Shiri’s Review: Solaris

Oh, thank Thor’s magnificent dong, I’ve finished.

It’s really more of an ADEQUATE dong, but I see where you’re going…
image via screenrant.com

The theory behind Solaris is sound from a narrative perspective.  In fact, it’s rather cool: sentient planet fucking with parasitic invaders or, possibly, child planet playing with new toys (yes, like that episode of Star Trek: TOS).

I can also buy the humans being too stupid to communiate effectively with an alien organism bit.  Because yeah, generally speaking, we’re morons.

Some of the biology is pretty boss: differentiation on a neutrino level being all that separates an alien clone/plasma goo shape/torture device/recording tool and a human being?  Nice.  Also terrifying.

There is, hypothetically, a lot that can be done with elements both so massive and so personal.

Spoiler: Lem does none of them.

The plot bunnies appear for what I was led to believe would be a kickin’ plot bunny jam session.  They then proceed to: hop around, take naps, go looking for carrots, divide up into teams to play dodgeball, have a barbecue, and then part ways without making any sort of music whatsoever.

Forcing my way through this 200 page novel (aka: short) was like watching entropy dry.

image via jantoo.com

Why?  I’ll tell you.  Because I am wroth.  I have so much wroth right now.

Exposition.  I know it was, and still is, de rigeur for spec fic authors to strut their science but for the love of all that is holy, at least integrate it into the story.  In much the same way as one should never, ever, ever describe a character’s physical appearance by having her look at herself in the mirror, one should never, ever, ever explore science by having the MC read an encyclopedia article about it.  If you want an example of how science can and should be integrated, read Andy Weir’s The Martian.  If you would like to observe the literary equivalent of What Not to Wear, read Solaris.  

If Solaris were a hat…

Jack of All Trades With Absolutely No Street Cred… Kris Kelvin introduces himself as a psychologist.  Next, he’s doing in depth examinations of red corpuscles at the atomic level (for which I could disbelief suspend if he were a psychiatrist aka an actual physician, but come on now).  Then, he starts yammering about subatomic particles.  Then, he doesn’t understand particle physics at all and has to look it up on microfilm.  Which you know, there’s plenty of storage space for on a space station.  Then, he’s a neutrino EXPERT again. After all of that, he still has the brain power to be a pilot.  Oh, and at some point, he wrote a “Solarist” thesis and got some sort of degree from, “The Institute.”  Yes, skeleton crew, multi-tasking, sure.  But that combo?  I’m not buying it.

There is a brief mention of gamma radiation.  I started hoping Kelvin’s next trick would be to Hulk out or be bitten by a radioactive spider…  No such luck.

Not Running Like Hell:  The damn planet goes all Event Horizon on them and yet these three supposed brainiacs, who could leave the station at any time, stick around for no discernible reason.  They could escape in their phallic pods.  They can hit up the nearby satellite and call for help.  They do neither of these things and they don’t even have the courtesy to yell, “FOR SCIENCE!” at any point during their non-adventure, which would at least bring a modicum of dignity to the proceedings.  They sit there and they watch.  That’s it.  Sit.  Watch.  Sit.  Watch.  Sit.  Watch.  Bombard with X-rays.  And then sit and watch.

Hold on, now. Let’s see where this goes.
image via moviepilot.com

Spec Tech:  The computers on the station orbiting the alien world, light years from Earth spit out punch cards.  The station’s designers have wasted a massive amount of physical space on a library.  Now, I’m all for a good library, but for reals?  We’re expected to believe that the government, any government, would pay to ship books into orbit around a sentient plasma cloud?  And that the space used to house these hundreds, if not thousands, of tomes couldn’t be put to a more efficient use?  Faster than light travel but not even a possibility of electronic data storage?  Come on now, Start Trek had fucking Skype and it predated Solaris by two years.  I realize American television may not have made it into the Soviet Bloc but the idea of a computer monitor was obviously floating around.

There Is Such a Thing as Too Much Brevity: If, for example, I get whiplash three times per chapter, perhaps some additional description or dialogue is necessary.  I enjoy using my imagination to fill in gaps but there’s a limit.  At one point, Kris’ twisted little fantasy says she’s afraid she’ll wake up as a green jelly fish the next morning; I’d pay actual money for that to happen just to get some actual story up in there.

The most problematic element of Solaris, however, is the same as the most problematic element in Caves of Steel and so many other spec dic books written in the second half of the 20th century: the gents writing them, and the vast majority were gents, can envision the future of men, robots, planets, dogs, tech (okay, maybe not so much here), produce, and all other manner of things.  They can even visualize a world in which goo is sentient.

Very few of them, however, appear to have any capacity for envisioning a future for women that is in any way different from the pinafore wearing, ladies auxiliary attending, shackled to the house (even if the house is in space) life thrust upon women when the  boys came back after World War II.  Despite Rosie the Riveter being only 30 or so at the time.  Despite the fact that Solaris is the product of a socialist society in which citizens were (hypothetically) citizens regardless of gender (from each according to ability, to each according to need).

Women in spec fic of this “canon” period are for sex, making men feel manly, and for sacrificing to whatever it is that’s demanding sacrifice.

Women remained objects of temptation, punishment, and distraction. Helpmeets (barf) at most and, more often, the target and means of fulfillment of male desire.  Or total nutbags.  Or whores.

Here’s the thing: by the time Lem wrote Solaris, women were already busting out of those roles IRL.

There are no female scientist in Solaris, nor female crew members, nor pilots.  There is no mention of women other than those created by the planet for whatever reason the planet has decided to create them.

News flash, boys: Valentina Tereshkova flew Vostok 6 in June of 1963.

Suck it, jerk wads.
image via space.com

Which puts a new spin on the exclusion of female evolution in spec fic, then and now.  It isn’t lack of imagination on the part of “canon” authors like Lew and Asimov.

It is willful ignorance.

And probably some fear.

Okay, a lot of fear.

Because we riveted their machinery, ferried their bombers, played their baseball and then, then, we had the nerve to fly their goddamned space ships.

You guys are SO screwed.
image via galleryhip.com

I can only hope that, despite the bullshit, the times they are a’ changin’.

Hope you enjoyed your little fantasy worlds while you had them, jerk wads.

It’s time for a new canon.