Martian Politics and the Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero: Richard Morgan's Thin Air - Revista Helice
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
Sara Martín Alegre © Sara Martín Alegre, 2018
of the fantasy trilogy A Land Fit For Heroes
(The Steel Remains (2008), The Cold Com-
mands (2011) and The Dark Defiles (2014)).
His other novels are Market Forces (2004) and
Black Man (2007), known as Thirteen or
Th1rte3n in the United States. He has also
written the scripts for the graphic novels Black
Widow: Homecoming (2005) and Black Widow:
The Things They Say About Her (2006), and for
the videogames Crysis 2 (2011), Syndicate
(2012) and A Land Fit For Heroes (2015).
This interview was carried out on occasion
of the publication of Thin Air (see the review
in this issue) in October 2018, a novel that
takes place on Mars and belongs to the same
universe as Black Man.
How much planning (and daydream-
ing) goes into a novel like Thin Air?
Oh, LOTS!! I’ve had the very vague bases
for this one in the back of my head since 2007
at least! There’s an off-hand reference in
Black Man/Thirteen1 to a character on Mars,
a hibernoid PI who’s hard as nails, and that
really was the initial template for Hakan
Veil. Of course, both the character and the
1 See “Richard K. Morgan’s Black Man/Thirteen: A Con-
Richard K. Morgan (London, 1965) is the versation” (https://ddd.uab.cat/record/132013) and
acclaimed author of the Takeshi Kovacs sci- Sara Martín, “The Anti-patriarchal Male Monster as
Limited (Anti)Hero in Richard Morgan’s Black Man”,
ence fiction trilogy (Altered Carbon (2002), Science Fiction Studies, #131, 44.1 (March 2017): 84-103,
Broken Angels (2003), Woken Furies (2005) and http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/.
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 84 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
scenario have evolved a hell of a lot since you can’t just go out and totally push the en-
then, but I think you could safely say I’ve velope to get the Mars you want, to tell the
been daydreaming this book — working title story that suits you, basically to have some
Hardboiled On Mars, let’s call it — for at fun. So that was what I did!
least that long! Beyond that, I suspect that my more gen-
eral inspirations will be pretty crystal clear to
What was your inspiration for your anyone reading the text — the names of the
vision of Mars? Any favourite Mars fic- streets and plazas in the colony, the quote
tion? from Robert Zubrin’s The Case for Mars3 at
Not really. I still, to my shame, have not the start of the book and its juxtaposition
got around to reading Kim Stanley Robin- with the Stannard4 quote, the general feel of
son’s magisterial Mars trilogy, something I the culture that’s evolved in the Gash5 and
really wanted to do before writing Thin Air, the subtext in Veil’s narrative voice. You
but simply couldn’t, in the chaos of early fa- know me by now It’s very much a revision-
therhood, make time for. I recall a rather ist Mars colony novel.
striking segment of Margaret F McHugh’s
China Mountain Zhang being set on Mars, How do the chronologies of Black
some parts of Hannu Rajaniemi’s Quantum Man and Thin Air fit? Black Man takes
Thief, but the last full Mars novel I read was place in 2107 but is this long before Thin
probably Heinlein’s Red Planet and that was Air? Is the date 300 YC (Years of Coloni-
forty odd years ago! And oddly enough, even zation) correct for Thin Air?
there, Mars was serving as a crucible for sci- As always, I try to keep these things
ence fictional politics, so I kind of feel I’m fol- vague, as much as anything to leave myself
lowing in a grand tradition! room for later manouevre! You’re correct
Interestingly, I think it was Rajaniemi’s about the YC nomenclature, of course, but
visions in particular that gave me a feeling of what that actually means is up for grabs. Do
license. Over the years since and even during the dates run — retrospectively — from the
the writing of Black Man/Thirteen, I’d done a Luthra touchdown? From the inauguration of
fair bit of hard research into the how, why the original under-glass colony mentioned in
and wherefore of Mars colonisation, and you the first chapter? Or from some other mo-
can see some of the fruits of that in the book, mentous marker in the history of the Gash?
for example, with the use of the Darian cal-
endar.2 But after reading Hannu, what I real- 3 “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet
ised was that there’s no good hard SF reason and Why We Must is a nonfiction science book by Robert
Zubrin, first published in 1996, and revised and updated
in 2011. The book details Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan to
make the first human landing on Mars”. From Wikipe-
2 “Darian Calendar,” Wikipedia: “The Darian calendar is dia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars
a proposed system of time-keeping designed to serve the 4 American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World
needs of any possible future human settlers on the planet (1992) by US historian David Stannard describes the
Mars. It was created by aerospace engineer, political conquest of the West and the extermination of the Native
scientist, and space jurist Thomas Gangale in 1985 and American population as the biggest genocide ever com-
named by him after his son Darius. It was first published mitted in human History.
in June 1986”. From 5 Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system on Mars,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darian_calendar looks like a gigantic gash, hence ‘the Gash’.
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 85 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
Suffice it to say that well over a century has about the ‘lamina’ and about the role of
passed since the events of Black Man, but nanotech in developing Mars?
that’s all I can say with certainty. There is a central conceit that I keep —
not consciously, I swear! — returning to in
The colonization of Mars is run by my work. It takes different metaphorical
COLIN (Colonial Initiative). Hak Veil guises, but at root it’s always the same sense
describes them as predators not in the of something grand and worthwhile being
style of hyenas but rather of the crown abandoned by vicious and stupid men in fa-
of thorns starfish, which slowly traps vour of short-term profit and tribal hegemo-
and then dissolves its victims. COLIN ny. You see it in the regressive politics of the
runs, or sponsors, all aspects of ‘the hu- Protectorate in the Kovacs novels, the way
man footprint anywhere in the solar sys- both the Yhelteth Empire and the — so-called
tem’. ‘Their capital flow’, Veil explains, — Free Cities fail their duty as civilisations
‘is the lifeblood of the expansion, their in A Land Fit for Heroes. So also with Thin
co-option of antique legal structure back Air — the landscape is littered with the
on Earth is the overarching framework markers of a retreat from the grand scheme
that holds it all up’. Is corporate inter- of terraforming and building a home for hu-
vention at this large scale the only way manity on Mars, in favour of an ultra-
to carry out space exploration and the profitable corporate stasis and an ongoing lie
eventual colonization of Mars? of highly emotive intangibles sold to the gen-
Well, it’s certainly not the only way to do eral populace in lieu of actual progress. Take
it — the Chinese colony in Hellas hints at a look around you — remind you of anything?
some (not necessarily very laudable) alter- As to the lamina, they are the highest ex-
natives — but it does seem to be the most pression — quite literally! — of a molecular
likely model at the moment; neoliberalism membrane tech which has transformed eve-
has set loose a vast capital investment po- rything about the way people live on Mars
tential that certainly accommodates the nec- (and, of course, elsewhere). It’s been clear to
essary scale and ambition, but it is, of me for quite some time that the really excit-
course, utterly rapacious, anti-humane and ing technological changes we’re going to see
self-interested at the same time. In many in the future are a lot less to do with devices
ways, this novel is lamenting that fact, and and machines, and far more about stuff —
the death of the old NASA vision neoliberal- new hi-tech materials, post-organic trans-
ism has helped to bury. I really miss Carl formatives, self-governing iterative process-
Sagan and his civilised humanistic univer- es and so forth. The conceit in Thin Air is
salism! that Mars has been a fantastic incubator for
all these technologies because there is so
The novel is called Thin Air partly much untenanted real estate to carry out the
because this refers to how the ‘terraform testing in — things that would be outright
eco-magic’ has failed to generated at- illegal on Earth because of the knock-on ef-
mospheric conditions beyond ‘four per- fects for the environment and local human
cent Earth sea level standard’. Why this population can be done with impunity on
pessimism? Can you also tell a little Mars because so little of the planet is in use
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 86 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
as living space, and the broader Martian en- Veil names as updates ‘Fresh gas ex-
vironment is either dead or so close to dead change turbos for your lungs; melatonin
no-one cares. re-up version 8.11.4; booster patches for
the latest — and shakiest — osteopenia
Hak Veil’s critique of the Martian inhibitors; corneal armouring 9.1’. How
High Frontier Myth is constant through deeply modified are humans on Mars?
Thin Air. I assume this is your own point They’re not quite post-human, are they?
of view, too. Quoting the words of for- That depends very much on your stand-
mer Governor General Kathleen Okom- point, I think. You could argue that a lot of us
bi, ‘the forces unleashed on a frontier — are already post-human to the extent that we
any frontier — are anything but noble’. use prosthetics and medical tech, both exter-
Is Thin Air, then, a sort of anti-western? nal and internal, that prolongs or otherwise
I suppose you could call it my Blood Me- improves our lives. And these ‘mods’ — if we
ridian,6 yeah . can call them that — are getting smarter,
I mean, Veil has his own personal reasons cooler, better fitting and less obtrusive with
for his sour outlook on Mars, and there’s no every passing year. In Thin Air, this medical
agenda of mine there outside of good solid augmentation has become almost wholly in-
characterisation. And, in all fairness, this visible, reduced to the nano- and cellular lev-
malcontent sourness does get a fair dose of els. Looking at a Mars human, you probably
pushback from other characters. But at the wouldn’t see anything very odd, except per-
same time, Veil’s attitude does, of course, po- haps a slightly excessive leanness; but what’s
sition him ideally to penetrate the mythic lies going on inside that body has become the
that sustain the colony. Again, returning to equivalent of the tech in your phone, eternal-
that Zubrin quote at the front of the book, I ly provisional, subject to constant upgrade
was genuinely shocked to find that there are and change.
a considerable cohort of people out there who
seem to think the American frontier was Are the Google glasses the inspiration
some kind of apogee for civilizational drive for the lenses everyone wears on Mars?
and achievement. That idea, and the idea The idea that they also work as lie de-
that you could — or even should! — somehow tector by reading facial expression, or
transfer that cultural matrix to Mars in the gestalt, is very clever. Do you think
twenty first century was so monstrous I just Google will ever incorporate this fea-
had to track it and shoot it down! ture…? And more seriously, Veil also
points out that the lenses are used be-
Thin Air presents the inhabitants of cause the alternative, wetware, is too
Mars as High Frontier Humanity. The expensive and too problematic for the
idea of the codeflies biting everyone to immune system. Care to comment?
update the modifications is quite fun! Google Glass certainly forms part of the
conceptual matrix that led me to opt for
6 Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West
headgear lenses as the platform for this
(1985) is a Western by American author Cormac McCar-
world’s ICT, sure. But, really, it’s just been a
thy, also author of the post-apocalyptic novel The Road
(2006). question of the obvious staring you in the
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 87 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
face, and a lot of time spent in southern Eu- you specifically focus on skincare prod-
rope. When you hit the streets of, for exam- ucts for the plot?
ple, Málaga or Cádiz, what you see is every-
one wearing shades. They’re as common as
shoes. No-one looks odd wearing them, in fact
mostly people look kind of stylish with it. And I think it’s more that I don’t
that’s when it hits you — this is how it’s go-
ing to be. High-style shades are going to be really believe in single major
the iPhones of the future. And once you ac-
cept that basic premise, then you also know villains, to be honest —
that they’ll come loaded with every app you
can think of — polygraphing tech, variable they feel like too much of a
polarising glass, AR, VR, recording and play-
back options, the possible list just goes on. busted paradigm to be very
Of course, this kind of field-of-vision tech
has been kicking around in cyberpunk for a artistically useful anymore.
long time — think of Molly’s mirror-shade lens
implants in Johnny Mnemonic and Neuro-
mancer — but I think the beat cyberpunk Well, they are the obvious analogue —
missed (or perhaps chose, stylistically, to ig- even today, the complete bullshit branding of
nore) was the human discomfort with bodily the female cosmetics industry is a wonder to
mutilation and physical intrusion; outside of a behold; getting people to pay insane prices for
fringe of piercing and tattoo enthusiasts and little pots of prestige brand goop on the basis
their equivalents in the wearable tech field, of misleading feelgood advertising and ‘scien-
most us aren’t going to be keen on sticking cy’ sounding marketing copy. Seven signs of
racks of hardware inside ourselves any time fucking ageing indeed! I think we often un-
soon, especially, yes, given the possible im- derestimate how powerful and pervasive
mune system issues, and most important of all branding is, and the massive impact it has at
if there is a simpler viable alternative. And, of an economic level, and increasingly in politics
course, the shades are exactly that — easy on, as well. I just extrapolated some of those
easy off, replace or repair at need with no bodi- trends with my own brand of excoriating cyn-
ly complications; they make perfect sense! ical rage jammed on full.
The slogan ‘Mars is open for business’ Cradle City Mayor Raquel Allauca
appears frequently in your novel. With- explains to Veil that the Martian power
out risking spoilers, the plot deals with a system is ‘like Russian dolls’, there is
situation that compromises the reputa- always someone more powerful behind
tion of Marstech, the ‘myth’ that sustains each single powerful person. Is this the
Martian economy. This is based on the reason why you don’t have in Thin Air a
idea that Mars thrives (or survives) be- single, major villain?
cause its technological exports to Earth No, I think it’s more that I don’t really be-
are prestige, quality products. Why did lieve in single major villains, to be honest —
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 88 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
they feel like too much of a busted paradigm been to abandon pragmatic progressive poli-
to be very artistically useful anymore. Any tics, to retreat instead into the arms of ivory
honest examination of a bad situation will tower doctrinal purity and to thus alienate
show a plethora of culpable individuals, of exactly the constituency they claim to repre-
course, but it’s their relative levels of culpa- sent. So, while the Sacranites probably have
bility and the interrelations between them some good policy ideas and points to make,
that make things interesting. One big bad their political DNA makes them almost inca-
guy whose defeat and death suddenly resets pable of getting out there and carrying the
everything to copacetic norms is just, dunno, fight in any realistic popular form. They’re
Marvelesque; dull. simply not sexy enough by comparison. It’s no
coincidence that when Veil goes to see them,
Business and political interests are it’s in an ageing mothballed and cobwebbed
contested in Thin Air by the late En- research facility serving as a sad little self-
rique Sacran’s followers, led by his referential teaching retreat!
daughter Martina Sacran. The Sacra-
nites defend Mutualist political theory The Chinese triad and the mafia of
and Tech Socialism but Veil thinks the ‘familias andinas’ also have a strong
theirs is a failed struggle, as people are presence on Mars. At one point, Veil
more interested in the High Frontier stresses that ‘The familias andinas are
Myth and the ‘exceptionalism’ of belong- Valley democracy’s biggest fans’ because
ing in Mars. Does this political disaffec- ‘they can buy it and sell it and subvert it
tion reflect what you think of current at every turn’. Isn’t this a very negative
politics? view of democracy?
Well, you have to remember that Veil is Depends very much on the democracy in
not me! He’s way more pissed off and disen- question! Obviously a robust and healthy
chanted than I try to be, and such politics as democracy wouldn’t permit that kind of cor-
he possesses may not necessarily line up well ruption very easily. But that’s not the kind of
with my own — admittedly iconoclastic — left democracy the Valley has! And increasingly,
liberal bent. That said, I do think that one of it’s the other, corrupt, lip-service type of de-
the clearest current trends in our political mocracy that I see in the ascendant right
landscape is the way that cheap feel-good here and now on this planet too. In fact, un-
myth is being used by those in power to justi- der current conditions ‘democracy’ — like al-
fy economic — and in some cases political — most everything else — seems in danger of
brutalism, above all to the very people suffer- becoming nothing more than another brand,
ing most under that brutality; and worse still an empty word to justify whatever oligarchic
is the way wilful ignorance on the part of excesses the powers-that-be desire. That’s the
those people just reinforces the dynamic. It’s problem with treating complex and serious
a feedback loop of terrifying force, and there social, political and economic issues at the
doesn’t seem any immediately powerful way level of cheap feelgood myth. The fallout from
for the progressive left to take it down. In which is, of course, one of the major themes of
fact, the standard response of the Left under the book.
pressure from neoliberalism seems to have
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 89 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
A key point in the plot is the lottery cogent political and economic opinions on why
that allows every year fifty Mars resi- Mars should secede from Earth; you won’t
dents to return to Earth. There’s talk in find so many of those among the Frockers,
the novel about how this is no longer so because they’re basically the book’s equiva-
interesting for Martian-born humans, lent of today’s ethno-thugs. I think as much
which is why in the last 39 years the as anything, I was driven here once again by
prize has been a return ticket. As Nina a stubborn contrarian/revisionist streak —
Ucharima, a native Martian, angrily tells SF has a tradition of plucky Mars rebellions
Veil, Mars may be a shit-hole as he of one sort or another against an oppressive
thinks, ‘But it’s ours. We belong to it, like Earth; I wanted to pull that trope apart and
we’re never going to belong back on demand a more complicated vision.
Rock Three’. Yet, the Frockers, the inde-
pendentist movement, are presented Veil is a ‘hib’, or hibernoid, a heavily
negatively as the ‘Lunatic fringe of the modified man who spends four months
Mars First Movement’. I find this ambig- every year in a coma. According to his
uous: does Veil, and do you, support the back story, his mother signed up the Lo-
idea of Martian independence? cal Special Indenture Programme, in
Again, it’s important to separate out my Western Australia, in the second tri-
opinions from Veil’s, and also to recognise mester of pregnancy. Here’s one ques-
that anyway these latter are in flux, that Veil tion that is not 100% clear to me: which
changes to some extent — or, maybe better ethnic group is Hak? Can we assume he
put, is changed — over the course of the nov- is Australian aboriginal because of the
el. My own views on independence are pretty area where he was born?
straightforward: I think places should belong I have deliberately left Veil’s ethnic ori-
to the people who live in them and decisions gins vague in this one, because to be honest
affecting those people and places should be his class origins are far more important —
taken locally as far as that’s humanly possi- he’s a product of common poverty dynamics
ble. This applies equally to Scots, Catalans that are similar the world over. In this day
and Martians! But, that said, independence and age, he’d certainly have a higher statisti-
campaigners come in all shapes and sizes cal chance of coming from an ethnic minority
from educated civic nationalists to fuckwit background than not (tho’ it’s also worth not-
stupid ethnic supremacists and everything ing that these days the poor white demo-
in-between. I’ll leave you to work out my feel- graphic is fairly steeply on the rise every-
ings on those variants! More importantly, where you look). But in the world of the book,
these days the very concept of independence who knows? What exactly will constitute an
is a much-vexed one. What, in this world of ethnic minority three hundred years from
globally intermeshed commerce and cultural now, in Australia or anywhere else? To what
exchange, does independence actually mean; extent, with increasing global population
how useful is it, and in what doses? These are flows, will ethnicity even be an issue any
complex issues and deserving of complex po- longer? For what it’s worth, I personally im-
litical outlook. You might well find smart, de- agined Veil as coming from Pacific islander
cent people in the Mars First movement with and /or Maori stock — I’m a big fan of the
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 90 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
movie Once Were Warriors, so the image in the genetic programming, human variants
my head was based roughly off Temuera would break and break through their de-
Morrison as Jake. But that’s just me — if you signed parameters, because humans are
want to imagine some Australian aboriginal simply too complex to tweak at such a sim-
blood in the mix, sure, no reason why not! plistic level. But I think we can say that the
science has come on a bit since Carl’s day,
and the labs of Veil’s era are getting pretty
I have deliberately left Veil’s damned good at hitting their target accurate-
ly. Part of that will involve a slower, more
ethnic origins vague in this nuanced approach to the product — think
single malt whisky versus moonshine. It’s not
one, because to be honest so much how intensively Veil’s been modified,
it’s how lovingly and with what attention to
his class origins are far detail.
more important — he’s a Hibernoids were created to cope ‘with
the constant cryocaping’ but they’re also
product of common cyborg soldiers nicknamed ‘overriders’.
To what extend is Hak as the Sacranite
poverty dynamics that are Rivero tells him ‘Corporate utility given
flesh (…)— a commodity algorithm mas-
similar the world over. querading as a man’?
Well, that’s a clearly intended insult, and
Hak spent them all his childhood and from a politicised character whose judgement
boyhood years being trained and bodily we aren’t necessarily intended to buy into. On
enhanced practically as property of the other hand, the implication in the book is
Blond Vaisitus TransSolar Enforcement that the Overriders are pretty damned good
and Security Logistics, a concern at- at their job, so maybe Rivero has a point! I
tached to COLIN. How intensively has think it’s going to be up to the reader to de-
he been modified? When a character cide which of Veil’s actions are being decided
calls him a ‘hard man’, he replies he is by his programming and which by something
rather ‘hard wired’… more personal — or if there even exists any
Again, this is something I’ve left open, kind of clear divide between those two areas
particularly since in this future a lot of people of motivation!
are modified in various ways. At base level,
Veil has similar genetic modification to Carl Hak’s nervous system was connected
Marsalis in Black Man/Thirteen — he has to the AI OSIRIS (Onboard Situational
been tweaked in the womb to suit specific Insight and Resource Interface Sup-
utility concerns. But beyond that, he’s under- port), a ‘crisis management system’,
gone a whole regime of biochemical, surgical when he was 8 and ‘she’ has been his
and psychological interventions too. In Black constant companion since then. Two
Man/Thirteen, I posited the idea that despite questions: why is OSIRIS gendered ‘fe-
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 91 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
male’ even though the Egyptian God is a hunt down anyone who breaks their contrac-
male? And, is OSIRIS connected in any tual terms if the price is right. It’s a bounty
way to the AI Jane in Orson Scott Card’s hunter service for pissed off corporate em-
Ender series? ployers. Targets would include ordinary Mar-
I haven’t read the Ender books (or indeed tian citizens at any level, whether grunt la-
anything Card has written since his early bour or higher value employees. But
short stories in Omni — a conscious choice on obviously, as a bounty-based system, they’d
my part due to his unforgivably obnoxious far rather be chasing the high value guys ra-
views), so there’s no connection there, no. But ther than the grunts — unless somebody cor-
the female gendering is an obvious extrapola- porate is wanting to make an example of
tion from current trends. We seem to like fe- some poor grunt in particular, that is, and
male voices in service roles — perhaps be- willing to pay appropriately. But highest of
cause they facilitate levels of engagement all high value will be the qualpros — quali-
that more male-sounding vocals would fail fied professionals shipped in from Earth on
at? perhaps because of the universality and incredibly high paying salaries for three or
power of motherhood in upbringing? — and five year stints. If those guys go walkabout,
early stage AI shows all the signs of running you are losing seriously expensive productivi-
with that preference. Of course, OSIRIS is ty for every week they’re gone, and bringing
neither male nor female, it’s a machine opti- them back into the fold will be a well-
mising human-style performance, and we rewarded priority gig. The implication in the
know that owners can option various differ- book is that there’s quite a high incidence of
ent voices for the system. In Veil’s case, being Earth qualpros cracking and going walkabout
male, straight and highly sexed, he has cho- because, basically, living on a totally alien
sen a deeply sexualised female voice to be his world generates massive levels of stress and
constant companion — you can read into that strain, both psychological and physiological,
whatever you like! But there’s no reason oth- and not everybody can cope with it. I think
er recipients of the system might not have op- that’s an aspect of planetary colonisation
tioned a commanding alpha male voice in- which hasn’t really been explored much in SF
stead, or indeed any other variation on the — the idea that, quite apart from any physi-
gender spectrum. cal rigours colonists would face, abstraction
from all of the norms of the world we evolved
When Blond Vaisutis dismisses Veil, on may also trigger some very deep-rooted
after 20 years in their employ, he takes mental health issues, with all of the social
up a job with Indenture Compliance on and logistical fallout that implies.
Mars, where he has lived for 14 years,
correct? This job consists of hunting When Veil meets a Fleet enforcer he
down rogue ‘qualpros’ or qualified pro- is chasing, he notes that this man lacks
fessionals who crack under pressure. the ‘machine-eyed dead-soul threat’
Can you tell us a bit more about the these combat specialists usually display.
‘qualpros’? He describes the ones he has encoun-
tered so far as ‘Dead eyed, incurious,
Yeah, actually Indenture Compliance will functional at seemingly inhuman levels
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 92 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
and depths’ to the point that he wonders see what happens in the raw hinterlands
whether ‘some military lab somewhere beyond regulation’. Could you comment
really did hit the future warrior jackpot on this?
and come up with something truly post- The general implication in the novel is
human’. Do you see the ‘truly post- that Mars has a long history of permissive de-
human’ as inhuman? To what extent is regulation. The lack of dense human popula-
Veil himself post-human? tion or important biosphere has allowed a no-
Well, there’s intended to be a certain holds-barred industrial exploitation of the
amount of irony hanging around in that environment with large scale gains for the
comment, since, from what we’ve seen, Veil people and corporate bodies that dabbled in
himself appears to have his own fair share of it. And now there are a lot more humans on
‘functional[ity] at seemingly inhuman levels Mars, well, who gives a shit about them,
and depths’. Perhaps he’s just desperately right? The same ruthless corporate interests
trying to make a differentiation between and men of power bring the deregulating
himself and some Other he can feel better scythe to anything that might restrict the
than! But speaking more directly to the point, upward arc of exploitation and profit. Unfor-
I submit that ‘truly post-human’ would by tunately, this reflects a bizarre and frankly
definition have to be inhuman; you’re talking, dangerous emerging political outlook on the
after all, about going beyond the parameters right wing in America and latterly in the UK
we take for granted as human. For example, I too — the idea that regulation (and the gov-
wouldn’t call someone post-human just be- ernmental power that enforces it) is somehow
cause they’ve been gene tweaked to avoid suf- wrong, tyrannical, a brake on human ingenu-
fering from MS or sickle cell anemia. Nor for ity, industry and progress, and needs to be
tweaks to make them smarter or stronger. stripped back wherever possible (and fuck
But there must come a point at which you’re any actual humans who get in the way).
changing the gene code so much that what Maybe there’s an element of that old Ameri-
comes out at the other end really is a differ- can frontier nostalgia in this as well. You
ent species. could, it is true, get away with a hell of a lot
of unregulated behaviour out there — snake
One of the most interesting secondary oil salesmanship, suborning and corruption of
characters is the ‘seasoned long range local officials, land grabs, monopoly, abuse of
code warrior’ Hannu Holsmtrom, a cy- workforce, minor league genocide — all so
borg who looks ‘like a mechanised in- long as you had a Winchester and a Colt 45
carnation of some ancient goat deity out and maybe a similarly armed pack of thugs to
of legend’. Veil notes that he might be il- back you up.
legal on Earth but that, despite whatev-
er damage he may cause, on Mars he is Veil comments that, although it is not
free to hack into corporate resources habitual, there are women hibernoids.
within certain limits because ‘you get a The cast of characters also includes
kind of monkey-curious laissez faire Lieutenant Chakana of Bradbury PD, a
that’s far less interested in enforcing tough woman who could have made a
protocols and far more into watching to great hero. When are we going to get a
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 93 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
Morgan novel with a female protago- She’s just not one for the grand destructive
nist? And since this is a question about (and self-destructive) Spartans-at-the-Hot-
the women, can you tell us a bit more Gates gestures. As to Ari, well, as you point
about Ari without spoiling the plot? out, I can’t say much here, but suffice it to
Well, you could argue that the last four say that like most of my secondary charac-
Morgan novels all had a female protagonist, ters, she started out a fairly straightforward
in fact — Sevgi Ertekin shares pretty much sketch and rapidly assumed more complex
equal pov screen time with Carl Marsalis for and important proportions, both for Veil and
most of Black Man/Thirteen, and Archeth is the world of the book in general.
one of three more or less evenly covered pro-
tagonists in The Land Fit for Heroes trilogy.
I know, I know, that’s not the same thing
as an exclusive first person female lead, and At the heart of my writing
the truth is I don’t have any ready answer for
why I’ve never opted for that. Tentatively, I is a core critique of that
think it might be because I have a predilec-
tion for blunt, fucked up heroes comfortable blunt heroic violence we all
and competent with physical violence that is
at best a double edged sword — and that dy- thrill to, and the less often
namic has never seemed to me a very good fit
for a woman. Sure, there are some really examined truth of the
fucked up women around, but in my experi-
ence that fucked-upness doesn’t seem to ha- damage it does, and I think
bitually correlate with shows of violent
strength and self-determination, it’s more that particular dynamic is
likely to involve self-harm and abandonment
of any smart decision-making. The bad choic- pretty exclusively male-led
es these women make more often than not
end up harming them more than anyone else (though certainly also
(though, of course, children can sometimes
come into the equation too, and be harmed indulged by female
terribly). Conversely there are some very
strong women out there, but that strength bystanders).
seems more related to thoughtful, intelligent
behaviour (perhaps involving violence, sure,
but in a careful, calibrated form). At the heart of my writing is a core cri-
Nikki Chakana’s a good case in point here tique of that blunt heroic violence we all thrill
— she has many of the hallmarks of a cor- to, and the less often examined truth of the
rupted noir protagonist, but it’s still all gov- damage it does, and I think that particular
erned by a shrewd, pragmatic intelligence. dynamic is pretty exclusively male-led
Most of the violence she implies is carried (though certainly also indulged by female by-
out, albeit on her orders, by other people. standers). Routing the same critique through
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 94 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019ENTREVISTA
Martian Politics and the
Hard-Boiled Anti-Hero:
Richard Morgan’s Thin Air
a female protagonist feels like it would end on profit margins and cultural navel gazing.
up either ringing false or playing out in an We grasp at the ineffable mystery and scope
unhelpfully circuitous way. This is not to say of the universe and then fail when it makes
I won’t ever get around to writing a straight demands our violent ape impulses can’t be
up single lead female protagonist at some bothered with. I think it always struck me
point — just that right now it doesn’t serve that even back in the white heat of enthusi-
my purposes well! asm for SETI when it started, no-one seemed
to be asking the obvious question: okay, we
Finally, a lesser matter but a quite in- find signs of intelligent life in the universe —
teresting one. In Thin Air new myths are then what? Then what indeed? The distances
being built based on the superstitions to even relatively local alien civilisations was
imported by ‘the Andean grunt labour always likely to be way beyond any distance
that formed so much of COLIN’s early we could hope to travel any time soon, and
spearhead efforts on Mars’, since ‘it’s you don’t have to get very far away in inter-
like we need our monsters and our hero stellar space before the question arises of
saviours a lot more when we’re under al- whether whatever civilisation sent out that
ien skies’. At the same time, the SETI signal even exists anymore. People get bored
experience on Mars leads to disap- easily when there isn’t a big, visible pay-off
pointment: four alien signals are found to something like this — some blips on a ra-
but ‘too far off to do anything about or dio telescope graph and a researcher explain-
even ascertain whether the civilisations ing how the signal decodes just isn’t going to
that had sent them still existed’. Why did cut it; I can already see the social media re-
you decide to eliminate the possibility or sponse — yawn, whatever; man that guy’s
inter-species contact? shirt is sexist! Some jokes, some memes, and
Well, the first thing to say is that it’s not then — absent any physical, photographable
fully eliminated. Those signals need not be evidence or occurrence — the whole thing’s
the only traces of alien civilisation out there going to be dead in the water. As with every-
— or indeed even closer to home. But the im- thing else on Mars in this novel, it’s the
portant point is that people have stopped broader vision that fails, and in its place,
looking. Once again, grand aspirational vi- myopic venal violent ape tendency is willing-
sion gives way to a more prosaic close focus ly given free rein.
REVISTA HÉLICE: Número 11. Volumen IV 95 OTOÑO-INVIERNO 2019You can also read
