b: 272). From a Baudrillardian viewpoint, Vi and her peers, so dependant on Quest, have been seduced by the virtual to such an extent that the real is no longer distinguishable; indeed, it no longer exists, and the novel’s invitation to the reader to take part in this blurring can be seen as having negative connotations. As Ryan points out, Baudrillard’s logic leads to the conclusion that, “there is no place in the mind for both life and the lifelikeness of transparent media” and that “immersion in a virtual world leads to a virtualization of the experiencer” which in turn robs her of her humanity (2001b: 31). In Ryan’s eyes Baudrillard presents a false binary choice, “live in the real, or live in the virtual,” the latter seducing us “into making the wrong choice” (32). Indeed Howarth’s text submits to this critique, as Violet is not described as being less

88 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People human as a result of her Questing. Her virtual existence is an extension of her imaginative powers, and the scenarios she creates actually help her to process difficult human emotions, such as the resentment she harbours towards her divorced parents, as well as to maintain her sanity in the impossibly difficult circumstances of confinement. Once Violet discovers that the Quest was not as ‘real’ as she believed it to be, she begins to derive enjoyment from playing with the notions of reality and virtuality, keeping both simultaneously in mind, and the reader is invited to do the same. Ryan concludes that the value of Baudrillard’s thought is “less as a description of the real—or the place of the virtual in the real—than as a theory of the what if ” (32); that is, Baudrillard’s dystopian thinking is projected into a possible future rather than an existing present. However, Ultraviolet, although describing a dystopian future from the environmental perspective refuses to extend its negative forecast into the realm of the use of virtual technology. At the end of the novel there is an implicit warning about excessive immersion in the virtual, be it game or book, exemplified by Vi’s decision to quit Questing and go outdoors (Ultraviolet: 244). However, the playfulness of the novel’s narrative structure and its debt to this media make certain that Ultraviolet offers a note of caution rather than an apocalyptic prophesy.8 After all, as Ryan observes, “we live in simulacra because we live in our own mental models of reality” (2001b: 34). The notion of ‘reality’ is undermined by the fact that each individual perceives and interprets it differently, not through the use of technology. The novel carries on with the adventure, but the once-duped reader is likely to stay on guard, retaining the role of player and seeking clues to solve a puzzle. This is precisely the state that Violet finds herself in as she is drawn back into her self-made Quest trying to resolve the mysterious identity of the rebels’ leader. Character and reader are now both in interactive mode, and the novel thus recreates the experience of electronic virtual environments. Towards the end of Ultraviolet Vi and her father Nick Quest a possible ending to the adventure. Nick comments that Violet’s adventure was only “one of a number of possible futures” (Ultraviolet: 214), and indeed they both agree that the ending they created together is “a bit over the top” as it fulfi ls Violet’s fantasy of a reversal of the environmental damage wrapped up with a reconciliation picnic with her mother and a date with the rebelleader. Violet confesses that this is “at least my fi fth different ending” (244). Although the book does not actually map out each of these possible futures/ endings, the idea that they exist gives licence to readers to imagine their own endings to the adventure, and indeed the novel itself. Thus the novel creates the illusion of multi-linearity although its narrative structure is not multi-linear per se. The events in the novel are related in the third person, mostly from Violet’s perspective, but occasionally and very subtly the narrator diverts into other characters’ feelings and thoughts, as in the following example. Violet asks her

The Road Not Taken • 89 friend, Reeve, if she remembers the beach, and her friend chooses to repress her memories: “Reeve dimly remembers the feeling of sand on chafed and sunburned legs [ . . . ] ‘I don’t remember,’ Reeve says” (23). The present tense creates the illusion of immediacy, which according to Bolter and Grusin is one of the chief effects that new media attempts to achieve (1999: 5). Episodes to which Violet is not witness are also told from the perspective of the character involved; for example, the radiation advisor’s (Bo Headingly) dazed hallucinations about her dead horse (Ultraviolet: 101–107). However, as the reader discovers the twist in the plot, it becomes apparent that not one, but two narrators are present in the narrative. The first is the nameless third person narrator of the novel, an extension of the implied author, and the second is Violet herself as she unknowingly narrates her own adventure while simultaneously creating it. As the events she describes never happened, Violet is not merely recounting scenes she has witnessed, but events she herself has created while gaming. This explains Howarth’s decision to employ an all-knowing thirdperson narrator: this makes Vi a character who is also a collaborative author in the story world, and this setup is both extended to the reader and mirrors the reading process, as the invitation for collaborative narration is embedded with the text in the form of an open-ended narrative, as discussed previously. The novel, therefore, casts the reader in the role of potential author, further emphasising the ‘text as game’ metaphor. Solving the mystery of the rebel-leader’s identity rewards Violet with a print-off of the whole adventure in book form, entitled ‘Ultraviolet.’ It is implied that the novel the reader has just finished is indeed the same as the one Violet holds, evoking Ryan’s previously mentioned notion of a “feedback loop” characteristic of ergodic design (2001b: 206). Howarth thus creates an analogy between the experience of reading and the experience of gaming, both legitimate ways to explore virtual worlds. This analogy is further emphasised by the penultimate dialogue between Nick and Violet: “who needs reality when you can read? Or Quest” (Ultraviolet: 244). Both The Night Room and Ultraviolet are clearly influenced by digital media: both feature characteristics common in computer games and other forms of electronic narrative structures—interactivity, multi-linearity, blurred or collaborative authorship and multiple perspectives. My readings demonstrate that it is indeed possible to write an SF novel for young people, essentially defined as old media, which acknowledges their technological interests by attempting to remediate new digital media. However, it is important to bear in mind that old print media is never going to be transformed into new media by this process. The object of the analysis conducted in this section is not to show that the novels discussed provide the reader with the same experience as computer games or electronic virtual reality environments, but that they share enough similarities with these forms to offer young people innovative literary structures which they may find familiar, yet exciting within the context of printed media.

90 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People While narrative structure can certainly be positively influenced by new media, creating challenging and intriguing new texts for young people, it is also possible to incorporate technology into the structure of an SF novel in order to highlight its negative effect, as the next section demonstrates.

Language and Narration in Feed M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2003) is a novel set in a futuristic United States in which the internet has expanded its commercial application and is now linked directly to people’s brains. The feed is the novum in this SF novel, and functions as the catalyst for the plot as well as its central metaphor. The main plot revolves around the relationship between Titus, a privileged teenager, and Violet, a girl he meets on a brief visit to a recreational resort on the moon. During the visit a resistance group hacks into the feeds of Titus, Violet and their friends. As a result, Violet’s feed starts to malfunction, and throughout the novel her condition deteriorates until she becomes catatonic and dies. The novel exposes the teenagers’ dependence on their feeds for entertainment, education and communication, as it presents them with a narrow viewpoint of the world and of themselves, a viewpoint that they all, apart from Violet, accept without questioning. The feed supplies information to individuals, but it also functions as a metaphor for the way the big corporations currently “feed” on young people, as Giroux points out, “as culture becomes increasingly commercialized, the only type of citizenship that adult society offers to children is that of consumerism” (2000: 19). While Giroux believes that new electronic technologies such as the internet create valuable spaces for children to “speak for themselves, produce alternative public spheres, and represent their own interests” (13), Anderson seems to adopt the more conservative approach, epitomised by the writings of Neil Postman, that new media are to blame for the disappearance of childhood (1983: 99; 1989: 154–57). The feed, therefore, is also a metaphor for the way technology is destroying society in general, and young people in particular, culturally, linguistically, mentally and physically. In a study of language in dystopian novels, Gorman Beauchamp maintains that two problems [ . . . ] confront the dystopian novelist with regard to language: to convey the stultifying effect that the rigidly controlled society would have on how its citizens think and speak, and to create an imaginatively valid language reflecting the specific social and technological realities of the projected future. (1974: 464) While many SF writers fail in this task (Meyers, 1980: 22), Anderson at least partially succeeds in creating both a stifled effect as well as a believable new slang for his teenaged protagonists.

The Road Not Taken • 91 Feed is mainly narrated in the first person by Titus, who relates the events in a unique style, laden with futuristic slang words largely borrowed from the IT world, such as “unit,” “meg,” “null” and “mal” which can be attributed to the technologically enhanced environment in which he lives. While some believe that the current influence of computers on our language “has truly enriched and enlivened” it (Barry, 1991: 175), Titus’ use of ‘technobabble’ highlights the dehumanising effect of the feed. The repeated use of meaningless words such as “whoa,” “hey,” “da da da” and “wow” reflect Titus and his peers’ inability to express themselves or their emotions due to the impoverishment of language brought on by dependence on the feed, as the socially aware Violet, Titus’ girlfriend, exclaims, “because of the feed, we’re raising a nation of idiots. Ignorant, self-centered idiots” (Feed: 127). In a study of teen slang Anna-Brita Stenstrom, Gisle Andersen and Ingrid Hasund find that adults “are often heard complaining about teenagers’ sloppy pronunciation, their way of cutting off sentences in the middle and letting the listener guess the rest, not to mention their use of slang, vague and dirty words, often in combination with a lot of ‘unnecessary’ words.” They add that these adults “would probably not hesitate to refer to such features as bad and impoverished or even as symptoms of linguistic decay” (2002: 63). Although the young protagonists in Feed use all the features previously mentioned, it is the fact that their parents and other adults speak in the same manner, which exposes the novel’s association of slang with linguistic decay. For example, Titus’ father’s response to his son’s hacking trauma is “dude, this is some way bad shit” (Feed: 67), while the President of the United States publicly refers to an overseas leader as a “big shithead” (133). While scholars see slang as a legitimate way for adolescents to distinguish themselves from adult society and a tool in creating their independent group identity (Adelman, 1976; Rutherford, 1976; Hudson, 1983; Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund, 2002), Feed blurs the distinction between teenagers and adults by their mutual use of slang. The adults using teen-speak are infantilised and come across as degenerate rather than trendy, creating an effect of a linguistically impoverished culture. Through these ridiculed adults, the young reader is invited to view slang as a lower form of communication, as the novel constructs it as ‘bad language’ resulting from the stultifying effect of immersion in technology. The linking of technology and the impoverishment of language is further emphasised by the characterisation of Violet’s father, Mr Durn, who speaks in a ridiculously elaborate manner, “I am fi lled with astonishment at the regularity of your features,” (150), and stands out as peculiar in a society which speaks in simplistic terms, as even his daughter pokes fun at him (150–51). Violet explains to the confused Titus that her father, believing that “language is dying,” makes an attempt to “speak entirely in weird words and irony, so no one can simplify anything he says” (151). At first Mr Durn may seem like a comic figure, just as ridiculous as the other parents; however, as the story progresses the reader realises that Violet’s father is a tragic figure: he is helpless

92 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People and his resistance is futile as his daughter slowly dies before his eyes. Having resisted the feed for years, he gave in during a moment of weakness and allowed Violet to have it installed. Defeated, words become his only means of resisting what is happening around him. It is, however, too late for him or his daughter to make a change, and their mastery of language leaves them both isolated from society. Anderson ironically implies that language, meant to help people communicate with each other, is transformed, in a technological, corporate environment, into a dividing force. However, language is also the means by which Anderson constructs his narrator, Titus, as a character with whom the reader can sympathise. Titus is a product of his time in many ways: his sense of priority is skewed, his pastimes are devoid of any intellectual content, his friends are clearly vacant, and some of his utterances seem laughable to the better informed reader. A noteworthy example is Titus’ ignorant comment when visiting the genetically modified “fi let mignon” farm: “I like to see how things are made, and to understand where they come from” (156). Titus is unaware of the natural source of beef, not only emphasising his ignorant upbringing but also suggesting that Anderson sides with many of the authors who view technology as distancing young people from nature, as discussed in Chapter One of this book. Yet it is crucial that the reader develops empathy towards Titus rather than viewing him as a fool or a heartless monster for his behaviour towards the dying Violet, as Anderson clearly seeks to warn his young readers of the future he believes they are heading towards by subtly comparing their own youth culture with that of Titus and his peers. Thus Titus is constructed as different from his peers by his use of metaphors, a quality which also attracts the intelligent Violet to him (75). Metaphors not only enrich Titus’ narration, but also convey the message that behind his often simplistic delivery hides a sensitive, imaginative mind (“it was like they [feed messages] were lots of friendly butterflies, and we were smeared with something, and they kept coming and coming, and their wings were winking beautifully,” 120). Like many of the main characters in novels describing the future demise of reading in technological societies, discussed in the previous chapter, Titus’ association with literature through his use of metaphors is that which sets him apart and makes him a worthy protagonist. Titus, however, is not the sole narrator of his story. Between his first-person accounts appear snippets of mixed information, set apart by their fragmented form and use of italics. While it may be confusing at fi rst to understand these often incoherent fragments, it soon becomes clear that they are flashes of information from the feed, in the form of ads for different products, feedcasts or pop songs. The information is varied, yet incomplete; the beginning and end of sentences often cut, recreating the experience of an overload of information being either flicked through or fi ltering past. Although these fragments may be interpreted as insights into Titus’ own feed (the ads are clearly directed at a young person), it is not Titus who narrates them. These non-events seem to be narrated to the reader by the technology itself. This is

The Road Not Taken • 93 further emphasised by Titus as he reports: “I fell asleep, the feed murmured to me again and again: All shall be well . . . ” (162). This instance clearly demonstrates that the feed is indeed an entity within the novel, equipped with its own voice, one which is different from Titus’ yet lives within his brain. Technology’s voice often seems mocking, as it patronises its users, especially their human nature (“Feeling blue? Then dress blue!” 313; “The Swarp XE-11: You can take it with you,” 171). Titus is a cyborg, a mesh of mechanical and organic parts, yet Anderson clearly separates them by means of the narration. This technique allows Anderson to construct technology in opposition to humanity and give it a threatening quality by the suggestion of independence from its human masters. Though the corporations have appropriated it for their own money-making ends, the technology is clearly out of control as the last scenes of the novel suggest. The feed is thus a Golem, a Frankenstein’s monster, and it will destroy society as indeed it devastates Violet’s body. As in Howarth’s novel, Baudrillard’s theories are again invoked through the dystopian world presented in Feed. In “The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media” (2001a), Baudrillard laments that “because we will never in future be able to separate reality from its statistical, simulative projection in the media,” society will be in a state of “suspense and of definitive uncertainty about reality.” This uncertainty results “not from the lack of information but from information itself and even from an excess of information.” Baudrillard concludes that “it is information itself which produces uncertainty” (213). Feed presents a future overburdened by information to the extent that its inhabitants become more than uncertain as to what is real; they are in fact indifferent, as demonstrated by Titus’ lack of interest in Violet’s reports of what is happening outside his small sphere. As Baudrillard predicts, in mass media, “the masses have no opinion and information does not inform them” (214). Baudrillard interprets the silence of the masses as a strategic resistance to information overload. Anderson’s novel, however, rejects such a reading: the only resistance to information described in Feed is Violet’s very active subversion of consumer profi ling. I agree with Dennis Dutton’s critique of Baudrillard: “to be sure, there is an abundance of stupified people out there sitting in front of television screens; but to portray their stupefaction as a form of calculated revenge on the media is frivolous without even being interesting” (Dutton, 1990: par. 3). While Anderson clearly rejects the feed through both story and discourse, it is interesting that he relies on it to supply the reader with valuable information concerning what is happening outside Titus’ narrow world. Newscasts, albeit censored (Feed: 125), flitting among commercial ads, reveal the true picture of the United States as a decaying empire on the brink of global war, still employing the discourses of justice, freedom and dream fulfi lment while committing gross violations of human rights, nurturing colonialist aspirations and actively destroying the environment. Other fragments include more

94 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People poetic observations on the state of affairs, such as “Amurica: A Portrait in Geezers” (108) which laments the loss of nature, and the eulogy which ironically celebrates America’s transformation into an “oneiric culture” (163–64). It is implied that these last examples are fragments of independent thoughts infi ltrating the feed in a similar manner to that used by the resistance group, the Coalition of Pity, to hack into Titus and Violet’s feeds flooding them with horrifying images of global events (165–66). Anderson, therefore, channels messages inspiring resistance to technology through the technology itself as he inadvertently constructs the feed as a potential sphere for free speech and public debate in the same way that the internet functions today. This paradox partially undermines the novel’s main agenda to persuade the young reader to join “all those who resist the feed,” to whom the novel is dedicated. As opposed to The Night Room’s neutral stance towards technology, and Ultraviolet’s enthusiastic, yet slightly cautious approach, Feed ultimately demonstrates a negative attitude towards technology. Nevertheless, all three novels acknowledge the impact of new media, especially electronic games and the internet, on printed texts, and incorporate elements of these media into their narrative structure producing innovative results which stand out among the piles of Young SF books which still adhere to the rules of traditional storytelling, their authors ignoring the fact that their readers are already fully immersed in new forms of narratives.

Chapter Four The World Upside Down Technology, Power and the Adult-child Relationship

Speak when you’re spoken to, Do as you’re bid, Close the door after you, There’s a good kid. (A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair: 86)

In his study of Western culture’s construction of childhood and its representations in children’s texts from Grimm to Disney, Joseph Zornado declares: The vast majority of children’s stories invite the child to identify with the adult’s idea of what a child should be, leaving unquestioned the authority structure of adult and child always implied in the text and by the adult’s reading the story to the child. Children’s stories, in other words, are more often than not adult propaganda that serves to confirm for the child the hierarchical relationship between the adult and the child. (Zornado, 2001: xv) SF novels frequently engage with extrapolating possible futures from current social trends. Authors often explore power relations within present day society, for instance between genders, races, or governing bodies and their subjects, by imagining a futuristic or alternative reality in which these relations have shifted and changed.1 It is therefore not surprising that the power dynamic between adults and children, highlighted in Zornado’s statement, has been the focus of a number of SF novels written for the adult market as well as for children.2 95

96 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People This chapter traces the current discourse surrounding the relationship between children and adults within nine SF novels published for young people that depict a shift in the status of children within a contained futuristic microcosmic community or society at large. The raison d’être for this focus is that a fictional portrayal of such change, whether or not it endows children with more control over their lives, provides insights into the current child-adult hierarchy, and the role technology is understood to be playing in challenging and potentially reconfiguring it. The texts, therefore, are presented as a case-study, indicating a trend within Young SF, which may well pertain to children’s literature more generally, though it is beyond the scope of this book to test whether or not this is the case. The novels to be analysed, by order of publication, are Nicholas Fisk’s A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair (1980), Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (1985),3 Monica Hughes’ Invitation to the Game (1990), Gillian Rubinstein’s Galax-Arena (1992), Garth Nix’s Shade’s Children (1997), Nina Bawden’s Off the Road (1998), Margaret Haddix’s Turnabout (2000), Kate Reid’s Operation Timewarp (2002), and Alex Shearer’s The Hunted (2005).

Children’s Literature and Discourses of Power A few large-scale studies have already considered issues of power in children’s literature (Rose, 1984; Trites, 2000; Zornado, 2001). Jacqueline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan (1984) focuses on a psychoanalytic and linguistic analysis of Barrie’s text, arriving at the conclusion that the child in children’s fiction is constructed by the adult writer to enforce a particular image of childhood which she wishes the child reader to internalise. This attempt to control the child, “who does not come so easily within its [children’s fiction’s] grasp” remains outside the text itself and is only accessible through the subtext (1–2). Zornado’s Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood (2001) follows a similar theme as it attempts to demonstrate how “a dominant ideology is unconsciously transmitted generationally through the most ordinary child-rearing practices” (xiv–xv), the dominant ideology, in this instance,4 being adults’ unquestionable power over children, reinforced through the stories they produce for a child audience. As a result, for Zornado, if the child is “to survive and be deemed acceptable and appropriate by the adult world, she learns to hold in or hold off certain feelings that threaten the adult” (8). These feelings may have found a modern outlet through the use of technology, especially the internet, as it allows the user’s identity, including her age, to be disguised or altered, as the analysis of Card’s novel Ender’s Game will later explore. Zornado, however, views modern technology as a threat to the child. Being the instrument of progress in Western ideology, technology “in the form of baby formula, rubber nipples, cribs, intercoms, and even strollers” detaches the child from the parent prematurely, bringing on “emotional deprivation” which the child in turn “inflicts upon the world” (Zornado: 5) It

The World Upside Down • 97 is not surprising that Zornado’s radical analysis has been criticised as overindulgent (Flynn, 2001), for indeed it refuses to acknowledge children’s agency, preferring to cast them as permanent victims of adult culture. Zornado’s brief mention of technology posits it as the enemy of childhood, a stand which is not only repeated by scholars such as Neil Postman (1983; 1989; 1992), discussed later, but also within many of the novels analysed in the second part of this chapter. Roberta Seelinger Trites, in Disturbing the Universe (2000), explores themes of power and repression in literature written for young adults. By analysing the way protagonists of such texts are required to negotiate with institutions such as school, church, and the family home, Trites concludes that, [ . . . ] the genre does seem to communicate to teenagers that authority is not and should not be theirs. In communicating such ideologies to adolescent readers, the genre itself becomes an Ideological State Apparatus, an institution that participates in the social construction of the adolescent as someone who must be repressed for the greater good. (83) The adult author is characterised here as an authority-figure who aims to “manipulate the reader to assume subject positions that are carefully constructed to perpetuate the status quo” as part of the genre’s “purpose of simultaneously empowering and repressing adolescents” (xii). Thus, all three scholars agree that children’s literature, produced by adults for young readers, reflects the tension between the intention to empower the child reader and the wish simultaneously to maintain control over her. Texts for children construct childhood according to adult conceptions as well as reflecting their subconscious attempts to control and contain it. This hypothesis stems from current discourse surrounding modern childhood, discussed shortly; however, the function of technology within this context receives very little, if any, attention from these scholars. This chapter highlights the relevance of technology when discussing contemporary childhood and adolescence and its power relations with adult culture while using recent surveys into both children and young adults’ use of technology as a framework to discuss SF novels written for a young audience. It demonstrates how popular discourses of childhood and technology are manifested within sample texts, often resulting in technophobic agendas.

Adult-child Power Relations In an interview originally published in 1977, Michel Foucault summarised the concept of power which he famously formulated in previous works such as Discipline and Punish (1977: 195–228) and the first volume of The History of Sexuality (1990: 36–49):

98 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People If power were never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but to say no, do you really think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. (1991: 61) For Foucault power is not necessarily oppressive, it has some positive implications for both society and the individual. Roger Cox, in his book offering an historical perspective on the child-adult relationship, explains how Foucault’s theory, that “power is not simply an exercise in repressive control, but something that could also be driven by the need to be productive and creative” can be useful to the study of childhood, as it “serves to remind us that even the earliest and most intimate relations between child and adult are, in some sense, relations of power” (1996: 6). Adults, be they parents, teachers or decision makers, may well have the child’s best interests at heart, and exercise their authority to enable what they perceive as the child’s most beneficial route of development; however, the fact that the relationship between them and the child is a relationship of power is nevertheless undeniable. From the child’s perspective, the power which adults hold over her may not be experienced as oppressive since normally she benefits from it (chiefly in the form of pleasure or knowledge in Foucault’s view); nevertheless, this power relationship does have repressive aspects. The tension between repression and benefit may become more evident as the child grows up, and could potentially explain the classic confl ict erupting between adolescents and the adults surrounding them. The dual function of the adultchild power relationship is made apparent by the fact that, as Berry Mayall observes, “children can be seen as both reproducing and resisting the structures that shape their lives” (2001: 126). Many contemporary scholars highlight the repressive component of the adult-child relationship, which they view as unequal and damaging to children. Robin Lynn Leavitt, for example, observes the negative impact of carers’ insistence on strict routines on children’s behaviour in day care centres (2006), a phenomenon already highlighted two decades ago by Valerie Polakow Suransky, who concluded that “it is clear that the business of childcare negates the being of the child, who emerges as the voiceless and helpless victim of a growing industry which is manipulating the child as a profit integer” (1982: 187). Cedric Cullingford, examining children’s own ideas about power, in largely political terms, comments that, Children are as much a part of society as adults [ . . . ] they live in the same context, observe the same things. They think, analyse and question. They hold views on politics, on the economy and on the environment. And yet their views are almost always ignored. (1992: 1)

The World Upside Down • 99 Paradoxically, as Mary John points out in an article discussing the way in which public policies reflect culture’s assumptions regarding child development, as well as socialise children into a structured power relationship with adults, children “are denied political rights in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, yet they are also often given responsibilities beyond their years,” for example, caring for disabled or elderly members of their family (1995: 133). Henry Giroux too highlights this paradox, adding that “children, asked to shoulder enormous responsibilities, often respond by mimicking and emulating adult behaviours, which they are then condemned for appropriating” (2000: 19). (An example of such condemnation is found in the novel Galax-Arena, which is discussed in detail later on). Zornado goes even further, claiming that “the adult’s physical and emotional domination of the child—often justified by a belief in the child’s congenital need for reform—characterizes the childhood experience of Western culture” (2001: xiv). This view is not uncontested, however; Samantha Punch presents the relationship between adults and children as an intricate negotiation. Observing children’s status within rural society in Bolivia, she concludes that “adultchild relations should be explained in terms of interdependencies which are negotiated and renegotiated over time and space, and need to be understood in relation to the particular social and cultural context” (2001: 23). Nevertheless, even Punch admits that children are “faced with unequal adult-child power relations” (24). These relations are at the heart of concepts of childhood, to which technology is perceived as a threat, as the following discussion illuminates.

Constructions of Childhood As Phillipe Ariès famously points out, childhood is a culturally bound concept (1973). The power balance between children and adults is closely related to the way childhood is perceived, defined and constructed. David Buckingham alerts us to the fact that “any description of children—and hence any invocation of the idea of childhood—cannot be neutral” (2000: 11). While children themselves may be involved in this construction, it is primarily adults who define what is constituted as childhood; as Leavitt observes, “while children are active agents in their own construction of the world, they come to understand themselves in the mirror of what others have constructed as a world” (2006: 125). For Buckingham, constructions of childhood by adults are “simultaneously repressive and productive” (2000: 12), which suggests that this process of construction can in itself be part of the discourse of power as presented by Foucault. Buckingham’s view of adults’ constructions of childhood is that:

100 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People They are designed both to protect and control children—that is, to keep them confined to social arenas and forms of behaviour which will not prove threatening to adults, or in which adults will (it is imagined) be unable to threaten them. Yet they are seeking not just to prevent certain kinds of behaviour, but also to teach and encourage others. They actively produce particular forms of subjectivity in children, just as they attempt to repress others. (12) The construction of the child as vulnerable and in need of protection is highlighted by Cox as one of two integral discourses which have implications for the way we interact with and relate to children today. The first persists from the nineteenth century’s image of the innocent child discussed in Chapter One and results in a “demand for even greater disclosure of the child to the adult,” a demand which stems from the notion that “between adult and child all relations come to be seen as unequal relations from which the child must be defended” (1996: 206). The adult, wanting to protect the child, invades her through constant surveillance. The second discourse mentioned by Cox revolves around adults’ tendency to cling to their own childhood memories and to see themselves in the child rather than to see in the child the potential for a more universal “renewed humanity” (207). The tendency to see the child in the self is also highlighted by Valerie Krips, who finds it prevalent in British literature written for children post–World War II: The child we find written about for children in the second half of the twentieth century is thus as good a calibration as we are likely to get out of cultural change and adaptation, a figure wrought out of a desire for the child, which is a longing for and a fear of a lost self constructed within the frameworks of culture. (2000: 6–7) The adult’s desire for the child, defined by Rose as “a form of investment by the adult in the child, and [ . . . ] the demand made by the adult on the child as effect of that investment” (1984: 3–4), is indeed a recurrent theme in the novels discussed in this chapter, and this parasitical relationship is enhanced by the use of technology, as demonstrated later. Chris Sidoti, summarising the changes in children’s legal status throughout the centuries, traces the demand for child protection back to the Victorian era, a part of the public acknowledgment of the role of the state as the ultimate parent of the nation. He comments that “the nineteenth-century legal approach towards children, which arose from the role of the state as parens patriae, placed its emphasis on the conceptualization of children as humans in the making: junior adults who required protection” (2005: 17). This legal approach, claims Sidoti, is still in existence today; nonetheless, alongside it flourishes “a rights-based approach that recognizes the child as a separate legal actor” (17). Sidoti is quick to emphasise, however, that this recognition is by no means the same as recognising the child as autonomous by law (18).

The World Upside Down • 101 The central difference between these two approaches lies in the construction of the child as ‘becoming’ as opposed to ‘being.’ Buckingham notes that the lingering protective approach leads to the fact that “children are defi ned principally in terms of what they are not and in terms of what they cannot do,” the result being that “‘childhood’, as it is predominantly conceived, is in this respect actively disempowering for children” (2000: 13–14). Moreover, this approach embeds the fear that the child may ‘cross the line’ which separates it from the adult. This fear, as Buckingham points out, creates a “process of ‘policing’ the line between adults and children” which “leads not merely to separation but to active exclusion of children” (15). The “emergent paradigm of childhood,” as termed and defined by Allison James and Alan Prout and which is reflected in the modern campaign for children’s rights, emphasises the view of childhood as a social institution, a cultural construct, while simultaneously valuing children’s cultures independently from adults’ interests and as worthy in their own right (1990: 7–8). As the next section suggests, technology plays a crucial part in the changing ambiance surrounding the issue of childhood. Access to knowledge previously exclusive to adults through new media, and the freedom of expression enabled via the internet have changed the way children view themselves and their status, and catalysed the shift towards “seeing them as important now and not just in the future: for who they are and not only for who they might be” (Sidoti, 2005: 20). Paradoxically, this shift is echoed in the words of Shirley R. Steinberg and Joe L. Kincheloe in a study which demands that adults should acknowledge and protect children from the damaging effect of media culture: “children are not merely entities on their way to adulthood; they are individuals intrinsically valuable for who they presently are” (2004: 5). This shared terminology serves to remind us that both approaches to childhood are essentially constructed by adults, and as such, they highlight the state of affairs where young people are still denied the right for self-definition, as part of the social hierarchy. The fear of upsetting this hierarchy is well demonstrated in adults’ ambivalent attitudes towards technology and children’s use of it, and consequently is often reflected in SF novels they write for them, as discussed next.

Children, Adults and Technology Technology is intertwined with the discourses on childhood and adult-child power relations, as Nick Lee observes in his study of the impact of new technologies on the domestic sphere in general, and children’s independence in particular: “we have seen how closely the changing image of childhood has followed the deployment of particular technologies and social reactions to them” (2001: 160). In The Erosion of Childhood, a study of child care in the United States, Suransky criticises the feminist Shulamit Firestone, for wanting to “do away with childhood as a life phase.” Suransky summarises

102 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People Firestone’s key point, that childhood is a social construction which under capitalism “become[s] a functional category for oppression, integrally linked to the development of the nuclear family and the subjugation of women” (Suransky, 1982: 9). Children are the product of, and therefore the motivation behind, the family unit, and, as such, it is imperative to keep them bound to it until they grow up and form their own families, and for this purpose the institution of childhood was created (9). Women, who bear children, are discriminated against in the labour market and, as a result, placed in a lower position in the social hierarchy. Thus they are the principal victims of this system. The only solution, according to Firestone, is to utilise technology to fight oppression and discrimination by eliminating pregnancy and replacing it with artificial reproduction accompanied by regulated adoption, thus “the special bonds between adults and children are severed” and women are liberated. Suransky’s criticism of Firestone concentrates on the latter’s “naïve belief in the power of advanced technology to work in the service of liberation.” For Suransky, technology is synonymous with a process of dehumanisation, in which “children emerge as commodities” and “the human child that once was, is no more” (10). Firestone’s argument may well seem radical even today; however, it precipitates Suransky’s general attack on technology and science which “have masked the ontology of childhood” and her call to adopt human sciences and arts as the explanatory language in the process of mapping the nature of childhood (40). Thus Suransky constructs childhood not only in opposition to technology, but actually as threatened by it. The threat that technology poses to childhood is the main theme of Neil Postman’s The Disappearance of Childhood (1983). Postman’s argument is that “without a well-developed idea of shame, childhood cannot exist” (9). Innocence, which Postman sees as an essential component of childhood, can only exist when it is sheltered from adult knowledge by a sense of secrecy, motivated by a socially shared feeling of shame. As new technologies, especially television, invade the home, adults’ secrets are exposed to children, and shame, as a method of control, loses its power, leading to what Postman sees as the disappearance of childhood (83–86). A similar idea is expressed by Joshua Meyrowitz, who also claims that the blurred distinctions between adults and children that we are experiencing in modern times are due to the influence of television. According to Meyrowitz, in the Middle Ages children were less distinct from adults because of the importance of the oral tradition that they could also share in. With the Renaissance and the growth of literacy and the invention of print, children became distinct in that they needed training in order to access the knowledge held by adults. Adults had the power to withhold certain information from children and thus constructed them as innocent. However, with the appearance of television in the home, children became exposed to knowledge that, often, they had not even sought. It is no longer to be assumed that an illiterate child is unfamiliar with adult behaviour, and this fact undermined the structure of the school system which is

The World Upside Down • 103 built on the principal of not only providing, but also withholding information (1984: 42–44). In Kinderculture, Steinberg and Kincheloe also adopt the view that new media poses a threat to childhood concluding that “since childhood is vulnerable and socially unstable, the control of knowledge becomes important in the maintenance of innocence” (2004: 6). Each of these studies traces a development in which “innocence became a state defined as one without adult knowledge” (Cox: 180). The discourse of technology revolves around knowledge and the control of it, thus placing it in direct conflict with the ongoing discourse of childhood which is still entrenched in the notion of the vulnerable child in need of protection. In recent years, however, a new discourse regarding children and technology has developed. This discourse highlights children’s innate talent when engaging with cutting-edge technologies. Jon Katz, for example, in an attempt to persuade the American public that new technologies are not destroying the young, declares that: Children are at the epicenter of the information revolution, ground zero of the digital world. They helped build it, they understand it as well as, or better than, anyone else. Not only is this new machinery making the young more sophisticated, altering their ideas of what culture and literacy are, it is transforming them—connecting them to one another, providing them with a new sense of political self. (1997: 173) The implication of this, according to Katz, is a shift in the power status quo between adults and children, as he admits, “the idea that children are moving beyond our absolute control may be the bitterest pill for parents to swallow in the digital era” (174). Katz criticises adults’ attempts to bar children from complete access to new technologies via blocking software or censorship: “this approach is the antithesis of trust and rational discourse between adults and children, and more evidence of the growing need to protect children from adult abuses of power” (195). Interestingly, Katz uses the term “protect,” thus implying that his approach to the issue of children and technology, although apparently opposed to Postman and his followers, still deploys the discourse of the vulnerable child. Katz’s remedy is to prepare the young “for the world they’ll have to live in” rather than “for a world that no longer exists” (184). Douglas Rushkoff, who coins the term “screenagers” for the generation growing up in a digital age, goes further than Katz by embedding the theory regarding children’s innate technological skills within a psychological framework: “developmental psychologists have concluded that a person’s ability to incorporate new language systems—to adapt—is greatest until about the onset of puberty, when it drops off dramatically. As a result, adults adjust more slowly and less completely than kids do” (1999: 4). Like Katz, Rushkoff observes that children’s embracing of new technology has threatened the adults around them; however, he highlights adults’ fear of being left behind

104 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People in a fast-paced, changing environment: “for while young people are embracing every strategy offered to them with renewed eagerness, their parents, for the most part, are only growing more afraid of what they see as their own impending doom” (10). Like Rushkoff, Seymour Papert’s study of the importance of technology in schooling and its failure to be properly incorporated into the education system, highlights the issue of the generational technological gap, but from the children’s perspective: large numbers of children see the computer as “theirs”—as something that belongs to them, to their generation. Many have observed that they are more comfortable with the machines than their parents and teachers are. They learn to use them more easily and naturally [ . . . ] children know that it is just a matter of time before they inherit the machines. They are the computer generation. (1993: ix–x) Don Tapscott’s Growing up Digital (1998) is another passionate declaration in praise of the technological supremacy of what he terms as ‘the Net generation.’ Tapscott argues that children’s innate skills will turn the tables of power and bestow social leadership upon them: “it is through digital media that the N-Generation will develop and superimpose its culture on the rest of society” (2). These enthusiastic manifestos oppose the views of Postman, Meyrowitz and others who wish to keep children and technology apart in the name of protecting innocence and adult control. Buckingham summarises the key points of these newly emerging positive depictions: Far from blurring the boundaries between childhood and adulthood, the media are seen here to be driving a wedge between the generations. Far from exploiting children’s vulnerabilities, they speak to children’s innate spontaneity and desire for knowledge. And far from urging adults to reassert their authority over the young, these authors call upon adults to “listen to”—and “catch up with”—their children. (1998: 558) However, as he points out, “both positive and negative arguments draw on essentialist notions both of childhood and of technology” (Buckingham, 2000: 45). While the protective approach constructs the child as innocent and vulnerable and technology as generally dangerous and a threat to society, the enthusiastic approach constructs the child as naturally gifted, leading the path to future social transformation and technology as a tool for positive progress (Buckingham, 1998: 559; 2000: 45–55). Buckingham’s conclusion is that “to call for a return to traditional notions of childhood, or alternatively to place all our faith in the power of technology, is ultimately to ignore the complexity of the changes that are taking place” (2000: 191), reminding us that the way that technology is produced and marketed cannot be ignored. Moreover, while it opens up new avenues for some children to express themselves and

The World Upside Down • 105 become more active participants in society, it is not accessible to all due to socio-economic and cultural gaps (55). Still, he concludes that We cannot return children to the secret garden of childhood, or find the magic key that will keep them forever locked within its walls. Children are escaping into the wider adult world—a world of dangers and opportunities, in which electronic media are playing an even more important role. The age in which we could hope to protect children from that world is passing. We must have the courage to prepare them to deal with it, to understand it, and to become active participants in their own right. (207) Lee explores the issue from a more objective perspective. He uses the term ‘extension,’ borrowed from the media theorist Marshall McLuhan, as a key to understanding the changes brought on the domestic sphere in general, and children’s independence in particular due to new technologies (2001). McLuhan, as Lee explains, considers media in the broadest sense of the word—as “anything that mediates between persons, between persons and machines or between persons and the natural world,” so that it becomes a mode of extension of the person (163). According to Lee, while in the past children were ‘cocooned’ as the world was mediated to them through ‘human extensions,’ namely the adults surrounding and caring for them, when television and later ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) penetrated the home, these non-human extensions allowed the children to access the world without the filters of the adults. 5 Children became consumers, for example, as they started being aware of the diversity and choice brought to them through TV, and their desires had inf luence on household purchases. Unlike other theorists, Lee neither laments nor celebrates children’s newly acquired, technologically aided knowledge. He merely uses it to explain that the mixture of dependency and independence that children have today is due to the fact that they have access to the world through both human and non-human (technological) extensions. This shift, according to Lee, is responsible for the notion that children are now more able to ‘speak for themselves’ and thus it also allowed for a new paradigm in children’s studies to emerge, that sees children as ‘being’ rather than ‘becoming,’ a paradigm already discussed in this chapter. However, Lee reminds us that children still depend on human ‘extensions’ when dealing with decision-making state agencies such as courts or welfare services, and so one cannot claim that they are fully liberated from adult control via technology (167). Lee’s balanced approach is supported by findings from several qualitative research projects conducted on the subject of children and adults’ actual experiences of using ICT (Facer et al., 2001; Valentine and Holloway, 2001a; Valentine and Holloway, 2001b; Livingstone and Bober, 2004; Downes, 2005; Livingstone and Bober, 2005; Byron, 2008). These studies further highlight the

106 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People clash of opinions between children and adults regarding the use of technology. For example, Toni Downes’ interviews with Australian children and parents regarding the use of computers at home and at school led him to conclude that, “overall, the main difference between children and their parents stemmed from the differences in the conceptions that they hold about childhood” (2005: 169). Downes explains that although parents acknowledged the educational benefits of using computers, they also worried that their children would lose interest in, and as a result, the ability to use, traditional skills like handwriting. Downes comments that parents’ “notions of ‘the child as learner’ and ‘the vulnerable child’ were particularly strong in the sense that children, as learners, were more vulnerable to skill-loss than adults who have already mastered the skills” (169). Thus adults were viewing children as ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being.’ Children, on the other hand, saw themselves as ‘workers’ as well as ‘learners’, thus focusing on both their present and the future, both ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ (169). Downes’ findings mirror those of Gill Valentine and Sarah Holloway’s earlier study, in which they observed that “adults’ fears about ICT are not about the present, but rather about their children’s future in what they imagine will be a society transformed by technology [ . . . ] in contrast, children tend to be orientated towards the present rather than the future” (2001a: 60). Valentine and Holloway also point to another significant aspect of what they term as “adults’ techno-fears” (Valentine and Holloway, 2001a: 66). While adults’ fear that they may disenfranchise their children from the future by not allowing them to acquire necessary technological skills, they simultaneously feel that “the emerging competence divide between the ICT skills of some parents/teachers and their children threatens to puncture their identity, status and authority as adults” (67). The issue of undermined authority was also evident in teachers’ reluctance to incorporate new technologies into their classroom for fear of “encountering problems using ICT in front of pupils whose technological competence may outstrip their own” (64). As David P. Marshall notes, “the fear of knowledge is an intergenerational anxiety where parents are not—or believe they cannot become—as comfortable with the technology as their children” (1997: 76–77). Similar conclusions arise from ongoing research of British children’s use of ICT, conducted over several years by Sonia Livingstone and Magdalena Bober (2004; 2005). Statistically, the research shows that indeed children have more expertise when it comes to setting up email accounts, removing viruses, downloading files and generally fixing computer-related problems (2004: 2). Interviews with parents showed that they are ambivalent about their children’s use of the technology, mainly from the perspective of protecting their own perception of what a ‘healthy childhood’ should be. Thus, parents expressed anxiety that going online “may lead children to become isolated from others, expose children to sexual and/or violent images, displace more worthwhile activities and risk their privacy” (2004: 3). These anxieties echo Postman’s attitude towards an older medium, the television. However, while Postman and others

The World Upside Down • 107 feared that access to the same knowledge would undermine the power balance between children and adults, these findings suggest that adults now believe that children are within reach of superior knowledge, which may well heighten levels of anxiety and cause a tightening of surveillance measurements around children’s use of technology in an attempt to remain in control.6 This assumption is supported by Livingstone and Bober’s conclusion that the vast majority of parents see stricter regulation of the internet as a top priority in their parental wish list regarding children’s use of ICT (2005: 30). Significantly, Livingstone and Bober’s own reflections on this conclusion stem from their affiliation with the emergent paradigm of childhood discussed previously: Reflecting on parental expectations regarding domestic regulation within the family, our child-centred perspective means that we cannot simply report parents’ desire for greater control over or monitoring of children by parents. For, from the children’s point of view, some key benefits of the internet depend on maintaining some privacy and freedom from their parents, making them particularly wary of intrusive or secret forms of parental regulation. (31) Another British survey, conducted by Keri Facer et al., shows that restrictions within the domestic sphere are already threatening children’s access to, and use of, technology: Centrally, then, we have wished to underline that ownership of computer hardware does not equate with easy access to “cyberspace” but that, as with other goods in the home and with the space outside the front door, young people are required first to negotiate access and second to demonstrate certain types of “trustworthy” behaviour before they are allowed free access to both the computer and the virtual world beyond the screen. This process of gaining access can be seen to be patterned along lines in which the social construction of appropriate behaviour for young people is seen to have continued validity. Specifically with reference to young people’s use of the internet the combination of domestic landscape (with computers frequently within easy view of other members of the family) and the restrictions that may be placed on types and duration of usage will, we argue, impact the ways in which young people are able to claim the internet as a site of their “own.” (2001: 25) These restrictions may lead to young people’s subversive activities of knowledge acquirement, as Marshall remarks in relation to the widely spreading hacker culture (Marshall, 1997: 76–77). Thus, we see that while theorists, scholars and children’s rights campaigners are starting to develop a new paradigm of childhood based on non-essentialist ideas and focusing on the child’s present state of ‘being,’ in practice,

108 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People the protective approach based on the Romantic ideal of the innocent child who is need of instruction and reform as a future adult is still the dominating influence behind the general public’s discourse of the relationship between childhood and technology. A growing sense of losing control in the childadult power equation is heightened by fear of the ‘knowledgeable child’ who is perceived to be created by technology itself. As Steinberg and Kincheloe apprehensively observe, “children’s access to the adult world via the electronic media of hyperreality has subverted contemporary children’s consciousness of themselves as incompetent and dependent entities” (2004: 31). As the work of Rose, Trites and Zornado (Rose, 1984; Trites, 2000; Zornado, 2001) showed earlier, the construction of childhood as innocent and adults’ need to protect and control it is very much at the heart of the literature produced for children. As the following consideration of this chapter’s focus texts shows, SF is no exception: indeed, in much Young SF, the discourse surrounding the status of childhood is closely intertwined with technophobia.

Being or Becoming? As discussed previously, one of the major differences between the lingering protective paradigm of childhood and the newly emergent, rights-based, approach is the perception of the child as either ‘becoming’ or ‘being.’ The first approach, influenced by nineteenth-century discourses, continues to view childhood as a stage en route to adulthood, and the child as a ‘trainee’ adult. The focus is therefore on preparing the child to accept future responsibilities, initiating her into the social hierarchy which renounces her as powerless yet holds the promise for future empowerment as she grows into adulthood. The new paradigm of childhood, on the other hand, concentrates on the child’s present state, perceiving children’s cultures and social relations as valuable in their own right, and detached from adults’. The child is thus empowered as a separate entity from the adult. The emergence of this paradigm, as Lee suggests, is bound with the changes in the domestic sphere brought on by new technologies (Lee, 2001). As the last section demonstrated, a certain correlation exists between these discourses of childhood and attitudes towards technology. The perception of the child as innocent and vulnerable is often coupled with mistrust of technology, viewed as a threat to childhood. The new paradigm of childhood, on the other hand, recognises the child’s agency, brought to the forefront by the opportunities which technology offers to children to construct their own identities. As such, it is more likely to acknowledge the significance of new technologies in the life of young people today. These two attitudes exist side by side in our culture, influencing policies and legislation surrounding children’s well-being, education, rights and social conditions. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that traces of these approaches are found within the novels as the authors’ own perspective seeps through the

The World Upside Down • 109 plot and characterisation. As the textual analysis, conducted over the next three sections, shows, the correlation between in-text constructions of protagonists as ‘being’ and technophobic attitudes is evident. Three of the novels, for example, (Invitation to the Game, Shade’s Children and The Hunted), see their young protagonists into adulthood as they end with a projection into the future in which the child characters have become parents themselves. This technique not only ensures a long-lasting ‘happy ending’ as the characters’ survival is guaranteed after going through difficult times in their early years, but vicariously also shifts the focus from their present to their future. Significantly, childhood in these three novels is depicted as a dangerous place. Tarrin, in The Hunted, has been kidnapped and separated from his family. In an almost completely sterile society, his childhood becomes a desired commodity as he is ‘rented out’ to adults’ wishing to experience parenthood for an hour. However, the greatest danger is the Peter Pan (PP) operation which Tarrin’s minder, Deet, insists he undergoes. This procedure will stop his body from maturing into an adult’s and, though Deet believes that growing up is not “such a good deal” (Hunted: 9), Tarrin “could think of nothing worse than to be fifty-five years old, but looking eleven” (7). The use of ‘Peter Pan’ here is closely allied to Rose’s analysis of Barrie’s famous character. Although the PPs physically remain children forever, they are essentially constructs of adults’ desire (Rose, 1984). The adults around Tarrin have a vested interest, both financial and emotional, in keeping him a child forever, and so value his present status (‘being a child’) over his future one (‘becoming an adult’). As Rose points out in The Case of Peter Pan, adults construct childhood to fulfi l their own desires rather than those of the child (1984: 2). A similar situation is found in Galax-Arena, as the young protagonists are shocked to discover that the Vexa, the presumed aliens for whom they are forced to perform dangerous feats night after night, are actually elderly humans who rely on the children’s “reactions to excitement and fear” to stimulate their own bodies as they attempt to live forever (146). The adult characters in this book again value childhood as a state of ‘being’ as they have a selfish interest in it. (The depiction of adults as ‘parasites’ living off the child is a recurrent theme in many of the books, and is discussed at length in the next section.) The tension between adults’ desires and children’s real needs is reflected in Tarrin’s own wish to grow up, as well as the advice to “never have the PP” (6), which he receives from those who have already succumbed to society’s will to keep them permanently in a state of ‘being’ a child, and have undergone the operation. This tension flags up the author’s agenda that the notion of ‘being’ is a selfish adult construct, while ‘becoming’ is the natural state of childhood. The purpose of childhood, therefore, is to grow up, as indeed Tarrin does by the end of the novel. Shade’s Children ends on a similar note. In this novel, the humanoid Overlords, aliens from a different dimension, have taken over during the Change, an inexplicable energy rift, which has made

110 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People all adults disappear. Upon reaching the age of fourteen, children’s organs are harvested in the process of creating mindless hybrids for the purpose of serving and entertaining the Overlords. Ninde and Gold Eye escape this horrific fate, while also surviving the manipulations of their surrogate parent figure, the cyborg Shade, to become parents in a newly restored world (Shade’s Children: 345). This future vision is transmitted to their dying comrades, Ella and Drum, comforting them that their own self-sacrifice was worthwhile (344). Again, childhood is constructed as valuable in relation to future adulthood, and the state of children as ‘becoming’ is reinforced. In Invitation to the Game, a group of teenagers graduate from school into a reality in which they are no longer needed as part of the workforce since robots have replaced humans in practically every profession, including those most associated with human sensibilities such as psychoanalysts (88–89). Since their future as useful adults no longer exists, they become a burden on society. Their movement and rights are curtailed, and the children are finally duped into a scheme designed to rid society of their presence by sending them to colonise another planet without their consent. Thus, it is implied that an adolescent who does not grow into a useful adult is redundant, and so ‘becoming’ is again established as a necessary aspect of childhood.7 This stance is further emphasised by the fact that the novel ends with a depiction of the teenagers’ newly established community on the planet, comprised of nuclear families and well-assigned social and functional roles for each individual. This adult community serves as proof of their success in overcoming the harsh conditions which they faced both on Earth and on the planet Prize. Thus in this novel adulthood is synonymous with achieving security and success, two key conditions in gaining an empowered position. The goal is, therefore, to become a thriving, happy adult, capable of initiating a new generation into the social hierarchy. The implied child or teenaged reader, who obviously remains young throughout, is thus encouraged to celebrate adulthood, look ahead into the future and consider her current childhood as a phase on a journey towards it. As opposed to these novels, Haddix’s Turnabout features no young protagonists at all, as the plot revolves around Melly and Anny Beth, two elderly women taking part in an experiment which reverses their aging process. The story is set simultaneously in the years 2000, when the experiment begins, and 2085, when the two women have already aged backwards into teenagers and expect to progress towards childhood and an uncertain future as the experiment has failed to stop their reversed aging. Although they physically look like ordinary teenagers, Melly and Anny Beth retain “the wisdom of two lifetimes” (Turnabout: 180), so that effectively, although the two women are still aging in reverse order, when the readers encounter them they are adults trapped in young bodies, in a similar manner to the PPs in The Hunted. However, in the latter novel, the adult author attempts to convey a child’s perspective through the character of Tarrin, while in Haddix’s

The World Upside Down • 111 novel this perspective is denied by the lack of any ‘real’ adolescent characters. The implication is that the young reader is expected to ‘try on’ an adult outlook just as the two protagonists ‘try on’ an adolescent body. Effectively, the child’s point of view is elided in the text, and as the concept of ‘being’ relies on recognising the child as a separate entity capable of representing herself, the fact that the adult author does not even attempt to construct an adolescent voice within the novel suggests that Haddix views young people as ‘trainee adults.’ Thus, the novel takes on the role of a ‘simulator’ through which teenage readers are encouraged to prepare for adulthood. The view that ‘becoming’ is the natural and inseparable purpose of childhood is also reflected through the words of Melly and Anny Beth themselves, who explain to A.J., their future ‘mummy’: “you’re not raising us. It’s more like . . . lowering us” (168). This statement exposes the hierarchy embedded within the novel as the two women consider their fast-approaching childhood as a demotion in the social order, and realise that this order also dictates that they will not be allowed to care for themselves even if they are willing and able to do so. Furthermore, Melly voices her sense of loss of purpose in life now that she is no longer an adult: “before, when I was a teacher and a nurse and everything else, I had a reason for living [ . . . ] but now—we’re just playing. Entertaining ourselves” (183). Thus, a childhood not leading into adulthood is perceived as valueless, as its essence—the notion of ‘becoming’—is taken away from it. The novel is dotted throughout with dismissive remarks about the frivolousness of adolescence. Teenagers, according to Melly, are “reversible” as they try on “a different image or philosophy every other day” (184). “You’re a teenager. How can you be a professional at anything?” (158), thinks A.J. when she fi rst meets Anny Beth. “Maybe it was just those crazy teenage hormones,” thinks Melly, when she feels optimistic despite the threatening circumstances in which she fi nds herself (98). Most revealing, however, is the following dialogue between the two women: “Who’d want to be a teenager forever?” “People who don’t remember what it’s like,” Anny Beth said. “Peter Pan.” (87) The use of Peter Pan here, unlike in Shearer’s novel, is quite simplistic in the sense that he is no more than ‘the boy who never grew up.’ In the context of Anny Beth’s comment, however, he is presented as both foolish and inexperienced. Having experienced adolescence twice, the second time round through an adult perspective, Melly and Anny Beth’s authority on the matter is presented as unquestionable. While the novels previously discussed clearly construct children as ‘becoming,’ Reid’s Operation Timewarp and Card’s Ender’s Game take a different stance as both texts ultimately value their young protagonists for who they are at present rather than their potential for the future. Reid’s protagonists are four ordinary children who are recruited by an adult expedition

112 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People from the future to assist in defeating a tyrant president and his army of clones. Adam, the narrator, his younger brother, Elliot, and their next door neighbours, Tara and Lewis, are approached by the adults from the future because the mission requires “some spirited young people” and, as the time travellers explain, in their time there are none (Operation Timewarp: 13). This situation was created as gene selection became widely available; because “there was a lot of foolish talk in those days about young people being out of control,” parents chose to have pre-designed offspring who no longer had the “genes thought to cause troublesome behaviour such as alcohol and drug addiction, criminality and aggression” (14). The upshot was a society in which children are docile and obedient, but also lacking “spirit” (14), and so will not take part in the secret campaign to overthrow the newly established dictatorial regime. Thus, Reid criticises adults’ attempts to mould and contain childhood according to their own desires, as she predicts harsh consequences for the well-being of a society in which children are thus disempowered. The adults in Operation Timewarp clearly need the children’s help; however, they do not hide this fact from the young protagonists, choosing to fully brief them as to the nature of the mission and the danger involved. These children are, then, portrayed not only as equal to the adults, but as indispensable to them. The children’s motivation for joining the mission is not purely altruistic, as Adam confesses: “I also wanted to try the hoverboards and cars and everything else in the future,” and what fi nally clinches the deal for him is the “state-of-the-art defensive weapons” the adults supply the children with (17–18). The children, therefore, are depicted as having independent thought and as capable of making individual decisions according to their own priorities and separate from those of the adults surrounding them. This suggests that Reid perceives children as ‘being’ rather than ‘becoming.’ Reid further emphasises the independent thinking of her young characters by celebrating their playfulness and subversive behaviour, as it is precisely these qualities which help them achieve victory. Moreover, the children’s disregard for the instructions given by the adults, for example, learning hypnosis through pirated ‘brainfeeds’ (quick learning CDs) although specifically warned against using these tools (55), and hatching their own secret plan to rescue Doll the “GM Genius” (125) from prison, tip the balance in their favour when they fi nally confront President Rigg’s clones. The children themselves are quick to identify adults’ attempts to control their behaviour and are angered by it. When the head teacher at their new school demands “complete cooperation and honesty,” Adam comments: “I was angry. They needed people who could tell lies, didn’t they? That was the whole flipping point. I had a good mind to tell them to take their blasted mission and shove it” (59–60). Adam is also capable of seeing through adults’ desire for superiority over him and manipulates it in his favour. When he addresses the head of the mission as ‘Sir,’ he shrewdly explains “I noticed that

The World Upside Down • 113 he liked it when I called him that” (121). Reid suggests that adults can also learn from and be inspired by children, as evidenced by the words of Stan the clone who deserts Rigg’s army having witnessed Adam overcoming his fear of swimming to leap and save his brother from the enemy: “it gave me the courage to make my own leap” (183). Unlike the child protagonists of Operation Timewarp, Ender Wiggin in Card’s novel Ender’s Game, is not only kept in the dark as to the true nature of his mission, he is actively fooled by the adults surrounding him. A talented gamer and brilliant strategist, Ender is drafted to Battle School at the age of six, believing that he is being trained to be a soldier in the future battle against Earth’s greatest alien enemies, the Buggers. The harsh training regime and constant challenges through which the adult commanders put Ender and the other children suggest that they perceive childhood as a stage towards adulthood in which young people are to be trained and moulded so that they can fully achieve their potential, upon growing up, as useful members of adult society. In this sense Battle School seems to be no different from the public schools described in nineteenth-century novels such as Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857) and Talbot Baines Reed’s The Willoughby Captains (1887). This is certainly how things are presented to Ender himself, as his future commander Graff explains that Battle School is all about “hard work. Studies, just like school here [on earth]” (Ender’s Game: 23). Card interrupts the flow of his narrative, which primarily focuses on Ender’s feelings and thoughts, with comments made by two, at fi rst unnamed, adults who secretly watch Ender’s progress. The constant surveillance of the child by the adult may be perceived as a harsh, yet natural, part of an education process, similar to discussions taking place among teachers regarding pupils’ achievements and behaviour in many schools today. However, the adults in Card’s novel declare from the outset that their interest is not for the benefit of the individual child, in this case Ender, but that of humanity at large, “we’re saving the world, after all” (1). Moreover, the manipulative and destructive nature of the ‘education’ they offer to Ender is obvious to these adults, although not to their protégés: “we’re the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive” (10). Thus, Card implies that the purpose of adult construction of children as ‘becoming’ is not simple socialisation of children into the social hierarchy, but a manipulation allowing adults to exploit children to serve their own agendas. Card’s message, however, is far more complex as the twist in the plot reveals that Ender and his troops were unknowingly fighting real battles all along whilst believing that they were mere practice simulations. After winning the last battle against the Buggers, the truth is revealed to Ender—he was chosen to command this battle because he was “reckless and brilliant and young” (298). Ender’s youth is what made him a prime candidate to win the war,

114 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People hence, his ‘education’ was never intended for the purpose of preparing him towards adulthood, but a calculated programme to extract his current advantages and push him to hone his capabilities as a child. Graff’s strategy all along is to have Ender believe that “he can only do what he and the other children work out for themselves. If he does not believe that, then he will never reach the peak of his abilities” (202). Thus, the twist in the plot also exposes the twist in the perception of the adults in Card’s novel as it is revealed that they value children for ‘being’ rather ‘becoming.’ While the discourse of ‘being’ stems from an interest in children’s rights as separate entities from adults, here the adults abuse children’s rights, especially the freedom of choice, for the greater good of society. Card positions adults as the enemies of children, whether they see them as dependant ‘trainees’ or as distinct individuals. Indeed, as Dink, Ender’s insightful ‘toon’ commander explains: “it’s the teachers, they’re the enemy” (108). That Ender’s Game offers a view of children as being able to contribute to society is evident through the characters of Ender’s siblings, Peter and Valentine. The two children’s carefully constructed political avatars, Locke and Demosthenes, develop from mere online polemicists to political leaders, allowing the children’s ideas and opinions to proliferate among adults and influence world events, fi nally gaining them actual positions of power. However, Peter and Valentine can only accomplish this by disguising their real age (this achievement is enabled through the children’s use of technology, a vital issue discussed later in this chapter). In the same manner, Ender fi nds that he can participate in the establishment of the new colonies by learning to “make his proposals and suggest his plans through the few adults who listened to him, and let them present them as their own” (309). Although his characters are particularly gifted and intelligent children, it seems that through them Card laments adults’ inability to appreciate the opinions of young people in general, and their discriminatory dismissal of the potentially valuable contribution that children can make to society as a whole. It is significant to remember that while the other novels discussed in this section were published only for a child audience, Ender’s Game was initially intended for adult readers. Therefore, it can be assumed that the primary implied reader is older than in any of those in other books. Card’s novel, therefore, may be perceived as an ‘eye opener’ for adults, as the author wishes to alert them to their prejudice against children. The fact that a children’s edition was published seventeen years later may reflect the slow but ongoing penetration of the paradigm of ‘being’ into the public discourse of childhood. The sanctioning of Ender’s Game as suitable for a child audience can be perceived as part of the public’s acknowledgment of children’s expanding access to knowledge through new technologies, combined with the campaign to empower this new face of childhood. As the following two sections demonstrate, the authors’ in-text constructions of childhood are interlinked with their attitudes towards technology and children’s use of it.

The World Upside Down • 115 The Adult as Parasite While attitudes and views attached to childhood as ‘being’ or ‘becoming’ may differ in terms of seeing childhood as connected to adulthood or as an independent entity, it is clear that, at least overtly, both these strands of the discourse of childhood are motivated by adult concern for the welfare of the child. It is therefore interesting that many of the novels discussed in this chapter feature an adult-child relationship of a parasitic nature, in which the former preys on the latter, making the child the focus of adult desires of various kinds. This correlates with Kay Sambell’s findings that in various dystopian novels for children, “time and again [ . . . ] the adults who ought to look after and protect their children not only let them down, but also, worse, knowingly manipulate and exploit them” (2004: 251). The appropriation of the innocent child as an object of desire has been discussed by several scholars (Kincaid, 1992; Giroux, 1997; Higonnet, 1998; Giroux, 2000). James R. Kincaid, deconstructing the Victorian discourse of childhood, concludes that, “the child has been conceived of by power in such a way as to make it both centrally and irresistibly Other, and thus erotic,” a conception, he maintains, which lingers to this day and age (1992: 360). Giroux’s study of popular media also leads him to the conclusion that, “the myth of innocence is increasingly appropriated through a glitzy aesthetic in which children provide the sexualized bait that creates images and representations that tread close to the border of pornography” (2000: 62). Indeed Anne Higonnet points out when analysing recent ad campaigns, that “the beauty and the natural freedom they [ad campaigns by Ivory Soap and Tommy Hilfiger] hold out in the guise of a child are pleasures or forms of power coveted by adults” (1998: 157). The image of the child, therefore, is eroticised for the benefit of the market, seeking to attract an adult consumer. As Giroux explains, in our corporate culture, “youth represent an invigorated referent for a midlife consciousness aggressively in search of acquiring a more ‘youthful’ state of mind and lifestyle” (Giroux, 1997: 36–37). Not surprisingly, in three of the novels the desire of the adult is linked to the cult of youth. The adult in these texts wishes to remain young or live forever, thus in effect worshipping childhood and wishing to be childlike. However, the fulfi lment of this wish involves the destruction of the child in two of the novels, and in all three the accomplice is technology. In Shearer’s The Hunted, the invention of anti-aging pills brings with it long life and good health for adults, so that “people died with the same face that they had had maybe one hundred and sixty years before” (175). The wish to remain looking young, already pursued in our time through cosmetics and plastic surgery, comes in Shearer’s futuristic novel with a price tag, as the pills also induce sterility. As Deet remarks, “it’s the world’s revenge,” that is, nature’s way of rejecting technological advances. Thus, wishing to move back the clock, adults have upset the natural order via technological means,

116 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People and as a result have destroyed the child, the symbol of the youth they craved. The PPs are the embodiment of the perversity of the cult of youth, since they are technologically constructed adults in children’s bodies. This combination is depicted as horrific, for the PPs “had the faces and the bodies of children, right enough, but they had the minds and souls of some strange new species that had never before existed in the world” (34). The fact that they also make a living by being able to “act the child better than anyone” (34), enhances their parasitic qualities, as they not only adopt children’s appearance but also create an aesthetic imitation of how a child behaves. In the same manner that the onnagata (female impersonators) in Japanese Kabuki theatre have stylised women’s behaviour for the purpose of acting female roles (Armstrong, 2002: 7–10), the PPs can pass as children by relying on constructions of childhood behaviour: “they laughed, they cried, they could be cute and sweet and cuddly to order. They could even turn a tantrum” (The Hunted: 34). Furthermore, as Japanese women internalised the construction of womanhood developed by the onnagata (Armstrong: 7–10), so Tarrin, even without the PP, internalises adult constructions of childhood as he is forced into ‘acting a boy’ according to “the myths and the stories and everything they are supposed to be” for the adults who ‘rent’ him (The Hunted: 43). As Buckingham notes, children themselves are also often “actively complicit in sustaining these definitions of what is ‘adult’ or ‘child-like’” (2000: 13). Thus, in The Hunted, not only the child’s body has been erased by adult desire for youth (the pill makes adults sterile), but also the nature of childhood itself has been taken over by adult society equipped with technological know-how (in this instance, innovations in medical science). Rubinstein’s Galax-Arena also depicts adults feasting on the body and spirit of the child through means of technology. The Vexa prolong their life by utilising “old childhood patterns in the brain” (145). The scientists discover that if “children’s reactions of excitement and fear could be transmitted into the brains of the old, the body might be fooled into thinking it was still a child’s body,” thus slowing or even reversing the ageing process (146). Based on this assumption, the Vexa abduct athletic children, forcing them to perform gymnastic acts which often end in the children’s death. To ensure cooperation, a chip is inserted in the trainer’s arm, keeping him under the Vexa’s control and also allowing him to stun the children into submission. Technology, therefore, is used by the adults to control the children they exploit. The harsh power hierarchy which the “pebs” (the performers) are exposed to has a devastating effect on these children, as they internalise and re-enact it among themselves. The children constantly compete, trying to outshine each other and showing little compassion for the weak or untalented. Joella, the insightful child narrator, observes that although the children “started off the same,” eventually “some became powerful and some remained weak” and as the weak disappeared, their fate unknown, “everyone sought and hung on to anything that gave them power” (48).

The World Upside Down • 117 Adults’ construction of the child as vulnerable and innocent is obviously internalised by the ‘pebs,’ as they refuse to be associated with childhood due to the weakness embedded within it. Interestingly, the children themselves reject this widespread cultural construction of childhood, for they see that within it they are permanently positioned as victims. Paradoxically, the only way they can assert their agency is by disassociating themselves from childhood altogether. Joella notes that “the words ‘kid’ or ‘child’ were as insulting to them as ‘nigger’ or ‘wog’” (37). Moreover, Joella herself concludes that the ‘pebs’ “in everything but years were not children” (89). She arrives at this conclusion not only because of the power relations she witnesses, but also because “they had no parents, and without parents how can there be children?” (89). The child, therefore, is dependent on the adult not only for protection but also for self-definition. Rubinstein suggests that this ideal relationship is betrayed by the adult’s desire to become the child, as represented by the Vexa. As in The Hunted, the result of this desire is the destruction of the child’s body (the pebs die in the arena) as well as the idea of childhood itself (the pebs’ rejection of it). It is important to note, however, that many of the pebs refuse the chance of escape when it is offered to them at the end of the book, as they simply cannot fathom a different life for themselves (163–65), thus exposing the long-lasting damage of adult parasitism, enabled by technology. In Turnabout, technology, again in the service of the cult of youth, has produced Melly and Anny Beth, a hybrid of adult and child. The scientists heading the experiment are driven by a hubris associated with technological progress. As in many of the novels discussed both here and in previous chapters, humanity’s endeavour to dominate or change natural processes is rejected as humans lose control over the technology they invented. Dr Reed, the head of the experiment finally confesses: “it isn’t natural for you to be younger than your great-grandchildren. We messed around with nature and we shouldn’t have” (112). Unlike The Hunted and Galax-Arena, the elderly adults in Turnabout sign up to the experiment without completely realising what it involves. The elderly, therefore, are depicted as powerless, exploited by the scientists. Melly remembers her days in the nursing home as a time “when she’d given up all power over her life” (168). As she approaches childhood again, Melly realises that she has moved from powerlessness as an elderly person, to power as a mature adult, and is now powerless again as a child: “now that they were kids again, nobody expected them to be useful anymore” and she muses how “she’d never realized how much being young and being old were alike” (86). Haddix highlights the power hierarchy within society, based on the construction of childhood as vulnerable and in need of protection (the two women strive to find a ‘mummy’ throughout the novel). The fact that her protagonists exchange one powerless position for another, therefore not profiting from fulfi lling the desire to be younger, should imply that Haddix rejects the cult of youth and adults’ desire for the child, albeit simultaneously disempowering

118 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People her child reader by positioning her at the bottom of the social pyramid. However, the ending of the novel surprisingly crushes this assumption as Melly and Anny Beth convince the scientists to carry on their research and to offer the anti-aging treatment to “anyone who wants it” as they believe that prolonged life will make people “less self obsessed” (179). Thus the two adult women who involuntarily became children with the aid of technology become the embodiment of the parasitic adult as the cult of youth is endorsed by both protagonists and author at the expense of the child reader. All three novels depict adults wishing to blur the boundaries between childhood and adulthood by rejecting the natural process of aging. The Hunted and Galax-Arena, both told from a child’s perspective, reject this desire as dangerous, and these texts serve as a warning for the child that she is a potential victim of preying adults. Turnabout, significantly featuring no real young protagonists, suggests an uncomfortable endorsement of adults’ parasitic desires towards children. Nevertheless, technology in all three novels serves adults’ interests and desires. As discussed previously, in reality it is adults who find “the consequences of children ‘crossing the line’” between childhood and adulthood disturbing (Buckingham, 2000: 14), and view children’s use of technology as potentially threatening their authority as parents and teachers. The role-reversal taking place in the books, combined with the image of the parasitic adult, seems to reflect a subconscious attempt to plant fear in child readers regarding technology and warn them as to the implications of using it to blur the boundaries between children and adults. Thus the texts serve as socialisation agents for the established power hierarchy which renders their young readers powerless. The parasite in Garth Nix’s Shade’s Children is not a flesh and blood adult, but a cunning cyborg. Shade is a computer into which the persona of Robert Ingman, a talented scientist and programmer, has been transported (Shade’s Children: 61). Although a machine, Shade perceives itself as “a mature adult, complete with the sophisticated education of the pre-Change years and equipped with some of its best technology” (61). As the only adult, it sees its duty as the protector of children, those trapped in the Overlords’ genetic engineering factories as well as the small group of refugees under his command (62). His young recruits trust him implicitly as he sends them on dangerous missions to retrieve technological equipment and knowledge, missions from which they do not always return. However, the mesh between adult and machine proves to be treacherous. Shade’s ‘self examination sessions,’ computerised transcripts which are interspersed with the narrative, reveal the tension between the computer and his human aspect, Robert. The former, adamant to gain knowledge, considers “children’s lives [ . . . ] not too high a cost” while the latter insists that as a human adult, “inhabiting a body,” he could not have sent children to their death (86). The two personas of Shade represent two aspects of adults’ relationship with children. Robert states “I am an adult, in loco parentis to these children. They are my responsibility”

The World Upside Down • 119 (192), thus reflecting the approach which perceives children as vulnerable and in need of adult protection. The machine, Shade, on the other hand, is on a mission to acquire a human body, for which he agrees to betray his protégés to the Overlords in exchange for the required knowledge and equipment. In an internal discussion with Robert, the machine claims “I must have a body to ensure my/our survival to guide the children,” to which Robert replies “to rule them you mean” (314). Thus the machine is the embodiment of the other face of the same approach—the parasitic adult who exploits, controls and devours the child as part of an established power hierarchy. While the other novels discussed in this chapter only covertly hint at a connection between technology and the dangerous adult, Nix blatantly and overtly combines the two. The novel’s ending sees Robert overcoming the machine and sacrificing himself to save the children and the world, significantly by destroying the Overlords’ most precious piece of technological equipment. Thus, the benevolent adult triumphs, while technology and the parasitic adult associated with it are damned, effectively warning child readers of the danger lurking in both adults and technology. The novels discussed thus far attempt, though perhaps not always consciously, to plant techno-fear in their child readers. I have already suggested that this reversal of roles (technophobia more usually being associated with adults) reflects adult fear of children’s use of technology. Ender’s Game takes a different approach. The construction of childhood as innocent and carefree functions as a backdrop to Card’s explorations of what it means to be a child. Graff warns Ender upon recruiting him that he “won’t have a normal childhood” (24). Indeed the adults running Battle School seem to have a clear idea of what a ‘normal’ child is, as one of the commanders watching Ender and his comrades, comments “does it ever seem to you that these boys aren’t children? [ . . . ] They aren’t normal” (66–67). The children in Battle School internalise this perception, and comparing their situation to the popular public image of childhood, it is understandable why they do not see themselves as children at all. “I’ve got a pretty good idea what children are, and we’re not children” says Dink to Ender, explaining that “children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren’t in armies, they aren’t commanders, they don’t rule over forty other kids” (108). Nevertheless, it is exactly the children’s innocence, here interpreted as inexperience, which the adults cultivate, as they keep Ender and the other child soldiers in the dark regarding the true nature of their war games. Furthermore, they purposefully hide from Ender the fact that he killed two other children with whom he had had violent clashes, in order to shield him from guilt which will puncture his innocent outlook. Innocence becomes a valuable weapon in the war, as the children carry on fighting without having to face up to the fatal consequences of their actions. In order to achieve the desired results, it is important that the children believe that they are merely playing a simulation game. The adults in Ender’s Game thus prey on the young in

120 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People a different sense than the parasitic adults discussed previously. Adult desire here is for more power, embodied in the pursuit of victory at any cost. The child is exploited by adults making an ironic use of ‘childhood’ which they themselves created. Ender himself falls into this trap as he plays his last battle amused by the idea of “the adults taking all this so seriously” while “the children could see through their game” (293). Thus Ender is fooled into believing he has power when in fact he is powerless. It may seem that Card implies here that the construction of the child as vulnerable and innocent is not a construction at all, but the true and ‘natural’ face of childhood, for even the children who believe they have lost these qualities, without any relationship to age/development, are in effect open to adult exploitation because they are innocent and powerless. However, through the characters of Ender’s siblings, Card challenges the construction of childhood as innocent and vulnerable by creating children who possess neither of these qualities. Peter and Valentine influence the course of history and achieve positions of power, first through their avatars Locke and Demosthenes, and then in reality. They manipulate their adult audience in a clever and calculated way, as they feel that “we may be young, but we’re not powerless. We play by their rules long enough, and it becomes our game” (237). Peter and Valentine are liberated from their inferior position as children treated by adults “as mice” (127) with the aid of technology. Through the net “where every citizen started equal” (133) they cast their influence over adult society and gain respect. As Lee points out “the notion that children may ‘speak for themselves’, unmediated by adult humans, may well provide a good model of children’s liberation through contemporary technologies” (Lee: 167). Technology in Card’s novel is eventually in the service of children, rather than the exclusive domain of the dangerous adult. Furthermore, Card emphasises the fact that, although unusually bright, and despite their lack of naiveté, the Wiggins are still children. After the war Valentine tells Ender: “you think you are grown up and tired and jaded with everything, but in your heart you’re just as much a kid as I am” (313). Card implies that there is a core quality that children share, which is not constructed by adults, and is unrelated to innocence or experience. This may well be what Hollindale terms as ‘childness,’ and defines as “the quality of being a child—dynamic, imaginative, experimental, interactive and unstable” (Hollindale, 1997: 46). Childness, a “shared ground, though differently experienced and understood between child and adult” is not a fixed idea, but a constantly changing concept, very much influenced by “religion, society, culture and science” (47–48). Valentine and Ender are children, though their circumstances and experiences are far from what many adults perceive as appropriate for childhood. Thus, Card takes an unusual stand, challenging popular conceptions of childhood not only by suggesting that the quality which makes children who they are is very much to do with their own experience, rather than adults’ notions of propriety, but also that with the aid of technology children can be empowered and influential and need not be victims of adult desires.

The World Upside Down • 121 Childhood and Technology The discourse revolving around childhood and technology, as discussed previously in this chapter, is very much influenced by cultural and social constructions of both. The last section highlighted a recurrent trend within many of the books discussed to depict technology as threatening to childhood by associating it with the parasitic adult. This trend seems to stem from a construction of childhood as innocent, as well as from adults’ fear of children upsetting the power balance through their use of modern technologies, predominantly ICT. Embedded within this fear is the notion that children have innate technological abilities which are superior to adults’. The popularity of this notion among adults is also apparent in interviews conducted with parents, as well as in recent popular writing, highlighting the generational gap and celebrating children’s technological supremacy, reviewed earlier in this chapter. This section explores the manifestation of this notion within five novels, examining the authors’ depiction of children’s interaction with technology. In their study of technophobia among children and adults, Valentine and Holloway highlight the difference in the way children view the function of technology in their lives, commenting that “while they show widespread recognition that ICT will play an important part in most future forms of employment, and different children do valorize the internet-connected PC in different ways, primarily it emerges for them as a tool of fun rather than work” (Valentine and Holloway, 2001a: 61–62). As mentioned earlier, children perceive technology as a tool for the present as well as the future (Downes, 2005). The notion of ‘game’ is therefore central to children’s relationship with technology. Indeed three of the novels pick up on this theme and depict children interacting with technology through a game. The notion of game is central to Card’s novel, as its title suggests. Ender’s Game refers simultaneously to two games around which the plot revolves. The first is of course the war game which every child soldier in Battle School has to participate in. As Colonel Graff puts it to Ender, “it’s like playing buggers and astronauts—except that you have weapons that work” (24). This is an ironic use of the word ‘game,’ as later on the children are led to believe that they are playing, when in fact they are fighting real battles. Thus the adults exploit children’s interest in games to their own advantage. To prepare for these ‘live’ events, the children are encouraged to play video games, and quickly these become “what they lived for” (45). Ender excels in these competitive games, but his greatest challenge is the game he plays on his own during his break. This fantasy quest sets him elaborate tasks he must complete in order to move to the next stage. Although using the tropes of fairytales, such as giants, wolves and fairyland, this computer game is sickeningly violent as Ender must always kill someone in order to advance to the next level. As with everything else Ender does, his gaming is secretly monitored, and the computer game is used to assess as well as to shape his mind. Ender does not enjoy the game, as

122 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People it makes him feel like a murderer (65), and when he reaches a stage called ‘the end of the world’ he longs it to be “the end of the games” (74). Thus, adults’ interference ruins the sense of playfulness which children associate with technology. The game is a trap, luring Ender with the promise of play, while relying on his sense of competitiveness and curiosity to keep him coming back. The same pattern is followed with the war games, which the teachers tamper with; eventually Ender and his comrades realise that “the game is everything. Win win win. It amounts to nothing” (108). Yet Ender feels compelled to play on, and as he does so, he slips from adult control by utilising the game to deal with difficult emotions and relationships in his past. As the game is “a relationship between the child and the computer” (121), Ender moves beyond what is programmed and into his own storyline, to the surprise and horror of the adults watching him. The computer overrides the intention of the adults, as it determines a new path “for the child’s own good” (122). Ironically, then, technology itself is depicted as more compassionate than the humans running the school. The game becomes a source of comfort to Ender, as he feels that he “had no control over his own life,” he realises that “only the game was left to him”—the only arena where he is truly empowered (151). This empowerment is embodied in Ender’s revolt against the ‘killer’s instinct’ which the adults attempt to cultivate in him, as he moves to the final level by an act of love (kissing the snake) rather than one of violence (killing it). Through technology, therefore, Ender finds self-expression and healing, and it liberates him as it does his siblings. The game, however, has a deeper significance as Ender finds by the end of the novel. The Buggers he unknowingly destroys communicate with Ender through the images of the game. They build Fairyland for him on their planet as a gesture of forgiveness as well as a request to save their queen’s egg, allowing their species to re-establish itself. Ender becomes “the Speaker for the Dead,” his former enemy’s defender, thus completely defeating the purpose of the adults training him. Card’s novel thus highlights the importance of the notion of game in children’s interaction with technology, perceiving it as a source of empowerment and self-expression which are often denied to children within the existing social power hierarchy. The game as a device used against children also appears in Hughes’ Invitation to the Game. The unemployed teenaged protagonists have little to do within the restricted zone in which they live. Many privileges are stripped away from them as they leave school, but according to Lisse, the narrator, “the worst was the loss of computer access” (25). Although technologically gifted (they defend their new abode by creating an alarm system based on finger print and voice recognition), the group cannot bypass this new handicap. The teenagers understand that “computers were information. Information was power” and as they are denied access to technology, they feel disempowered. Lisse laments, “the past we were permitted. It was only from the future that we were cut off” (41). It is therefore hardly surprising that the group is excited to be invited to participate in a mysterious game. Lisse takes a sarcastic viewpoint as she compares

The World Upside Down • 123 it to the Roman custom of diverting and controlling the masses by supplying “bread and circuses” (60). She is therefore aware of the cynical use that adults make of young people’s interest in the entertaining aspect of technology. Indeed the Manager seems to represent adults’ general hostility to computer games as he explains to the group that the current game’s predecessors are video games which “channelled” people’s “aggressive impulses” (60). Nevertheless, Lisse and her friends get absorbed in the highly realistic virtual game to which they are introduced. The object of the game is obscure, as the group find themselves in uncharted territory and must discover what their task is. In this sense the game is very similar to the popular computer adventure Myst (Miller and Miller, 1993). The game is a safe environment for the teenagers, as it automatically ends whenever they find themselves in danger. As opposed to the hostile environment of their zone in which they are powerless, the game offers the protagonists a sense of empowerment and purpose as they gradually adjust to the new environment and find creative ways to utilise its ‘natural’ resources. However, as in Card’s novel, the game turns out to be a trap. It is a training programme, designed to introduce the teenagers to a new planet to which they are eventually shipped without their consent. Furthermore, the game turns out to be an inaccurate picture of the planet and the teenagers must now face harsh conditions as well as life-threatening situations. Thus the adults use the teenagers’ attraction to technology as a source of entertainment and empowerment to deceive them. The teenagers are actively disempowered as their freedom of choice is curtailed as well as their access to technology, since they are forced to return to what Lisse terms as the “Stone Age” (167). Hughes, however, allows her protagonists to thrive, as they establish a primordial paradise for themselves. Invitation to the Game, therefore, is another example for the tendency among SF authors for children and young adults to promote a pre-technological existence within wild nature, as discussed at length in the first chapter of this book. However, it also exposes adults’ fear of children’s innate and playful interaction with technology, as it is abused for the purpose of separating the child from the technological world. As opposed to Hughes’ novel, Operation Timewarp offers a fictional representation of the newly emergent discourse which celebrates children’s technological supremacy. The young protagonists of the novel adjust quickly and competently to the new technologies they encounter in their travel into the future. It takes one morning to train them to use their weapons, the coach praising them for their natural instincts (23). They also know instantly how to use their new hoverboards; as Adam explains “we watched other people on their hoverboards, so we knew exactly what to do” (90). An explanation for this technological ability is postulated by Doll, one of the adults: “maybe you’ve mastered it because you’re still young” (132). Thus youth and technological ability are interconnected in Reid’s novel. It is clear that the children enjoy the new technologies that they encounter, as they compare the time machine to a ride at Alton Towers (32), call

124 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People the “brainfeeds” “funky” (52) and order enthusiastically from the “reppy” (food replicating machine). Having vast experience using PlayStation (3), they compare their dangerous mission to a computer game “with levels and bosses” which, once they have defeated Rigg and his clones, will be completed and they will be free to return home (160). Throughout the novel Reid creates new technological innovations that will appeal to children’s sense of fun, and her protagonists’ enjoyment implies that the novel both recognises and celebrates the notion of the ‘game’ as central to children’s interaction with technology. Significantly, the children’s only disappointment is with the school’s games room, as the futuristic computer game they play has “no fighting in it and no feeling of fear or danger.” Adam dismisses it by noting that the adults “ruined it with this educational stuff ” (80). This remark implies that Reid rejects adults’ panic regarding the content of current computer games and positions herself on the side of the child whose enjoyment of technology is curtailed by adult censorship. Operation Timewarp can be viewed as an essentialist text in the sense that it perceives children as naturally superior to adults in their technological skills; however, to Reid’s credit, she does not construct technology as merely a ‘game,’ for in the wrong hands, such as Rigg’s, it can turn into an oppressive rather than a liberating tool. Thus Reid at least escapes the trap of neglecting “the real social contexts in which technologies are produced and used, and the social differences that characterize them” (Buckingham, 2000: 55). As opposed to Reid’s depiction of technologically savvy children who both master and enjoy futuristic gadgetry, Fisk and Bawden’s novels attempt to undermine their child protagonists’ association with technology, as their respective novels A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair and Off the Road clearly reflect. Brin, the young protagonist of Fisk’s novel, moves throughout the story from a sense of power and control, emanating from the status of childhood as valuable in a future era of near sterility, to a realisation that he is powerless and a tool in the hands of the adults surrounding him. In this sense, the novel fits perfectly with the pattern of the parasitic adult discussed previously, as the Elders utilise technology to both create Brin (he discovers that he is also a clone) and to destroy him (he is killed at the end) for their own purposes. However, Fisk does more than merely associate the dangerous adult with technology, for the twist at the end of the novel suggests where the author stands in regard to the discourse revolving around children’s technological abilities. Brin’s mission is to associate with and spy on the ‘reborns,’ clones of people from 1940, complete with memories and personalities. The clones, two children and a housekeeper, are kept in a historically reconstructed wartime scenario, and are part of an experiment to boost the population. The scenario limits both Brin and the reborns’ freedom, and to fight off their sense of imprisonment, the children resort to an obsessive interest in Brin’s make-believe uncle, the heroic pilot Rick. Uncle Rick becomes the symbol of hope, and the energy that young Brian and Mavis invest in recreating him

The World Upside Down • 125 in their minds’ eye turns out to be surprisingly powerful, as one evening he appears in the flesh, ready to take them all out (87). The abilities that children have, therefore, are presented in Fisk’s novel as very different from those of the adults. The latter have technological skills enabling them to be god-like—to create new life which they seek to control—however, the former can create life by the power of their imagination. Therefore, technology is depicted as oppressing childhood, and imagination as liberating it. This point is further emphasised as Brin and the reborns are destroyed by the Elders who fear their uncontrollable and inexplicable power, yet they return to haunt these adults from beyond the grave, driven by their desire to live again. Fisk attributes supernatural powers to his young protagonists, powers which surpass any technology. Thus, here childhood is opposed to the rational and scientific, and presented as the domain of the savage and the uncanny. The power that Fisk promises to his young readers is in the realm of the fantastic, and therefore, not real. The fear reflected throughout Fisk’s novel is twofold. First, being clones, the children are the fruits of technology, and as such represent the familiar fear of technology spinning out of the control of its creators.8 Second, the separation of childhood from technology and the identification of it with the supernatural seem to stem from adults’ fear of children’s technological abilities which may give them real, rather than fantastical, power. In this sense, Fisk’s novel differs from Card’s. Although they both portray young protagonists overcoming adults’ oppression by discovering their own powers, in Ender’s Game this empowerment is enabled by technology, and so has real-life implications for young readers, while in A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair, it is rooted in the imaginary, thus stranding the child reader, yet again, outside the circle of actual influence, reaffirming her position at the lower end of the power hierarchy. Bawden’s novel sends an even clearer, simpler warning to its child audience regarding their use of technology. Off the Road contrasts two future societies. London is an urban, highly technologised environment, in which population control allows only one child per family. Young Tom is brought up to believe in his superior status as a child. Addressing his parents by their first names and looking down at the retired, useless, ‘oldies’ whom he perceives to be “braindead” (4) and “loose in their wits” (30), Tom has no doubt as to his importance and power within society. On the other side of the fence, however, things are different. Tom follows his grandfather who crosses the border in order to avoid being killed off at sixty-five as is the custom in London. He arrives at his great-uncle’s farm, clearly modelled on pre-Industrial rural living, as it is selfsufficient and family-run, with rudimentary facilities and no use of modern technology. Life on the farm is run according to traditional values. It is a patriarchal community in which children must share the work load yet accept their place at the bottom of the family hierarchy. Tom is astonished to discover that he is expected to “give grown-ups their proper titles” out of respect (51) and that while in the city “he would have been the most important person at the table” (58), on the farm “adults seemed to pay the children no attention at all,”

126 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People but they “expected you to jump when they say so” (73). Thus Bawden firmly links technology with an upset in the child-adult power hierarchy and traditional family values. Her preference is clearly demonstrated by Tom’s adjustment to farm life and his slow realisation that London, despite its technological comforts and child-friendly culture, is “on the wrong side of the fence” (148). Tom decides to go back, rescue his parents, and attempt to change his society by using the fact that “they listened to children on the Inside” (153). Thus the young protagonist ironically uses his influence to demote himself in the social hierarchy. Bawden’s text acts as a socialisation agent as it encourages its young readers to accept their place in the current social order and to reject technology which could potentially empower them.

Conclusion The debate surrounding childhood and technology continues, as media stories involving children’s online safety erupt every so often, causing panic among adults.9 The construction of childhood as vulnerable on the one hand and as dangerous on the other is very much in evidence within current discourses of technology and is closely related to the adult-child power hierarchy. Although a new theoretical and legal discourse is emerging in which the rights of the child and her empowerment are campaigned for, surveys show that public opinion is still influenced by the notion of the innocent child, as well as by adults’ fear of losing control. As the text analysis in this chapter shows, this fear is reflected in Young SF, as many books promote the current power structure as ‘natural’ or ‘ideal.’ The fear of losing power due to the technological generation gap is evidenced in the texts’ subliminal warning to their young readers of the dangers of technology upsetting social order, often destroying the child in the process. It is obvious that this picture can only change when adults come to terms with the transformed face of childhood, and acknowledge children as valid entities with a valuable contribution to make to society, the seeds of which can already be seen in texts such as Ender’s Game and Operation Timewarp. Or perhaps the solution lies in the words of Giroux, who is adamant that “young people need to be given the opportunity to narrate themselves, to speak from the actual places where their experiences and daily lives are shaped and mediated” (1997: 31). Young people already narrate their own lives through websites, blogs, and virtual spaces, and some have acquired fans among their peers. Bypassing the gatekeepers of print media, online literature offers children and adolescents freedom of speech and self-defi nition. If adults keep failing to offer the younger generation books which truly empower them, they are in danger of losing their audience altogether to this uncensored form of literature, enabled by technology.

Chapter Five (Tech)Nobody’s Children Clones and Cloning in Young Adult Literature

It sounds so sad [ . . . ]. Even an orphan had parents once. Even people who are adopted or fostered had them. But not to have had any . . . ever . . . (Milo’s Wolves: 69)

“In a world where yesterday’s science fiction becomes next day’s science fact, we wish to inhabit yesterday” says Marleen Barr, and as previous chapters show, this is certainly the case in many SF novels written for young people (Barr, 2000: 243). Barr’s comment, however, is placed within the context of an article discussing the social cognition of cloning as reflected in the media coverage surrounding the first successful cloning of a mammal from an adult cell, producing a well-known sheep named Dolly. In 1997, Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute announced Dolly’s arrival, explaining the complex process involved in the nuclear transplantation of a cell from the mammary gland of an adult sheep into an enucleated egg, which was followed by the transference of the now fertilized egg into the womb of a ewe, resulting in Dolly’s birth (Wilmut et al., 1997). The announcement created a worldwide sensation, with the public, the media and governing bodies reacting with mixed emotion to the news (Nussbaum and Sunstein, 1998; Barr, 2000). The implications were clear: what was once thought of as impossible was now within reach, and if sheep can be cloned, so can humans. Clones, the heroes of famous works of SF such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil (1976), became, in an instant, a near reality.

127

128 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People The news captured the world’s imagination and the ethical debate surrounding cloning still engages the public, as reflected in popular media (Nelkin and Lindee, 1998; Condit, 2001; Caulfield, 2004). It is therefore hardly surprising that the children’s literature market has also responded with a torrent of novels engaging with genetic engineering in general, and cloning in particular.1 This chapter traces the ethical debate surrounding human cloning as it is reflected in a range of Young SF novels published post Dolly, exploring the mechanisms by which the authors negotiate two primary paradoxes embedded within the figure of the clone. The fi rst paradox relates to the uncomfortable discourse surrounding technology in Young SF, as established in previous chapters. When discussing representations of technology and attitudes towards it in Young SF, cloning is a particularly complex issue. Clones are created by technology, and are therefore embodiments of it; however, they are also people, and in the vast majority of the novels discussed in this chapter, young clones are the protagonists. While other forms of technology featured in previous chapters are perceived by the authors as external to the human and are often depicted as dehumanising as part of a technophobic agenda, cloning is embedded within the human body (or rather a post-human body) and as such clones are harder to negate or demonise. In order to settle this paradox, many authors attempt to differentiate between the technology of cloning and the attitude towards its product—the clone. This is often achieved by defi ning the ‘human’ and applying the defi nition to the clones as that which transcends their clone-ness. The second paradox is rooted within one of the prime power hierarchies children belong to—the family. The clone is simultaneously an attempt to reinforce this hierarchy by controlling the unpredictability associated with having a child, and a modern form of an orphan with the potential to destabilise the family. In this chapter I suggest that a fundamental commitment to traditional family values, and by extension the power hierarchies they support, underpins the majority of the texts investigated. Furthermore, I demonstrate how, in the process of negotiating these two paradoxes, authors often negate the liberating potential of the clone as a post-human emblem. The novels discussed are Kathryn Lasky’s Star Split (1999); Carol Matas’ Cloning Miranda (1999); Charlotte Kerner’s Blueprint (2000); Anthony Horowitz’s Point Blanc (2001); Steven L. Layne’s This Side of Paradise (2001); Jenny Nimmo’s Milo’s Wolves (2001); Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion (2002); Ann Halam’s Taylor Five: The Story of a Clone Girl (2002); Malcolm Rose’s Clone (2002); Emma Laybourne’s Clone Rangers (2003); Alison Allen-Gray’s Unique (2004); Patrick Cave’s Sharp North (2004) and its sequel Blown Away (2005); Chris Farnell’s Mark II (2006); Nikki Singer’s Gem X (2006); and Rune Michaels’ Genesis Alpha (2007). Together they represent a substantial sample of Young SF novels engaging with human cloning since Dolly the sheep made the headlines.

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 129 The Ethical Debate—A Review When news of Dolly came out in 1997, Bill Clinton, then President of the United States, instructed the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) to produce a full-length report on human cloning. The Commission’s report recommends that “at this time it is morally unacceptable for anyone in the public or private sector, whether in a research or clinical setting, to attempt to create a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning” (1997: 108). Their British counterparts at the Royal Society arrived at a similar conclusion (Heap et al., 1998). The recommendation is based on the belief that among other problems, cloning could cause physical and emotional harm to children born through this process. The report took into consideration the scientific view that the cloning procedure is not yet safe, and that attempting to use it on humans would be a “premature experiment” possibly resulting in birth defects, and therefore is an unnecessary risk (NBAC: 108). However, the Commission also based its recommendation on public concerns “relating to the potential psychological harms to children and effects on the moral, religious, and cultural values of society” (108). The potential harm to a cloned child’s psyche identified by the Commission includes “a possibly diminished sense of individuality and personal autonomy” (117); that is, a clone may feel that she is not a unique individual, and that her freedom of choice has been curtailed by the knowledge that another person, genetically identical to her, exists or existed, and has already made certain life choices. Indeed, in many of the novels the clone protagonist expresses exactly these sentiments. In Star Split, Vivian’s immediate thought on discovering that she is Darcy’s clone is, “I am only a copy [ . . . ] there is nothing unique within me” (Star Split: 100). Darcy too suffers from the discovery as she feels the result is “two entire lives completely mapped out” (104). Cloned from his dead brother, Dominic in the aptly named novel Unique, calls himself “a duff copy” (Unique: 112) while Taylor, a clone of a successful scientist, sees herself as a “human photocopy” (Taylor Five: 52). Siri Sellin, the clone-daughter of a famous pianist, refers to herself as a “blueprint,” believing she is a “calculated person, predictable from the start” (Blueprint: 12, 131). These emotions lead many of the protagonists to feel that they are not human beings, but mere experiments. Josh, cloned to save the life of his dying elder brother in Genesis Alpha, lashes out, “I’m a lab animal [ . . . ] I’m not even my own person” (Genesis Alpha: 147), while in Cloning Miranda the protagonist, a clone of her dead sister, echoes his words: “I’m not even a real person [ . . . ] I’m just some scientific experiment” (Cloning Miranda: 119). Although far more lenient in his approach to human cloning, suggesting it is permissible in a small number of cases, Philip Kitcher agrees with the concerns raised in the NBAC’s report as he makes clear in the following statement:

130 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People [ . . . ] if the cloning of human beings is undertaken in the hope of generating a particular kind of person, than cloning is morally repugnant. The repugnance arises not because cloning involved biological tinkering but because it interferes with human autonomy. (1998: 72) While the NBAC’s report remains cautious as to the future of human cloning, on the one hand recommending against it in light of the concerns previously mentioned, it does not rule it out for all time, advising that “more time is needed for discussion and evaluation of these concerns” (NBAC: 108). The NBAC acknowledges that cultural views on cloning may well change in the future; other scholars maintain that concerns for the sense of individuality are not valid grounds for banning human cloning in principle and permanently (Brock, 1998; Silver, 1998; Klotzko, 2002; Tooley, 2006). Dan W. Brock argues that “only on the crudest genetic determinism”2 can having the same genes as another person undermine an individual’s unique sense of identity, and carries on to declare that “there is no reason whatever to believe that kind of genetic determinism” (152). Indeed, many currently influential scientists scorn the notion of genetic determinism; as Richard Dawkins puts it, “genes aren’t us” (Dawkins, 2003: 104). Michael Tooley goes further than dismissing genetic determinism by questioning the “widely held view that uniqueness is an important part of the value of one’s life” (2006: 167); however, like Brock he concludes that, “if the knowledge that a clone of oneself exists were disturbing to one, this would probably be because of the presence of some relevant, false belief, such as a belief in genetic determinism” (168). As evidence, both Brock and Tooley rely on research conducted on identical twins. Based on such data, Tooley concludes that, “the personality traits of an individual and their clone should, on average, exhibit no more than 50 percent correlation” and probably considerably less, due to differences in upbringing (Tooley, 2006: 167). A similar view is held by both Arlene Judith Klotzko (2002: 135–38) and Lee M. Silver, the latter declaring that, When the misconceptions are tossed aside, it becomes clear what a cloned child will be. She, or he, will simply be a later-born identical twin—nothing more and nothing less. And while she may go through life looking similar to the way her progenitor-parent looked at a past point in time, she will be a unique human being, with a completely unique consciousness and a unique set of memories that she will build from scratch. (1998: 107) In much Young SF this way of understanding the relationship between clones and their progenitors is invisible; genetic determinism prevails and goes hand in hand with scientific inaccuracies as well as a pronounced tendency to treat clones as monstrous. In Anthony Horowitz’s thriller Point Blanc (2001) Dr Grief, a caricature of a mad scientist and the headmaster of a private school

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 131 for the rich and famous, clones himself sixteen times, then surgically alters his clones to look like the children in his charge in an attempt to worm his way into powerful families en route to world domination. In this book as evidenced by the reactions of its protagonist, the young secret agent Alex Rider, the clones are synonymous with Grief himself—they are his exact copies and as such they inherit his evil together with his genes. Alex and his employers have no qualms about eliminating these cloned teenagers just as they have already eliminated Grief (268). Horowitz’s novel is certainly meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek: it is a pastiche and mishmash of many literary genres and clichés. The clones serve as a plot device and no attempt is made to discuss the issue of human cloning seriously. Significantly for this discussion, however, the novel plays on popular fears associated with clones, as becomes apparent when Alex calls the clone altered in his own image “a freak” (276), while the exaggerated depiction of both the scientist and his creation hark back to horror b-movies, and as such it is hard to discuss this novel as representing a serious attempt to discuss biotechnology. More obviously engaged with the ethics of cloning is Nicky Singer’s Gem X (2006), which presents a future dystopia in which genetic engineering has amplified the social divide between the classes and is used by the genetically enhanced to oppress and exploit the poor (Dreggies) through harvesting cells to create a malleable working class by mass cloning (Clodrones). The Clodrones are numbered and theoretically devoid of any personality or emotional range, yet Clodrone 1640 retains the memories and emotions of his Dreggie progenitor Finn, and breaks the rules to save Finn’s child from imprisonment. His ‘selfless’ act ends with suicide, as Clodrone 1640 would rather die than be reprogrammed (222). The novel, therefore, suggests that people’s memories and emotions are embedded within their DNA, a view which even genetic determinists dismiss as scientifically unsound. According to Klotzko, the lineage of recent cinematic and literary cloned armies or drones can be traced straight back to Huxley’s nightmare vision of mass production of nameless, faceless creatures with stunted human potential—produced to order for the purposes of the state. (2002: 8) Indeed Gem X is remarkably similar to its predecessor, Brave New World, and although written seventy-four years later3 and in the wake of new discoveries, it remains within the same discourse, rejecting biotechnology in general, and cloning in particular, without bothering either to update the science which underpins it or to depict it accurately. Charlotte Kerner’s Blueprint (2000), on the other hand, is grounded in the scientific and philosophical research conducted by the author in the process of writing it, as the afterword and bibliography appended to the novel explain. Despite this, Siri, the cloned protagonist of Kerner’s novel, whose memoir is

132 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People presented in the epilogue as, “the first clone report from an individual personally involved” (176), suggests that, “the genetic code of a human being stores his life experiences; that is the course of life changes genetic information” (177). As a result, clones, made from older cells of their progenitor inherit their personal “history” and thus “would have a more complete genetic provision than either the clone-parent or normally conceived children of the same age for learning and comprehension” (177–78). The fictional epilogue is supposedly written by a professor of human genetics, suggesting that this hypothesis has scientific credibility. In fact, Kerner’s hypothesis is an extreme form of genetic determinism, suggesting that genes not only determine our behaviour and personality but also store our experiences. This means that clones are indeed doomed to become an exact copy of their progenitors, regardless of the different environment in which they have been raised. Indeed, by the end of the novel, upon reaching the same age at which her progenitor decided to clone herself, Siri admits that she is “becoming like Iris” (169), and although they choose different creative careers, their personal paths are remarkably similar. Kerner ends her afterword with a declaration that, “Blueprint is a book for argument” (184), but the hypothesis presented in the novel, combined with Siri’s account of her abused childhood (Siri refers to cloning as “misbreeding” and “repro abuse,” 105) encourage readers to adopt a negative view of human cloning. While the theory that clones are unlikely to be exact replicas of their progenitors seems to be scientifically sound, as there are no human clones as yet, it is hard to assess how a cloned child may feel. This is what Stephen Levick sets out to do in Clone Being (2004), his in-depth analysis of the potential psychological damage in store for cloned children. In this sense Levick has much in common with SF as a speculative genre, since he explores the implications of current scientific fact with the intention of testing a possible future outcome. A psychotherapist, Levick employs evidence gathered from existing research as to what he views as relevant phenomena, such as identical twins, adopted children and the custom of namesaking children, as well as from his own professional experience treating patients, to create a new psychological model for the assessment of clones’ psyches. He also attempts to assess the influence of practicing cloning on society and culture as a whole. Levick’s conclusions are grim; he foresees vast psychological harm resulting from cloning humans since, “being born as a clone might prove to be a continuing trauma throughout the person’s life” (257). The main source of potential damage, he asserts, arises from the fact that a clone may be “perceived and related to as if he or she were someone else” (179). Indeed the devastating consequences of treating a child as if she were another are the particular focus of Blueprint, Alison AllenGray’s Unique and Chris Farnell’s Mark II. Levick’s perspective is unusual given that much of the current debate surrounding cloning belongs to the realms of ethics and morality, whether set within a religious (Wahrman, 2002; Davies, 2003; Waters and Cole-Turner, 2003; Anees, 2004; Campbell, 2004; Guinn, 2006), legal (Roberts, 1998;

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 133 Macintosh, 2005; Rifkin, 2005) or a philosophical framework (Baudrillard, 2000; Harris, 2005; Tooley, 2006). However, Levick’s conclusions rely heavily on Freudian models, mainly the much criticised Oedipus complex (see for example Guattari, 2006), which is arguably outdated when considering new forms of kinship resulting from technological advances, as Donna Haraway’s influential “Cyborg Manifesto” (1991), discussed later in this chapter, suggests.

The Non-Identity Problem One of the more controversial arguments for human cloning, as highlighted by Brock, is that any possible physical and psychological harm which may be caused to the clone, when weighed against the possibility of not existing at all, becomes irrelevant, for the option of not having any kind of worthwhile life is worse than having to live with the burden of such harm. This complex logical process leads eventually to the conclusion that if a clone is not harmed by being cloned, there is nothing wrong with cloning humans (Brock, 1998: 156–57). As Brock explains, this argument derives from a problem put forward by philosopher Derek Parfit entitled ‘The Non-Identity Problem’ (Parfit, 1984, cited in Brock, 1988). Roberts usefully summarises Parfit’s complex argument in the following manner: “if (i) had x not performed a, y would not have existed and (ii) y’s life is worth living, then x by performing a has not harmed y in a morally relevant sense” (Roberts, 1995: 309). A small number of scholars adopt this philosophical stance when assessing the pros and cons of human cloning (for instance, Burley and Harris, 1999; Burley and Colman, 2002; Green, 2004; McLachlan, 2007). Hugh McLachlan, when calling for the legalisation of human cloning, states: “for people born as a result of cloning, it is their only chance of life. Cloning is therefore not a risk but an opportunity” (2007). Justine Burley takes a similar position: If we do not clone, no particular child is better off because this child never existed. Likewise, if a child is brought into the world using SCNT and is physically impaired as a result, it is most unclear that, on balance, this child has been harmed by the action of cloning. This particular child would not have existed had he or she not been cloned in the first place. (2002: 913) Both Brock and Melinda A. Roberts, on the other hand, regard this view as highly problematic, though they do not dismiss it altogether (Roberts, 1995; 1996; Brock, 1998). In many of the novels featuring cloned children, the tension created by rejecting the process by which they have come into the world while simultaneously realising that without it they would not exist at all is painfully experienced by the protagonists. In Unique, Dominic finds it hard to blame his father for the cloning: “I can’t say it’s wrong, because if he hadn’t done it I

134 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be alive” (168), while Josh, the clone in Rune Michaels’ Genesis Alpha ponders: “would I cancel my birth? I like life. I want to be alive” (178). The tension between what is perceived as an abhorrent process and its subjectively positive outcome is embodied in the paradoxical figure of El Patrón, Matt’s progenitor in Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion, for his clone realises that although El Patrón created him solely for the purpose of destroying him (by harvesting his compatible organs), he simultaneously inspired in him “the will to live” (294). Thus, it is clear that even for Matt it is indeed better to have been cloned than to have not existed at all. Takami Three, a cloned teenager and minor character in Ann Halam’s Taylor Five, arrives at the same conclusion for he regrets his failed suicide attempt, admitting that he is not sorry to still be alive after all (135). The employment of the Non-Identity Problem within the novels can be seen not only as a reflection of the clones’ internal struggle in the context of the narratives, but also as a symbol for the authors’ struggle with the dilemma embedded within their created protagonists. On the one hand, these protagonists embody the technology the authors wish to reject, yet they are also young people, and it is customary to empower such characters in literature written for an audience of their peers. This conclusion is reinforced when a comparison is made with a novel in which a cloned protagonist manages to resolve the dilemma of the Non-Identity Problem. Taylor Five, the eponymous heroine of Halam’s novel, shares Takami Three’s desire to exist, epitomised in her heroic fight for survival in a hostile environment having witnessed the murder of her parents, the painful death of her young brother, and the destruction of her home. However, unlike the other cloned protagonists discussed, the way in which Taylor finally resolves her inner struggle with the knowledge that she is a clone, a knowledge which for the most part of the book repels her, is by learning to endorse her status as a clone, rather than rejecting it. In a revealing inner monologue, Taylor realises that she is, in the sense that she was cloned as part of a process of developing a cure against disease, a human “discovery,” like trees, animals or fruit (167). This comparison does not lead to a devaluation of the self, but rather to an empowering insight: But there are always new things, she thought; and this time, something new was also a someone: a girl called Tay Walker, with all her memories and griefs and hopes and dreams. And this was life, good and bad so closely woven together. And this was science, too; the great romance of finding out, by accident or on purpose, stretching back through history, and reaching on ahead. (167–68) Taylor realises that, as a clone, she is nature and science, discoverer and discovery.4 This knowledge allows her to reconcile the tension she previously felt, and merge her torn identity into a new whole, epitomised clearly by her own conclusion: “correction, she thought. Not Tay Walker. Taylor Five Walker.

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 135 That’s me. That’s who I am” (168). By deciding to accept the process by which she came to be as part of her identity, Taylor resolves her personal Non-Identity Problem. The novels so far discussed in this section opt for their young protagonists’ survival, an act which perhaps unwittingly associates the authors with pro-cloning voices echoing Parfit’s argument. However, other novels resolve the paradox posed by the Non-Identity Problem by killing off their cloned protagonists, thus implying that non-existence is better than existence by cloning. This complies with Burley’s observation that, among those objecting to human cloning on the basis that it is harmful for the clone, arguments are generally “stated in a fashion that implies that for clones non-existence is preferable to existence” (2002: 913). Indeed, four books see the clones sacrifice themselves to save others. Significantly, in three of these novels it is to save non-clones. In Gem X, as already discussed, Clodrone 1640 saves the child of his progenitor, and then commits suicide. In Malcolm Rose’s Clone (2002), Maynard Litzoff is a clone who travels from the future to stop early experiments in human cloning that have led to the near extinction of the human race in his own time. Through his actions, especially befriending Jordan, the teenaged son of the scientist about to perform the first human cloning, Maynard influences the course of history to such an extent that his own existence becomes an impossibility and the end of the novel sees him peacefully “dissolving” into nothingness (251). Steven L. Layne’s This Side of Paradise (2001) depicts Troy, cloned by his insane, schizophrenic father in an attempt to create the perfect child the father always craved, being saved from death by his clone, who shields him from the fatal electric charge meant to rid their father of his imperfect, naturally conceived, son (201). Thus the clone conveniently ceases to exist having secured the continuity of his progenitor, establishing the original Troy as having a superior right to live. An exceptional case is Mira, the cloned heroine of Patrick Cave’s Sharp North (2004), who dies in an attempt to rescue her younger cloned twin, Adeline. Not only does Mira sacrifice herself to save another clone, rather than a naturally conceived person, but Cave presents the powerful bond formed by sharing the same DNA between herself and her other ‘sisters,’ Tilly and Clarissa, as death-defying. In fact, Mira does not cease to exist precisely because she is a clone, one of a long chain of sisters, and that grants her a kind of immortality. This is powerfully demonstrated in the fact that Clarissa, who takes on the mission after witnessing her clone-sister’s murder, is not mentioned by name until the very last pages of the book, implying that they are interchangeable. The special connection between these remarkable cloned women will be discussed later, but in relation to the Non-Identity Problem, the tension between the possible harm of being cloned versus the option not to exist at all is diffused in Cave’s novel, for it is her very clone-ness which allows Mira a kind of existence even beyond the grave. Though cloning is often presented as the embodiment of

136 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People a narcissistic wish for immortality (see for example Baudrillard, 2000, discussed in the next section), Cave turns this notion on its head as he presents a more positive connection between cloning and immortality.

The Idea of the Post-human Behind the vast literature, both fictional and theoretical, which concerns itself with the idea of cloning humans, lays the notion of the post-human. Clones, like other phenomena enabled by technology (whether realised or in the abstract), including cyborgs, in-vitro fertility treatments, and fully immersive virtual existence, challenge our concept of humanity, redefining what it means to be human. As Elaine L. Graham notes “the post/human is that which both confounds but also holds up to scrutiny the terms on which the quintessentially human will be conceived” (2002: 11). As such, it is hardly surprising that a literary battlefield has formed around the potentiality of the post-human. Katherine Hayles defines the “posthuman subject” as “an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material–informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction” (1999: 3). Hybridity and fluidity are, therefore, essential characteristics of the posthuman. Hayles goes on to explain that “the posthuman view thinks of the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate, so that extending or replacing the body with other prostheses becomes a continuation of a process that began before we were born” (3). The post-human body here is not a mere physical presence, but a metaphor for the shifting cultural perception of human embodiment; as Anne Balsamo points out, “‘the body’ is a social, cultural and historical production: ‘production’ here means both product and process” (1995: 217). Thus, any discussion of a cloned body inevitably encompasses within it not only the end product—a genetic copy of another body—but the process by which it came to be, the cultural and social meaning encoded within this process, and the metaphysical implications of this body’s existence. As an agent of change, the post-human body can be perceived as either a liberating or a devastating force. For Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston it is a vehicle for social transformation as “it participates in re-distributions of difference and identity.” In their view this is not a worrying activity: “the posthuman does not necessitate the obsolescence of the human; it does not represent an evolution or devolution of the human” (1995: 10). The meaning of ‘human’ in this context is a “tribal circle” which functions to “domesticate and hierarchize difference” within its members (in the form of gender, race and class) and to define their separation from the non-human (10). Such a definition is far from universally accepted; Jean Baudrillard, for instance, defines what it means to be human in moral, quasi-religious terms, and views

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 137 the post-human as its antithesis. This can be seen in the rhetorical question he poses in “The Final Solution: Cloning Beyond the Human and Inhuman” (2000): “is it possible to speak of the soul, or the conscience, or even of the unconscious from the point of view of the automatons, the chimeras, and the clones that will supersede the human race?” (23). Baudrillard sees clones as the physical manifestation of what he perceives as cultural cloning: “through school systems, media, culture, and mass information, singular beings become identical copies of one another” (25). He associates this trend towards sameness with the death drive,5 a wish to return to pre-birth, a time before alterity, and hence a destructive pursuit of immortality. Otherness, or differentiation, according to Baudrillard, is that which makes us human, and in this sense he invokes the image of the hierarchical ‘tribal circle’ employed by Halberstam and Livingston. However, unlike Halberstam and Livingston, Baudrillard considers the post-human to be a threat to this circle rather than a potentially liberating challenge. Francis Fukuyama, who like Baudrillard perceives that “human nature is fundamental to our notions of justice; morality and the good life” (2002: 83), firmly roots these ethical principles within the corporal reality of the human body as he claims “human nature is the sum of the behavior and characteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from genetic rather than environmental factors” (Fukuyama, 2002: 130). Thus, while Hayles, Halberstam, Livingston and others (for instance, Balsamo, 1995; Reid, 1995; Graham, 2002) perceive the body as a construct so that the post-human functions as a metaphor which operates beyond the boundaries of the physical to challenge our concepts of what is human and its relationship to oppressive social hierarchies, Fukuyama views the human as coded within the body itself. This means that any genetic manipulation is viewed as a direct assault on the moral code and so Fukuyama not only practices a form of genetic determinism, but also limits the discourse of social evolution and change. This debate regulates the extent to which the human is defined in relation to the post-human body and so is inextricably bound up with political and moral standpoints relating to power hierarchies, the competing forces of social change and the need to hold on to the traditional and familiar. Against this background it is clear that the way in which the novels discussed in this chapter define what is ‘human’ reveals their underlying values. In many of the novels, the attempt to define the ‘human’ is an integral part of the cloned protagonists’ journey towards reconciliation with their status. The clones latch on to various definitions as a means of separating themselves from their posthuman state. What they define as ‘human’ is ultimately what enables them to transcend their ‘clone-ness’ and allows them to see themselves as unique, or as “normal.” It is what separates and differentiates them from others, especially their progenitors, which allows them to join the ‘tribal circle’ of humanity. In this sense, many of the texts identify alterity as the essence of humanity in the vein of Baudrillard. The terminology by which the protagonists ascertain

138 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People this alterity reveals that in many of these novels, the ‘human’ is not presented as a cultural construct but as an absolute truth. This standpoint negates the potential liberation encoded in the post-human status of their cloned protagonists as it asserts the boundaries between the human and the non-human, thus reaffirming social hierarchies rather than challenging them. In Carol Matas’ Cloning Miranda (1999), for instance, two definitions of the essence of the ‘human’ are on offer, both provided by the astute Emma, Miranda’s best friend, in an attempt to console and prove to her cloned friend that she is ‘human.’ When Miranda proclaims “I’m just a bunch of DNA programmed to behave in a certain way” and questions “what’s the point of living?”, Emma answers that although our genes dictate certain things, “we can learn to be different” and concludes “maybe that’s what being human is” (123). Where Fukuyama sees the human as inextricably embodied, Cloning Miranda suggests that the human is not inscribed within the physical body, but is rather in constant conflict with it. In order to achieve a ‘human’ status, Miranda must somehow negate her post-human body. This is further emphasised by Emma’s second attempt to ‘humanise’ Miranda, as she tries to console her saying, “your soul is your own. It doesn’t matter how you were made. You’d still have one” (124). By reverting to religious terminology in this book Matas widens the gap between her protagonist’s physical reality and her ‘divine’ humanity. In Cloning Miranda, then, the essence of humanity may not be encoded in the genes, but neither is it a cultural construct which Miranda’s existence can challenge. Miranda’s membership in the tribal circle is granted by God, and as such is a given absolute. The term ‘soul’ is also employed in other texts; for example, Kathryn Lasky’s Star Split (1999) has the cloned protagonist, Vivian, revive this ancient word, forgotten in her own time, establishing it as synonymous with “true self” (171). For Josh, the protagonist of Genesis Alpha, it is crucial to separate himself from his progenitor, his psychotic brother Max, now arrested for a brutal murder. In order to escape the fear that he is doomed to follow in his brother’s footsteps due to their shared DNA, Josh must ascertain his uniqueness in metaphysical terms; for this reason, when his brother suggests they “share a soul,” Josh immediately understands the implications: “my Soul is my own, no matter why or how I was created. I have to believe that” (160). Unlike the other novels I have discussed, in Genesis Alpha the belief in a soul is presented as an active choice rather than a divine truth. Indeed the ability to choose is highlighted by Josh as that which separates him from his brother Max. After much deliberation he concludes: In the real world, everybody knows what’s good or bad—mostly. It gets complicated, of course, but for most things, most of the big things, you just know what’s right and what’s wrong. You don’t have to think about it a lot, you just know. Something inside tells you. Max knows. Max knows killing is wrong. He knows, but he doesn’t care. I care. (191)

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 139 Josh is his own person, therefore, because he can make a moral choice which is different from the one made by his brother. However, the moral code implicit in his statement is presented as both innate (“something inside tells you”) and shared by all humans (“everybody knows”). This is an essentialist view which, like the absolute divinity of ‘soul,’ works against the liberating potential of these post-human characters, undercutting the notion that the ‘human’ could be a social and cultural construct. An altogether different use of the term ‘soul’ is demonstrated in The House of the Scorpion. Matt, the clone of the ruthless drug lord Matteo Alacrán (El Patrón), is considered ‘soulless’ by the rest of the Alacrán family, and treated like an animal (159). For the superstitious Christian Alacráns, therefore, a soul is the essence of humanity. Although Matt is troubled by his non-human status, and finds it an obvious obstacle to becoming a full member of the society which surrounds him, the lack of a soul, which he accepts as a given, is presented by Farmer as liberating. When his friend María, who attends a convent school, complains to Matt that the students there are not allowed to watch television, “unless a show improves our souls” he retorts “I don’t have a soul” (206). This exchange exposes the potentiality embedded in Matt’s non-human status. As a soulless entity, he lives outside the code of behaviour enforced upon María and her peers. He has the potential to carve his own path, as indeed Matt does. His ability to think outside the restrictions of culture, whether they are imposed by a religion or a class system, is powerfully demonstrated in his instinctive resistance to being ‘re-educated’ by the Keepers at the plankton factory. The term ‘soul’ is presented in The House of the Scorpion as culturally constructed, and is thus rejected as the absolute definition of the ‘human.’ This stance is emphasised by the introduction of a second definition, a legal one, which Matt encounters in Aztlán on the second phase of his journey. As Esperanza, the antidrug activist, explains, according to international law “you can’t have two versions of the same person at the same time” and therefore any clone is declared “an unperson” (367), unless their progenitor dies, in which case, they can take on that identity. Although she pronounces this to be a “wicked law” (367), it is specifically this law’s existence which allows Matt to overtake El Patrón’s estate and bring about a social change while hoping for a more just future. Far from being objective, innate or absolute, the law has the power not only to define the ‘human’ but also to turn Matt into a ‘non-human’ and back again. This is precisely the ‘tribal circle’ which Halberstam and Livingston discuss, and Matt, as a post-human body, not only exposes it as a subjective paradigm, but also manipulates and transcends it simultaneously. A few of the novels suggest that what define their protagonists as unique entities, and by extension human, are their experiences and memories. Unlike the attitude in Blueprint, these works try to demonstrate that individuals’ histories are what ultimately shape them, not an inherited genetic memory. In this sense they side with ‘nurture’ rather than ‘nature.’ In Unique, Professor Holt explains to Dominic, the child she cloned from his dead brother, that

140 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People everything your senses have absorbed, every emotion you’ve ever experienced, every connection you’ve ever made about how the world around you works . . . It’s all gone into making YOU! I couldn’t copy that. (135) This is a view which Dominic adopts wholeheartedly towards the end of the novel: “everything that I see and feel and think has made me” (213). Dominic sums up these unique characteristics as his “consciousness” (135), a term which unlike ‘soul’ is more flexible and lacks the religious connotation. He also realises that this consciousness “changes every day” (213), which calls to mind the fluidity so integral to the post-human. Since “notions of mind (and for that matter, opinions, attitudes, emotions, memory) are to be viewed as culturally embedded ways of making sense, or making meanings, and socially consequential ways of saying things” (Shi-xu, 2006: 64), consciousness may in itself be a product of social discourse, constructed by culture and language. From this perspective, defining the ‘human’ as the sum of our experiences and emotions can, in fact, expose it as a limiting construct. In Unique, however, the post-human, embodied in the image of the clone, is not presented as liberating, nor is consciousness depicted as a social construct. On the contrary, Dominic not only decides to go public as living proof that cloning is wrong (Unique: 243), but also seems to relive some of his brother’s experiences. For instance, upon arriving in Cambridge and discovering more about his dead brother, Dominic, still unaware of the fact that he is a clone, finds that he ‘remembers’ scenes from his progenitor’s university days: “I tried to shake the visions of my brother’s life, but I couldn’t shake the feelings. They hung just out of reach in my mind, like feelings you try to remember from a dream” (65). Later, Dominic realises that his instant and inexplicable attraction to King’s Chapel is rooted in his brother’s affi liation with the place (71). Despite the insistence that Dominic’s consciousness is his own, therefore, there is more than a hint of the existence of genetic memory here resulting in some confusion about what exactly makes the book’s posthuman protagonist ‘unique.’ The same confusion exists in Mark II (2006), but to the opposite effect. Although Mark the clone has been created using “Kwik-Learn,” a technique by which “it was possible to imprint the clone with memories of its friends and family, familiar locations and routines, likes and dislikes and even anecdotes of important life events” (140), his progenitor’s best friend, Phil, knows instantly that the clone is different from the original, aptly named, Mark Self (8). Mark’s mother, desperate to replace her dead child, refuses to notice the difference, and indicates that she believes in “genetic memory” (10). Despite her attempts to treat the clone as if he were indeed Mark, and although the clone himself insists that he and his progenitor are one and the same (25, 39), working hard to mimic the original Mark to perfection (88), as the story unravels, it becomes clear that Phil is right, and that Mark II is undeniably “a different person” (164). Thus, while the clone’s creators and Mark’s mother

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 141 also regard memories, feelings, and life experiences, whether they are learnt or inscribed in our genes, as the essence of a unique identity—the core of the ‘human’—Mark II’s narrative (the clone and the novel) contradicts this. The clone shares genes, as well as memories and experiences, with his progenitor, yet he is someone else. The question of what it is that makes Mark II who he is significantly remains unanswered; however, through introducing the Kwik-Learn system, and attributing Mark II’s gradual transformation into an exact replica of his progenitor to his relationship with the people around him, the novel suggests that human consciousness is at least partially created by social environment, and its post-human progenitor serves as the means to expose this. That Mark II’s ‘memories’ are not always accurate, as are those of the clone of his sister Lauren as a consequence of their parents’ tinkering (36, 157) is a metaphor for the way society constructs consciousness. This notion is further reinforced by the title of the last section of the novel, “Reconstruction,” in which Phil learns that the original Mark was murdered by his mother on his deathbed, to ensure the possibility of cloning him, and as a result reassesses his relationship with the clone, accepting his own responsibility in pushing Mark II to become more like his progenitor. The concluding pages of the novel see Phil deciding to show the clone a videotape made by his reluctant progenitor, in an attempt to help him break away and become his own person. In fact, this can be seen as another ‘reconstruction,’ pointing to Phil’s integral role in moulding the clone’s consciousness, a metaphor for the constant construction of the human by the ‘tribal circle.’ Nevertheless, although Mark II as a posthuman body fulfi ls his potential to expose the constraints of the human, his post-human status, embedded in his status as a clone, is not celebrated. Just as in the novels discussed previously, human cloning is presented as a selfish whim, whether it is of parents wishing to replicate a dead child, or a person intending to live forever by replicating herself, or by having her clone supply the necessary organs. The confl icting responses to the post-human are undoubtedly related to its strong association with technology. The post-human emerges because, as Graham states, “technologies call into question the ontological purity according to which Western society has defi ned what is normatively human” (2002: 5). Halberstam and Livingstone take this association further when they posit the post-human as being synonymous with technology: “the posthuman body is technology, a screen, a projected image [ . . . ] a techno-body” (3). Such a condition is not, however, universally appealing or accepted. Andrew Kimbrell, for instance, maintains that “technobody, of course, is not a natural form for the body” (1997: 302), as he holds biotechnology responsible for the fact that “traditional understandings of life, birth, disease, death, mother, father and person begin to waver and fall” (277). As Kimbrell’s statement shows, technology, via the post-human body, challenges fundamental social concepts. Reproductive cloning as an instance of

142 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People the post-human body poses serious questions as to the validity and future of one of these prime concepts—the family.

Family and Kinship in a Post-human Age Elaine Ostry explains that children’s authors use biotechnology in their texts as “a metaphor for adolescence” since the genetically engineered protagonists highlight central components of the journey which many ordinary teenagers go through as part of their physical, emotional and social development: the search for identity and sense of self, the discovery of the lie, the separation between parent and child, the formation of new peer groups, resistance to adult control, decision making, growth and adaptation, and the challenge of hierarchies. (2004: 223) One of the principal questions which characters in YA novels about biotechnology face, claims Ostry, is, “where do my parents end and I begin?” (227). Hilary S. Crew, in her study of clones in YA literature, also finds that “relationships between teen clones and their originals and between those who are, ipso facto, their parents are central to the narratives” (2004: 209). Farah Mendlesohn asserts that “modern SF for children and young adults frequently uses the family as either context or motivation” (2004: 285). Issues of family and kinship are especially vital in novels depicting clones because the protagonists’ very existence destabilises traditional ways of thinking about these networks. This destabilisation is twofold, relating to both the clones’ origins and her complex genealogy. While many of the pro-cloning voices cited earlier in this chapter enlist the figure of the twin in an attempt to unpack prejudices relating to clones, Sara Wasson rightly comments that the “equation of twin and clone ignores one of the most important qualities of the latter: the fact that she is a product of technology.” The clone is a technobody in the sense that “the primal scene of her creation involves glass and steel as much as flesh” (2004: 137). Although physically the clone is no different from a person born through intercourse and labour, as the result of “surgico-medical penetration” (137), she shares the essence of the cyborg. Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows define a cyborg as a “cybernetic organism, a self-regulating human-machine system” (1995: 2). However, in her landmark “Cyborg Manifesto,” Donna Haraway expands this definition to include any “couplings between organism and machine” (1991: 150). Haraway introduces the cyborg as a liberating metaphor for a post-modern age: “by the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organisms; in short, we are cyborgs” (1991: 150). According to Haraway, “cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 143 tools to ourselves” (181). These dualisms include “self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/ partial, God/man” (177), and cyborg transcends these, being essentially “oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence” (151). Its lack of innocence is enabled by the fact that the cyborg “has no origin story in the Western sense” (150); as Graham explains, “the cyborg has no myth of origins, because it has no parents and, significantly, no divine creator” and, as such, cannot hark back to an Edenic state (2002: 202). A clone, in this context, shares the cyborg’s lack of origins as she is created outside the “natural” framework, and her lineage is both confused and ambiguous.6 Nowhere is this better articulated than in Blueprint, in which the way Siri refers to her progenitor, Iris, constantly switches between “mother,” “sister” and “twin.” Lacking appropriate vocabulary, as a young girl, Siri invents the term “Motwi,” a compound of the words “mothertwin” (Blueprint: 72). A term which, as the fictional pseudo-scientific epilogue reveals, has since entered public vocabulary (176). Wasson draws a distinction between the metaphoric functions of the clone and the cyborg: [ . . . ] the cyborg’s political vitality is enabled by her diffuse origin: free of any past Eden, she can symbolize the partial, strategic, and blatantly constructed positionalities arguably suitable for contemporary political struggle. But while the cyborg’s origin is dispersed through flesh and steel, the clone’s origin concentrates both in one moment. For the clone not only has a moment of origin, she has an original, and awareness of the original often freights the clone with fatality just as the cyborg’s birthlessness lets her exploit new possibility. (2004: 138) Wasson’s point is valid; nevertheless, the fact that the clone operates outside traditional myths of creation and conception makes it a destabilising force when considering traditional hierarchies and the power distributed through them. As Maria A.S.S. Ferreira argues, cloning “can come to play a powerfully enabling role in women’s struggle for an egalitarian society without power asymmetrics caused by the biology of the female body and reproduction” (2005: 240). In this formulation, as the power hierarchies existing between men and women collapse, so will the traditional family unit and its implications for the adultchild relationship. Wasson sees this as imbuing the clone with the “hope of the cyborg” (Wasson: 140), for it “does not let us avoid the tricky questions of what is left of the concept of ‘the family’ at the millennium” (141). As Dorothy Nelkin and Susan M. Lindee observe, “the ‘family’ is a socially negotiated unit, defined by consensus” (2004: xxiii), and this consensus is shifting and changing through the influence of reproductive technologies (Strathern, 1992; Edwards et al., 1999; McGee, 2000). As Halberstam and Livingstone bluntly put it, in a post-human age,

144 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People the human tribe can never again be family. Postfamilial bodies celebrate the end of His-and-Her matching theories that endlessly revolve around the miserable imagined unit, the imagined community of an imagined kinship in an imagined house with an imagined dog and two (if only) imagined children. (1995: 10) In a similar vein, Roddey Reid discusses the discourse around the disintegration of American family values, claiming that it is “a tactic for reinscribing and protecting the so-called normative ‘humanity’ of (straight) upper-middle-class whites through stigmatizing social others for lack of ‘family’” (1995: 186). These statements not only expose the nuclear family as a social structure which contributes to upholding oppressive power hierarchies, but also call into question its very existence.7 Human cloning, as part of the possible future of reproductive technologies, creates new possibilities for kinship, as well as blurring traditional concepts of familial relationship. The question of a clone’s parentage can be answered in many ways, or not at all. In this sense she exists outside the myth of the family and is free from the power it exerts on its members. Hence, while parents of clones may wish to use the technology to overcome the unpredictability associated with having a child the natural way (Strathern, 1992: 54), they inadvertently undermine the very power structure they attempt to reinforce. It is precisely this paradox which enables the clone to transcend her ‘fatality’ and become a liberating metaphor in the vein of the cyborg. It is no wonder, therefore, that advocates of family values such as Kimbrell, campaign to “shut down the body shop” (1997: 335). However, and significantly, children find it easier than adults to negotiate post-human concepts of kinship evoked by cloning, as Jeanette Edwards’ ethnographic study into the views of new reproductive technologies and kinship in a small town in north east England demonstrates (1999: 89–90). This corresponds with the evidence gathered by John Harris from various studies on divorce, adoption, fostering and assisted reproduction which shows that “children are able to cope with a great deal of ambiguity or confusion in family relationships without significant harm” (2005: 148). Harris’ findings stand in direct opposition to Levick’s, discussed earlier in this chapter, yet when considering the current state of affairs in which “[sexual] desire is now multiplying newly partial kinships rather than establishing new kinships of an older form” (Wasson: 141), that is, the reality of many children today includes step-parents and halfsiblings, Levick’s Freudian-based analysis seems all-the-more dated. The fact that it is based on his patients, now in their late forties and fifties, underpins this conclusion. Harris’ and Edwards’ separate findings, on the other hand, accord with the discussion set out in Chapter 4 which established children’s relative ease with new technologies compared to adults’. The authors of many SF novels engaging with cloning clearly do not share their young audience’s ease about post-human kinship. It is quite clear that the ambiguous familial status of the clone has not escaped their notice, since

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 145 for the most part they seek to avoid it by depicting children cloned from siblings, rather than parents. Of eleven novels which feature a clone living within a domestic environment (as opposed to books engaging with mass cloning, or those in which the cloned protagonist remains outside familial arrangements), seven focus on parents, or parent figures, who decide to clone a dead, or dying, child. A child sharing a complete DNA profi le with its parents is a threat to the family unit and the distribution of power within it, while a cloned sibling avoids this minefield by retaining the status of offspring, still under the auspices of her parents, regardless of her clone-ness. Josh’s father in Genesis Alpha makes this point when he reassures his cloned son: “you have our genes, son, [ . . . ] genetically speaking , you’re a mixture of me and your mother” (148). In the same vein, in Cloning Miranda, the protagonist asks her young clone, “is Lynda your mother? [ . . . ] Is Allan your father?” concluding that this is evidence that the clone is her “sister” (97). Adding to the narrative drive to uphold the family in these books is the fact that their protagonists, although outraged by the discovery that their parents cloned them from another child, remain either within their family setting or find an alternative family structure, with substitute mother and father figures. An extreme example is found in Cloning Miranda. The protagonist, whose parents not only cloned her from their dead firstborn but also created ‘backup’ copies in case she needed organs, is horrified by the discovery. Miranda refers to her parents as “horrible monsters” (102), and “evil”(112), and when they attempt to redeem themselves in her eyes by explaining that the spare clone was made because they “never wanted you [Miranda] to have any pain,” she shrewdly retorts “no, [ . . . ] you never wanted to have any pain. That’s why you did it” (121). Although aware of her parents’ selfishness and murderous intentions towards Ariel, her clone, Miranda still reasons that her parents are “good parents [ . . . ] day to day, at home” (136) and opts not only to stay with them, but to have them adopt the clone they were about to murder. Josh in Genesis Alpha, and Darcy in Star Split, never even question the possibility of leaving the family unit, despite resenting their parents for cloning them. Siri, in Blueprint, a clone of her mother, Iris, summons up the courage to leave, changing her appearance and taking up painting in a desperate attempt to break away from her progenitor. Although doing so makes her feel like a “newborn” (128), ultimately she returns home to be a “prisoner” of her dying mother, reasoning that “clone love subdues any free will” (138). It seems that in much Young SF, then, a dysfunctional family is better than the threat of a child living outside this power structure. Such books endorse the traditional adult-child hierarchy and promote this model to their young readers who are likely to be disempowered by it. Even novels that suggest it may be impossible for the clone to live with the parents who cloned her ultimately ensure that the cloned child is safely contained within a substitute family. Thus Dominic flees his father’s damaging influence to set up home with his dead brother’s best friends, Giles and Becky,

146 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People while he waits for his mother to join him. Jenny Nimmo’s Milo’s Wolves (2001) presents a more complex case. Gwendal is cloned from the dead child of a wealthy elderly man. Gwendal’s identity is kept a secret from him, and he is told that Mary, his birth mother (she has no genetic connection to Gwendal), and her husband Milo, are his parents, though he is raised away from them and their children. After showing signs of depression, Gwendal is sent to live with Mary and Milo’s family and forms a bond with his supposed ‘siblings’, especially Laura, who also narrates much of the story. Still unhappy, Gwendal chooses to go “to the person he belongs to” (94), but when he disappears, Milo and Laura set off to find him. Gwendal, having processed the knowledge of his true identity, opts to leave his genetic parent, Jean, and it is arranged that he will be adopted by Mary and Milo, or as Laura puts it “he would truly belong to our family” (225). The use of the word ‘belong’ in both cases suggests a belief that a child’s place is in a family unit, but it also has echoes of ownership, the child subservient to the parent until she comes of age. In an interesting twist, Gwendal is chased by a peculiar and dangerous sect who believe he is an angel, for he was “conceived in innocence” (50). This belief is reminiscent of Haraway’s cyborg, which exists beyond the myth of original sin and as such is seen as a liberating figure (albeit significantly, Haraway’s cyborg is “without innocence,” 27—my emphasis). Here, the clone’s lack of origins is presented as an attraction to religious fanatics, making it a constant source of harassment and pain for Gwendal and his adopted family. Moreover, Laura finds Gwendal’s lack of origins a frightening thought. She senses an “emptiness” (61) surrounding him, which she associates with his lack of obvious family ties, a lack which saddens her, as the epigraph to this chapter indicates (69). Although the book suggests that it is not shared genes which make a family, thus leaving an opening for alternative arrangements, it is clear that a child, whether cloned or naturally conceived, must have parents. This conclusion is emphasised by Laura’s final declaration that Gwendal was not “Jean’s beloved drowned boy” but “my father’s son” (243). Gwendal is redeemed from his ‘clone-ness,’ his “cold, clinical beginning” (243) so he can take his rightful place as a child in a family. Nowhere are the alleged damaging influences of cloning on family life more explicitly spelled out than in Malcolm Rose’s Clone. In a lengthy monologue, Maynard, the clone from the future, explains how it came to be that in his time “families don’t exist” (119), a situation he does not regard favourably at all. The reasons stated for the obsolescence of the family structure range from the belief that cloning eradicates the necessity for the opposite sex when procreating, to the impossibility of the mother-child bond when artificial wombs came into use, especially if the child were a clone of the husband who came to perceive his offspring “as himself ” (120). The severing of the parental bond results, according to Maynard’s account of ‘his’ past, in miserable childhoods, in which the cloned child is compelled to rebel against the impossible expectations of his parent-progenitor, and

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 147 the mother fi nds herself falling “in love with her ‘son’” when he reaches maturity (120). Rose’s extrapolation, mouthed by his cloned character, comes across as somewhat extreme, more so because it seems not completely accessible to his young readers who may fi nd the reversal of the Oedipus complex puzzling, and quite possibly disturbing. Rose’s epilogue restores what he obviously perceives as the natural order—Maynard’s efforts have brought on a different future to the one he has known. In this version of the future, clones are rare, created by a few “harmless” narcissistic “cranks” (256), while the rest of society has naturally conceived children, who are a “mix of [ . . . ] dad’s and [ . . . ] mum’s genes” (255) brought up in families. Maynard himself, who in the course of changing history has changed his own personal fate, has been reinstituted as a non-clone, a member of a family unit—although to accommodate the demands of the plot he dies at four years old. The text offers this short existence as a child in its ‘proper’ place, the family, as preferable to a longer existence as a clone, reprising ideas discussed in relation to the Non-Identity Problem. As Sara Wasson points out, speculative fiction can “offer new ways to express kinship in ways that throw light on other kinships too” (2004: 142). The novels discussed in this section so far show that many Young SF texts, although engaging in future speculation about human clones, promote traditional forms of kinship in which the cloned child is contained within a family unit. These books generally attempt to diffuse the threat to traditional family values and their power hierarchy embedded within the figure of the parentless clone. However, there are a few works that engage with the task of depicting new forms of kinship; central to these alternative networks is the clone—no longer a figure of horror, but a liberating, positive emblem. Emma Laybourne’s Clone Rangers (2003) depicts two sets of clones and progenitors. The first is Admiral Benbow, a talking police dog who is cloned without his consent three times. The clones have very different temperaments and skills, as their progenitor notes, and he assumes this is partly because they were brought up in separate homes (92). Thus, the text supports the idea that nurture is what ultimately shapes identity. Despite their differences, the clones and their progenitor form a close bond, working together as a team. Benbow himself undergoes a significant transformation with regard to his attitude towards his three clones. Having been repulsed at first by the idea of their existence (30), Benbow, used to working on his own, adjusts to the situation and starts training his clones. As he realises that they are different from him as well as from each other, Benbow starts to feel a “great loneliness” in their company: “outwardly, they were him. But inwardly? They couldn’t share his thoughts or memories. How could they understand him?” (113). This feeling is replaced by the end of the novel with a sense of camaraderie, as Benbow, once the loner, is depicted in the final paragraph of the novel as “lulled by the breathing of his brothers by his side,” finding comfort in the bond formed between himself and his clones (156).

148 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People The relationship between the humanised canine clones mirrors the one developing between the second set of progenitor and clones in the novel. Garracker, the ruthless businessman who owns the decaying city in which only street children live and police dogs patrol, has cloned himself four times for narcissistic reasons: “I wanted to make sure my sons—my clones—would think as I do, act as I do, always” (19). In this sense, Garracker is no different from Iris in Blueprint, who created Siri as an extension of herself. However, Garracker’s clones have been abducted. One dies, and the other three disappear in the city, and their progenitor is desperate to find them. When he does, it is clear that the three boys, having grown up separately on the street, are not what he hoped to find. Dowie, a gang leader, is as resourceful as his progenitor, and for a while relishes in the idea of being “Garracker’s son.” However, the mutual admiration soon dissolves, as Dowie rebels against his progenitor’s plans to demolish the city, the home of Dowie and his friends. The first clone walks out on Garracker, exclaiming “you may have made me [ . . . ] but you don’t own me” (107). Indeed Dowie refuses to leave the crumbling city in favour of a home and family, crying “I’m my own master” (120). Many of the other street children echo this sentiment, opting to live outside ‘homes.’ Their decision is backed by a chilling account from a boy who was abused in the home to which he was sent. Benbow, who through the years has supported the scheme to get the children out of the city, is appalled by what he hears, and wonders whether “all those children he had persuaded to abandon the City” were as happy as he thought they would be (122). This text clearly suggests that the best place for a child is not necessarily in a conventional home. The second Garracker clone is Slane. Brought up with only cats as company, Slane is a damaged child who cannot speak and is a pyromaniac. Upon meeting Slane, Garracker’s first reaction is to reject his clone (104). However, he changes his mind to an extent that he alters his plan to destroy the city, building instead a home, a school and a playground for Slane and other street children, stating the reason as “I need to see him smile” (151). The haughty and cold-hearted Garracker is humbled by the love he feels for his clone. Seeing himself in the damaged child proves to be a life-changing experience for the businessman. The relationship between clone and progenitor is depicted in Clone Rangers as a liberating, positive force, rather than an abusive one as described between Siri and Iris in Blueprint, and Matt and El Patrón in The House of the Scorpion. Relating to this shift is a larger debate, since the love for ‘same’ has traditionally been associated with homosexuality, and as such has been positioned as the enemy of the ‘family’ (Edelman, 2004; Wasson, 2004). By showing the relationship between Garracker and Slane in a positive light, Clone Rangers opens a window to accepting other forms of kinship as valid. Significantly, the only character who rejects the clones, both canine and human, as ‘unnatural’ (54), changes her mind by the end of the novel. In the closing pages of the novel, Wilf, the third clone whose scars prevent Garracker from recognising him, decides to stay with Slane, breaking away

(Tech)Nobody's Children • 149 from the girl who adopted him as her brother to help his ‘twin’ recover. This break is seen as a positive step, for Wilf’s ‘sister,’ who cries “he’s always been mine!” is reproached by Benbow who reminds her that Wilf “doesn’t belong to anyone” (138). As opposed to Milo’s Wolves, then, Clone Rangers celebrates children’s autonomy outside the hierarchy of the family. Two of the human clones retain this autonomy, while the third brings on social change through his positive influence on their progenitor and their alternative kinship. Thus the figure of the clone fulfi ls its liberating potential in Laybourne’s novel. Two novels which depict kinship between clones and its empowering influence on each member of this ‘family’ are Patrick Cave’s Sharp North (2004) and its sequel Blown Away (2005). Sharp North depicts a dystopian future in which Britain is covered with water and ice due to global warming. The dominant élite have cloned themselves for decades from progenitors carefully selected in the year 2023. They have also created ‘spares’—clones brought up in remote locations, unaware of their true identities—who are intended as backups, and will be used for organs if the need arises. Mira is such a clone, who after witnessing the murder of one of her ‘twins’ who comes to warn her, travels to the city and eventually bonds with Tilly and her ‘daughter’ Clarissa, members of the powerful Saint family, who also share her DNA, and sets off on a mission to rescue another ‘spare’—the little girl Adeline. The bond between these cloned women has already been discussed in terms of the Non-Identity Problem; however now I would like to draw attention to their relationship in the context of post-human kinship. Mira, who finds the idea of cloning repulsive, feels an almost instant bond to the clones who share her genetic makeup: “she closed her eyes, reached out in her thoughts to all her sisters, living and dead. Annie Tallis, Adeline Beguin, Tilly Saint, Clarissa . . . How I pity and love you all” (2004: 332). Clarissa, at first rejecting Mira, her own ‘spare,’ comes to realise that their joint heritage is a double-edged sword, for it is disturbing and empowering simultaneously: “she was as good as them [Tilly and Mira]. Fuck it, she was them. Suddenly, to be Clarissa Saint felt very lonely and also very uplifting” (355). Tilly and Clarissa make a transition from mother and daughter, the hierarchical structure by which they are known in public, to sisters—a term which emphasises their status as equals, as is demonstrated in their last farewell: “live well, my sister. Live Proudly” (394). The use of the term ‘sisters’ evokes both the closeness of family ties as well as the feminist term for the bond which exists between women in general, that is, a sisterhood (similarly, and to the same effect, in Halam’s novel, Taylor Five progresses from referring to her progenitor as “mum” to “twin sister,” 103, 161). In her farewell words Tilly sets out for Clarissa the way to self-liberation— to become proud of her status as a member in a long line of female clones. Furthermore, Tilly interprets the mysterious words of an ancient prophecy in which a serpent, “stretched across the years, its strong bright coils buried deep,” will bring with it “freedom and love,” as a metaphor for this line of

150 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People clones who will change the future of their unjust society (Sharp North: 393– 94). Indeed, Adeline, the last of the line, and the heroine of the second volume, fulfi ls the prophecy by inspiring people to rebel against the corrupt regime. Thus the figure of the clone, living outside family hierarchy, has the ability to liberate society. Cave does not endorse human cloning, as is evident from the ‘Author’s Note’ at the end of the novel, for fear of this technology being used in the service of eugenics (425), yet his cloned characters, though they may find their status disconcerting at first, carry through their special kinship a message of love and hope for society, both literally and symbolically. Donna Haraway’s cyborg is a feminist emblem, proud to exist beyond social boundaries. A meshing of flesh and machine, it is inspired and empowered by technology. The post-human body as defined by Halberstam and Livingston is also a site of hybridity, challenging power hierarchies through its existence. The clone, therefore, need not remain the figure of horror familiar from novels such as Brave New World. It has the potential to change common concepts of kinship and to expose the human for the social and cultural construct it is. It can be a symbol of liberation. This chapter, however, shows that very few SF novels written for young people employ the figure of the clone in such a manner. These texts reflect a multi-faceted fear of the cloned child. Beyond displaying the popular anxiety regarding the loss of unique identity and the right to an open future, they also imply that the clone is a threat to the power networks operating to contain, control and construct childhood. The young clones in many of the novels agonise over their post-human status, clinging to essentialist views regarding the nature of the human in order to break away from their clone-ness, and remaining within mainly dysfunctional family units at all costs. These protagonists reflect a widely shared view in such fiction: that human cloning, not only as a technology, but also as an agent of social transformation, must be rejected.

Conclusion The Technophobic Legacy

We play with children using marked cards; we win against the low cards of childhood with the aces of adulthood. Cheaters that we are, we shuffle the cards in such a way that we deal ourselves everything. (Korczak, 2007: 46)

In 2005, the publishing company HarperCollins, in association with Saga (a magazine for the over-fifties), ran a writing competition in an attempt to find new voices writing for young people. The winning entry, David Thorpe’s Hybrids (2007a) is a science fiction thriller set in a dystopian future Britain. Thorpe’s novel epitomises the technophobic agenda within Young SF, as identified and considered in this book. Hybrids relates the story of two young protagonists, Johnny Online and Kestrella Chu, both infected by the ‘Creep’ virus which changes human DNA so that its victims mesh with pieces of technology they have ‘over-used,’ effectively becoming cyborgs.1 Johnny is literally a ‘computer head’ while Kestrella’s arm ends with a mobile phone. Other characters are welded to MP3 players, game consoles, electric guitars, speakers and even a rifle. Two significant characteristics of the virus expose the warning implicit in Hybrids. The first is that the virus targets adolescents almost exclusively: “something about hormones and the body changing—the virus takes advantage of it to get into the cells and change them” (214). The second is that it hurts—the ‘transition points’ flare up, causing much pain and discomfort. The victims of the virus are ostracised by society: some are forced to register, their freedom curtailed and their every move tracked by the Gene Police while others are whisked away to a mysterious maximum security facility, where they are experimented on as part of the search for a cure. A few, like Johnny Online, manage to stay ‘grey’—homeless and unregistered, they must fend for themselves. Either way, these teen cyborgs are suffering, many heading towards a 151

152 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People slow, painful death. Creep is a crude, transparent metaphor for what Thorpe perceives as an “addiction” to technology, a diagnosis with which he claims, “anyone who has tried to get a child or teenager to come off a computer or watch less TV will agree” (Thorpe, 2007b: para. 10). The cyborgs which the virus creates are not the “utopian” creatures imagined by Donna Haraway (1991: 151), but the stuff of nightmares, as human and machine constantly battle each other for supremacy within the victims’ bodies. These young people “attack their hybrid parts, trying to rip out the wiring, the plastic, the metal, any part that wasn’t human, because they hated it so much” (Thorpe, 2007a: 196). It is only Johnny Online who glimpses the possibility that the virus may be a natural stage in evolution, as he ponders whether he is “a fruitless branch on the evolutionary tree or the budding of a strong new trunk,” but his answer to this dilemma is “quite frankly, I [don’t] care” (156). Though he can “do things most people can only dream of” (96), Johnny, like other hybrids, only wants to be “human again” (196). The origins of the virus remain unclear. Johnny’s estranged father voices a common hypothesis, that with the development of “genetic engineering, nanotechnology, implants, biochips [ . . . ] something got loose, something got out of control” (277). Johnny himself, however, implies that the problem is rooted somewhere else, in the past, when people “tarmacked the front garden for their second or third cars” and “kids and their mums and dads stopped playing together and disappeared into their bedrooms for hours on end to play computer games, watch TV, press buttons” (22). Even before Creep emerged, children were “sucked down telephone wires or satellite cables into another dimension,” and their use of technology caused the family structure to break down, as demonstrated by the dysfunctional families of both protagonists (22–23). Technology in Hybrids is also to blame for the exploitation and devastation of nature. Kestrella relates what she sees as they travel out of London: Now we were out of the city, but this wasn’t countryside. Rows of heated greenhouses and battery farms of hens and pigs were occasionally interrupted by refineries and power stations burning rubbish and anything else they could get their hands on for electricity. Mark pointed out the chemical works where milk was produced directly from grass using genetically-engineered bacteria [ . . . ] He pointed out the fields radiant for miles with GM rape and hemp for making cooking oil for powering vehicles [ . . . ] every now and then we saw a few trees but no birds. Not, that is, until we came to an area near the flooded mouth of the Thames, windswept and bleak beneath the steel sky, where scavenging gulls and kites circled over the old landfill sites now too polluted to be used for settlements and factories. (87–88) Considering the success of recent public campaigns against GM (genetically modified) foods and battery farming, led by celebrities such as the popular

Conclusion • 153 chef Jamie Oliver and responsible for the fact that “today there is hardly any GM food in European shops” (National Centre for Biotechnology Education, 2006: para. 5), this futuristic landscape seems unnecessarily bleak. In the vein of many of the Young SF novels analysed in Chapter Four of this book, the relationship between technology and young people does not empower the next generation. The novel opens with Johnny Online’s “Declaration of the Rights of Hybrids,” in which he asserts “Hybrids must unite” (Thorpe, 2007a: 7). However, Johnny’s campaign for Hybrid agency stops short of active rebellion. When he encounters a small group of Hybrids attempting to sabotage the operations of the Gene Police, he comments: “something about it didn’t feel right. A bunch of underage misfits thinking they could take on the state” (236). Although they have incredible capabilities, enabled by their technological extensions (such as hacking into any computer network, having a loaded rifle for an arm or, as Kestrella senses, communicating non-verbally) these young people’s rebellion is dismissed as pathetic. Moreover, the conclusion of the novel exposes who truly holds the power. The Prime Minister, Lionel Smith, is introduced as one of the few adults infected with Creep. In Smith’s case his consciousness merged with the internet, and through manipulation of his technological powers which allow him to infi ltrate and change voting data, he wins the election. In a downbeat ending, the now dying adult reveals to Johnny and Kestrella how his cunning software, designed “using fuzzy logic” (295), has shaped their adventures throughout the novel, manipulating them to arrive at his bedside in time for him to pass on his powers to Johnny. In a telling twist, Johnny, endowed with technological supremacy, is not to retain his own identity as a sharp-tongued teenager, but rather becomes a new vessel for Lionel Smith who now inhabits his body. Thus, although it is the adolescents who are literally attached to technology, it is the parasitic adult who truly controls it. As I suggest in the fourth chapter of this book, by associating technological power with the dangerous adult, Young SF texts act out a role-reversal, as in reality it is the adults who feel threatened and their authority undermined by young people’s superior technological skills. This reversal casts the child in the less intimidating role of the victim, depicting technology as the instrument of the malicious adult perpetrator. In accordance with this view, Hybrids warns young people against the use of technological gadgetry while simultaneously reinforcing the current adult-child hierarchy. Thorpe explicitly identifies Hybrids as an “anti-technology” novel (Thorpe, 2007b: unpaginated). As such, it joins many of the other Young SF novels represented by the samples analysed in this book, in which technology is demonised as the devastator of nature, the enemy of the Arts and the Humanities, and a force capable of destabilising social order and undermining human identity. Particularly given how recently it has been published and its origins as a winning entry of an open competition, Hybrids functions as a disturbing reflection of the cultural climate in which contemporary Young

154 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People SF is produced. Although we are accustomed to a wide range of technological advances, such as CIT, chip and pin, and TV-on-demand, we still, as Paul Brians suggests, “feel so dwarfed and victimised by our own technology that we create myths of that technology as Nemesis” (1990: 138). As I have argued throughout this book, adults’ increasing anxiety regarding young people’s use of technology, born of the Romantic perception of childhood as innocent combined with the fear of being left behind in the technological race, has shaped SF novels for young readers. However, this anxiety is not confined to SF authors alone, as a recent statement from the best-selling children’s author and past Children’s Laureate Jacqueline Wilson reveals: Our society has made a collective decision to stop children from being children [ . . . ] we’re expecting them to grow up much too quickly, force-feeding our own materialistic and consumptive culture into their mouths. Much of the innocence of childhood is being robbed from them [ . . . ] With television and the internet playing a bigger and bigger role in their lives, children are being introduced to ideas and issues which used to be kept away from them. Rather than having fun for the sake of it, and going out to play, they’re receiving the adult world in a largely unfi ltered form. (Rajan and McSmith, 2008: par 3–4) Wilson’s comments were widely reported, not only because she is perceived as an authority on issues of contemporary childhood, since these feature in many of her books, but more importantly, because of her known tendency to engage with difficult issues, such as growing up with a mentally ill parent (The Illustrated Mum, 1999) or with no parents at all (The Story of Tracy Beaker, 1991), in her novels. The fact that even an author renowned for attempting to depict childhood as realistically as possible points a blaming finger at technology for corrupting young people’s innocence reveals the extent to which technophobic attitudes prevail in society as well as the continuing allure of the innocent child which underpins them. Wilson’s sentiments reinforce the conclusion of this book, that children’s literature as a body of writing, and Young SF in particular, is an anti-technology forum. One significant area of publishing for children that has not yet been discussed is the picture book, and the following discussion demonstrates how, even in writing directed at the very youngest readers, technophobia prevails. There are, in fact, a limited number of picture books that deal in any meaningful way with issues surrounding technology. The most common way of representing new technologies for young readers is the personal computer, a familiar device in the domestic sphere for over two decades. The following brief overview of picture books featuring computers reveals a persistently hostile attitude, underlining the extent to which technophobic messages are being embedded even in non-SF literature normally associated with very young children in the process of learning to read.

Conclusion • 155 Computers in Contemporary Picture Books: A Demonstrative Case Study In “Machine Animism in Modern Children’s Literature” (1967), a short article written at least a decade before the introduction of the personal computer, Joseph Schwarcz identifies three modes of machine representations in literature: the Promethean mode, in which the machine is depicted as the powerful servant; the Apocalyptic mode, featuring machines that are out-of-control, and so reflecting human’s fear of losing mastery; and the Benevolent mode, which depicts the machine as a loyal and equal companion (89). He claims that the third is a covert form of the Apocalyptic mode, as repressed anxiety about machinery and an inferiority complex in relation to it are disguised by projection of human characteristics onto the machine (92). These modes correlate with documented adults’ attitudes towards children’s use of CIT, whereby the realisation that being computer-literate is a required skill for the future (so the computer is perceived as a useful tool) is mixed with anxiety that this technology will damage children’s social and familial relationship and undermine parental authority (the computer is seen as dangerous) (Turow and Nir, 2000; Livingstone and Bober, 2005). Schwarcz finds that picture books featuring machinery such as trains and vehicles commonly depict it as benevolent, which he claims prepares children to live as inferior to machines and thus as functional members of industrial society (1967: 94). The shift from an industrial to a high-tech society is noticeable in contemporary picture books. While mechanical equipment is portrayed as benevolent, a trend which continues to this day (for example in the BBC series ‘Bob the Builder’ and its literary spin-offs and merchandise in which construction vehicles are anthropomorphised), technological apparatus such as computers are mainly represented as dangerous, damaging or downright demonic. The nature of the computer as a necessary, yet incomprehensible, machine for the average user (as compared with, say, the relatively easily rendered and understood combustion engine), combined with its constant presence within the domestic sphere and children’s lives (as opposed to excavators and fire engines) may account for this difference. It is rare to find computers in picture books,2 and when they appear it is almost always in texts which engage with this technology and its impact as a central theme. While the Promethean mode characterises only a small number of texts, these are predominantly books published by CIT or media companies. A good example is Novelli’s My First Book about Computers (1986), published by the Microsoft corporation, which emphasises that “the computer is a machine [ . . . ] designed and created by people” (6), yet claims that “knowing how to use computers can give you an important part in the future” (61). Similarly, Margy Kuntz’s TV spin-off Kermit Learns How Computers Work (1993), published by Prima, a company specialising in computer game strategy guides, asserts that computers make tasks “easier, or faster or

156 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People more fun”(8). Exploring media discourses of childhood and ICT, Neil Selwyn notes that “computer policies and products are presented as primarily being developed for the younger generation who are naturally interested in such things—providing adults only with the option of ‘coming along’ for the journey” (2003: 356). Indeed the back cover of Kuntz’s book is addressed to both children and their parents. Such texts are by-products of the computer industry and as such have a clear commercial agenda: they are designed to encourage adults to purchase the technology for their children. The picture is quite different in picture books published by children’s fiction imprints. In this market, the Apocalyptic mode of representation is extremely common, as computers are depicted as a danger to children’s social skills and familial relationships. Suzanne Collins and Mike Lester’s When Charlie McButton Lost Power (2005) is a humorous book about a young computer addict. The first two pages depict Charlie as a goggle-eyed child, cooped up in his room, frenziedly clutching the computer mouse, while his younger sister is busy playing with the dog outdoors. These images clearly contrast what the illustrator perceives as a ‘healthy’ activity for children with Charlie’s damaging behaviour. When the electricity fails, Charlie exhibits signs of withdrawal, “his lungs gasping for air,” dizzy and visibly distressed (unpaginated). After much grumbling, Charlie joins his sister in games such as hide-and-seek and wizards and trolls, and when the power returns he is a changed child—opting to look for dragons with his sister rather than to “plug in” (unpaginated). The message is clear: computers not only threaten ‘normal’ childhood, epitomised by the great outdoors and imaginative play, but put the welfare of the family unit in danger. A similar message is found in Marc Brown’s Arthur’s Computer Disaster (1998), in which Arthur’s addiction to a computer game causes him to disobey his parents, and in a humorously intended twist, his mother becomes so engrossed in the same game that she neglects to tuck-in her children (unpaginated). Likewise, in Sharon Jennings’ Franklin and the Computer (2003), Franklin falls out with his friends over a computer game entitled “Dam Builders,” depicted as a competitive and anti-social activity compared with the friends’ pretend game of dam-building outdoors (unpaginated). Unfriendly behaviour due to fascination with computers is also the theme in Korky Paul and Valerie Thomas’ Winnie’s New Computer (2003), which shows Winnie the witch putting her loyal companion, Wilbur the cat, outside, even though it is raining, because he has interfered with her new computer mouse. In Winnie’s case, the computer brings further trouble as the magic spells she uploads into the machine backfi re, and Winnie eventually decides to stick with the traditional spell book instead (unpaginated). Yet more havoc is caused by an over-enthusiastic elf-child in Margie Palatini and Mike Reed’s Elf Help (1997) as Christmas is nearly ruined when the computer into which he uploaded children’s wish lists crashes. In these books, computers are depicted as alien in a magical environment, the latter

Conclusion • 157 perceived as the ‘natural’ habitat for children’s imagination as “creatures of unreason” (Warner, 1994: 44). The association of children with the fantastical at the expense of their relationship with technology is also a theme in Nicholas Fisk’s A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair (1980), discussed in Chapter Four. Chapter One of this book shows that many Young SF novels depict primordial nature as superior to a technological environment, as well as associating it with young people as part of the lingering Romantic perception of childhood. Ursel Scheffler and Ruth Scholte van Mast’s Grandpa’s Amazing Computer (1997) also makes this point, as the text and images clearly posit the computer as both oppositional and inferior to nature. Ollie attempts to convince his grandfather to buy a computer, but his grandfather, “horrified” by the idea (17), claims he already has a very old model (22). This ‘computer’ turns out to be a sunflower seed, which the grandfather convinces Ollie, is more “amazing” than the real thing (45), implying the superiority of nature over technology not only as a productive force, but also as the appropriate environment for children. Adults’ anxieties regarding children’s use of technology are clearly at play in the majority of picture books, as is the case in many of the Young SF novels analysed in previous chapters. However, throughout this book, texts which are an exception to this rule have been highlighted and shown to function as counterpoints to, as well as indications of, alternative, non-technophobic modes of representation. The same pertains to picture books, as can be seen in two works that depict computers as what I term ‘enchanted portals,’ a gateway to an alternative space in which children can explore their imaginative power and process difficult emotions. Carol Carrick’s Patrick’s Dinosaurs on the Internet (1999) is a magical adventure in which Patrick, who is fond of dinosaurs, is contacted by Flato, a friendly member of the species, through the internet and taken to the home planet of the dinosaurs to be Flato’s ‘show and tell’ guest at school. Although there is a spaceship and space travel involved, this picture book, like many others featuring such icons, is SF “in only the most limited sense analogous with the earliest material published in the genre: the explorer goes out, learns and comes back” (Mendlesohn, 2003: 4). The internet does, however, play a significant role in the story, as it enables Patrick to expand his universe by connecting him to remote potential friends. In an age when adults feel uncomfortable about young people’s use of chat rooms because they fear online predators (Center for the Digital Future, 2008: 8), Carrick’s book implies that this anxiety is exaggerated. It also depicts CIT as helping to develop children’s social skills rather than threatening them. Patrick’s computer functions as a portal through which he meets new friends and enjoys magical experiences. A more complex handling of cyberspace as an enchanted portal is found in Alexandre Jardin’s Cybermama: An Extraordinary Voyage to the Centre of Cyberspace (1996), a radical picture book in terms of both visuals (it uses ‘actors’ photographed as the characters in action, as well as unconventional

158 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People graphics) and content. Cybermama’s construction of cyberspace has been discussed from conflicting perspectives (Leander and McKim, 2003; Reynolds, 2007: 171–73; Crandall, 2008). The book relates the journey of three children whose mother has recently died and who travel through a computer into cyberspace in order to retrieve a fi le containing her images and recordings— her ‘virtual self’—which was stolen by an admiring hacker. Kevin M. Leander and Kelly K. McKim comment that Cybermama “blurs online/offline distinctions of emotion, experience, and family life” (233), and as such it challenges the “common misconception of the Internet as somehow radically separate from everyday life” (237). Nadia Crandall, by contrast, sees Cybermama as descended from Gothic fiction, and, as such, it constructs cyberspace as an “alternative reality” which she terms “dream-space,” This space is “transgressive and liberating,” yet “always set in opposition to conventional constructs of the real world” (2008: 41). However, Jardin’s text allows for both these views to co-exist: it depicts cyberspace as an empowering alternative space for children in which the activities taking place and the emotions they generate are as valid as activities and emotions experienced outside it. The Plum children grieve the loss of their mother, yet are powerless against it. They discover, however, that the retrieval of her ‘virtual self’ through completing a quest in cyberspace is within their power. Their experience, taking place in a space in which the rules of the world outside do not always apply—especially with regard to risks that young children are allowed to take—has a strong impact on their emotional life, as it diminishes the sense of helplessness associated with their mother’s death. This transformation is symbolised by the decision of Lily, the youngest child, to abandon her teddy bear, which has functioned as a surrogate for her mother since her death. In this sense, I disagree with Kimberley Reynolds’ analysis, that Cybermama functions on some level as “a cautionary tale, warning against the seductive power of IT” as the children “learn that the screen and the technology behind it cannot substitute for reality” (2007: 172). Technology in Jardin’s text functions as a therapeutic space, and the emotional results are as beneficial as they are real: “ [the children’s] joy was certainly not virtual” (Cybermama: 58). In this sense, the computer acts as an enchanted portal, in a similar manner to fairytales according to Bruno Bettelheim’s theory as developed in The Uses of Enchantment (1976). The internet is not depicted as a deceptive space which simply fulfi ls personal desires; as even Mr Jones, the hacker who actively chooses to live in cyberspace, cannot make the children’s virtual mother return his love. Texts such as Patrick’s Dinosaurs on the Internet and Cybermama, as well as a small number of Young SF novels highlighted throughout this book, among them Janet McNaughton’s Secret under My Skin (2000) and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (2002), perceive technology, not only as contributing to our lives, but also as an empowering medium for young people. Nevertheless, as the previous pages have shown, children’s literature is generally imbued

Conclusion • 159 with anti-technological messages. Jèmeljan Hakemulder’s in-depth review of the empirical research conducted on the influence of literature on readers shows that texts may well affect the moral development of young people, and to a lesser degree, their norms and values (1997: 36, 48). Based on this assumption, therefore, supplying young people with an excess of cautionary tales that not only demonise technology but also ignore its creative potential and dismiss its significant role in repairing past damage associated with its misuse, can result in their internalising technophobic attitudes. A child reader absorbing these messages may be ill-prepared for growing up in an increasingly technologised age, crippled by a perpetuated fear of the technology she is bound to use. Indeed spectres of past literary representations of technology still haunt Western culture today (an obvious example is the iconic status of the Orwellian ‘Big Brother,’ now a popular reality-TV show), suggesting that readers are not completely immune to the influence of the books they read. However, concluding that young readers are entirely susceptible to the ideologies transmitted via the books written for them implies an endorsement of the Romantic notion of the child-reader as innocent—a tabula rasa waiting to be inscribed upon. Aidan Chambers argues that children are “unyielding readers,” expecting the author to “take them as he finds them” (1990: 93). In this sense, young people are capable, not only of recognising that the implied reader is not congruent with themselves, but also rejecting a book based on this recognition. As Murray Knowles and Kirsten Malmkjær note, if the gaps between, on the one hand, the writer’s ‘assumption of commonality’ with an implied reader, and, on the other hand, the real reader’s actual background knowledge becomes too great, these gaps can, at worst, alienate the reader, and, at best, prevent the reader from forming the writer’s intended responses to the text. (1996: 264) According to Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short, a reader’s reluctance to identify with a set of values promoted within a book “is a sign of the author’s failure” (1981: 277). In terms of children’s literature, such a failure, born of authors’ inability to recognise or accept contemporary childhood and its complex, yet pleasurable, interaction with technology may have dire consequences in terms of young people’s book-reading habits. Essentially, a technophobic literary legacy may lead to the marginalisation of reading in favour of technological pastimes, a trend already apparent among boys (Maynard et al., 2007). Technology plays an important part in young people’s lives in Westernised countries. They construct their identities and connect to like-minded peers through websites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook; they engage in roleplay in an infinite number of online environments and game consoles; they communicate via text and picture messages; they acquire their culture via download sites such as iTunes; and they express their views in a variety of internet forums. A growing number of these young people come into being

160 • Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People through use of reproductive technologies, and some have an improved quality of life due to genetic screening and stem cell research. The interface of children and adolescents with technology “subsumes the narrow rigidity which previously characterised both family norms and those conventional forms of discipline and pedagogy found in classrooms” (Holmes and Russell, 1999: 71). Consequently, many adults feel threatened by this change, and the gap between generations widens. As suggested by Derrida in the epigraph for this book, literature cannot but be influenced by, and respond to, the machine. The anti-technological attitudes found in books written for young people expose a generational divide in terms of the relationship and perception of modern technology. This technophobic legacy also highlights adults’ reluctance to embrace the changing face of childhood and the shift in the power dynamic which accompanies this change. Looking through the lens of technology, literature aimed at young people is exposed afresh as problematic, a socialisation agent serving adults’ agenda. The younger generation, escaping via screens and consoles from the sheltered, adult-mediated world constructed for them, may well be aware of, and even resent, this manipulation. The gatekeepers of children’s literature— parents, educators, authors and publishers—must come to terms with this savvy audience by offering a wider range of literary perspectives on technology or potentially face a further decline in the relationship between young people and the printed book.

Notes

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 1. A few major works are Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology” (1954); Ellul’s The Technological Society (1954); Hardison’s Disappearing through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century (1990); Postman’s Technopoloy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992); Boal and Brook’s Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information (1995); Ferré’s Philosophy of Technology (1995); Marx’s The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (1999) and Murphie and Potts’ Culture and Technology (2003). Significantly, many of these are expressions of fear as to the effect of technology on society and culture. 2. For example Postman’s The Disappearance of Childhood (1983); Meyrowitz’s “The Adultlike Child and the Childlike Adult: Socialization in an Electronic Age” (1984); Buckingham’s After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media (2000); Hutchby and MoranEllis’ Children, Technology and Culture: The Impacts of Technologies in Children’s Everyday Lives (2001) and Steinberg and Kincheloe’s Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood (2004). All these studies are discussed at length in Chapter Four. 3. An in-depth discussion and analysis of studies researching the changing attitudes of parents and children towards the use of information technology takes place in the fourth chapter. 4. A novum can be a new concept, process, invention or object. Its centrality to SF as a genre has been emphasised by Darko Suvin (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 313). 5. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction dedicates three pages to reviewing different definitions of SF (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 311–14), ranging from those focusing on the commercial/marketing classification of SF (for example those offered by Damon Knight and Norman Spinrad) to those attempting a critical/academic definition (typified by those constructed by Darko Suvin, Leslie Fiedler and Robert Scholes). 161

162 • Notes 6. The manifestation of genetic determinism in Gem X is discussed at length in Chapter Five. 7. Mendlesohn maintains that this phenomenon indicates that something is lacking in Young SF, prompting readers to seek it in Adult SF, a notion she explores in a positioning piece entitled “Is There Any Such Thing as Children’s Science Fiction?” (2004), and more in depth in The InterGalactic Playground of Children’s Science Fiction (forthcoming). A discussion of her main hypothesis follows in the next section. 8. Although Molson claims that despite the stated intention to create SF that would be scientifically accurate and instruct children about the scientific elements employed by the authors, only three of the books actually fulfi l this promise, as authors seem to have written the books for recognition and royalties and didn’t really have the advancement of this genre in mind (Molson, 1984). 9. The usefulness of the genre as an educational tool was highlighted by numerous articles in educational journals in the 1970s (Lamb and Bartholomew, 1975; Reynolds, 1977; Myers, 1978; Zjawin, 1978; Grady, 1979; Muriel, 1979). Jean Greenlaw (1970; 1982; 1987) for example sets out to prove that science fiction for young readers is moral on the grounds that “establishing that a significant adult concern is reflected in this genre of literature might lead to a greater acceptance of science fiction by teachers” (1970: 15). Similarly, the futurist Alvin Toffler calls for the incorporation of science fiction as a teaching tool in school, so that children will be prepared for the future and avoid what he terms ‘future shock’ (Toffler, 1970: 384). Dennis Livingston goes further to detail how specific texts can be used to generate a discussion of “pressing issues raised by the impact of social change, especially that derived from the effects of science and technology, on human values and institutions” (Livingston, 1974: 253). 10. Kay Sambell applauds this growing trend of dystopian writing for children and young adults, which she believes represents the coming of age of Young SF. She claims that “the widespread critical aversion to science fiction in the children’s book world stems from what science fiction used to be in the 1950s and 1960s” which she refers to as “comic-book melodrama” and mostly “mediocre and banal” (1996: 3). Although this is true with regard to pulp SF, many novels published by respected publishers were well-written and discussed serious issues, as the long annotated list of recommended SF for young readers in two editions of Baron’s Anatomy of Wonder (Barron, 1995; 2004) confirms. This list contains many novels written before 1970 which SF critics deem as meriting attention. 11. Peter Dickinson’s writing epitomises the changing attitude towards technology and young people’s use of it in Young SF novels. In The Changes, his trilogy published between 1968 and 1970, depicting a

Notes • 163

12

13.

14

15. 16.

17.

18.

dystopian Britain that has regressed back to the Dark Ages and shuns technology which is regarded as witchcraft, young people’s interest in this technology is instrumental to the reversal of the situation. In the later Eva (1988), however, which is discussed at length in Chapter One, a young girl whose brain is implanted in a chimp’s body, chooses to escape her technological, decaying culture, opting for primordial existence in the jungle. Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction which is usually set in the nineteenth century, often in Victorian London (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 1161). Variants on the theme can be set in an alternate history, or in a future world which reverted to steam-style technology, as is the case in Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines (2001) discussed in Chapter Two. Kay Sambell’s PhD thesis “The Use of Future Fictional Time in Novels for Young Readers” (1996) is unpublished, however, she covers some of its central points in “Presenting the Case for Social Change: The Creative Dilemma of Dystopian Writing for Children” (2003). The Alan Review Special Issue: Science Fiction 19.3 (1992); Children’s Literature Association Quarterly Special Issue: Children’s Science Fiction 5.4 (1981) and Special Section: Recent Science Fiction for Children and Adolescents 10.2 (1985): 60-79; Foundation Themed Issue: Young SF 70 (1997); The Lion and the Unicorn Special Issue: Children and Science Fiction 29.2 (2004). This article presents some of the key arguments which will be extended in Mendlesohn’s forthcoming The Inter Galactic Playground. Nicholas Tucker comments on the general dislike among children’s authors, publishers and academics for stories that “have a depressive effect on child readers” (2006: 200). Similarly, Perry Nodelman refers to the “conventions” of children’s literature, which include “happy endings” (1987: 19). The latter source is also quoted in Kay Sambell’s “Presenting the Case for Social Change: The Creative Dilemma of Dystopian Writing for Children” (2003). Several studies suggest that young people’s values and social perceptions may be influenced by the literature they read (as reviewed in Kimmel, 1970; Hakemulder, 1997). While the 1995 edition dedicates a separate chapter to Young SF, the more recent one replaces this with a more comprehensive list which emphasises SF as a crossover literature; it does, however, highlight texts written for young people in parenthesis.

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE 1. The quotes from Rousseau are taken from Grace Roosvelt’s 1998 revised, abridged, translation, published electronically by the Institute for Learning Technology at Columbia University. Roosvelt revised

164 • Notes

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

Barbara Foxley’s 1911 translation to make it less archaic and more accessible to a modern reader. Brian Stableford in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction also reviews the shifting ecological interests within Adult SF, tracing them back to the late 1920s. (1999: 365–66). While other texts discussed in this book present the nature-technology debate as a secondary theme, those analysed in this chapter were selected because of their primary engagement with it. They span over twenty-four years and come from different English-speaking countries, thus providing a cross-section of the prevailing attitudes towards this debate within Anglophone children’s literature. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction also notes that stories in which “urban life is depicted as cruel, oppressive or sterile, while the country represents freedom,” are a “particularly popular theme in Children’s SF” (Clute and Nicholls, 1999: 915). Nodelman gives Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars (1956) as a prime example of Adult SF which expresses a “forward thrust” and “a basic faith in the possibilities of change” that are missing from Young SF (Nodelman, 1985: 288). May mentions William Sleator’s House of Stairs (1974), John Christopher’s Wild Jack (1974), Laurence Yep’s Sweetwater (1973), H.M. Hoover’s The Shepherd Moon (1984), Mildred Ames’ Anna to the Infinite Power (1981) and Mary Steele’s Journey Outside (1969) as examples for novels which contradict Nodelman’s theories. An article published by SIRC (Social Issues Research Centre) fi nds that studies on cultural attitudes towards new technology show that British people are “deeply suspicious of new developments” (Taylor, 2004). This famous quote from a poem by William Wordsworth published in 1800 (Wordsworth, 1990b: 522) epitomises the Apollonian concept of childhood which, according to Jenks, was formulised in the Romantic era (Jenks, 1996: 73). For a comprehensive definition of environmental anthropocentrism see the Philosophy section of ThinkQuest’s environmental online resource The Environment: A Global Challenge (Camic et al., 1999). Here McKibben joins others campaigning against genetic engineering, for example Jean Baudrillard and Andrew Kimbrell, whose views are discussed in Chapter Five of this book. Lovelock, however, rejected the connection between the Gaia hypothesis and teleology in his book The Ages of Gaia (1988). This view’s popularity is evidenced by a growing number of blockbuster fi lms depicting robots’ plea for equality with humans. Examples are John Badham’s Short Circuit (1986), Chris Columbus’ Bicentennial Man (1999), Steven Spielberg’s AI (2001) and Alex Proyas’ I, Robot (2004), the latter three inspired by classic SF short stories.

Notes • 165 13. Based on definitions of concepts such as anthropocentrism, biocentrism, bioregionalism, as well as “Intrinsic Value” and “Deep Ecology” published for the layman in ThinkQuest’s online comprehensive reference guide to environmental issues (Camic et al., 1999). 14. Based on Pietarinen’s Utilism (1994: 290), Heinonen’s Exploitation (2000: 112), and Merchant’s Egocentric ethic (1995: 213). 15. Based on Pietarinen’s Mysticism (1994: 292), Heinonen’s Harmony (2000: 112), and Merchant’s Ecocentric ethic (1995: 295). 16. Based on Pietarinen’s Naturism (1994: 293), Heinonen’s Epistemological Expansion (2000: 206) and Merchant’s Partnership ethic (1995: 216). 17. Although used to analyse Young SF, the framework suggested is not exclusive to this sub-genre and can be used as a critical tool when analysing any fictional text engaging with issues of technology and the environment. 18. Texts in which the protagonist moves between several enclosed communities, thus complying only partially with Nodelman’s scheme, are analysed in the next section. Other texts which do fit this scheme but do not engage with the treatment of nature as a central theme and/or have themes which were deemed relevant for discussion elsewhere in this book are analysed in appropriate subsequent chapters. Examples are H.M. Hoover’s This Time of Darkness (1980), Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993), Nina Bawden’s Off the Road (1998), Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines (2001), Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion (2002) and Patrick Cave’s Sharp North (2004). 19. In The Others, Ergo escapes from Underhill to Air City, which is another society characteristic of the Mechanism model; however, his mother’s stories of her island of origin, depicted as an agrarian haven (62–64) fuel his desire to escape both societies (174). 20. Albion depicts only one society, complying with the Equilibrium model, discussed hereafter. 21. Mind-bonding is a thorough telepathic investigation into another’s thoughts, while wordbonding means verbal communication. Scatterlings is used by Nicholls as a prime example to illustrate his claim that in Young SF psi powers are positioned as superior to technological knowledge, discussed previously (Clute and Nicholls: 216). 22. The books illustrate the disturbing history of the infantilisation of indigenous people by colonial forces, or the working classes by the ruling elite. Newsinger points out that Futuretrack 5 is “a very direct response to the impact of the first Thatcher government on British society” (1995: 62). 23. For an extensive definition of utopian writing see Carrie Hintz and Elaine Ostry’s introduction to Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults (Hintz and Ostry, 2003: 2–5). 24. It is interesting to compare this attitude towards cyborgs to Helen Fox’s book Eager (2003) in which a self-aware robot’s declaration “I am a part

166 • Notes of this earth . . . just like the birds and the trees and the people” is wholly endorsed (298). NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO 1. Stableford cites two short stories as prime examples of such utopian SF writing for adults: Damon Knight’s “The Country of a Kind” (1955) and Robert Silverberg’s “A Man of Talent” (1966). 2. In his address marking the opening of a new scientific education institute, Huxley criticised those refusing to acknowledge that science is an indispensable part of culture. Arnold replied to Huxley’s accusations in his 1882 Rede lecture (Collini, 1993: xiv). 3. The view that physical accessibility to ‘high art’ will allow the masses, especially the working classes, to better appreciate it, is contradicted by Pierre Bourdieu’s 1969 empirical research on visitors to European museums (Bourdieu, Darbel and Schnapper, 1991), based on the theory he developed, discussed in Distinction (1979), that artistic taste is influenced and perpetuated by class, or, more broadly, that culture is “complicit in social reproduction” (Grenfell, 2004: 91). Michael Grenfell points out that today it is mass media which has taken over as the means by which such cultural dispositions are acquired, and notes that it “can work in either direction—on behalf of commercialism or of emancipation” (2004: 109), thus emphasising that technology is a potential tool in the hands of society rather than an active socialising agent in itself. 4. The story of the Twelve Southerners and their manifesto was brought to my attention by Nicols Fox, who cites it in his book discussing neoLuddite tradition in art and literature (Fox, 2002). 5. Gestell in the original German. 6. The way in which the human is defi ned in a post-human era enabled by technology is discussed in depth in Chapter Five. 7. These are the three most common moral objections to technology, as brought forward by Professor of Philosophy Robert Hollinger (1979). 8. The theme of remediation of literature as a result of technology’s influence is further developed in the next chapter. 9. It is interesting to note that Mark refers to archaeology as a ‘science’; however, as an academic subject it is studied in British universities within faculties of art. 10. It is important to note that the aboriginals live within a treacherous and wild natural terrain and know how to survive and navigate through it instinctively. Their abuse by the technological society around them is reminiscent of the abuse suffered by the Clan folk in Scatterlings (Carmody, 1995), and the Fenmen in Futuretrack 5 (Westall, 1989), both discussed in the previous chapter. In each case nature is linked with

Notes • 167

11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

the past in derogatory and hostile ways by those committed to technological regimes, and posited against technology and the future. In Presence of the Past: Memory, Heritage and Childhood in Post-War Britain (2000), Valerie Krips notes that the attempt to ‘edit’ the past through selective commemoration harks back to the second half of the twentieth century, when British concepts of heritage started to develop. According to Krips, books written for children in this period share the aim of “bringing the past into the present” (1), yet the childhood which they depict, as in the process of commemorating the collective past, is idealised in the service of “adults desires and needs” (62). While colonial history and the ‘McDonald’s’ cultural invasion prove that this point is a valid one, it is nevertheless important to note the valuable role of the internet in preserving the heritage of indigenous communities. See for example http://www.indigenousaustralia.info/ or http://www.nativeweb.org/. Interestingly, the Stalker Shrike (a cyborg-soldier whose human past is supposedly erased in the process of meshing organism and machine), also shows loyalty to his past-ward Hester, as he follows her throughout the novel, because of his love for her as well as his secret wish to turn her into a Stalker so that they share eternity together (Reeve, 2001: 177). In the sequels to Mortal Engines (Predator’s Gold, 2003; Infernal Devices, 2005; A Darkling Plain, 2006), Reeve resurrects Shrike, as well as another cyborg, Stalker Fang, depicting them as complex characters, constantly torn by an inner confl ict. Reeve’s cyborgs are not liberating metaphors in the style of Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1991), discussed at length in Chapter Five, for their personal history, in form of resurfacing shreds of lost memories, is synonymous with their human identity, and confl icts with their cold and calculating mechanical present—their technologically created bodies. The Stalkers thus embody the human/technological, past/present divide rather than bridge it as Haraway’s cyborg does. Despite this, Reeve reveals by the end of the last volume that Shrike is the narrator of the Mortal Engines quartet. Technology takes over the role of the historian, as Shrike becomes a self-defi ned “remembering machine” (Reeve, 2006: 533), and the boundaries between the humanities and the sciences are fi nally blurred. See Chapter Four for a review of studies focusing on the technological generational gap. This quote appears in Heine’s 1821 play “Almansor,” translated by Hal Draper (Heine, 1982: 187). A similar scenario takes place in M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2003), in which a chip is implanted in people’s brain, allowing corporations to bombard them with customised advertising (see Chapter Three for further discussion of this novel). Both texts make a point about the

168 • Notes comodification of youth culture, pointing a blaming fi nger at communication technology as the culprit. NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE 1. MUDs are an online virtual environment which allows players to communicate via a text-based interface. For a more detailed definition see Pavel Curtis’ insightful online essay “Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities” (1992). 2. There are, however, studies exploring online hypertext fiction, for example Nick Montfort’s Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (2003). For a brief review of other sources see Mark Bernstein and Diane Greco’s chapter on hypertext tools in First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (2004). Other studies are dedicated to children’s electronic books; see for example Nicole Yankelovich and Norman Meyrowitz’s “Reading and Writing the Electronic Book” (1991), and Sainsbury’s “Tales from the Mouse House: Playing with Reading on CD-Rom” (2000). 3. For examples of texts complying with these types see Appendix A in Dresang (1999). For a more current list of picture books see “Young Children and Radical Change Characteristics in Picture Books” (Pantaleo, 2004). 4. The amount of hypertext fiction available online for children is astonishingly small; most are collaborative works, to which mainly children have contributed, although adults supply the general framework. See for example “Monster Motel” (Burgess, 2001), and “The Neverending Tale” (Harvey and Wesche, 2002). A few more examples, although some only deemed suitable for young readers rather than intended for them, are found in a chapter dedicated to hyperfiction in Len Unsworth’s E-literature for Children (2005: 87–117). 5. A quick search on the web reveals quite a few websites offering online literature for children; however, often these texts are traditional stories which move in a linear manner allowing the reader nothing more than to click a button to ‘turn’ the page. See for example “My Brother the Robot” (Lumerman, 2001). 6. A BBC report found that an astounding 100% of 6–10 year olds and 97% of 11–15 year olds in the United Kingdom are gamers (defined on page 2 of the report on as “someone who had played a game on a mobile, handheld, console, PC, Internet or interactive TV at least once in the last 6 months”), and although these young people rank games as the media they value most, books are also highly valued (ranked second by the six to ten age category and third by the eleven to fifteen category) (Pratchett, 2005). 7. Although Juul does seem to imply that in a SimCity scenario, the player takes on the role of Mayor in event time, thus becoming a character in the game world (2004).

Notes • 169 8. Howarth operates within an ambiance of adults’ anxiety over the negative effects of video games and the internet on the welfare of young people, especially concerning their social skills. Interestingly, the BBC’s report on gaming in the United Kingdom reveals that children are the most social gamers, as 54% prefer playing with friends rather than on their own (Pratchett, 2005: 6), suggesting that this anxiety is misplaced. NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR 1. For example, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) depicts a society in which women’s sexuality and reproduction are controlled by the state, while Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) takes place on a planet whose inhabitants switch freely between sexes. Both novels are feminist reflections on the unequal status of women in the latter part of the twentieth century. 2. Examples for such SF novels for adults are Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange (2001) and John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). 3. Card’s novel was originally published for an adult audience, however, nearly two decades later it has been repackaged by Starscape, a Young SF imprint, and marketed for ages ten and up. As it is also a major SF title which engages with the issues of this chapter and features children as central characters, it was deemed suitable for the purpose of this exploration. 4. Reviewing Zornado’s book, Richard Flynn observes that “The phrase ‘dominant ideology’ occurs with such frequency and in so many contexts as to become virtually meaningless” (2001: 433). 5. There can be a case made that even ‘non-human extensions,’ particularly television, are mediated for children by adults; especially programmes designed for young viewers. However, I believe Lee’s argument is valid when discussing the internet and television programmes for adults— both offering children information which is not intended specifically for them, thus allowing them to bypass the censorship of the adults surrounding them. 6. A more recent report, conducted by the celebrity clinical psychologist Tania Byron, also highlights what she terms as “the generational digital divide” which she claims “can lead to fear and a sense of helplessness” among parents, as they feel ill-equipped to protect their children in cyberspace (2008: 2). However, although Byron’s report proposes to move “from a discussion about the media ‘causing’ harm to one which focuses on children and young people, what they bring to technology and how we can use our understanding of how they develop to empower them to manage risks and make the digital world safer,” its recommendations include restricting young people’s access to “harmful material” and implementing an age-appropriate classification system on video games (2).

170 • Notes 7. At this point I would like to comment that although I discuss the construction of childhood, many of the characters in the novels analysed, as well as the intended readers, are adolescents. While young adults often display a strong sense of independence and a will to break away from adults’ control by establishing their own (sub) cultures (discussed in Epstein, 1998; Skelton and Valentine, 1998; Bennett and Kahn-Harris, 2004), they are still viewed by adults through the constructions of childhood discussed in this chapter; for example, The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a ‘child’ as under the age of eighteen (UNICEF, 1989: 2). Other scholars have also decided to use the term ‘childhood’ in its broadest sense. Henry Giroux, in his study of the construction, appropriation and abuse of childhood innocence by corporate culture, includes adolescents when discussing the damage which this appropriation inflicts on society in general and young people in particular (Giroux, 2000: 1–35). Tracey Skelton and Gill Valentine discuss in depth the fluidity and ambiguity of the term ‘youth’ which serves to explain their decision as editors to incorporate a “wide range of ‘takes’ on what it means to be young,” including studies about children (defined in the legal sense), when selecting essays for their collection dealing with contemporary international youth cultures (1998: 6). 8. See the next chapter for a full discussion of the paradox embedded in clone protagonists who are simultaneously focal points for reader identification and embodiments of the technology which the authors wish to demonise. 9. See for example the reaction to Bebo, the site which allows users to create a virtual room through which they can communicate with their friends. The service was criticised for posing “potential risks to children from paedophiles accessing personal information contained in profi les,” as well as for taking up valuable time which should be spent on studies. As a result many educational institutes have blocked access to this site from their networks (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebo#Criticisms).

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE 1. Apart from novels about clones, many of which are discussed here, the range of books dealing with biotechnology include novels discussing the meshing of animal and human genes, such as Melvin Burgess’ Bloodtide (1999); Kate Thompson’s Missing Link trilogy (2000; 2001; 2003); Susan Gates’ Dusk (2004); and Ann Halam’s Dr Franklin’s Island (2001). Other novels engage with eugenics and genetic enhancements, for example Nicole Luiken’s Violet Eyes (2001); Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy (2006b; 2006c; 2006a); and Joe Craig’s Jimmy Coates series (2005; 2006; 2007). Another recurring subject is cyborgs or the combining of flesh

Notes • 171

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

and machine, as featured in Rhiannon Lassiter’s Hex trilogy (1998; 1999; 2000); Katherine Applegate’s Remnants series (2002b; 2002a; 2002d; 2002c); Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines quartet (2001; 2003; 2005; 2006); and M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2003). The body of works in this area is vast and diverse and deserves further investigation, however, here I have chosen to focus on cloning, a technological development which happens to be close to realisation. Genetic determinism is the belief that genes are responsible for all our physical and behavioural traits, and that a direct correlation exists between every gene and the trait associated with it, so that the mapping of one’s genetic code will allow an accurate prediction of a person’s appearance and personality. As Kay Sambell shows in her unpublished PhD thesis, Huxley’s Brave New World (alongside Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four) has widely influenced futuristic dystopian writing for young adults, although many authors fail to emulate Huxley’s sense of irony due to their “perceived responsibility to point young readers toward a better world” (1996: 2). In this instance Taylor is a post-human body which transcends dichotomies in the liberating manner of Donna Haraway’s cyborg, discussed later in this chapter. The use of the term ‘death drive’ by Baudrillard is particularly interesting in conjunction with Lee Edelman’s theory that the queer functions as society’s death drive because it challenges the consensus which employs the figure of the Child as an emblem of society’s future (2004). As Baudrillard associates clones with the death drive, following Edelman’s line of argument, cloned children function in a similar manner to the queer in that they challenge the culturally constructed image of the Child and its exploitation in the service of family values. This corresponds with my suggestion that an inherent paradox is embedded in the cloned child, and as such she is a destabilising force within the family. Onora O’Neill explains that “family relationships are confused when several individuals hold the role of one; they are ambiguous when one individual holds the roles of several” but also remarks that “what counts as ‘confused’ or ‘ambiguous’ will of course differ in different kinship systems” (2002: 67). Elizabeth Thiel’s The Fantasy of Family: Nineteenth-Century Children’s Literature and the Myth of the Domestic Ideal (2008) traces the elevation of the nuclear family to an iconic status back to the nineteenth century, although she calls its existence in Victorian reality into question. Her study contrasts the family unit as defined by Victorian policy makers (essentially husband, wife and children) with literary representations of what she terms as “transnormative families,” which she identifies “primarily by the temporary or permanent absence of a natural parent or parents” (8) as they appear in children’s books of the era. Thiel’s study emphasises

172 • Notes the potential of children’s literature to debunk the myth of the ‘natural’ family; however, she concludes that despite the existence of texts for children featuring alternative familial groupings (she offers Lesléa Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies [1989] as one example), “today’s children’s literature market displays a loyalty to nineteenth-century family ideology that reflects a broader social desire for so-called Victorian family values” (Thiel: 166). It is inescapable that the ‘natural’ family, as implied by Victorian policy described in Thiel’s research, is defined in biological terms (all its members are blood-relatives), and by extension, DNA plays a part in the establishment of this hierarchy. As the following discussion shows, this chapter features a number of novels which correspond to Thiel’s findings, as they not only define the family in purely biological terms, but also perpetuate its ‘normativity’ by reaffirming the cloned child’s place within it, as part of the attempt to defuse the post-human’s threat to the myth of the ‘natural family.’ NOTES TO THE CONCLUSION 1. Ironically, David Thorpe used a voice recognition software while writing the novel, as a mild disability prevents him from typing (Hawkins, 2007). 2. The absence of computers in picture books is in sharp contrast to the abundance of spaceships and robots (Esmonde, 1982; Mendlesohn, 2003), though Farah Mendlesohn asserts that images of these technologies are often employed merely for their “novelty value” (2004: 287).

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Index

Aarseth, Espen 73–4, 82, 84 Adelman, Clem 91 adults: the adult as parasite 115–20; adult-child power relations 15, 97–9, 128, 150, 171; children, adults and technology 2, 101–8, 123, 124 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The (Twain, Mark) 76 Alan Review, The 10, 163 Albion (Vale, Brenda) 4, 34–5, 37–8, 165 aliens 13, 39, 66, 68, 109, 113 Allen-Gray, Alison: Unique 128, 129, 132, 133–4, 139–40 “Almansor: A Tragedy.” (Heine, Heinrich) 60, 167 Almond, David: Kit’s Wilderness 17 Ames, Mildred: Anna to the Infinite Power 164 Andersen, Gisle 91 Anderson, M.T.: Feed 4, 71, 90–4, 167, 170 Anderson, Poul: Vault of the Ages 7, 8 Anees, Munawar Ahmad 132 Anna to the Infinite Power (Ames, Mildred) 164 Another Heaven, Another Earth (Hoover, H.M.) 39–41 Antczak, Janice 10 Applebaum, Noga 2, 75 Applegate, Katherine: Remnants 170 Appleton, Victor (pseudonym) 6 Ariès, Philippe 99 Aristotle 77 Armstrong, William Hamilton 116 Arnold, Matthew 47, 51 Around the World in Eighty Days (Verne, Jules) 5-6

art and technology in the twentieth century 47–50 Arthur’s Computer Disaster (Brown, Marc) 156 Artificial Intelligence: AI (film) 164 As I Lay Dying (Faulkner, William) 76 Asimov, Isaac 7, 19 Atkins, Barry 71, 73, 77 Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale 169 Bacon, Francis 22 Badham, John 164 Bakhtin, Mikhail 74 Bald, Margaret 76 Balsamo, Anne 136, 137 Barr, Marleen 127 Barrie, J.M. 96, 109 Barron, Neil 5, 12, 162 Barry, John A. 91 Bartholomew, Rolland B. 162 Baudrillard, Jean 87-8, 93, 133, 136–7, 164, 171 Baum, L. Frank: The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity and the Optimism of Its Devotees 6 Bawden, Nina: Off the Road 96, 124, 125–6, 165 Beauchamp, Gorman 90 Bebo 159, 170 “Beggarman” (Shwartz, Susan) 65–7 Benjamin, Walter 14, 48, 49, 59, 72 Bennett, Andy 169 Bernstein, Mark 168 Bertagna, Julie: Exodus 11, 34–7 Bettelheim, Bruno 158 Bevis, the Story of a Boy (Jefferies, Richard) 17

189

190 • Index Bicentennial Man (film) 164 Biermann Wehmeyer, Lillian 8, 9, 10 biotechnology 15, 131, 141–2, 170 Bird, Brad 52 Blake, William: Songs of Innocence and of Experience 18 Bloodtide (Burgess, Melvin) 170 Blown Away (Cave, Patrick) 128, 149 Blueprint (Kerner, Charlotte) 128, 129, 131–2, 139, 143, 145, 148 Boal, Iain A. 161 Bober, Magdalena 45, 105, 106, 107, 155 Bogstad, Janice M. 6 Bolter, Jay David 72–4, 89 Borges, Jorge Luis: “The Garden of Forking Paths” 77 Bourdieu, Pierre 166 Bova, Ben: The Weathermakers 7 Bowkett, Stephen: The Wintering trilogy (Ice, Storm, Thaw) 26, 27, 29, 32–4 Boys from Brazil, The (Levin, Ira) 127 Boys of New York, The 6 Boys Own Paper, The 6 Brave New World (Huxley, Aldous) 62, 127, 131, 171 Brians, Paul 4, 154 Brock, Dan W. 130, 133 Broderick, Damien 3 Broers, Alec 45, 50 Bromberg, Heather 72 Brook, James 161 Brown, Marc: Arthur’s Computer Disaster 156 Browne, Tom: Red Zone 34–5, 37–8 Buckingham, David: (1998) 104; (2000) 99–100, 101, 104–5, 116, 118, 124, 161 Bukatman, Scott 8 Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange 169 Burgess, Mark: “Monster Motel” 168 Burgess, Melvin: Bloodtide 170 Burkeman, Oliver 24 Burley, Justine 133, 135 Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden 31 Burrows, Roger 142 Butterworth, Nick: Q Pootle 5 13 Byron, Tania 105, 169 Camic, Caroline 164, 165 Campbell, Abigail 46 Campbell, Courtney 132 Card, Orson Scott: Ender’s Game 96, 111, 113–14, 119–23, 125–6, 158, 169

Carmody, Isobelle: Scatterlings 34–7, 165, 166 Carrick, Carol: Patrick’s Dinosaurs on the Internet 157, 158 Caulfield, Timothy 128 Cavallaro, Dani 9 Cave, Patrick: Blown Away 128, 149; Sharp North 128, 135–6, 149–50, 165 Center for the Digital Future 2, 157 Chambers, Aidan 159 Changes, The trilogy (Dickinson, Peter) 8, 162–3 Charlton, Noel 23 Chetwin, Grace: Collidescope 4, 39–42 childhood: constructions of 14–15, 99–101; and technology 121–6 children: adult-child power relations 97–9; children, adults and technology 2, 101–8, 123, 124; literature and discourses of power 96–7 Children of Time (Moulton, Deborah) 26–32 Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 10, 163 Christopher, John: Wild Jack 164 City and the Stars, The (Clarke, Arthur C.) 19, 164 City of Ember (DuPrau, Jeanne) 8, 26–31 City under Ground, The (Martel, Suzanne) 19 Clarke, Arthur C.; The City and the Stars 19, 164 Clinton, Bill 129 Clockwork Orange, A (Burgess, Anthony) 169 Clone (Rose, Malcolm) 4, 128, 135, 146–7 Clone Rangers (Laybourne, Emma) 13, 128, 147–9 clones, cloning: adult-child power dynamic 15, 128, 150, 171; cyborg and clone 136, 142–4, 170; Dolly the sheep 15, 127–8, 129; ethical debate 128–33; family and kinship in a post-human age 142–50, 171–2; human 4, 15, 127–8, 132, 133, 144; the idea of the posthuman 136–42; the Non-Identity Problem 133–6, 147, 149; Operation Timewarp 112–13, 124; A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair 124–5 Cloning Miranda (Matas, Carol) 128, 129, 138, 145

Index • 191 Clute, John see Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Cole-Turner, Ronald 132 Collidescope (Chetwin, Grace) 4, 39–42 Collini, Stefan 46–7, 50, 166 Collins, Suzanne: When Charlie McButton Lost Power 156 Colman, Alan 133 Columbus, Chris 164 composing, music and harmony 65–8 computer games: adult attitudes to 2, 123, 124; characteristics of interactive digital media 77–80, 89; digital narrative structure 72–7; Ender’s Game 121–2; narratology 71; Operation Timewarp 124; in picture books 155–6; reading and 45, 84 computers: attitudes to 106, 154; in contemporary picture books 155–60, 172; influence on language 91; as threats 2 Condit, Celeste 128 Cooper, Claire: Earthchange 58–61, 63–4 “Country of the Kind, The” (Knight, Damon) 161, 166 Cox, Roger 98, 100, 103 Craig, Joe: Jimmy Coates 170 Crandall, Nadia 158 Crew, Hilary S. 142 Cullingford, Cedric 98 cultural encounter 39–42 Cure, The (Levitin, Sonia) 65–7 Curtis, Pavel 167 Cybermama: An Extraordinary Voyage to the Center of Cyberspace (Jardin, Alexandre) 157–8 cyberpunk 8–9 cyborgs: clones and 136, 142–4, 170; Collidescope 39; definition 142; Feed 93; Haraway’s 133, 142, 146, 150, 152, 167, 171; Hybrids 151–2; Mortal Engines 57, 167; musical 68; Shade’s Children 110, 118; The Wintering trilogy 33 Davies, Eryl 132 Dawkins, Richard 130 Deane, Paul 46 “‘Death of the Family’ or, Keeping Human Beings Human” (Reid, Roddey) 137, 144 Derrida, Jacques 1, 160 Devil on My Back (Hughes, Monica) 8, 26–31

Dickens, Charles: Hard Times 47 Dickinson, Peter: The Changes trilogy 8, 162–3; Eva 11, 26–32, 163 digital era 103–4, 169 digital fiction: characteristics of interactive digital media 77–80; digital narrative structures 14, 71–7; Inanimate Alice 52; Kindle 59; language and narration in Feed 90–4; The Night Room 80–4; Ultraviolet 84–90 Doctor Dolittle in the Moon (Lofting, Hugh) 6 Dolly the sheep 15, 127–8, 129 Dowell, Ben 2 Downes, Toni 105–6, 121 Dr Franklin’s Island (Halam, Ann (Gwyneth Jones)) 170 Dr Xargle’s Book of Earthlets (Willis, Jeanne, and Tony Ross) 13 Dresang, Eliza 75–6, 79, 168 DuPrau, Jeanne: City of Ember 8, 26–31 Dusk (Gates, Susan) 170 Dutton, Dennis 93 Eager (Fox, Helen) 165 “Ear” (Yolen, Jane) 65–8 Earnshaw, Brian 12 Earthchange (Cooper, Claire) 58–61, 63–4 Edelman, Lee 148, 171 Edward Stratemeyer Syndicate 6 Edwards, Jeanette 143, 144 Elf Help (Palatini, Margie, and Mike Reed) 156 Ellul, Jacques 49–50, 67, 161 enclosed communities, 26–34 Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (Clute and Nicholls): on anachronistic cultural references 67; on art and science 46; on blame for damage 33; definition of sf 3, 161; on ecology 18, 164; on music 65; on novum 80, 161; on steampunk 163; on telepathy 33, 165; on Tom Swift 6; on urban life and country life 164; on Young SF 5, 9 Ender’s Game (Card, Orson Scott) 96, 111, 113–14, 119–23, 125–6, 158, 169 “Endpiece: Medicine: Art or Science?” 47 Engdahl, Sylvia 7-8 environmental concerns 13–14, 17–19, 42–3; cultural encounter 39–42; current environmental debate 23–5; enclosed communities

192 • Index 26–34; futuristic landscapes 34–9; nature-technology-humanity in Young SF 25–6; perceptions of nature past 21–2; see also nature Epstein, Jonathon S. 169 Equilibrium 25, 26, 32–4, 37–9 Esmonde, Margaret P. 4, 172 Eva (Dickinson, Peter)11, 26–32, 163 “Exams, Technology and Family Breakups” 2 Exodus (Bertagna, Julie) 11, 34–7 Facer, Keri 105, 107 family and kinship in a post-human age 142–50 Farmer, Nancy: The House of the Scorpion 128, 134, 139, 148, 165 Farnell, Chris: Mark II 4, 128, 132, 140–1 Faulkner, William: As I Lay Dying 76 Faville, Barry: The Keeper 4, 58–61 Featherstone, Mike 142 Feed (Anderson, M.T.) 4, 71, 90–4, 167, 170 Ferré, Frederick 161 Ferreira, Maria A.S.S. 143 Fiedler, Leslie 161 Firestone, Shulamit 101–2 Fisk, Nicholas: A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair 95, 96, 124–5, 157 Flynn, Richard 169 Foucault, Michel 97–8, 99 Foundation (journal) 5, 10, 163 Fox, Helen: Eager 165 Fox, Nicols 166 Frank Reade series 6 Franklin and the Computer (Jennings, Sharon) 156 French, Paul (Isaac Asimov) 7 Frye, Northrop 34 Fukuyama, Francis 137, 138 Futuretrack 5 (Westall, Robert) 34–7, 165, 166 Gaia hypothesis 23, 30, 164 Galax-Arena (Rubinstein, Gillian) 96, 99, 109, 116–18 gamers 84, 168 “Garden of Forking Paths, The” (Borges, Jorge Luis) 77 Garner, Alan: The Owl Service 17, 18 Garte, Seymour 22, 24 Gates, Susan: Dusk 170 Gem X (Singer, Nicky) 4, 128, 131, 135, 161

Genesis Alpha (Michaels, Rune) 128, 129, 134, 138–9, 145 Gibson, William: Neuromancer 8–9 Giroux, Henry: (1997) 115, 126; (2000) 1, 18, 37, 43, 90, 99, 115, 170 Giver, The (Lowry, Lois) 11, 52, 53–4, 165 GM food 152–3 Golden Duck Award 12 Goldman, E.M.: The Night Room 71, 80–4, 89, 94 Gore, Al 24 Grady, Joan B. 162 Graham, Elaine L. 136, 137, 141, 143 Graham, Peter, 5 Grandpa’s Amazing Computer (Scheffler, Ursel, and Ruth Scholte van Mast) 157 Greco, Diane 168 Green Book, The (Paton Walsh, Jill) 58–61 Green, Richard 133 Greenlaw, Jean M. 3, 9–10, 162 Grenfell, Michael 166 Grusin, Richard 72–4, 89 Guattari, Felix 133 Guinn, David E. 132 Haddix, Margaret: Turnabout 96, 110–11, 117–18 Hakemulder, Jèmeljan 159, 163 Halam, Ann (Gwyneth Jones): Dr Franklin’s Island 170; Taylor Five 9, 128, 129, 134–5, 149 Halberstam, Judith 136, 137, 139, 141, 143–4, 150 Handmaid’s Tale, The (Atwood, Margaret) 169 Haraway, Donna 133, 142–3, 146, 150, 152, 167, 171 Hardison, O.B. 161 Hard Times (Dickens, Charles) 47 Harris, John 133, 144 Hartwell, David G. 5 Harvey, Margaret: “The Neverending Tale” 168 Hasund, Ingrid 91 Hawking, Stephen 4 Hawkins, Richard 172 Hayles, Katherine 136, 137 Heap, R.B. 129 Heather Has Two Mommies (Newman, Lesléa, and Diana Souza) 171 Heidegger, Martin 14, 49, 161 “Heidi” (Spyri, Johanna) 31 Heine, Heinrich: “Almansor: A Tragedy.” 60, 167

Index • 193 Heinlein, Robert: Rocket Ship Galileo 5, 7, 11, 19 Heinonen, Sirkka 21, 22, 24–5, 38, 165 Hex (Lassiter, Rhiannon) 170 Higonnet, Anne 1, 18, 115 Hintz, Carrie 12, 165 history, past and memory 52–8 Hollindale, Peter 13, 120 Hollinger, Robert 166 Holloway, Sarah 105–6, 121 Holmes, David 160 Hoover, H.M.: Another Heaven, Another Earth 39–41; The Shepherd Moon 164; This Time of Darkness 19, 58–62, 165 Horowitz, Anthony: Point Blanc 128, 130–1 Horton, Julia 1 House of Stairs (Sleator, William) 13, 164 House of the Scorpion, The (Farmer, Nancy) 128, 134, 139, 148, 165 Howarth, Lesley: Ultraviolet 71, 84–90, 94, 168 Hudson, Kenneth 91 Hughes, Monica: Devil on My Back 8, 26–31; Invitation to the Game 11, 96, 109, 110, 122–3 Hughes, Thomas: Tom Brown’s Schooldays 113 humanities and sciences 46–7; art and technology in the twentieth century 47–50; the two cultures 50–2 Hunt, Peter 8 Hunted, The (Shearer, Alex) 4, 96, 109, 110, 111, 115–18 Hutchby, Ian 161 Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World 62, 127, 131, 171 Huxley, T.H. 47, 51, 166 Hybrids (Thorpe, David) 15, 151–4, 172 hypertext fiction 73, 77, 168 I, Robot (film) 164 IBBY-UK (International Board on Books for Young People - United Kingdom) 57 I Feel Like the Morning Star (Maguire, Gregory) 26, 28–9 Illustrated Mum, The (Wilson, Jacqueline) 154 “Inanimate Alice” (Pullinger, Kate, and Chris Joseph) 52 Institute for the Future of the Book 52 interactive digital media 73–7, 168; characteristics 77–80

internet: adult-child relations 2, 96, 101, 107, 154, 168, 169; child protection issues 1–2; Feed 4, 90, 94; Hybrids 153; indigenous communities 167; multiple perspectives 79; in picture books 157–8; printed texts and 45, 72, 74–7, 94 Invitation to the Game (Hughes, Monica) 11, 96, 109, 110, 122–3 Iser, Wolfgang 78 Ito, Mizuko 78 James, Allison, 18, 101 James, Edward 5 Jardin, Alexandre: Cybermama: An Extraordinary Voyage to the Center of Cyberspace 157–8 Jefferies, Richard: Bevis, the Story of a Boy 17 Jenkins, Henry 73 Jenks, Chris 18, 164 Jennings, Sharon: Franklin and the Computer 156 Jimmy Coates (Craig, Joe) 170 John, Mary 99 John C. Winston Company 7 Johnson, B.S.: The Unfortunates 76–7 Jones, Gwyneth 9, 11 Joseph, Chris: “Inanimate Alice” 52 Joseph, Lawrence E. 23 Journey Outside (Steele, Mary) 164 Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Verne, Jules) 5–6 journeys 25–6, 34 Joyce, James: Ulysses 76 Juul, Jesper 73, 80–1, 85, 168 Kahn-Harris, Keith 169 Karolides, Nicholas J. 76 Katz, Jon 103 Keeper, The (Faville, Barry) 4, 58–61 Kermit Learns How Computers Work (Kuntz, Margy) 155–6 Kerner, Charlotte: Blueprint 128, 129, 131–2, 139, 143, 145, 148 Kimbrell, Andrew 141, 144, 164 Kimmel, Eric 163 Kincaid, James R. 115 Kincheloe, Joe L. 101, 103, 108, 161 Kindle 59 King, David 24 King, Geoff 74 King, Martin Luther Jr. 63 Kitamura, Satoshi: UFO Diary 13 Kitcher, Philip 129–30

194 • Index Kit’s Wilderness (Almond, David) 17 Klotzko, Arlene Judith 130, 131 Knight, Damon: “The Country of the Kind.” 161, 166 Knowles, Murray 159 Korczak, Janusz: Loving Every Child: Wisdom for Parents 151 Kranzberg, Melvin 46, 51 Kress, Gunther 50 Krips, Valerie 166–7 Kristeva, Julia 72 Krzywinska, Tanya 74 Kuntz, Margy: Kermit Learns How Computers Work 155–6 Lake at the End of the World, The (Macdonald, Caroline) 26, 28, 29, 30, 31 Lamb, William G. 162 landscapes, futuristic 34–9 language: and narration 90–4; technology as threat to 50, 61–3 Lasky, Kathryn: Star Split 128, 129, 138, 145 Lassiter, Rhiannon: Hex 170 Last Book in the Universe, The (Philbrick, Rodman) 4, 58–9, 61, 62–3 Laybourne, Emma: Clone Rangers 13, 128, 147–9 Layne, Steven L.: This Side of Paradise 128, 135 Le Guin, Ursula: The Left Hand of Darkness 169 Lean, Geoffrey 1 Leander, Kevin M. 158 Leavis, F.R. 50-1 Leavitt, Robin Lynn 98, 99 Lee, Nick 4, 101, 105, 108, 120, 169 Leech, Geoffrey 159 Left Hand of Darkness, The (Le Guin, Ursula) 169 L’Engle, Madeleine: A Wrinkle in Time 7 Lenz, Millicent 13 Leonardo da Vinci 47 Lesnik-Oberstein, Karín 13, 18, 43 Lester, Mike: When Charlie McButton Lost Power 156 Levick, Stephen 132, 144 Levin, Ira: The Boys from Brazil 127 Levitin, Sonia: The Cure 65–7 Levy, Michael M. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 26 Lindee, Susan M. 128, 143 Linklater, Richard 52 Lion and the Unicorn, The 10, 163

literature: children’s literature and discourses of power 96–7; reading and poetry 58–65 Livingston, Dennis 162 Livingston, Ira 136, 137, 139, 141, 143–4, 150 Livingstone, Sonia 45, 105, 106, 107, 155 Lofting, Hugh: Doctor Dolittle in the Moon 6 Lovelock, James 23–4, 30, 164 Loving Every Child: Wisdom for Parents (Korczak, Janusz) 151 Lowry, Lois: The Giver 11, 52, 53–4, 165 Lucky Starr series 7 “Lucy Gray; or Solitude” (Wordsworth, William) 18 ludology 73–5 Luiken, Nicole: Violet Eyes 170 Lumerman, David: “My Brother the Robot” 168 Macdonald, Caroline: The Lake at the End of the World 26, 28, 29, 30, 31 Macintosh, Kerry Lynn 133 Mackey, Margaret 14, 52, 78, 79 Maguire, Gregory: I Feel Like the Morning Star 26, 28–9 Malmkjaer, Kirsten 159 “Man of Talent, A” (Silverberg, Robert) 166 Margulis, Lynn 23–4 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 48 Mark II (Farnell, Chris) 4, 128, 132, 140–1 Mark, Jan: Useful Idiots 52–3, 54–6 Marshall, David P. 106, 107 Martel, Suzanne: The City under Ground 19 Marx, Leo 161 Master Key, The: An Electrical Fairy Tale Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity and the Optimism of Its Devotees (Baum, L. Frank) 6 Matas, Carol: Cloning Miranda 128, 129, 138, 145 May, Jill P. 20, 26, 164 Mayall, Berry 98 Maynard, Sally 159 McGee, Glenn 143 McKibben, Bill 23–4, 164 McKillip, Patricia: “Moby James” 58, 60, 64–5 McKim, Kelly K. 158 McLachlan, Hugh 133 McLuhan, Marshall 105

Index • 195 McNaughton, Janet: The Secret under My Skin 34–8, 158 McSmith, Imogen 154 Mechanism 25, 26-9, 34–5, 39–40, 42 memory, history and past 52–8 Mendlesohn, Farah: (2003) 5, 157, 172; (2004) 10–12, 142, 162, 172; (2005) 56; farah-sf.blogspot.com 13, 55; (forthcoming) 162, 163; and James (1997) 5 Merchant, Carolyn 21–2, 24, 165 Meyers, Walter E. 90 Meyrowitz, Joshua 102, 104, 161, 168 Michaels, Rune: Genesis Alpha 128, 129, 134, 138–9, 145 Michelangelo 47 Midwich Cuckoos, The (Wyndham, John) 169 Miles, Susan G. 5, 6, 7, 10 Miller, Rand and Robyn C. 123 Milo’s Wolves (Nimmo, Jenny) 127, 128, 146, 149 Missing Link Trilogy (Thompson, Kate) 170 “Moby James” (McKillip, Patricia) 58, 60, 64–5 Molson, Francis J. 5, 6, 7, 10, 162 Montfort, Nick 168 “Monster Motel” (Burgess, Mark) 168 Moran-Ellis, Jo 161 Morgan, Nicola: Sleepwalking 58–63 MORI 45 Morin, Cari 65 Mortal Engines (Reeve, Philip) 52–3, 54, 56–8, 163, 165, 167, 170 Moulton, Deborah: Children of Time 26–32 MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon/Dimension) 72, 78–9, 167 Muriel, Becker 162 Murphie, Andrew 47, 49, 53, 161 Murphy Coit, Priscilla 75 Murray, Denise 1 Murray, Janet 73, 81 music 14, 49–50, 65–8 Myers, Alan 162 “My Brother the Robot” (Lumerman, David) 168 My First Book About Computers (Novelli, Luca) 155 Myst (computer game) 123 National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) 129–30 National Centre for Biotechnology Education 153

Naturalism 25, 26, 29–32, 35–7, 40–2 nature: child and 17–18; the end of? 23–5; perceptions of nature past 21–2; technology and 18–19; technology and humanity and 25–6 NCH (The Children’s Charity) 2 NCRCL (National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature) 45 Nelkin, Dorothy 128, 143 Neuromancer (Gibson, William) 8–9 “Neverending Tale, The” (Harvey, Margaret, and Ilyssa Wesche) 168 Newbery Award 7 Newman, Lesléa: Heather Has Two Mommies 171 Newsinger, John 165 Nicholls, Peter see Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Night Room, The (Goldman, E.M.) 71, 80–4, 89, 94 Nikolajeva, Maria 75 Nimmo, Jenny: Milo’s Wolves 127, 128, 146, 149 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell, George) 62, 171 Nir, Lilach 155 Nix, Garth: Shade’s Children, 96, 109-10, 118-19 Nodelman, Perry: (1985) 19–20, 25, 42, 164; (1986) 10, 26; (1987) 163; May and (1986) 20 Non-Identity Problem 133–6, 147, 149 Norton, Andre: Outside 19; Star Man’s Son: 2250 A.D 8 Novelli, Luca: My First Book About Computers 155 novum (nova) 3–4, 10–11, 80, 82, 84, 90, 161 Nussbaum, Martha C. 127 Off the Road (Bawden, Nina) 96, 124, 125–6, 165 Oliver, Jamie 153 O’Neill, Onora 171 Orwell, George: Nineteen Eighty-Four 62, 171 Operation Timewarp (Reid, Kate) 4, 13, 96, 111–13, 123–4, 126 Ostry, Elaine 142, 165 Oswell, David 1 Others, The (Prince, Alison) 26–31, 165 Outside (Norton, Andre) 19 Owl Service, The (Garner, Alan) 17, 18 Palatini, Margie: Elf Help 156

196 • Index Pantaleo, Sylvia 168 Papert, Seymour 104 Parfit, Derek 133 Paton Walsh, Jill: The Green Book 58–61 Patrick’s Dinosaurs on the Internet (Carrick, Carol) 157, 158 Paul, Korky: Winnie’s New Computer 156 Pearce, Celia 73, 79 Pennings, Anthony J. 4 Perlin, Ken 71, 73 Philbrick, Rodman: The Last Book in the Universe 4, 58–9, 61, 62–3 picture books 5, 13, 15, 76, 154; computers in 155–60 Pietarinen, Juhani 24, 165 Pinkava, Jan 52 Pinsent, Pat 32 Playstation 18, 80, 124 Plowman, Lydia 73, 77–9 Point Blanc (Horowitz, Anthony) 128, 130–1 Porter-Abbott, Horace 80 post-human: family and kinship in a post-human age 142–50; the idea of the 136–42 Postman, Neil 90, 97, 102–4, 106–7, 161 Potts, John 47, 49, 53, 161 power: adult-child power relations 15, 97–9, 128, 150, 171; children’s literature and discourses of 96–7; relations 95 Pratchett, Rhianna 168 Pretties (Westerfield, Scott) 170 Prince, Alison: The Others, 26–31, 165 Prout, Alan 18, 101 Proyas, Alex 164 Pullinger, Kate: “Inanimate Alice” 52 Pullman, Philip 77 Punch, Samantha 99 Q Pootle 5 (Butterworth, Nick) 13 Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair, A (Fisk, Nicholas) 95, 96, 124–5, 157 Rajan, Amol 154 Ransome, Arthur: Swallows and Amazons 17 Ratatouille (film) 52 reading, literature and poetry 14, 58–65 Red Zone (Browne, Tom) 34–5, 37–8 Reed, Mike: Elf Help 156 Reed, Talbot Baines: The Willoughby Captains 113 Reeve, Philip: Mortal Engines 52–3, 54, 56–8, 163, 165, 167, 170

Reid, Kate: Operation Timewarp 4, 13, 96, 111–13, 123–4, 126 Reid, Roddey: “‘Death of the Family’ or, Keeping Human Beings Human” 137, 144 Remnants (Applegate, Katherine) 170 Reynolds, John C. Jr. 162 Reynolds, Kimberley 75, 158 Rifkin, Jeremy 133 Roberts, Adam 3 Roberts, Melinda A. 132, 133 robots 24, 34, 110, 164, 172 Rocket Ship Galileo (Heinlein, Robert) 5, 7, 11, 19 Rockwood, Roy 6 Roosvelt, Grace 163 Rose, Jacqueline 1, 2, 18, 96, 100, 108, 109 Rose, Malcolm: Clone 4, 128, 135, 146–7 Ross, Tony: Dr Xargle’s Book of Earthlets 13 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 17–18, 36, 42, 163 Royal Society 129 Rubinstein, Gillian: Galax-Arena 96, 99, 109, 116–18 Rushkoff, Douglas 103–4 Russell, Glenn 160 Russo, John Paul 50, 51, 53 Rutherford, Ramsey W. 91 Ryan, Marie-Laure 73–4, 77–8, 81–6, 88–9 Said, Edward 40 Sainsbury, Lisa 71, 73, 74, 77, 168 Sambell, Kay 8, 10–11, 115, 162, 163, 171 Scanner Darkly, A (film) 52 Scatterlings (Carmody, Isobelle) 34–7, 165, 166 Scheffler, Ursel: Grandpa’s Amazing Computer 157 Schlee, Ann: The Vandal 19 Scholes, Robert 3–4, 161 Scholte van Mast, Ruth: Grandpa’s Amazing Computer 157 Schwarcz, Joseph 155 science fiction (SF): bibliographies 12; definitions 3–4, 10; genre 3 Science Fiction Studies 20 Scribner 7 Secret Garden, The (Burnett, Frances Hodgson) 31 Secret under My Skin, The (McNaughton, Janet) 34–8, 158 Selwyn, Neil 156 Shade’s Children (Nix, Garth) 96, 109–10, 118–19

Index • 197 Shadow the Hedgehog (game) 79 Sharp North (Cave, Patrick) 128, 135–6, 149–50, 165 Shearer, Alex: The Hunted 4, 96, 109, 110, 111, 115–18 Shepherd Moon, The (Hoover, H.M.) 164 Shi-xu 140 Short, Mick 159 Short Circuit (film) 164 Shwartz, Susan: “Beggarman” 65–7 Sidoti, Chris 100–1 Sigler, Carolyn 13, 18, 22 Silver, Lee M. 130 Silverberg, Robert: “A Man of Talent” 166 SimCity (computer game) 85, 168 Sims, The (computer game) 78, 85 Singer, Nicky: Gem X 4, 128, 131, 135, 161 Skelton, Tracey 169, 170 Sleator, William: House of Stairs 13, 164 Sleepwalking (Morgan, Nicola) 58–63 Smith, Anthony 47, 50, 51 Snow, C.P.: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution 14, 46, 50–1, 56–8, 63, 69 Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) 164 Songs of Innocence and of Experience (Blake, William) 18 Sonic Team 79 soul, 116, 137, 138–9, 140 Sova, Dawn B. 76 Specials (Westerfield, Scott)170 Spielberg, Steven 164 Spinrad, Norman 161 Springer, Nancy: “Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home?” 65–7, 68 Spyri, Johanna: “Heidi” 31 Stableford, Brian 46, 164, 166 Star Split (Lasky, Kathryn) 128, 129, 138, 145 Starlight City (Welford, Sue) 65–6, 68 steampunk 9, 56, 163 Steele, Mary: Journey Outside 164 Steinberg, Shirley R. 101, 103, 108, 161 Steiner, George 51 Stenstrom, Anna-Brita 91 Story of Tracy Beaker, The (Wilson, Jacqueline) 154 Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom’s Cabin 76 Star Man’s Son: 2250 A.D (Norton, Andre) 8 Strathern, Marilyn 143, 144 Sullivan, Charles W. III 5, 9

Sullivan, Peggy 12 Sunstein, Cass R. 127 Suransky, Valerie Polakow 98, 101–2 Suvin, Darko 10, 80, 161 Swallows and Amazons (Ransome, Arthur) 17 Sweetwater (Yep, Laurence) 164 Tapscott, Don 104 Taylor, Elanor 164 Taylor Five (Halam, Ann (Gwyneth Jones)) 9, 128, 129, 134–5, 149 technology: art and technology in the twentieth century 47–50; children, adults and 2, 101–8, 123, 124; nature and 18–19; naturetechnology-humanity in Young SF 25–6; as threat to language 50, 61–3; types of 4 technophobia 13, 15, 108, 119, 121, 154 telepathy 32–3, 36, 165 Tesco Telecoms 2 “There Was a Boy” (Wordsworth, William) 18 Thiel, Elizabeth 171 ThinkQuest 164, 165 This Side of Paradise (Layne, Steven L.) 128, 135 This Time of Darkness (Hoover, H.M.) 19, 58–62, 165 Thomas, Valerie: Winnie’s New Computer 156 Thompson, Kate: Missing Link Trilogy 170 Thorburn, David 73 Thorpe, David: Hybrids 15, 151–4, 172 Tichi, Cecelia 48, 71 time travel 4, 41, 112 Toffler, Alvin 162 Tom Brown’s Schooldays (Hughes, Thomas) 113 Tom Swift series 6, 46 Tooley, Michael 130, 133 Trites, Roberta Seelinger 60, 96–7, 108 Trousseau, Armand 47 Tucker, Nicholas 163 Turkle, Sherry 79 Turnabout (Haddix, Margaret) 96, 110–11, 117–18 Turow, Joseph 155 Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 76 Twelve Southerners 48, 166 Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (Verne, Jules) 5–6

198 • Index Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, The (Snow, C.P.) 14, 46, 50–1, 56–8, 63, 69 two cultures 50-2 UFO Diary (Kitamura, Satoshi) 13 Uglies (Westerfield, Scott) 170 Ulysses (Joyce, James) 76 Ultraviolet (Howarth, Lesley) 71, 84–90, 94, 168 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe, Harriet Beecher) 76 Unfortunates, The (Johnson, B.S.) 76–7 UNICEF 170 Unique (Allen-Gray, Alison) 128, 129, 132, 133–4, 139–40 Unsworth, Len 168 Useful Idiots (Mark, Jan) 52–3, 54–6 Vale, Brenda: Albion 4, 34–5, 37–8, 165 Valentine, Gill 105–6, 121, 169, 170 Vandal, The (Schlee, Ann) 19 Vault of the Ages (Anderson, Poul) 7, 8 Verne, Jules: Around the World in Eighty Days 5–6; Journey to the Centre of the Earth 5–6; Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea 5–6 Violet Eyes (Luiken, Nicole) 170 Von der Osten, Robert 6, 9 Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer 43 Wahrman, Miryam Z. 132 Walkerdine, Valerie 2 Warner, Marina 18, 41, 42, 157 Wasson, Sara 142, 143, 144, 147, 148 Waters, Brent 132 Weathermakers, The (Bova, Ben) 7 Weber, Thomas J. 9 Welford, Sue: Starlight City 65–6, 68 Wesche, Ilyssa: “The Neverending Tale” 168 Westall, Robert: Futuretrack 5 34–7, 165, 166

Westerfield, Scott: Pretties 170; Specials 170; Uglies 170 When Charlie McButton Lost Power (Collins, Suzanne, and Mike Lester) 156 “Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home?” (Springer, Nancy) 65–7, 68 Wild Jack (Christopher, John) 164 Willis, Jeanne: Dr Xargle’s Book of Earthlets 13 Willoughby Captains, The (Reed, Talbot Baines) 113 Wilmut, Ian 127 Wilson, Jacqueline: The Illustrated Mum 154; The Story of Tracy Beaker 154 Winnie’s New Computer (Paul, Korky, and Valerie Thomas) 156 Winterin, The trilogy (Ice, Storm, Thaw) (Bowkett, Stephen) 26, 27, 29, 32–4 Wordsworth, William 164: “Lucy Gray; or Solitude” 18; “There Was a Boy” 18 Wright, Will 78 Wrinkle in Time, A (L’Engle, Madeleine) 7 Wyndham, John; The Midwich Cuckoos 169 Wynne Jones, Diana 5 Wytenbroek, J.R. 29–30 Yankelovich, Nicole 168 Yep, Laurence: Sweetwater 164 Yolen, Jane: “Ear” 65–8 Yoshida, Junko 27 Young SF: bibliographies 12; critical history of genre 5–9; review of critical models 9–12; themes 13 Zipes, Jack 1 Zjawin, Dorothy 162 Zornado, Joseph 95, 96–7, 99, 108, 169