Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T20:46:58.542Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 12 - Planetary Climates: Terraforming in Science Fiction

from Part II - Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2019

Adeline Johns-Putra
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines ecological science fiction’s (sf) use of terraforming to critique technological climate control as a form of colonial mastery. Terraforming - the adaptation of planetary environments to make them habitable by forms of life from Earth - has long been an important figure in sf and has recently become crucial to its engagement with the climate and climate change. Terraforming narratives portray the complex interpenetrations between the climate, society, culture, science, and politics, and explore how systematic climate control functions as a way to control society and non-human nature. Analysing terraforming in three narratives that have been influential in shaping the motif, Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sands of Mars (1951), Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965), and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (1992, 1993, 1996), this chapter shows how they highlight the persistence of colonial frontier narratives in shaping representations of interplanetary colonisation, thus connecting terraforming to a tradition of totalising technological mastery over the environment.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×