Geek book of the week: How a writer colonized another planet

Like the great pulp sci-fi writers of yore, Allen Steele loves to colonize other planets. As a modern writer of so-called "hard" science fiction, he also knows the value of keeping it real. 

Until he published Arkwright this month -- our third Geek Book of the Week -- the Hugo award-winning Steele was probably best known for his Coyote trilogy, which focused on the hardships and unexpected encounters of Earth's first interstellar colony. 

Coyote was constructed as a series of stories. The tale that left the deepest impression on me had to do with one of the hibernating colonists being accidentally revived, halfway to the Coyote system. The ship won't let him go back into suspended animation. He has to face the fact he will die on board, with only frozen sleepers for company. 

After going through the stages of grieving, plus the stages of alcoholism and the stages of suicide, our lonely spaceman hits on the one solution that makes him feel better: writing. Specifically, writing children's stories for future colonists yet unborn. 

He paints the story in beautiful tapestries around the interior of the ship over decades, and dies contented in old age. When the colonists reach Coyote, our spaceman has already provided them with their very own instructive myths and fireside tales, strong enough to last for generations. 

That story stuck. It made me wonder whether we humble scribes have a role to play in humanity's frustratingly slow quest to truly explore outer space. Beyond just keeping us entertained, can science fiction stories truly influence reality?

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The answer is all around us: Of course. They already are. Go to NASA, go to any space agency or space startup in the world, and you'll find that at least half the nerds in any given room would not be standing there without the inspiration of Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov. 

How far could that influence potentially reach? I had long harbored a secret wish for Steele to write a book-length version of that lonely spaceman tale -- and with Arkwright, by and large, he's on the right track. 

In this version, the writer in question is a contemporary of Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov. (A few lighthearted early chapters namecheck just about every important science-fiction figure kicking around New York in the 1930s.) His name is Nathan Arkwright.

Arkwright is world-famous for writing space opera bestsellers and movies called Galaxy Patrol. In a nice touch, he briefly considers suing George Lucas for swiping Galaxy Patrol concepts when he wrote Star Wars. Arkwright ultimately declines; he is wealthy enough already. 

Seeing the space program failing, Arkwright decides to plough his billions into a foundation that will construct its own space program. His will tasks the foundation to select an exoplanet from the growing list of potential Earth-like planets out there, and shoot off a colony ship in its direction.  

Here's where the hard science fiction side comes in -- in some ways, to the book's detriment. 

These days, we know space travel ain't space opera. We know how phenomenally dangerous, radiation-filled and downright depressing the task of running a multi-century spaceship mission would be. (Kim Stanley Robinson outlined a too-real version earlier this year in Aurora; Neal Stephenson did the same in last year's SevenEves.) 

We know they're unlikely to be in suspended animation; rather, they'll be constantly patching the ship together, breeding replacement workers for their grim long mission. So the Arkwright Foundation's ship skips all the messy business of sending humans in the colony ship. Instead, it sends eggs and sperm. 

The ship will incubate a new generation of humans on arrival, genetically manipulate them to match the exoplanet's environment, and catch them up on the whole "civilization" thing via a couple of robot teachers.

This is pretty much in line with current space scientist thinking on how we'd send a colony ship if we wanted to; Steele tells us that the book was conceived after a couple of intense conferences such as the Hundred Year Starship.

But realistic as this is, it also means that Steele has to concentrate on the generations of people back home who are keeping an eye on the spaceship. And since that's not the most exciting job ever, he has to keep inventing thin soap-opera layers of conflict to keep them occupied.

Steele missed a trick in not focusing the book on Nathan Arkwright, who dies in its opening pages. We learn almost nothing about Galaxy Patrol, the story within a story. That's odd, considering Steele proved he can write great pastiches of soap opera in his award-winning The Death of Captain Future. 

Still, this is a quick and worthy read with a sense of humor (ark write, get it?) that keeps you guessing about whether the colonization will actually succeed. 

It's also an important book that raises important questions. Do we really want to do this thing? Is it one of our species goals to start growing a new human race somewhere else? If so, we'd better get inspired. 

My guess -- and my hope -- is that this story won't be the last in its genre. It's time to consider exactly what role books, movies and other visions have to play in expanding humanity's last frontier.