Exitlog | Leaving Impressions

Is it better to be alone in the universe or not? asks the BBC in its subversive, new plug for the Radio 4 dramatisation of Iain M Banks’ The State of the Art. If the new ad is anything to go by (imagine the grizzled old face of a man who has his eyes blacked out at the narrative turn of the question) then life out there can be worrying, if not sinister.

It is something of a long-running, considered question in science fiction. The resolution of which tends to have a war and peace theme. In films, often with Hollywood employing action over quality acting, life in the stars unites a divided planet. Strangling each other for domination, for oil or even faith, loses its appeal in threat of other-worldly invaders. Somehow our individual disputes become irrelevant when humanity is no longer master of the universe. Thankfully there have been other thoughts on the subject.

The State of the Art follows a spaceship from the Culture visiting the Earth in 1977. There it finds our planet populated by an “incontestably neurotic and clinically insane species”. Look out for the dramatisation on 5 Mar 2009, rather exactly at 14:15. As part of BBC Radio 4′s Science Fiction Season it is certainly worth a listen.