Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  It’s not until the rise of cybernetic technology associated with the space race that we began to see “full-scale” cyborgs in fiction and film, what Donna Haraway defines in her now famous “Cyborg Manifesto” as “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism” (149). One of the first explorations into fully cybernetic humanoids didn’t occur until 1962 with Wesley Barry’s The Creation of the Humanoids, a low-budget film featuring robots that function as “resurrected” humans thanks to the mysterious transplantation of the hypothalamus from a human corpse into the computer brain of a replicant android. A more refined and quintessential version of the cyborg finally appeared in a 1966 episode arc of the long-running BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who (1963–89). In “The Tenth Planet,” viewers meet the Cybermen for the first time, a race of humanoid creatures that appear essentially human, but with various synthetic and metal prostheses. In later episodes, of course, the menacing race becomes almost completely robotic, retaining only a biological brain and nerve center, but they remain implicitly created from modified human victims.

  About six years after the pioneering efforts of Doctor Who, the bionic cyborg found its way to general audiences in the United States as well. In 1972, Martin Caidin published Cyborg, a popular novel featuring Steve Austin, a former astronaut and accomplished test pilot who is critically injured after crashing an experimental craft. All but one of Austin’s limbs are destroyed, along with one of his eyes, and cutting-edge technology must be used to restore the man to full health. Austin’s physical enhancements turn him into a “bionic man,” making the pilot a palatable hero and not some kind of hybridized monster. In fact, Austin was so popular that just one year later, Lee Majors was cast to star in a made-for-television movie titled The Six Million Dollar Man, directed by Richard Irving. A five-season television series soon followed the film (running 1974–78), along with the popular spin-off series The Bionic Woman (1976–78), staring Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers. Perhaps thanks to real-world advancements in and applications of bionic and mechanical prosthetics, particularly in the wake of the Vietnam War, these television superheroes mark a high point in the cyborg’s development, one of optimism and hope rather than mistrust and fear.

  At about the same time, more ambiguous explorations into the cybernetic-human hybrid were taking place in popular science fiction literature. One of the first, Arthur C. Clarke’s 1971 novella A Meeting with Medusa, actually prefigures Cyborg with its tale of astronaut Howard Falcon, a man whose biological body is largely replaced by prosthetics following a devastating airship crash. Two other notable and influential examples were published in 1976: Frederick Pohl’s novel Man Plus and Isaac Asimov’s novella The Bicentennial Man from his Robot series. In Pohl’s novel, Roger Torraway becomes the first successful participant in the United States’ government’s project to create cybernetic astronauts for the colonization of Mars. Although the operation is technically successful, Torraway begins to find himself disconnected and distanced from humanity—and not merely because of his relocation to the Red Planet. Asimov explores almost the opposite course of cybernetic development, depicting the transformation of a robot into a hybrid creature that becomes virtually indistinguishable from a human. Andrew narrates his own story of evolution: he begins “life” as a fully automatic and mechanized robot, but, in his attempts to achieve the same legal rights as humans, he gradually replaces many of his mechanical components with organic ones. These two landmark works ask serious questions about self and identity, furthering the serious nature of the cyborg trope in fiction.

  One of the most ambivalent depictions of a cyborg—although perhaps not initially recognized as one—is Darth Vader from George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977). In the first film, Vader represents little more than a dangerous amalgam of human biology and mechanical alterations. As the film series progresses, however, audiences learn how Darth Vader’s suit is actually a complex life-support system, allowing him unnatural existence and making him virtually unstoppable. His very appearance—the black suit, the face-concealing helmet, and the raspy ventilator voice—connotes power, fear, and a primal sense of the uncanny. With the Empire’s Dark Lord, then, science fiction definitively breaks from the optimistic tradition of human bionics to establish integrated cybernetics as an unavoidable path to villainy and monstrosity. Of course, thanks to the internal struggle between the man and the machine, Darth Vader ultimately has to choose between the two warring forces of his existence; and although the human is shown to triumph in the end, the powerful Jedi cannot survive without the assistance of his biomechanical components.

  An even more sinister and terrifying vision of the cyborg appeared in James Cameron’s 1984 film, The Terminator (and returned perhaps more famously in the 1991 sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day). The titular figure, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is depicted as little more than a mindless, unrelenting automaton, one that betrays nothing of its biological roots. In an inversion of Darth Vader, the terminator wears its biological components on the outside, using flesh to mask its robotic endoskeleton. Of course, even though the creature represents a similarly uncanny juggernaut of destruction, it isn’t a true cyborg—as viewers learn in the film’s climax, the robot can function fully without its organic casing. Because the terminator machines must be grown in some kind of lab or manufactured on an assembly line, as they all bear the same likeness, no human entity is altered, enhanced, or changed in their creation. This is a critical point of difference between the once-human Darth Vader and the soulless terminator machine; cyborgs that were once “normal” human beings are more disturbing because of the implied transformation and potential loss of autonomy.

  A host of other influential cyborgs appeared during this period as well, and in a variety of print and visual media. For example, robot/human hybrids have been key players in comic books since 1942, with the debut of the DC hero Robotman, also known as Robert Crane, whose brain was transplanted into a robot body upon the scientist’s otherwise fatal shooting. Since then, comics have featured such liminal characters as Iron Man (1963), Deathlok (1974), Cyborg (1980), and Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell (1989). Additional famous literary cyborgs include Jonas from Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series (1980–83) and the “razor girl” Molly from William Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic” (1981) and his Sprawl trilogy (1984–88). Movie and television manifestations also include Peter Weller’s RoboCop from Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 film, Inspector Gadget from his own animated series (1983–86), and, to some extent, Kryten from Red Dwarf (1988). Despite this diverse proliferation, however, the human-cum-cyborg monster reached a zenith with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

  The landmark sci-fi series first introduced audiences to an imperialist race of cybernetic soldiers called simply “the Borg” in the 1989 episode “Q Who.” These (cy)Borgs are clearly both cybernetic and biological, as their outward appearance graphically displays both visible humanoid flesh and mysterious and threatening mechanical devices. The Borg end up being far more technologically advanced and menacing than any Darth Vader ever could be, for they operate as a collective society and reproduce solely by assimilating other biological organisms. Rather than simply murdering their victims, the Borg literally recreate others in their own image, replacing (perceived) inferior and fallible biological parts with more logical, rational, and hardy mechanical accoutrements. The resulting creatures become part of a complex hive of consciousness, the individuals forced to sacrifice autonomy and human agency for the good of the whole race. The Borg encapsulate the ultimate threat of the cyborg: that of evolutionary superiority—humans are no longer the top of the food chain. This manifestation of the “evil” cyborg proved so popular and pervasive, in fact, that the Borg appeared again and again throughout the run of Next Generation, including the feature film, First Contact (1996).

  The Borg’s method of procreation was mirrored during the fourth season of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1999–2000). Like the victims of the Borg
attacks in Star Trek, the vicious cyborg Adam(George Hertzberg) was once an autonomous human subject, a soldier either killed or injured in the line duty, or forcefully appropriated by the military scientists (his pre-cyborg history is left vague). Even worse, however, Adam’s new cybernetic identity constitutes a complete lack of his former autonomy. N. Katherine Hayles, in her pivotal discourse on the posthuman condition, speculates that “the ultimate horror is for the rigid machine to absorb the human being, co-opting the flexibility that is the human birthright” (105). This fate proves terribly true for Adam, for in his character the machine clearly functions as the dominant part of the hybrid whole. Blinded by his programming, Adam has lost his sense of humanity and compassion, and he exhibits a rigid application of logic that considers life and individuality expendable. Like Cameron’s terminator robots, Adam manifests the total loss of humanity outlined by Hayles: “When the boundaries turn rigid or engulf humans so that they lose their agency, the machine ceases to be cybernetic and becomes simply and oppressively mechanical” (105). This terrible potentiality of the cyborg is exactly what makes these creatures such monstrous threats.

  During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the cyborg has continued to appear in various iterations in all forms of fiction—including, perhaps even most pervasively, video games. However, many of these appearances have been repeat performances: cyborgs abound throughout the Star Wars prequels (most spectacularly in the form of General Grievous), the terminator monsters can be seen in The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–09) and Terminator: Salvation (2009), and Jaime Sommers even had a brief return to the small screen in 2007’s Bionic Woman. The most interesting variations on the cyborg, however, have been more complicated manifestations, most notably the Cylons from the rebooted Battlestar Galactica (2004–09). Building on the uncanny androids from Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (1968), the “skin jobs” of Battlestar Galactica blur the line between robot and human so obscurely as to make the “cyborg” label the only logical option. The advanced Cylons have managed to replicate human tissue at the cellular level, making them virtually indistinguishable from living flesh, and they can even procreate with humans sexually. Clearly the definition of “cyborg” is continuing to undergo some revision.

  As modern technology continues to make real-world advances in the fields of prosthetics, biomechanics, and artificial intelligence, cyborgs will become less the things of “science fiction” or more a part of “science” itself. For this reason, cybernetic characters will likely lessen in their fantastic or even menacing appearances, cropping up instead in more realistic terms, terms that mirror reality instead of providing manifestation of paranoid speculation. Yet the cyborg will never completely disappear—if anything, its role in literature, film, and television will become increasingly advanced, nuanced, and ambiguous, asking readers and viewers again and again to challenge their preconceived notions of what it really means to be “human.” Besides, such hybridized technological characters continue to capture the imagination, tap into some of our deepest fears, and look really, really cool. And if current advances in mechanical limbs, artificial organs, and biomedical computer interfaces are any indication, we are all on our way to becoming cyborgs ourselves anyway.

  Works Cited

  “Cyborg.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford UP, 1989. OED Online. Web. 23 Sept. 2010.

  Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991.

  Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999.

  Wiener, Norbert. The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. 1950. New York: Da Capo Press, 1988. Print.

  * * * *

  Dr. Kyle William Bishop is a third-generation professor at Southern Utah University, where he teaches courses in American literature and culture, film studies, fantasy literature, and English composition. He has presented and published a variety of articles on popular culture and cinematic adaptation, including Metropolis, Night of the Living Dead, Fight Club, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dawn of the Dead. He received a PhD in English from the University of Arizona in 2009, and his first book, American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture, is now available through McFarland & Co., Publishers.

  JAMES BLISH

  (1921-1975)

  A major voice in science fiction in the 1950s and ’60s, James Blish brought a strong scientific background to his writing. (For instance, he coined the term “gas giant.”) With a degree from Rutgers in microbiology and experience as a medical technician in World War II, Blish spent most of his life working in scientific positions, only becoming a full-time writer at the end of his life. He was also one of the field’s first major critics, writing as William Atheling Jr.; an award for SF criticism was established under that name after his death.

  Blish sold his first story at nineteen. His novel A Case of Conscience won a Hugo in 1959. Blish novelized the original Star Trek episodes beginning in 1967, and also wrote the first Star Trek novel.

  After working for the Tobacco Institute from 1962–68, Blish eventually died of lung cancer. He was married to agent Virginia Kidd from 1947–63 (the agency she founded still represents his estate) and then to Judith Lawrence Blish, who survived him.

  SURFACE TENSION, by James Blish

  First published in Galaxy, August 1952

  Dr. Chatvieux took a long look over the microscope, leaving la Ventura with nothing to do but look out at the dead landscape of Hydrot. Waterscape, he thought, would be a better word. The new world had shown only one small, triangular continent, set amid endless ocean; and even the continent was mostly swamp.

  The wreck of the seed-ship lay broken squarely across the one real spur of rock Hydrot seemed to possess, which reared a magnificent twenty-one feet above sea-level. From this eminence, la Ventura could see forty miles to the horizon across a flat bed of mud. The red light of the star Tau Ceti, glinting upon thousands of small lakes, pools, ponds, and puddles, made the watery plain look like a mosaic of onyx and ruby.

  “If I were a religious man,” the pilot said suddenly, “I’d call this a plain case of divine vengeance.”

  Chatvieux said: “Hmn?”

  “It’s as if we’ve been struck down for—is it hubris, arrogant pride?”

  “Well, is it?” Chatvieux said, looking up at last. “I don’t feel exactly swollen with pride at the moment. Do you?”

  “I’m not exactly proud of my piloting,” la Ventura admitted. “But that isn’t quite what I meant. I was thinking about why we came here in the first place. It takes arrogant pride to think that you can scatter men, or at least things like men, all over the face of the Galaxy. It takes more pride to do the job—to pack up all the equipment and move from planet to planet and actually make men suitable for every place you touch.”

  “I suppose it does,” Chatvieux said. “But we’re only one of several hundred seed-ships in this limb of the Galaxy, so I doubt that the gods picked us out as special sinners.” He smiled drily. “If they had, maybe they’d have left us our ultraphone, so the Colonization Council could hear about our cropper. Besides, Paul, we try to produce men adapted to Earthlike planets, nothing more. We’ve sense enough—humility enough, if you like—to know that we can’t adapt men to Jupiter or to Tau Ceti.”

  “Anyhow, we’re here,” la Ventura said grimly. “And we aren’t going to get off. Phil tells me that we don’t even have our germ-cell bank any more, so we can’t seed this place in the usual way. We’ve been thrown onto a dead world and dared to adapt to it. What are the panatropes going to do—provide built-in waterwings?”

  “No,” Chatvieux said calmly. “You and I and the rest of us are going to die, Paul. Panatropic techniques don’t work on the body, only on the inheritance-carrying factors. We can’t give you built-in waterwings, any more than we can give you a new set
of brains. I think we’ll be able to populate this world with men, but we won’t live to see it.”

  The pilot thought about it, a lump of cold collecting gradually in his stomach. “How long do you give us?” he said at last.

  “Who knows? A month, perhaps.”

  * * * *

  The bulkhead leading to the wrecked section of the ship was pushed back, admitting salty, muggy air, heavy with carbon dioxide. Philip Strasvogel, the communications officer, came in, tracking mud. Like la Ventura, he was now a man without a function, but it did not appear to bother him. He unbuckled from around his waist a canvas belt into which plastic vials were stuffed like cartridges.

  “More samples, Doc,” he said. “All alike—water, very wet. I have some quicksand in one boot, too. Find anything?”

  “A good deal, Phil. Thanks. Are the others around?”

  Strasvogel poked his head out and hallooed. Other voices rang out over the mudflats. Minutes later, the rest of the survivors were crowding into the panatrope deck: Saltonstall, Chatvieux’s senior assistant; Eunice Wagner, the only remaining ecologist; Eleftherios Venezuelos, the delegate from the Colonization Council; and Joan Heath, a midshipman whose duties, like la Ventura’s and Strasvogel’s, were now without meaning.