Shows
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryNew York 2140 Part Five: "Escalation of Commitment," Hinge Points, Monocausotaxophilia, and GOLD!There's gold in them thar podcasts, I tell ya, GOLD!
Talking this time about Part Five of New York 2140, "Escalation of Commitment." We get what could be an ending--finding gold, rescuing Mutt & Jeff, confronting Henry Vinson--but isn't! Our characters are getting together and scheming how they might save the building by ignoring the law, even if that means bringing down the entire global financial system.
Thank you for listening, and thanks for your patience. It'll likely be a few weeks before we can get another episode out. But you can get your...2024-08-151h 21Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryNew York 2140 Part One: "The Tyranny of Sunk Costs," Mistaking the Past for the Future, and Street AnemonesIn this episode we declare there's not much to say, this is just a table-setting section of the novel, we won't discuss each and every subchapter, but then we talk for nearly two hours, starting with Matt and Hilary's Garden Round-Up. Then it's a shallow dive into Part One of NY2140, "The Tyranny of Sunk Costs." Hope you enjoy and we'll be back soon with Part Two!
Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com
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Rate and review...2024-06-241h 41Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryEverything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072: Problems of Centrality and Narrative in a De-hierarchicalized FutureThis week we are reading a very special, wonderful book, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi from Common Notions.
Told as a series of interviews by two ageing ex-academics (because academia has been, thankfully, finally, abolished), Everything for Everyone depicts a future in which the central organizing force of human society is the Commune. Emerging unevenly, violently, and somewhat spontaneously around the world at various times and in various forms, the Commune is the form society takes when needs are met and the ubiquitous...2022-12-111h 21Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryLast Survivors of the Covenant, 2: ALIEN: COVENANT, Automythopoesis, Empire, Kinship, and Shower SexIn the thrilling conclusion to our conversation about ALIEN: COVENANT, the final (so far) installment of the ALIEN franchise, Matt, Hilary, and Bill talk about Walter, David, and robots that (mis)quote poetry and Ridley Scott's placement of himself in a line of artists stretching from Milton to Shelley to David Lean. More on empire and settler colonialism, automythopoesis and Old Hollywood, the "perfect" organism, love and disappointment, the diversity of forms and difference, good and bad Christians, science vs. luck, and rudely interrupted shower sex.
We'll be back eventually to cover ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, and soon...2022-10-301h 13Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryLast Survivors of the Covenant, Part 1: ALIEN: COVENANT, Wheat, Cults, History, and CouplesPart 1 of 2!
In our final episode of our miniseries exploring the Alien franchise, Matt and Hilary, joined by the inimitable Bill, discuss Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott's second non-prequel, released in 2017. We like this installment quite a bit, and have a lot of fun picking it apart. We talk wheat (the grain!), xenomorph kitty kats (to protect the grain!), and interstellar neoliberal postmodern settler colonialism (to grow the grain! and build a cabin!).
Also pregnancy, reproduction, embryos, history and/ of/ by prequels, robots with accents, and kinship.
Back very soon with part 2!
...2022-10-271h 07Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryLast Survivors of the Betty: ALIEN: RESURRECTION, the Inexplicable Film, Boots, Whiskey, Sex-Gender Panic, and $11 millionWe're back, with our discussion of a serious piece of shit, Alien: Resurrection, the Joss Whedon-scripted, Jean-Pierre Jeunet-directed, 1997 mess that concludes the Ripley arc of the Alien franchise. We hate this movie, and unfortunately for you, we talk about it for an hour and a half! If you've never seen it, you might have to suffer through it just to understand what the hell we're talking about, so: our apologies.
This disasterpiece is full of anxiety about sex, panic about gender, and downright hatred of women. It's an abysmal example of what Matt terms late-1990s Hollywood...2022-09-051h 25
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Earth, Episode 8: "Terraforming Earth," "The Dominoes Fall," and "You Get What You Get": Unintelligibility, the Everyday, and Climate PoliticsIn this FINAL episode of our discussion of Green Earth, Matt and Hilary talk about the themes of unintelligibility throughout the novel(s) and think about the ways the novel(s) insert climate change into both the political and the everyday lived realities of people who are used to living relatively comfortable lives.
We work through some issues on the historical contexts of the novel's publication and our reading of it a mere 18 (or 7) years later, but in what feels like a radically different world both politically and with regards to climate.
The ways the...2022-06-231h 32Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Earth, Episode 7: "Undecided," "Sacred Space," "Emerson for the Day:" Necessity, Joy, and CatsIn this, our PENULTIMATE episode in our examination of Green Earth, Matt and Hilary start off by sharing what they're going to miss after the global civilizational collapse (heat in the winter, showers, i.e., relief from the pressure to be clean), and talk about how we're not talking about the very real threat of civilizational collapse. Then we talk about Chapters 25, 26, and a bit of 27 before we run out of brain power.
Here our conversation runs through decision-making and the myths surrounding it, complaints about sociobiology and evo psych and their connection to imagining responses to...2022-06-131h 22Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Earth, Episode 5: "Fifty Degrees Below" 3, Indecision, Mutual Aid, Election Theater, and BailiwicksFirst, the name of the Buddhist climate activist who self-immolated in front of the Supreme Court was Wynn Bruce. Matt forgets his name when he mentions him, but everyone should know him.
In this episode, we finish volume 2 of Green Earth, discussing "The Cold Snap," "Always Generous," "Leap Before You Look," and "Primavera Porteño"-- in a very freewheeling manner, it must be said!
We talk about the gap between knowing and acting, seeming and being. And ponder the following questions:
Are elections meaningful?
Is Frank's brain injury the cause of...2022-05-091h 27Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Earth, Episode 4: Permaculture, the Commons, DestinyNOTE: This episode was recorded in early April.
In this episode we focus on “Is There a Technical Solution?,” “Autumn in New York,” and “Optimodal.”
But first we spend some time (as usual) lamenting the state of the world, especially the plight of the unhoused from Maine to Chicago. We decide private property should be abolished, which is also one of the best takeaways from Eric Holthaus’s The Future Earth. We also curse Barack Obama for what the Obama Center is doing to the South Side of Chicago. A bad guy, actually!
This leads us...2022-05-051h 44
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Earth, Episode 1: "The Buddha Arrives" to "Science in the Capital": Setting the Table, the Literature of Banality, and Science in the W. EraWe're back! This season we're tackling Green Earth, KSR's revised, single-volume edition of the Science in the Capital trilogy. The trilogy was originally published from 2004 to 2007. Green Earth was put out in 2015.
In this first episode we discuss the (un)likability of the novel's main characters, and the way the book seems to set the table for KSR's agenda for his following novels, particularly Shaman, 2312, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. We talk about how Green Earth feels very much a Bush-era book, when it was still possible to believe that the main impediment to...2022-02-201h 16
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 13: "Swan and Pauline and Wahram and Genette," and Diane Keaton and Joe Manchin and Sonny Crockett and Jerry SeinfeldBack to hot opens, in another episode where we ask important questions like, “what is time? Is it just a number? Is a wristwatch like handcuffing yourself to time? What about neckties? Is it okay when Diane Keaton wears one? Should neurodivergent people join the CIA?”
We chit chat about the demonstrably untrue myth of progress in light of news from Antarctica, pandemic, and American political system, and Hilary bullies Matt into reading The Dawn of Everything. Matt would prefer to hang out and watch Seinfeld, the way social primates should. We settle the rules of subscribing to T...2021-12-261h 18Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 12: "Extracts (17)" to "ETH Mobile" (I'm not even going to try to spell it): Utopias of Gender, Virginia Woolf, the Long Stare of the Tenured ProfessorHilary and The Good German are back! We're talking animals, qubes, and consciousness, embodiment and emotion, landscape and economic miracles, long stares of wolves (and tenured professors), utopia of gender, and lawn bowling with Virginia Woolf.
(Most profanity and profundity has been edited out. For the book.)
Extracts (17) - 16:00
Swan in the Chateau Garden - 37:00
Quantum Walk (2)
Inspector Genette and Swan - 50:00
Titan - 52:25
Swan and Genette and Wahram - 54:25
Matt makes a fart joke with the longest set-up in history, 59:30-1:00:00
2021-12-191h 17Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 10: "Swan in the Vulcanoids" to "Wahram on Earth": Political Economy, Aggressive Charity, GiftsWe start with more news from Maine: There's lithium in them thar hills! Will Elon Musk coup the governor? Stay tuned, and find out more here. We ask whether it's possible to extract these important minerals outside the demands of capital and profit, and to do it in a way that doesn't wreck the environment or the bodies of the people who will have to do this labor. We have no answers, just want to know!
Then, back to 2312. We talk a lot about the political economies of the various powers in the solar system, as the...2021-10-301h 37Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 9: "Swan and the Inspector" to "Extracts (12)": Totalities, Interpretability, and The Sad PlanetWe spend the first ten minutes or so of this episode talking about an issue in Maine politics that presents a conundrum that's characteristic of the false choices capitalism and American democracy give us politically: which part of the ecosystem do you want to sacrifice to mitigate the disasters of another part? What's the least bad option? To read more about Question 1 on the Maine ballot, click here or here.
Then we're off and running, talking about narrative and genre, sexliners and surfing, and the heaviness of Earth. Swan encounters a kind of dark postmodernity in her c...2021-10-162h 06Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 7: "Swan and the Inspector," Swan in Wonderland, Post-Scarcity Conspiracies, and the Nature of EvilThis week’s episode is the second half of our conversation from last week’s episode, and concerns the “Swan and the Inspector” chapter. Genette takes Swan on his investigation of the strange goings-on throughout the solar system, visiting several asteroids including Yggdrasil and Inner Mongolia using the Interplan starship Swift Justice. The possibility of a conspiracy or some kind of concerted plan that potentially links Alex’s death, the destruction of Terminator, the even on Io, and the catastrophe on Yggdrasil, all involving strange qube behavior, starts to materialize for Genette.
Matt and Hilary have a long discu...2021-09-121h 10Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 6: "Lists (4)" to "Lists (6)": Patterns, Agency, Cops, DetectionWe had to split this episode up into two because we talked so long! The following episode (Episode 7, or maybe 6.2?) will deal with "Swan and the Inspector." Here, we have:
3:20 - Lists (4)
11:35 - Inspector Genette
32:28 - Lists (5)
39:00 - Swan and Mqaret
51:30 - Extracts (7)
1:01:00 - Kiran on Venus
1:08:25 - Lists (6)
Lots of discussion of identity, the state, agency, conspiracy (more to come on that), sex/gender, and detecting patterns. Genette is trying to figure out what happened to Terminator, and the solution almost immediately a...2021-09-081h 12Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 5: "Wahram and Swan:" A bird and a toad go for a walk and whistle BeethovenThis long episode is devoted to the "Wahram and Swan" chapter of 2312, when the two characters attend a Beethoven concert and the tracks on which Terminator runs are mysteriously destroyed. Wahram and Swan, along with three young "sunwalkers", then have to us the utilidor under the surface of Mercury to seek help. This is a major inciting incident for the remainder of the novel.
Matt and Hilary discuss a range of issues, including social reproduction (dyads vs. crechés), sameness and repetition, the dense specificities of place, and more.
Thanks for listening!
Email u...2021-08-221h 40Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 3: Intentions, Aporia, FreedomWe continue our conversation from last week, ending right before the chapter "Extracts (3)."
Matt and Hilary talk about art, chemistry, repetition, intentionality, power, capital, alliances, suffering, allegory, systems, etc. A big question is whether the spacers constitute something like an interplanetary bourgeoisie (or elite), and where capitalism is still alive in the solar system of 2312. We also talk about the role the figure of AI plays here, and whether it is allegorical to something like what we call "the market" or "capital"--in other words, the concept of a kind of an algorithmic logic that appears to...2021-07-301h 02
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode 2: "Extracts (1)" to "Wahram and Swan": Decadence, Dragons, Seizing the Day in the PseudoiterativeIn this episode we talk about chapters from Extracts (1) to Wahram and Swan (yes, only two chapters, how decadent of us!).
We talk about the "Ascensions," the asteroids that are hollowed out to create terraria, refugia, and farms, and try to think about the political economy of the solar system in 2312. Wahram and Swan on the Alfred Wegener asteroid lead to a discussion of decadence, habit, and constructing pseudoiteratives to live artfully and be open to finding newness in the everyday. We ask what "being productive" means and how we seize the day in capitalism. Swan and...2021-07-231h 04
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary2312 Episode One: Attachment, Habit, Gender, and Purloined LettersIn this episode we read from the first chapter after the prologue up to "Swan and Alex."
First, Hilary and Matt start by discussing the work of Lauren Berlant, an eminent literary critic and feminist theorist from the University of Chicago who passed away recently. Berlant's work focuses on affect, agency, attachment, the sentimental, literature, politics, human-being, normativity, and innumerable other topics, in ways that help illuminate the questions we discuss so much: how does change happen (or not), and what does literature (or art) have to do with it? Matt and Hilary explore some of the...2021-07-121h 29
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryMarooned at the Movies! Escapes From New York and L.A.Matt and Hilary are joined by their boon companion Bill Hutchison to discuss John Carpenter's (identical) films ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) and ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996).
The gang talks about the concept of the prison-island-city film and 1980s science fictions of popular cinema. We get into the western qualities of the films, discuss the logics of settler colonialism and the myth of the law, and we make some breakthroughs on the big question these films pose: What makes Snake tick? At the end we share our picks for where we'd set a third ESCAPE FROM movie.
2021-06-011h 42Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryShaman 7: "All the Worlds Meet," Anthropology, Home, Teaching, and the Bird's Eye ViewIn this episode we discuss "All the Worlds Meet," in which Loon recuperates after his ordeal, Click haunts Thorn, Thorn dies, Loon builds a new pair of snowshoes, and the Wolf Pack begins to break up.
We talk about teaching and the formation and passing on of knowledge in the context of Thorn and Heather's different teaching styles. There appears to be no such thing as intellectual property in this society--what a concept!
At the eight eight, we see various people make bird's eye views of the land. Hilary talks about the loving relationship to...2021-04-291h 18Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryShaman 6: "Hunted," Butt-Eating, Hermeneutics, and Barack Obama's AlmondsThe sixth chapter of Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson, "Hunted," has Thorn, Click, Loon, and Elga fleeing from the northern jende people. It is an absolutely harrowing chapter in which several major taboos are violated--murder, cannibalism, and burial. Matt and Hilary talk about reading and interpreting signs, the state's monopoly on knowledge, and not romanticizing the primitive.
Did Thorn kill Click? Spoiler alert: yes, obviously, c'mon.
We were honored to be asked by the Seminar Co-op Bookstores to share our recommendations for an Earth Week Reading List. You can find our picks at this link...2021-04-141h 21Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryShaman 3 & 4: "Elga," "The Hunger Spring," Art-Making and -Experiencing, Neanderthals, and Poor Richard's PodcastHappy (belated) birthday, Kim Stanley Robinson! Is he the author of this podcast? Hilary says, in some ways, yes. Matt says, most certainly, no! You be the judge! Anyway, it's weird to have a podcast that people listen to and seem to enjoy...
This episode we talk a lot about art, making art, the experience of art, and the work (pun intended) of art. Language and communication seems to be a key theme in our discussion as well--between people, between humans and non-human persons (wolverine, Heather, and Click), and between homo sapiens and other non-homo sapiens humans...2021-03-241h 26Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryShaman 1 & 2: Loon's Wander, The Wolves at Home, Abundance, Scarcity, and Life Before Capitalist Ruins[NB: We had some technical audio issues this week, especially on Matt's end. Something to do with Zoom, we presume. You probably won't notice most of them, but there's one point where Matt had to re-record himself reading a passage from the book; hopefully it won't be too jarring.]
This week we discuss the first two chapters of Shaman. Matt and Hilary talk about the abundance of Loon's world in contrast to the picture of the life of early humans that capitalism tries to impose on our imagination. The world of this novel has no state or...2021-03-141h 26
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryShaman Episode Zero: Caves, Common Life, Adventure, and FireHello! We are coming back, with a new season of discussing Kim Stanley Robinson novels! This season we'll be doing Shaman (2013), so get your copies ready and start re-reading. New episodes will hopefully be dropping starting next week.
This week Matt and Hilary chat about what kind of science fiction novel Shaman is, what we're looking forward to talking about, and what we're missing, both during the pandemic and under capitalism more generally. Topics include:
despair
what kind of science fiction novel is this?
Chauvet cave
things we miss
things we had already lacked
common life
...2021-03-0251 minMarooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Ministry for the Future: The Kim Stanley Robinson InterviewWe sit down with the one and only KSR to discuss The Ministry for the Future. Stan indulges Matt and Hilary as they ask about a wide range of questions that address topics like:
technical problems of writing
riddles
Orwell on the radio
PTSD
ambiguity
rule of law
religion, science, and economics
violence
MMT
"the future"
Some references: The One vs. the Many by Alex Woloch, How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual by Katerina Clark, Penelope Fitzgerald, Joseph Conrad
Lose lose lose lose lose lose lose...2021-01-282h 15Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Ministry for the Future 89-96: Mourning Myths, Taking Stock, Pyrrhic Defeat, Anti-Anti-UtopiaWe start this episode with Matt immediately blowing out the microphone with his holiday cheer, which didn't, this year, for him, include the solstice, but he did watch The Treasure of Pancho Villa, which was good. Hilary had a fire, but missed the Great Conjunction due to clouds.
In this chunk of chapters, as The Ministry for the Future begins its denouement, we discuss mourning and loss, the inevitable winding down into death, in spite of, or maybe as a part of, all the progress that's also being made.
What are we mourning, and how...2020-12-271h 27Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Ministry for the Future 76-88: Mourning, Loss, Followers, and the Tapestry of ShitMatt and Hilary are approaching the end! As is capitalism, but that's another story. Actually, it's this story, the one they're talking about The Ministry for the Future. But whatever, this one's kind of low energy.
We recount our intellectual journeys through Raymond Williams and Mike Davis and Walter Benjamin, and work on wrangling cats and sequencing the novel. We talk about loss in utopia, fables and science fiction, accidents of history, and the vicissitudes of being a herd animal. All with extreme judiciousness!
Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com
Follow us on...2020-12-241h 35Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Ministry for the Future 60-70: Holidays, Deferral, Bureaucrats, Judo, Narcissism, Euthanasia, Good Poop, NapoleonHappy Ritualized Ideological Food Consumption Day! Matt and Hilary start with another cheery conversation designed to indoctrinate the masses into the glorious of atomized leftism by further exposing the family form as a big mess, and conclude that November is all about bad ways to perform both the family and democracy: holidays and elections.
Hilary’s big thought this week is about the utopianism of this novel existing in a state of a kind of constant deferral of resolutions. No single action Mary or anyone else takes is The Solution to all the problems, so there’s a de...2020-11-261h 39Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Ministry for the Future 51-59: Happiness is a Cold Glacier, I Hate LA, Democracy?One of the great things about this book is how it keeps you on your toes. Matt and Hilary do their best to keep up with its digressions and interruptions, following the flow into conversations about the state, democracy, capitalism, lizard men, and the collective joy of Pepsi commercials.
For the first 24 minutes or so they despair over the election of Joe Biden and the vast political emptiness the 2020 presidential campaign seems to signify, so if you're not interested in that, skip it! But if you want to hear Jon Ossoff compared to the ghouls from THEY...2020-11-131h 37
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Ministry for the Future 1-17: An Exercise for the ReaderWe're back from the movies, ready to do our podcast old school, like a couple of old fools. We're SO EXCITED to start reading Kim Stanley Robinson's BRAND NEW novel, The Ministry for the Future!
Matt has finished it, Hilary is about halfway through, so there are sort-of spoilers but not really, but you should try reading the whole book first before you start listening anyway. This book is expansive, complex, harrowing, hopeful, and above all provocative. It challenges the reader to confront the realities of our day related to the climate, our politics, morality, ethics, violent...2020-10-161h 33
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryMarooned at the Movies! They Live! (John Carpenter, 1988)We're still marooned at the movies, with John Carpenter, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, our friend Bill, a very special guest all the way from Slovenia, and a bunch of yuppie ghouls!
That's right, today in this super-long episode Matt and Hilary welcome their friend Bill to help them ponder over the confectionary marvel that is John Carpenter's THEY LIVE!, his sci-fi, creature feature, action allegory that's either the most Marxist movie to ever come out of Hollywood or a dumb piece of nonsense. We talk class war, truth and perception, manifest material conditions, and ideology, ideology, ideology. We...2020-10-022h 01
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryMarooned at the Movies!: Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983)Hello! As we not-so-patiently await the publication of KSR's latest forthcoming masterpiece, The Ministry for the Future, Hilary and Matt embark on a bit of film chat, movie talk, cinema discussion, if you will.
This week we discuss the early 80s punk-verité masterpiece Born in Flames, which asks, what if there was a revolution and nothing changed?
Ten years after a successful socialist-democratic revolution (think Bernie Sanders winning the presidency), things are not looking so hot for certain members of society, namely women, LGTBQ+, and minorities--so, basically, everybody. And even the men ain't too thrilled, b...2020-09-211h 50Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 10: "The First Years," Circularity, Ending, Swerving, Becoming Fully HumanLook, here we are again!
We start our final episode on The Years of Rice and Salt by talking about what's up next for the podcast. Short answer: probably a few standalone episodes on movies and KSR short stories, followed by a deep dive into the forthcoming The Ministry for the Future, followed by our next big project. But first, a short hiatus while we solidify plans and the school year starts to start.
We reflect on rebirth and retribution, teaching and learning, and finding yourself in a small community and a large world. We...2020-08-311h 27Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 9: "Nsara," Feminism and Science, Scents and Scentsibility, Robot Voice and Patriarch, Cooking and CleaningThe penultimate episode on The Years of Rice and Salt! (I just like saying "penultimate." You've got to seize the opportunity when it presents itself.)
In this, one of the longer (the longest?) chapter of YoRaS, Matt and Hilary talk about science and feminism, the aftermath of war, the aesthetics of scent, the division of labor, and history.
We talk about different knowledges and forms of knowledge production and the exclusion of certain kinds of people both from that knowledge production and from the acknowledgement that those certain kinds of people in fact engaged in...2020-08-271h 22Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 8: "War of the Asuras," War, Necropolitics, Hope, RepetitionShout out to our great listeners, especially when they email us, and when they email us, their emails are always thoughtful and stimulating, and Hilary almost always responds to them and Matt almost always reads them but doesn’t respond to them because he is, in fact, shy, but also, more importantly, lazy, other than the whole “producing and editing the show” thing.
We kick this episode off with a convo about despair and hope, but the upshot is the gift of reading these novels in community with each other and our amazing listeners (you, the reader of thi...2020-08-171h 48Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 6: "Widow Kang," the Fantastic, the Novel, Footbinding, Footnotes, Revelation, Recognition, Rice, SaltBook 6 of The Years of Rice and Salt is like a novel within the novel, depicting the intertwined lives of two brilliant figures in Robinson's alternate history: Kang Tongbi and Ibrahim ibn Hasam. Living in the late 18th-century, they come to realize they are part of the same jati that has been reincarnated throughout the novel, that they have known each other for 10,000 years. Through their intertwined intellectual endeavors they write poetry and history, develop theories of feminism and politics, and argue about religion.
Matt and Hilary have a wide-ranging discussion that still only scratches the surface...2020-07-231h 33Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 5: "Warp and Weft," Historicity, Futurity, Indigeneity, and Esports"Warp and Weft" is one of the shorter of the books of The Years of Rice and Salt, taking place on Turtle Island/ Yingzhou nee North America, among the Hodenosaunee, a word Matt and Hilary definitely know how to pronounce.
Fromwest nee Busho gets initiated as a chief in a beautiful ceremony and makes an amazing, prophetic, ecstatic speech that opens up a discussion about conceptions of history and the future, change and struggle, hope and kinship, and lacrosse and red eggs.
Matt performs an exercise in grammar for your pleasure and recommends Dante again...2020-07-141h 06Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 4: "The Alchemist," Discovery, Cleanliness, Love, and TubingWe're pack, the science fiction literature podcast equivalent of tubing down a lazy river with a six-pack of beer!
This week we talk about Book 4 of The Years of Rice and Salt, "The Alchemist," where Khalid, Bahram, and Iwang discover the secrets of the universe while attempting to placate the venal khan and suss out the political machinations of his treasurer Nadir Divanbegi.
For a lot of readers, this is the chapter where the book really starts to click. As Hilary puts it, this is where she figured out the project of the book is...2020-07-081h 22Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 3: "Ocean Continents," the Real World, and Abundance Without SurplusIn this somewhat delayed episode we discuss Book Three of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, "Ocean Continents," in which a Chinese fleet accidentally discovers Yingzhou, which we know as the Americas. Admiral Kheim, the fleet's doctor I-Chin, and a Miwok girl called Butterfly find each other and escape a pretty sticky situation with the Incan executioner god!
Hilary and Matt discuss the differences between discovery and encounter, estrangement and the real, knowledge and superstition, structure and contingency, control and luck, and the phenomenon of abundance without surplus. Alas, they don't talk enough about...2020-06-251h 21
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Years of Rice and Salt 1: "Awake to Emptiness," Provincializing Europe, History, Modernity, and Structures of FeelingHello! We’re back. Sorry we’re late, but we’re back now, to discuss THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT, book-by-book.
We recommend you read this book through once already if you’ve never read it before for its own pleasures. It’s a great, great, great book that you should just read and delight in. Then tune into our commentary for a re-read, which I assume is what a lot of you are doing. And in advance, thank you for listening! Matt apologizes in advance for his complete ignorance about Buddhism.
“Awake to Emptiness” f...2020-06-081h 30Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryAurora 7: "What Is This," Feeling, Ecopoesis, and In-N-Out BurgerIt's our season finale, where we bid a fond farewell to Freya, ship, and the cast of KSR's transcendent Aurora! We're experiencing some good ol' audio issues, but they're nothing compared to Freya's mythic struggles with the sun and the ocean.
It's hard to sum up this book, and somehow equally as hard to sum up this chapter, but we do our best. This chapter is a lot about the difficulty of putting the feeling of being on earth into words--some call it defamiliarization, others call it estrangement, we call it art, and it rocks.
...2020-05-071h 30Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryAurora 6: "The Hard Problem," Love & Death, Meaning & Loneliness, Pepsi & Werner HerzogPepsi Matt McDonald’s and Home Depot Hilary coming at you at the beginning of the after of the beforetimes, Phase 2 in full effect!
The Hard Problem of this chapter is alternately deceleration, consciousness, love, and meaning, we we talk about it all!
Ship is now fully the subject and the narrator of their own story, and Matt and Hilary discuss just how other or alien ship’s consciousness is from human consciousness. This takes Hilary into a vital detour into the greatest novel ever written, Frankenstein, and Matt into a self-indulgent Werner Herzog impression.
2020-04-211h 35Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryAurora 5: “Homesick,” Time, Abundance, Living Systems, Ideology, and SourdoughIn this episode, for the first 25 minutes or so we commiserate about corona quarantine and talk about how we feel upset. Matt and Hilary talk cooking and share their misadventures in sourdough, a profoundly alien yet living thing. We talk about the erasure of the boundary between work and leisure under capitalism, and particularly how attenuated it is under corona. We chat about mutual aid and the struggle to become the kind of person who does mutual aid and not just the kind of person who believes mutual aid is good.
Discussing the willful change in habits...2020-04-141h 23Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryAurora 4: "Reversion to the Mean," Parenthood, Sovereignty, Hobbes, Kropotkin, and LasagnaLots of big and new thoughts in this one, where we discuss ship's sovereignty, the fantasy bribe of the future, constituting our selves politically after long periods of political hibernation, the return of the repressed, the memory of architecture, and the myths of neoliberalism.
One of our intrepid listeners has purchased the domain householdersunion.org if you are interested in organizing a rent strike in your building and creating a new world. Hilary mentioned a story on Italian mutual aid in communmag.com. Matt was compelled to make a snide comment about Elizabeth Warren, but that's just...2020-03-301h 29Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryAurora 2: "Land Ho," Narrative Theory, Self-Reflexivity, and CORONAVIRUSSpecial coronavirus edition!
"Land Ho," we can all agree, is a true masterpiece. There's far too much to talk about in this breathtaking chapter, and Matt and Hilary do the best they can but still manage to only scratch the surface.
This chapter is about a lot of stuff. On the surface, it's mostly about Freya's wanderjahr. But it's also, perhaps primarily, about ship and ship's relationship to Devi. The complexity of this chapter is too great to put into words without writing a dissertation!
Thanks for listening and social distancing with us...2020-03-131h 31Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryNo-rora: The Wandering Earth, the Martian Time-Slip, and the Devil (Matt)A very special episode of Marooned on Mars with Matt and a Beer finds Matt by himself talking at you through a microphone. If you like Hilary and you don't like Matt, skip this episode! If you don't like Matt and you listen to this episode anyway, what is wrong with you?
Matt is flying solo to fill the gap created when Matt and Hilary were both sick last week and couldn't record. He talks at you about:
1. (Briefly) Canvassing for Bernie
2. Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick (1964)
3. The World, the...2020-02-281h 02Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryAurora 1: Starship Girl, Freedom, Scale, Ghosts, and These Kids TomorrowAurora kicks off in typically Robinsonian fashion, with a near disaster at sea...on a spaceship!
Matt and Hilary talk about names and narratives, shitholes and Hobbits, and crisis ordinary.
Email us at BongRipper420 and canvass, call, text, and vote for Bernie Sanders! (Do NOT vote for billionaires.)
Matt's got an extra copy of Aurora, and if you want it and live anywhere from Augusta to Portland (Maine), hit us up.
Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars
Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app
Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you...2020-02-161h 29
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryAurora Zero: Science Fiction, Utopia, Socialism, and Bernie MFing SandersHello! Matt and Hilary are back with a preview episode of the next season of Marooned! On [Fill in the Blank]. This season we’ll be discussing KSR’s brilliant Aurora.
In this preliminary episode we re-introduce ourselves and the premise of the show. We talk about what science fiction and utopia are, why we’re interested in them (and why you should be, too), and our approach to thinking about them.
We also decide how many episodes you should expect. After consulting with your psychoanalysts, we resolve to read this chapter by chapter, so there...2020-02-131h 18Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Martians 30-31: A Meditative Something-or-Other and Equilibrium PunctuationHello listeners and goodbye Mars! With this episode we leave KSR's Mars behind, as we conclude The Martians, the "apocrypha" of the Mars Trilogy.
[SPOILER ALERT: Our next venture will be KSR's Aurora, and will get started mid-January to early-February. We suggest you get your copy now and read it through once before we start (if you, like Matt, haven't already read it), then read it again with us!]
We leave Mars in a mood similar to that created by the ending of this collection, with a mixture of melancholy and relief. It's hard to l...2019-12-261h 37Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Martians 25-29: Brotherhood, Love, Naming, Writing, CatsIt’s Hello! Marooned on Mars with Matt and Hilary. We're turning 50!
Hilary is in stereo, I think, and Matt seems to be in mono? This may explain some differences in our levels. Anyway. Recording via the internet remains a challenge, for us, at least. If our dialogue sounds somewhat stilted, it’s because Matt is recording from an unspecified tube at some undisclosed location in the world. Hilary is, presumably, in Chicago.
This time we enter the home stretch and talk about five entries in The Martians. This selection really has a sense of bein...2019-12-051h 18Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Martians 15-21: Perspective, Words, Surfing, and ScienceAgain we have some technical issues, which we’ve done our best to ameliorate in post-production. For the first hour and twenty minutes or so Matt might sound not-great. Thank you for bearing with us!
We talk about Bernie Sanders for a bit and wish him well, self-identifying as proud identity cultists, hopefully not alienating some of our listeners.
For your convenience, here are some pointers to when we start talking about which stories in this extra-long episode of Marooned on Mars!
12:30 — We finally start talking about something else besides the world sucking, name...2019-10-122h 00Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Martians 11-14: Baseball, Myths, Laws, and TreesDO NOT ADJUST YOUR PODCAST PLAYER. We're using a new recording scheme, so at one point, Hilary sounds like a scary robot. But we're powering through!
This week, we talk about "Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars," "Salt and Fresh," and the two sections on the Martian Constitution and Charlotte Dorsa Brevia's "worknotes." First we chat about teaching and the fine arts of giving advice, and having that advice ignored, and ignoring advice. Then we get into the most important thing, which is baseball and the communities it makes. Then we talk about "Salt and Fresh,"...2019-09-271h 30Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Martians 8-9: Coyote and Michel, Condemned to FreedomHi! We’re still figuring out how best to handle our new remote recording and figuring out sound levels, etc., so if Matt is too loud and Hilary is too quiet—sorry! This is low-effort, low-tech, labor-of-love stuff. We appreciate you bearing with us!
This week we talk about two short stories, “Coyote Makes Trouble” and “Michel in Provence.” Even though they’re short, there’s tons to talk about!
First, some inane chatter about stupid techno-alternatives to walking, like Segways and electric scooters. And cars. That comes out of some delight in the fact that KSR writes...2019-09-071h 04Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Martians 5-7: Uneventfulness, Gray Paint Patch Lichen, and BalderdashMatt has overcome his rural inertia long enough to finally put out this episode! Hooray!
This is the first episode that Matt and Hilary have recorded remotely. As such, there are some technical difficulties that we're still working out, so please be patient. (They're very minor and you probably wouldn't even notice if I didn't mention it.)
This time we discuss "Maya and Desmond," "Four Teleological Trails," and "Discovering Life."
In "Maya and Desmond," Matt and Hilary talk about the way the books depict major events while at the same time giving a s...2019-08-281h 26Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryThe Martians, Parts 1-4: the Sublime, Negation, and Big Sky CountryHello! We’re back in Phase Two of “Marooned! on Mars” Matt and Hilary will be discussing the short stories, essays, fragments, poems, and other literary concoctions that comprise The Martians, published in 1999. This is kind of like the apocrypha of the Mars Trilogy, things that didn’t necessarily “happen” or aren’t “canonical” to the original trilogy, but that involve the same characters and are set in the same basic world with the same basic presuppositions.
M & H start by talking about the way we’ve been approaching the books in general, which must represent some synthesis of the diff...2019-08-131h 15
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryA Nebula Award for a Double -- the Kim Stanley Robinson InterviewHello! We are so happy and proud to present this episode, our wide-ranging interview with the man himself!
Kim Stanley Robinson, avid listener of our Kim Stanley Robinson podcast, graciously gave us some of his time during a layover at O'Hare in Chicago--hence the no doubt at times bad sound, so please forgive us. Hilary and Matt met Stan at the O'Hare Hilton bar, where we chatted over numerous topics, related and unrelated to the Mars novels. We talked about the origin of the novels, the historical moment of their creation (the so-called "end of history"), and the process of...2019-06-301h 26
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 14: "Phoenix Lake," Endings, Children, and Horizons on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on MarsWe’re back! Reading, talking, and listening respectfully. And sometimes swearing. Being misheard and misunderstood.
We talk about student papers and Matt yammers about some of the reception studies he received, including papers about Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own and Akira (that one’s interesting), but not for too long, just be patient or hit 15-second forward about 8 times.
We chat a little bit about other science fiction things that we’ve watched and read in the meantime.
THEN we talk about the future of the podcast. Some changes are in store...2019-06-221h 11Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 13: "Experimental Procedures," Terran Sky Blue, Common Archives, and SCIENCE!In the penultimate chapter of the Mars Trilogy, Sax names colors with Maya, works on the memory problem at Acheron, and goes sailing with Ann--and Matt and Hilary talk about it! We talk a bit about the moments of adventure in the books, and speculate about what they're for and why they happen when they do. But mostly we have a freewheeling conversation about memory, knowledge, and longevity. We discover that, hey, isn't life the ultimate "experimental procedure?" Sax encounters Zeyk, strapped to a thingamajig that's scanning his Marilu Henner-style brain. We explore the parallels between the remaining First...2019-05-241h 23Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 12: "It Goes So Fast," Pearly Gems of Wisdom, Contingency, Memory, and DeathHello yes!
We're (finally) back (again) with a double-stuffed, one-year anniversary episode! Here we discuss the long Maya chapter from Blue Mars, "It Goes So Fast." Ironically titled, as this is our longest episode yet and it is full of pointless diversions and digressions that will no doubt frustrate and alienate everyone! What can we say--Matt has a hard time maintaining a train of thought, and we were drinking bourbon.
Our discussion of this beautiful, sad chapter starts with a consideration of other angry, bristly women in KSR novels and other utopian science fiction, particularly...2019-04-291h 43Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 11: “Viriditas,” Part One: Freedom, Pleasure, and ZoMatt and Hilary let you into one of our planning sessions, demystifying the amazingly shallow and slapdash way we decide what to talk about. This chapter is so rich that we figured we'd have to divide it up into two episodes. This episode focuses mainly on Zo and the kind of problems we have with her and the kind of problems that she presents to us.
We ask really fundamental questions that the book puts to us at this point in the narrative, including about the nature of pleasure and freedom in a world that spans the...2019-03-291h 07Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 10: "Werteswandel," Running, Choices, Ecstasy and EscapeIn this episode we discuss Part Ten of Blue Mars, Werteswandel, a Nirgal chapter.
Nirgal is running around Mars--running in circles, running from something, outside and inside himself at the same time. Running looks like a new technology on Mars, just like the new technology discussed in the prologue, of super-fast interplanetary travel. The only thing comparable is...nineteenth century train travel (thanks, Wolfgang Schivelbusch!).
Nirgal (literally) runs into a society of feral hunter-gatherers, who seem like they'd fit right in at the FYRE Festival. There he meets Zo, and, well...it's complicated.
...2019-03-181h 26Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 9: "Natural History," Monsters, Self-Government, and Hot AirAfter another unexpectedly long hiatus, Matt and Hilary are back to talk about our favorite topics--Martian and Chicagoan politics and Martian and Chicagoan weather!
"Natural History" is a Sax chapter, and finds our favorite jumble of rats in a lab coat juicing himself up with crocodile DNA. Sax is radically hybrid in both body and mind, but he's also still mystified by the women in his life. To Hiroko and Ann is added the math genius Bao Shuyo, and it's hard for him to wrap his mind around the hybrid she presents to him--a...2019-03-041h 21Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 8: "The Green and The White," Viriditas and the Virids, Landscape and Dandelion SporesWe're back, after an unexpected and unexpectedly long hiatus!
This chapter finds Nirgal trying to find himself, to locate and perhaps localize himself on the planet Mars, amid the network of force relations constituted by his family, the Martian political system, the changed and changing environment, and the mythology of his own existence.
Matt starts by making a joke about blackface, which is so last week. Hilary is teaching Aurora for the first time, and it's a very emotional book! It doesn't help that it's Winter Quarter at the U...2019-02-191h 21Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 7: "Making Things Work," Chickens, Soil, Shit, and PoliticsIn this episode, Matt and Hilary discuss the Nadia chapter "Making Things Work," as Nadia figures out what it means to be the first President of Mars, ponders what it will be like to have a new pinkie finger, and wishes she could get her hands dirty with some real work.
Matt and Hilary share tales of the polar vortex, which include chickens coming indoors to roost and watching a bad-ish Mars movie from the late 1990s. Then it's on to the KSR talk.
Nadia is frustrated for much of this chapter, as the groundwork...2019-02-051h 12Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 6: "Ann in the Outback," Bears, Cold, and Werner HerzogThis episode Matt and Hilary discuss the masterful chapter, "Ann in the Outback." Matt and Hilary love love love this chapter, perhaps to the point where words fail them. Well, words fail Matt. Hilary, as always, is killing it.
It's very cold in Chicago--perfect, Marslike weather for discussing Ann and the many (two) bears she meets, her awkward conversation with Sax, and the shittiness of eco-tourism.
Tune in until the end when one of the luminaries of New German Cinema makes a surprise appearance!
Extra Extra! Head on over to iTunes where The...2019-01-281h 18Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 5: "Home at Last," Nostalgically Eating Uncured OlivesThis week, Marooned on Mars discusses Part 5 of Blue Mars, "Home at Last." In this part, Michel returns home to his beloved Provence to find everything changed and unrecognizable.
Matt and Hilary ponder psychologist Michel's weird psychology, where his whole identity is wrapped up in the woman he's in a relationship with. In Matt's words, he sees himself as "a worm who eats uncured olives."
We think about personal history versus world history, the curiosity of memory, looking at old photos of yourself, Roman aqueducts, and, of course, how to get Tom Hanks to give...2019-01-211h 08Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 4: "Green Earth," (Post-)Colonialism, and Uncanny HallucinationsOn this episode of Marooned!, we're discussing Part 4 of Blue Mars, "Green Earth," a Nirgal chapter. Nirgal, Sax, Maya, and Michel have traveled to Earth as a Martian delegation to attempt to normalize relations to the home planet and help out where they can. Nirgal goes off on a series of disorienting and hallucinatory adventures and comes back sick!
Matt and Hilary spend some time chatting about what they've been up to since the last episode. Hilary "moderated" a "panel" at an event co-sponsored by the Chicago Humanities Festival and Humanities Without Walls as part of the...2019-01-141h 29
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 3: "A New Constitution," the Bardo, Hypnogogic Visions, and A Definite ArticleHappy New Year!
This episode follows Art Randolph as he helps in the drafting of a new constitution! Matt and Hilary share some tips and tales about articles, definite and indefinite.
Before we get to the chapter itself, we chat again about RED MOON (great book), which leads us to share some of our experiences over the holiday. Matt also would like someone to write an MA thesis about how SF is imagining China right now, specifically in RED MOON and MR. ROBOT.
"A New Constitution" centers on Art as the decentralized coffee...2018-12-311h 20Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 2: "Areophany," Toxic Masculinity, and Throwing Things TogetherSchoooooool's out for winter! Schoooooool's out for Solstice! Schoooool's out for Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary!
In this Sax chapter, Matt and Hilary discuss Sax's inability to leave Ann alone and let her die already. General Sax is up to his old tricks of acting unilaterally, this time at the end of the chapter to save Ann's life. But before that, he partakes in the dream of every red-blooded American male: driving across the surface of the planet, free!
Matt and Hilary talk about Sax's difficulty with symbolism and psychoanalysis, and Michel's pathologization...2018-12-251h 11Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryBlue Mars, Part 1: "Peacock Mountain" and the Look in People's EyesThe first part of BLUE MARS starts with a chapter from the perspective of Ann Clayborne, who we've only seen through the eyes of others since way back in GREEN MARS, "Long Runout"--something like 500 pages! A lot has changed since then, but BLUE MARS picks up right after the end of GREEN MARS, with no delay.
Ann finds herself alienated from the Reds, the revolutionary faction she leads, and especially from the radical sect the Kamakaze, led by Kasei and Dao. In Hiroko's absense, Ann's son, Peter, is the head of the Greens. The Reds and Greens are arguing...2018-12-181h 16Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGREEN MARS Wrap-up, Harry Potter Tattoos, and Ritual ProtestIn this episode, Matt and Hilary wrap up their discussion of GREEN MARS before starting the final book, BLUE MARS, next week.
We share various uncooked thoughts about the second book in the trilogy, including the relationship between ageing (or not ageing, or life-prolongation) to history, the relationship of ritual to ideology ("practice, practice, practice"), Coyote's revolutionary economy, the Iran-Contra scandal, following the rules, repetition and exhaustion, and probability and contingency.
We share our favorite memories and moments from GREEN MARS and talk about what we're looking forward to in BLUE MARS. Matt tells a story about meeting a fan...2018-12-101h 09
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Moon, Thanksgiving, Beer Law, and Quantum MechanicsWe're back! Finally! After an unanticipatedly long hiatus, Matt and Hilary are back to discuss KSR's new novel, RED MOON. We both really love this novel, and talk about it at length (spoilers!). But first we recap our Thanksgivings, sharing harrowing stories of lacerated fingers and the death of the humanities and pondering the mysteries of regional beer regulations. New Glarus, we're looking at you!
Then we get to the spoilers. Seriously, if spoilers are a thing for you, it's probably a good idea to skip this episode until you've read RED MOON. But we don't believe in spoilers as...2018-12-021h 27Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilaryhilary’s mini epin which i drone on about some good sf books & how recording an episode without matt is much less fun. also happy american thanksgiving to those who celebrate it.2018-11-2119 min
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryMatt’s Mini EpisodeMatt goes rogue with a mini-sode recorded into his phone with a little weird music in the background just for laughs. Updates on the show (we’ll be back soon, we miss you!) and other science fictional adventures, including Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983) and Looker (Michael Crichton, 1981). Our regularly scheduled programming will resume after Thanksgiving (probably, or a little later).2018-11-1710 minMarooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part 10: "Phase Change," Long Walks, and Designated ArbitratorsIn this belated episode, Matt and Hilary discuss Part 10 of GREEN MARS, “Phase Change,” where the revolution happens!
We talk about how the revolution comes about, Nadia’s role as “designated arbitrator,” and just how cool and amazing this chapter is in general. We talk about how important it is to find and use the right words to frame what’s happening, to make the revolutionary argument an effective one rhetorically, and using language to conjure something out of nothing.
We will be on hiatus for the next week or so, as Hilary gets over the cold Matt gave her during the r...2018-10-281h 06
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryOur Dinner With StanMatt and Hilary met Kim Stanley Robinson last week and had dinner with him! We lived to tell the tale, and this is the episode where we tell it.
We'll be back later in the week with our episode about the final part of Green Mars, "Phase Change."
Rate and review us on iTunes
Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars
Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com
Send us a voicemail using the Anchor.fm app.2018-10-1539 min
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part 9: "The Spur of the Moment" and Cats on the TableSorry this is late! We’ve been teaching and Matt has time-management issues!
Matt and Hilary start by talking about what they're teaching, which are both, in their ways, cyborg manifestoes. Then, into the chapter, where Maya wrestles with histories both personal and political as she furiously plans (and patiently waits) for the future of Mars. Michel does some opti-Maya-zation (thank you, you're welcome), Sax is mysterious, and Coyote knows all.
One thing that's really cool about this chapter is Maya's realization of the power of laughter in imagining the future and hooking into youthful energy, as well as the tw...2018-10-041h 19
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part 8: "Social Engineering," Sax Russell, and UnilateralismIn this episode, Sax Russell goes rogue! The former Stephen Lindholm makes some unilateral decisions about the future of Mars, i.e., blowing up the soletta and shooting Deimos out of orbit. Why does he do this? Matt and Hilary discuss!
Theory 1. Sax is a changed man after all jacked up on sea star (not starfish!!!) DNA.
Theory 2. John Cusack:boombox::Sax:soletta.
We talk about the weirdly ironic voice in the chapter – we're with Sax, yet not.
And we talk about the ever-evolving relationship between Ann and Sax. One of them is changing – why won't the other??
Rate and revi...2018-09-251h 14
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part 7.2: "What Is to Be Done?" William Fort: the Ancient DolphinIn the second part of our discussion of Part 7 of Green Mars, "What is To Be Done?," Matt and Hilary talk about pot luck dinners, constitutional conventions, and William Fort, the ancient dolphin!
First we recap why we like this chapter so much (because it's about writing a constitution) and why we're drawn to the idea of writing a constitution (because we need a new one). Matt botches the "freedom is an endless meeting" joke yet again, and Hilary explains why writing a constitution is the most deeply science fictional thing you could do.
We read through the 7 work points...2018-09-181h 19
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part 7: "What Is to Be Done?" Part 1, the Gift Economy, and Family IssuesIn this episode, Matt and Hilary cover the first half of Part 7, "What Is to Be Done?" This part is about the pivotal Dorsa Brevia conference, where hundreds of representatives of the various groups of the Martian demimonde gather to create a constitution.
Matt & Hilary discuss the gift economy, the old/new Ann/ Sax debate, the role of Nadia, Art, and Nirgal in the Dorsa Brevia conference, and ponder the age old question: Why do the Swiss refuse to wear jumpsuits?
There's just too much to talk about in this part, so we're going to be releasing two episodes. (I...2018-09-101h 34
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars--Listener Mailbag!In this episode of Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary, Matt and Hilary respond to your voicemails! We received three voicemails from listeners that provided the opportunity to do a whole mess of TALKING.
This one got away from us a little bit, but responding to your voicemails was really fun and provided a nice opportunity to sort of regroup before we discover "What is to be done?" at the Dorsa Brevia conference and tackle Part 7 of Green Mars, which we'll do in two parts, the first of which will be released soon.
Here, for your listening pleasure, we...2018-09-0357 min
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part 6: "Tariqat" (Part 2) Political Economy and Culture of the DemimondeMatt and Hilary continue their discussion of "Tariqat," Part 6 of KSR's Green Mars.
We focus on the emergent political economy of Mars' demimonde, as practiced by Coyote as he circulates between the various underground factions. M & H try to figure out the nitrogen-based gift economy and about the place of gifts within social relations.
References include Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women;" David Graeber, "Debt;" and a comment about Chinese railroad workers that was misattributed to KSR but which actually comes from McKenzie Wark's article on Occupy, "This Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit."
In the background, please enjoy the...2018-08-271h 15
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part 6: "Tariqat," Culture, and the next John BooneMatt & Hilary discuss Part 6 of Green Mars, "Tariqat." Focalized through Nirgal, we also get a healthy dose of the the way Spencer and Art come to know the underground of Mars, as they, along with Coyote and Sax, drive around in a boulder car after the daring jailbreak in Part 5.
Our discussion of "Tariqat" is divided into two parts, as there's just too much going on. Here, we focus on Nirgal, Art, and Coyote, especially Nirgal's experience of Sabishii and its (highly enviable) university system, the continued emergence of uniquely Martian cultures, and a bit about Sax's rehabilitation. Next time...2018-08-191h 17
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part Five: "Homeless" and Guerrilla ClimatologyMatt and Hilary discuss Part Five of Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars, "Homeless," from the perspective of Michel. This one's action packed, as Michel and Maya break into the Martian prison at Kasei Vallis to rescue Sax from his torturer-interrogators! Coyote has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Memory and childhood take a central place in this chapter, as the first hundred are getting older and continuing to forget things--and that seems to be analogous to the reader's experience with these very long novels!
We've switched podcast hosts to anchor.fm, so hopefully there is no interruption in service. There's...2018-08-151h 13
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part Four: "The Scientist as Hero," Sleeping with the Enemy, and the Magic of LensesMatt and Hilary discuss Part Four of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Green Mars," "The Scientist as Hero," told from the perspective of Sax Russell.
The first chapter from the perspective of Sax, and it's unique in that it contains a lot of overlap with other chapters, so we see the full conversation between Ann and Sax from Part 3 that Ann couldn't remember, and we get an oblique reference to Art Randolph.
We also get our greatest exposure to Phyllis, who was last seen on Clarke, speeding toward Jupiter on Clarke faster than any human had ever gone, after the cable was...2018-08-081h 22
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part Three: "Long Runout," Action, and Thinking Like a StoneMatt and Hilary discuss Part Three of Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, "Long Runout," an Ann Clayborne chapter.
We find Ann in mourning, stunned after the losses of Simon, Frank, and Mars itself, driving around the surface, conducting research and trying to think like a stone.
Matt and Hilary make jokes about the problem of the other minds, and they read and discuss some recent Mars news, including a front page essay in the New York Times (which they critique heartily) and an interview with KSR in good ol' news aggregator Huffington Post. Then it's a deep dive into...2018-08-031h 41
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part Two: "The Ambassador," Alternate Sensoriums, and Acquiring MarsMatt and Hilary discuss Part Two of Green Mars, The Ambassador. Suddenly we're back to Earth and introduced to Art Randolph and William Fort, who set out to "acquire" Mars.
The space elevator gets reconnected in the prologue, and eccentric jillionaire scientist guru Praxis-head William Fort and Steve Jobs/ Willy Wonka wannabe invites Art Randolph to one of his infamous, mysterious seminars and tasks him with "acquiring" Mars. Art gets nauseous on the trip to the Red Planet, and meets a real live Martian!
Matt really likes Art Randolph and misses being in seminars. Hilary likes the idea of getting...2018-07-281h 07
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryGreen Mars, Part One: "Areoformation," Viriditas, and The Great UnexplainableMatt and Hilary start the second volume of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, *Green Mars*! Told from the perspective of Nirgal, a true Martian, we're re-introduced to the world of Mars, the first hundred, and a sense of wonder.
We get to see Dr. Robot, the Good Witch, and the Bad Witch as teachers to a new generation of humans born on Mars, with a whole different relationship to and idea of family, planetariness, love, sex, embodiment, and everything else. We're also introduced to Hiroko's concept of viriditas and Sax's idea of The Great Unexplainable, which Nirgal imagines as "the...2018-07-191h 17
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars Wrap-Up and the Curse of the Baggy Monster!Matt and Hilary say goodbye to *Red Mars.* We talk about the New York Times' review of the book (Matt was too lazy and busy to find other, more relevant reviews). Hilary tells us how to read science fiction. We take a deepish dive into Arkady and Hiroko, two charismatic and enigmatic characters that the reader has to construct based on other characters' perceptions and interactions.
We talk about SF's status as a literary genre and Matt hits Hilary with a doozy of a question about the status of *Red Mars* as a realist novel, which Hilary handles with her...2018-07-181h 10
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars, Part Eight: Shikata Ga NaiThe last part of *Red Mars!* Hilary and Matt discuss Part Eight, "Shikata Ga Nai." Told through Ann's perspective, another major character dies, a small group of refugees drives around Mars in a couple of boulder cars, and they arrive at their new home!
Hilary teaches Matt about why the Mars Trilogy is not a feminist text. Matt does a brief Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. Matt says "yeah" a lot. Hilary says "like" a lot. We're people, give us a break.
Spoiler alerts about both *Red Mars* and late eighteenth century Gothic novels and Victorian literature. And, spoiler alert, I don't...2018-07-011h 31
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars, Part Seven: Senzeni NaMatt & Hilary discuss Part Seven, "Senzeni Na." See the revolution through the eyes of Nadia! Materialism and ideology! Space elevators, asteroids! Death! Destruction! Machinations! Let's blow up the moon!
(I tried some actual editing on this episode--hope it's not annoying! It was very annoying for me to do. I'm having trouble with the levels. I hate audio editing. Ugh. Sucks. A lot of skill involved. Respect audio producers!)
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Original title music by The Spirit of Space.
"Senzeni Na" performed by Cape Town Youth...2018-06-281h 15
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars, Part Six: Guns Under the Table (Part 1??)We're back! Matt & Hilary talk about the Frank Chalmers section, "Guns Under the Table." Rules, sex, revolution?!?!?!
In 2057, will Frank Chalmers successfully negotiate a renewal of the treaty that allows transnational corporations to exploit Mars's resources, while still also limiting immigration from an overcrowded and polluted Earth so that the society being created on Mars won't simply reproduce the mistakes human civilization made in the past? Can revolution be avoided??? FIND OUT!!!
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Rate and review us on iTunes!2018-06-091h 04
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars, Part Five: Falling into History (Part 2)In Part 2 of our episode about Part Five, "Falling Into History," Matt and Hilary discuss politics, eco-economics, gifts, and debt!
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Don't buy these books on Amazon!
Be a guest on our show! Tell your friends!2018-05-271h 33
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars, Part Five: Falling into History (Part 1)Matt & Hilary discuss Part Five of KSR's Red Mars, Falling Into History. It's the John Boone chapter! This is the first part of a two-part episode, because so much happens in this chapter. Here we discuss Boone, embodiment, drugs, genre, cowboys, Arabs, detectives, and landscape. Next week we'll get more into political economy.
Spoiler note: Each episode thoroughly discusses the chapter it's about, but doesn't spoil the later chapters.
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Thank you for listening!2018-05-201h 09
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars, Part Four: HomesickMatt & Hilary talk about Part Four of Red Mars, "Homesick," which focuses on the lone psychiatrist among the First Hundred, Michel--The Only Frenchman on Mars. Look for a surprise ending (to the chapter, not the episode)!
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Rate and review us on iTunes!2018-05-121h 06
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryRed Mars, Part One: Festival NightMatt and Hilary dive into the first Part of Kim Stanley Robinson's *Red Mars*, "Festival Night." Meet Frank Chalmers, John Boone, Maya Toitovna, and the citizens of the new Martian town of Nicosia! Sex, intrigue, a political assassination! Wow!
Later episodes will be more produced (I'm taking a class...).2018-04-211h 05
Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryIntroducing "Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary"Introducing you to the world(s) of Kim Stanley Robinson, Matt, and Hilary, and what this podcast is all about.2018-04-141h 10