 Welcome to another episode of In the Studio. I'm Lynn Weaver. And today, our topic will be a discussion of a recently published science fiction bestselling novel called Aurora by world-thru downed novelist, science fiction writer, and beloved Davis residents, Kim Stanley Robinson. Stan has published more than 19 novels, a lot of short stories. And he has, of course, received countless awards. And I believe he is best known for his Mars trilogy and other earlier novels that have to do with the atmosphere in Washington about climate change and what to do about what decisions to prevent climate change. So Stan Robinson, welcome. Thank you so much for being on our show. Well, thanks for having me, Lynn. It's good to be here. It's wonderful. So Aurora is about life on a ship. And this ship has been flying for 160 years. It's one of those space journeys and is going towards one of the nearest stars, I believe, Tau Citta. So what happens next? Well, it's a multi-generational starship, which is a kind of a sub-genre in science fiction, where you take it for granted that we're never going to go faster than light. And even getting as fast as light is very much not going to happen. So it takes many years to get to even the closest star. And in my story, they're arriving at Tau Cetti. And we know that there were four or five big planets around Tau Cetti. We've seen them. And they're so big that they're not serviceable to humans, because the gravity would be too great. Oh, interesting. But we think that there may be moons. Yes. And that these moons might be more sizable to the similar to the size of the Earth. And so they're exploring with the idea that one of these moons has water on it. It resembles the Earth. It seems to be a friendly enough place that we could inhabit it. And so as the story begins, they're getting close and going into orbit around the moon, which they call Aurora. So Aurora is their name for that moon. Well, this is very interesting. It's a fascinating story. And already, I'm taken in by the plot. So in the book, the spaceship is unnamed, which is interesting. And our heroine, Freyja, basically, she was born and lives on this ship. And her life is entrancing, going towards this star. And she lives in a closed, orbit, diverse ecosystem. Very much like Earth, obviously. Right. Would you say this is an extended allegory of our life on Earth? Well, it's an interesting question. All of science fiction has a double reading that can be applied to it. So first, and I think very importantly, it's about what it's about. We could go to the stars. And that's worth exploring as a story space. What would it be like? Freyja is fifth or sixth generation. Comparing it to current time, if she were doing her arrival and growing up in 2015, then the start of the Starship's journey would be back around 1800, or maybe 1820. But in any case, many generations before. So the ship is all she knows. And that's why it doesn't really have a name. It's just her world. I see. Now, so you read it as a story about what it really is about. And the Earth is a trillion times bigger ecosystem than the ship is. And so there are serious differences there. And yet, they are both still life support systems flying through space. So yes, there is a way in which all science fiction works as both the future story and the allegory for the way things feel right now. This is interesting. Of course, the reader can see many metaphors, perceptions. The perception of this is why books are so come alive when you read them. It's interesting that you said from the start that it is basically impossible for humans to conquer the speed of light. In other words, to go beyond the speed of light. And it's very interesting because it's something the topic has fascinated me. So why do you say it is impossible? Perhaps you didn't say impossible, but nearly impossible. I don't remember exactly. Well, I think it's impossible according to the laws of physics as we understand them right now. And there are some quite deep mysteries. There are things we don't understand about the universe right now. But we are material creatures made of flesh and blood. And light itself is radically different from us. And as far as we know, nothing goes faster than light in this universe, which is why it is the way it is. There is quantum entanglement. There's spooky action at a distance. We don't understand gravity or dark matter or dark energy. Or dimensions. We don't know how many dimensions there are. But there are limits to what we can do as a species given just simply because of our physical nature. I don't think we can turn ourselves into electricity and then move, which would be at the speed of light, not faster than somewhere else, and then reincorporate. It's beyond us. It's a very interesting answer. Sorry. It can't be. We can't work out the navigational systems. It would be time travel, as well as space travel that go faster than light. It's just one of those ideas that is a fantasy. Now, it works as allegory. And it also works to make the galaxy small enough to become a story space. You want to go to the far side of the galaxy. It's not really possible, but you want to tell a story about it. I've done this myself in time travel stories. Then you say, well, you wave your hands a little and say, well, they took the chronosynclastic infundibulum, which is Kurt Vonnegut's name for these made-up names. And then it worked. And then you have your story, but it's a kind of a fantasy. And so there's a kind of science fiction that is not about fantasy, but about what could we really do. And that's the kind of science fiction that Aurora is. Right. And I think this very much you've described your science fiction world, which is very realistic, in a way, due to your expertise in science, your research, and the way you linger on details that make it more convincing. Now, you mentioned time travel. And I was going to ask you if you are actually this guy's time traveler, because you go from the Ice Age, Shaman, to Aurora, which is in the 26th century, I believe. So is that something you're not telling us then? No, no, no. I am an English major, and I've lived most of my life now in Davis, California. And it's just that science fiction is a really fun and powerful genre. Yes. It's literature, but it's literature that allows the reader and the writer to time travel. And I think all fiction is really about time travel anyway. You want to get a telepathy in time travel. What was it like to be in the Roman Empire when things were falling apart? What was it like to be on Tau Setti when we first landed? And also, what are other people thinking? And a really good novel can make you feel like you're inside other people's heads. So that's the magic of it. Yes, well, it is. And in a way, it's like being an actor in some ways, except that a writer leaves a permanent recreation of your fantasy or your imagination. Now, your book, I couldn't help drawing some similarity from Aurora to the Margin, the movie now, which was actually a novel written a few years ago by, what is his name? Andy Weis? Andy Weis. They were. And I haven't read the novel. But basically, have you read the novel? Do you see some similarity? I haven't read the novel, but I've seen the movie. And I'm told that it's fairly faithful to the book. And they are similar. They're both problem-solving. They're both about people caught completely in a technological surround, like a submarine, that has to function. So that's the similarity. Now, really, the character in the Martian has it much easier. Mars is so close to Earth relative to Taucedi that, and yet the basic situation is the same. And the same is true if you're in scuba gear and you're 40 feet underwater and you're in gear breaks. Anytime you're reliant on a mechanical system to keep you alive, when that system falls apart, you're in terrible trouble and you might be able to think you're ahead of it or you might get killed. Well, it is very interesting. And also what comes to mind is there are recurring myths in Western literature. And one of the recurring myths that perhaps I see here, whether you want to call it a myth or something else, a story is the Robinson Crusoe story, which is, you know, to me, it's a recurring thing in children's books as well as science fiction. But what makes your book different is, of course, as you said, much farther away, much more complex. And the environment is not terribly harsh and unfriendly, as in the Martian, I believe. But these are very fascinating topics. So I wanted to ask you, you research your novels. So well. And I think I mentioned my son was particularly impressed with some of your novels, like 60 Days and Counting. And the other one I read that I like very much is The Forty Days of Rain. And you wrote those at the beginning of the 21st century. And he was so impressed, and I am too, about the knowledge of Washington politicians and how they go about. How did you acquire that knowledge? Well, my wife works for a US Geological Survey. And so we spent four years in Washington, DC. And then I also was sent to Antarctica by the National Science Foundation. And after that, I've had a fairly frequent association with National Science Foundation. So that explains that. Yeah, that's only by the help of the NSF, could I have written those books. And it's nice that you mentioned them because, they come out next month in a compressed version, which I did myself. It was my own idea. Oh, really? Slightly compressed. And it's going to be called Green Earth. It'll be at the Avid Reader. And it will be everywhere. In paperback? In paperback and as an e-book. And it's really about as thick as a brick. It's about 1,000 pages long. But they are very thick, yes. But I think that it's a better book now. And it also brings it back right before the Paris Climate Summit. Right, in December. And in fact, my son was mentioning that because it is. And it's particularly interesting also from a UC Davis point of view, because you know that it's the first time that climate agriculture, climate smart agriculture, as they call it now, is going to be on the agenda of the Paris conference, the UN conference dealing with climate change and what to do about it. But this is very interesting. And so the NSF gave you the opportunity to do what? Well, they have an artisan writers program that sends the artisan writers to Antarctica, because they run the US Antarctic program. And then after that, I joined the juries to choose the other artisan writers. And after that, I went to give lectures and then to interview people and ask them about NSF. And I met Rita Caldwell, the first woman director of NSF. And she taught me a lot of things that I could turn into my character, Diane Chang, who is also a woman director of NSF. And so I had an awful lot of help with that book from the NSF. And having lived in Washington DC, I wanted to say what I knew about it. Right. So I suppose the follow up questions, the begging question, is what do you think about these books? The Green Trilogy was published at the beginning of the century. So what do you think about the way climate change are being handled at the moment by the Obama administration? Well, it's always a mixed picture. There have been some really good moves by this administration. And there have been some strangely bad ones. Opening up the Arctic to oil drilling is obviously a bad one. Everything else that they've done has been very good. And this Paris summit is a really exciting moment. When I first wrote that first book, it was maybe 2001 when I started writing. That's right. Yes. Well. Almost 15 years ago. Right. Things have changed hugely. Yes. So yeah. So this is an added dimension to your author writer world that you have this connection with the real scientists and this real science world. It is fascinating. I'm afraid our time has gone very quickly. And I could spend a whole day talking to you. However, I don't want to leave you without asking this question, because I've been very anxious to ask this question. Now, you are from the Midwest, but you moved to California very early in life. However, may I ask you, what was your first image or thought as a very young child? Well, that's interesting you ask. I thought about that myself. It was either a tricycle under a Christmas tree or else it was my family moving from Pasadena to Englewood and having all of our belongings in a U-Haul basket like they don't make anymore at the back of a car. Very interesting, wonderful. Well, I'm afraid our time is up. Thank you so much, Stan, for being in the studio. And thank you all for watching. You've been watching in the studio. If you have time, just log on to dctv.davismedia.org and check out some of our other programs. So we have end episodes of In the Studio. We have fabulous guests and interesting topics. So thank you all from all of us, including our technical team, Diane, Charlene, and our other technical people. Thank you so much, and see you next time.