Sunshine Patriots

Introduction

If a utopia is a dream-world, a dystopia is a place of nightmares. Both types of imaginary spaces reflect upon real social and cultural issues, the former to envision a world arguably perfected in some fundamental way (Gilman’s Herland [1915], Callenbach’s Ecotopia [1975]), the latter to foresee the awful outcomes if certain alarming trends progress unchecked (Huxley’s Brave New World [1932], Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four [1949], Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale [1985]). The twentieth century spurred the creation of many compelling dystopias, and Bill Campbell continues this literary tradition into the new millennium with Sunshine Patriots (2004).

I first discovered Sunshine Patriots while hunting for novels with fantastical, speculative settings as subjects of my dissertation. There are, of course, no shortage of such novels, as the genres of fantasy and science fiction have been prolific throughout the last century: Brian McHale describes science fiction as "the ontological genre par excellence in the postmodern era (16). But I wanted literary texts with teeth, too—novels that reflected critically on the real with eloquence, erudition, and contentiousness. My dissertation was already populated by the likes of Angela Carter, Octavia Butler, Kathy Acker, and China Miéville when I asked my committee member, Lisa Yaszek, What novel could be considered a Nineteen Eighty-Four of the post-9/11 world?" Yaszek, who is known for her literary scholarship on women and minorities in science fiction, responded with a handful of texts, but the one that stood out to me was Sunshine Patriots.

Spanning genres from science fiction to political fiction to mainstream literature and still taught in high schools, Nineteen Eighty-Four is undeniably a ground-breaking work of fiction. The novel has infiltrated our popular culture to the point that Big Brother and thoughtcrime can be thought of as common parlance, and its themes continue to haunt our political discourse, particularly in regard to surveillance and media propaganda. Comparing Bill Campbell’s 2004 novel to George Orwell’s 1949 classic is apt praise in some respects. Both novels are set in futuristic dystopias characterized by totalitarian control and grandiose militarism. Both have noble male protagonists who become disillusioned with their contemporary ways of life and ultimately seek to undermine their oppressive governments. Both depict iconic propaganda machines that occlude truth to provoke knee-jerk rancor against a virtually unknown enemy. Their postulated futures both imply a critical confrontation between worlds (McHale 61) that pits our shared present against a projection of what could be, if certain cultural practices and attitudes are extrapolated to harrowing ends. And in their literary predictions, both are uncannily prescient—Campbell’s all the more so because its vision of high-tech militarism spreading compulsory freedom is tellingly familiar in the wake of 9/11, even though it was written in 1998.

Yet key contrasts in setting, tone, technological prophecies, and representations of race set these two novels apart. Campbell engineers a critical dystopia with the blueprints of twenty-first century social issues and the edgy, rapid-fire tone of graphic novels or action films. Sunshine Patriots transports readers to the planet of Elysia, where the United Earth army attempts to quell colonial resistance with superior numbers and advanced weaponry. Meanwhile, the narrative frequently shifts to news media on Earth, where the novel demonstrates its propensity for dark, critical humor: the outrageousness of UE’s politicians and military propaganda can be read as satires of our culture’s increasing dependence on biased news sources that provide comfortable illusions one minute and frenzied panic the next. One of the main propaganda tools for the UE government is a mythologized version of the novel’s protagonist, Aaron Barber. His simulacrum proselytizes to Earth’s audience for its endless military campaigns, while the real Barber continues to fight in distant colonies, his wounded body being gradually rebuilt with cybernetics like many UE soldiers.

This trope of the cyborg is a significant vehicle for the novel’s themes relating to exploitation and race. The soldiers become all but enslaved to the UE army, ironically dubbed the Freedom, because they are forced into massive debt when they must pay for their own cybernetic parts after they’re wounded. In her renowned Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway explains how [h]igh-tech culture, represented by the cyborg, challenges the major dualisms that are fundamental to Western thought and have been agents of domination, particularly for women and people of color (177). Yet even though the soldiers become cyborgs and ostensibly replace the markers of their ethnicity with uniform metal, they still enact a voluntary segregation of the military that groups the races into tight units. The absence of a physical body could, ideally, allow us to transcend race itself (Kilgore 18), but Campbell’s novel complicates this notion by insinuating that racial identification is deep-seated and personal as well as an enduring component of socialization. Such a representation rejects a color-blind, utopian future, instead posing a number of troubling implications: that military service can be comparable to imprisonment or slavery; that racial identity is a feature of the human experience we tend to cling to when dehumanized; that the exploitative conditions of militaristic neoliberalism continue to reinforce age-old racial barriers; and so forth.

These implications suggest that Campbell’s novel is one of many that attempts to express dissent from those visions of tomorrow that are generated by a ruthless, economically self-interested futures industry (Yaszek 59). More specifically, I would argue that the novel belongs in the burgeoning canon of Afrofuturism, a school of thought in science fiction and postmodern art that, according to Mark Dery, treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of 20th-century technoculture (qtd. in Yaszek 42). Read as an Afrofuturist text, Sunshine Patriots seems to express concerns over new forms of slavery in an enlightened world, positing that racial socialization will endure in insidious ways, and that overcoming unjust hegemonies requires solidarity, subversion, and great courage. Perhaps the great challenge or potential of contemporary science fiction, Kilgore asserts, is to imagine political/social futures in which race does not simply wither away but is transformed, changing into something different and perhaps unexpected (17). Afrofuturist authors like Campbell challenge us to rethink how conceptions of race will continue to evolve and old racisms will take on new forms.

Of course, as with all literary dystopias, it remains to be seen which of Bill Campbell’s prophetic visions will resonate most eerily with future readers. After all, 1984 has come and gone, but Nineteen Eighty-Four continues to ring true in many respects. Likewise, whether approached as science fiction, political allegory, or mainstream literature, Sunshine Patriots is relentlessly provocative and wickedly edifying, and its indelible visions could generate constructive scrutiny of our present state and not-too-distant future.

Jonathan R. Harvey, PhD

Works Cited

Haraway, Donna. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. 149-181. Web. Retrieved 11-25-2008 from <http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html>.

Kilgore, De Witt Douglas. Difference Engine: Aliens, Robots, and Other Racial Matters in the History of Science Fiction. Science Fiction Studies 37.110 (2010): 16-22. Print.

McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1987. Print.

Yaszek, Lisa. Afrofuturism, science fiction, and the history of the future. Socialism and Democracy 20.3 (November 2006): 41-60.

Good evening, citizens of Earth. This is Dolores Zlá.

And I’m Rankin Hediondez for EBS-1 News. This is Our Universe.

Our top story this evening comes from Puerto Rico Province where President Gertrude Schmidt-Yakomoto has announced her candidacy for the Earth Presidency for an unprecedented fifth term.

"Thank you. Thank you. I originally did not want to run. I did not think I could meet the challenge of forty years in office. But you, my loving supporters and loyal citizens of the greatest, most economically prosperous civilization in the history of the universe, have made your wishes known. And I swear to you that, as your President, I have heard your dreams, and I pledge to fulfill your every desire and will serve as your President as long as there is life in this body."

Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!

On Wexco Colony, our heroic Freedom Forces have finally scored a decisive victory against the rebel Fuzzit forces. Those ferocious three-inch hairy balls of horror that have terrorized Earth colonists and soldiers for over seventy-eight hours have finally been eliminated. Now, according to General Padraig McConnell, the Commander of Earth’s Freedom Forces, Wexco has been pacified and declared safe for freedom and mass-colonization after this harrowing conflict resolution. Earth citizens all across the universe are celebrating in the streets and awaiting the next shuttles to United Earth’s latest colony.

Oh, yeah, this is terrific. I mean, those Fuzzits were a real nightmare. They were Fuzzit supremacists and probably would’ve threatened United Earth himself.

This is a great day for freedom! Tranquility! And economic prosperity! Those Fuzzits had to be stopped! God bless the U.E.!!!

In Bern, Switzerland Province, Sparky, that adorable cocker spaniel, has finally found a home. After hearing the heartwarming tale of the courageous pooch who tried—but ultimately failed—to save her family from a modest-income resort fire and was seriously singed, megalotrillionaire philanthropist and owner of recreational pharmaceutical company Morte Consortium, Jean-Paul Couchemar, adopted our hero.

"Yeah, yeah, come here, girl, ah! FuBEEEP! … Ha! Ha! Yeah, when I heard the story of this courageous pooch, I said to myself, this is the dog for me. If only my employees had the determination and courage of Sparky here, Morte Consortium would remain the greatest recreational pharmaceutical company since the Gambinos. In fact, to pay homage to this lovable canine’s courage, Morte will soon be launching a new line of perceptual enhancers called SparkyPop!, sure to liven up any celebration. Because, remember: Morte Means Life!!!"

"Holo movie sensation Victoria B. Stanton has another hit on her hands. Earth Valor has opened to the largest in-home subscription draw in cinematic history. This harrowing tale of a courageous Earth sergeant in the fight for her life, her soldiers’ lives, and her planet’s very existence against the bloodthirsty Fuzzits has warmed hearts and uplifted spirits in the entire U.E. and all his colonies."

"Yes, I wanted to make this holo for all the courageous boys and girls—including my husband—fighting for our freedom and economic prosperity all around the universe. There are too many people out there who do not appreciate what those guys are doing for us. Some, who dare to call themselves citizens of this fine planet, even criticize our blessed mission in space. Nobody understands nor appreciates the trials and tribulations these soldiers go through to keep us safe. I just wanted to show them that we do appreciate them and that we are working as hard as they are over the stars to keep our children free from alien and Libertary tyranny."

"Speaking of tyranny, Rankin, there’s trouble tonight in the terrorized city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Province. Tribal chief, notorious Black dealer, and confirmed Libertary, Solomon Mwanza has triggered a province-wide riot, unleashing his drug into the water supply.

Black is a potentially lethal hallucinogenic drug that renders any consumer instantly addicted and fatally paranoiac. Otherwise law-abiding Tanzania Provincials have started attacking dedicated Peace officers, sparking a horrific scene of violence, self-immolation, and sodomy not seen in the province since the Nouveaux Cacos revolt seventy-two years ago. Prayers from all over United Earth and his colonies have been sent out to the victims and the thousands of Peace officers being flown in to help the people suffering the effects of this devastating drug.

"Finally, to wrap up our universe tonight, Elysia Colony has erupted in economic tyranny and bloodshed. The entire colony has fallen to fanatical Libertary zealots who attacked a Peace compound early this morning. Thousands of peace-loving Earth colonists are fleeing the insanity, begging for United Earth intervention. General McConnell promises sanctuary for all Earth citizens who seek it, and U.E. Freedom Forces are already moving in, as we speak, to restore peace, tranquility, and economic prosperity to the war-torn colony.

We earlier reached the General for comment.

"No amount of madmen and hysterics will threaten Earth’s peace, tranquility, and economic prosperity. I will not tolerate it. President Gertrude Schmidt-Yakomoto, God bless her, will not tolerate it. Earth and all his colonies cannot afford to tolerate this Libertary bloodshed.

"The legendary Sergeant Aaron ‘The Berber’ Barber himself agrees with me and has volunteered himself and his Screechin’ Ospreys to go in and restore order. The Berber will let them known that United Earth will never capitulate to this…this libertary."

DEMETER

Tek smadi mek poppy-show.

The cobalt drizzle sky of Elysia screamed earblood terror. Teeth chattered, crackled, split. Nerves deteriorated in the noise. Sonic booms convoluted the air—layer upon deafening layer. The rockets were coming. Nobody knew from where. Their eyes could not see. Their radars were useless.

But the rockets were coming.

The hamlet of glass and crude steel below, Demeter, population 1,200, quaked in wait. The horror, the fear, the indisputable knowledge of death suffocated. The radars still told them nothing. The inevitable’s scythe still poised at their throat, the constricting pall of regret hovering.

Where the hell they at?!

The thirty-three gun anti-aircraft unit fidgeted with hundreds of cannon peering into the rain-filled air. No rockets. Hell, they weren’t even sure their antiquated weaponry would even pierce the rockets’ armor. The Phantasms, Ravens, Prowlers. Who knew what the U.E.’s crafts were made of now?

Cpt. Caryl Rattan tapped the radar screen furiously with his only hand. The insanity of their situation tore at him. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. He closed his eyes, enveloping himself with the thin veneer of confidence, breathing…breathing…breathing…

The rockets.

Shit, he murmured, and tried again.

A proud, strong man had once stood in Rattan’s golden frame. But the forty-year-old had seen too much war—over twenty-one years of it—as a corporal in United Earth’s Freedom Forces. The Marines. His body, mostly scar tissue, was now a living testament to the horrors of battle. With an artificial DuraLung, DuraKidney, and polymer tubing for arteries and veins, only the long raven hair that cascaded down his back remained Rattan’s. Bitter air stagnated where his right arm had once been. That limb was rotting somewhere in the Dakotas Province. He scratched his long wispy beard and massaged the stub of his shoulder in an attempt to retrieve his resolve.

He looked up at the skyscrapers and their shadows. Thirty-story dilapidated cages falling in upon themselves. Floors collapsed. Families crammed in, packed together like processed meat. Asbestos lungs. The outer walkways girded with steel fencing. Cages. To stop them from killing each other—or themselves. That was what Wundervolk had told them. To stop them from hoping. To never clearly see the sun, only the steel grates across its inspiring face. Shuffled from their cages to the mines were the Demetrans. Blinded animals. The grey despair of miners.

Rattan found his jaw flexing, trying to shove itself further into his head. The former and current soldier had to find a new channel for his growing rage. He could not allow it to destroy him before the U.E. had its chance. Before he had a chance—no matter how slight—to fight back.

Where can they be at?! another voice cried desperately through the captain’s deliberate exhalations.

It was too loud. Concentration was refusing him. Who we kidding? Rattan moaned deeply. Scenes of massacre bled before him in a premonition haze. Fused glass, metal, and flesh in the refuse streets. Masks of death frozen in time.

Thank The Be we had evacuated the children.

His own child, in the embryonic wash of his Klarka’s belly, was running through the underground labyrinths, hopefully to safety. He only hoped that the tunnels had been built deep enough. For the children’s sake.

Why won’t they show theyselves?

Yet another voice.

The children. In a manic sweep, all doubts washed away from Rattan’s mind. He shook the iron bracelet around his wrist and chuckled. Death was almost certain, but he reminded himself that he’d volunteered for the defense of Demeter knowing that he would not survive. There were other places he could have gone to postpone his nonexistence. He could have helped the others evacuate into the mines. He could have moved on to other cities, smaller cities, unlikely to be hit first. Oya. Nekhebt. He could have even gone to Au Set—for Ile Ife’s last, continental stand.

But he had wanted to be in Demeter, his home. Almost everybody did. Demeter was a large city in Elysian terms, a crucial city. Spies within The Be had found out that she was to be an example for the Freedom Forces. What they were about to do to Rattan and his sisters and brothers was guaranteed to be horrific. Horrific enough to terrify the rest of the planet into submission.

The thought made him laugh—too loudly.

The sonic booms grew louder. Glass all over the hamlet started shattering against the overhead cages and sprinkling the streets. Suddenly confident, Rattan wiped every distraction from his cluttered mind. He took a deep breath with his DuraLungs and tried to reach out to his unit. It aiight, he whispered in velvet tones over his comm-unit, but his calming words were drowned in a deluge of booming rockets.

Fuck knows where they could be at, yo!

He tried again. We git ‘em, he droned…fruitlessly…heartlessly…a useless self-deception. Things would not be aiight. They would not get them. Rattan knew it. Who didn’t? Perhaps the whole planet of Elysia knew it. This was just another useless suicide. He had seen it before. In the Dakotas Province. In the Kurdistan Province. And Criollo Colony. Futile gestures of self-determination decimated under the Freedom’s might.

I’m sorry, Klarka.

…

If only he’d had time to grab his lithium-laced Mr. Happy pills … What was death, anyway? Even one dead Freedom Force soldier meant victory.

Fuck ‘em, Rattan finally said into his comm-unit.

A garbled Demeter howl pushed at the rockets’ noise.

Resolved, Caryl Rattan stared at the radar, ignoring the invisible rockets’ menacing booms. Remember. We The Be, the captain fumed. Another roar swept the town. Fingers tensed around triggers. Rattan smiled to himself. A feeling of strength, of resolve, overwhelmed the old soldier. The red glow of anger seemed to envelop his unit. Rattan had never felt so much solidarity before in his life. Nothing like this in the Freedom.

His brown-black eyes tensed at the blank screen. He would never be able to see anything that way. Rattan closed his eyes once again. In the darkness behind his lids, the soldier concentrated on the rockets. He ignored the glass splintering his skin. The noise. The rain. Everything melted away. He felt the ground’s vibrations. An earthquake was awakening beneath him. Rattan continued to breathe deeply, deeply. Nothing existed but his DuraLungs, the vibrations, and the trigger.

His mind’s eye scoured the sky. He consumed the vibrations, making them a part of his being. He danced between the rain pellets and reached out to the sonic booms. Finding one, he leapt upon it and then hopscotched between each successive boom until he was atop their source. A Douglass Phantasm!

Rattan danced upon the ship’s radar-impenetrable black surface, being stung giddy by the wind and rain as they shrieked toward Demeter. He could feel the bomb bay vibrate open. The bombs were clicking into place. Ready to fall. The dance was topped by the pungent stench of fear. He had to hurry.

Guided by his ethereal self, the captain blindly swung his anti-aircraft cannon north toward the apparition. Thump!Thump!Thump! Explosive azure streaks ripped into the clouds. Suddenly, a Technicolor-blue explosion fireworked the sky. The Phantasm appeared in the chaos, a blue tongue of flame consuming its damaged husk. The ship screamed in denial, fighting, slashing through the downpour. Rattan’s ghost reveled in the flames streaking by/through him.

Hysterically expectant eyes watched the rocket’s dive from the ground. Grins widened in anticipation. The ship plummeted, peeling into a nearby hillside.

Another explosion. Another ship downed.

Close yalls fuckin’ eyes!!! Rattan mentally screamed.

Other anti-aircraft guns joined the fray. Other specters started hopping the clouds in search of targets. A phantom community. Blue mushrooms littered the sky. Ship after invisible ship fell from the rain-pregnant clouds. The hillsides were raging in flame. Within a fury of heartbeats, the sky became dumb. No more anti-aircraft fire. No more rockets. All of Demeter cheered.

Rattan looked up hesitantly, disbelieving. He listened for any sign of another attack. All he could hear was his own heart. The captain allowed himself a slight grin—a microscopic itch across his bronze face. His soldiers started dancing frantically in the concrete street. We The Be! We The Be! they whooped and hollered, jitterbugged. Rattan finally released a wholehearted smile.

He wiped the rainsweat from his scarred forehead. He had to deny himself the elation creeping into his gut. Only a fool would think this was even close to over.

But he couldn’t stop the smile. He wasn’t fooling himself. Nor were the women and men under his command as they all celebrated. They knew the future only held their corpses. Yet, they allowed themselves this moment. They needed it. All of Elysia needed this small, inconsequential victory.

Every moment that tock-ticked by was another minute they had not planned to live. A congratulatory hand slapped Rattan’s waterlogged shoulder. The captain turned to see the gap-toothed smile of his lieutenant, Ogadan Morrison. We done did it, Caryl. We The Be! she laughed.

Within the woman’s euphoria, Rattan espied despair. A lump welled inexplicably in his own throat. Amidst the laughter, his spectral self cringed. Suddenly, he realized it was all over for them. He quickly froze this moment into his spirit, knowing it was to be the last picture he would ever see in this miserable existence.

Caryl? … What it …?

A tremendous boom rocked the hamlet. The sky exploded in darkness. The sun was swallowed up by black metal. Panic glued everybody’s feet to the ground. Nobody had the strength to return to their guns. Their eyes shot toward the sky. Frozen. Black metal consumed everything. The bomb bay of the monstrous rocketship opened, sucking the air from their lungs. Black glittered against black as the ship released its arsenal, and disappeared. Thousands of ebony feathers floated lackadaisically along the dead air, flip-flopping merrily to the ground.

Ogadan laughed, tentatively, confused, looking at the feathers. Everybody laughed. Rattan muttered, having seen this before, Shit.

Caryl, what it—? Caryl?! Ogadan’s face peeled in terror. She stared, clawing at her commander/friend, searching for the answer to these feathers in his frozen face.

It was truly over. Rattan closed his eyes and traveled with his mind where his body would never be allowed to reach. He dove underground and sprinted frantically along the town’s underground labyrinth that held Demeter’s only hope. He darted through the scurrying refugees, huddled in the dim, florescent light. Among the sobs and half-blinded fumblings he finally found her. His Klarka. He reached out with tears in his throat. Caryl?! Caryl?! Ogadan continued screeching. If only to touch her one last time. To touch his Klarka—and their baby.

The first feather tickled the Inanna Tower’s minaret. The spire opened in a devastating azure explosion that evaporated the top of the building. The blast knocked everybody off their feet. Steel and mortar crashed to the ground. Something screamed toward them. A metal cage landed on the frantic Ogadan, ripping her hand from Rattan’s sleeve, crushing her in a bloodsplat. Rattan gasped, looking at the bloodorgan ooze through the metal grates.

Over.

A mad, fruitless scramble for cover ensued as the feathers continued their carefree descent. People’s throats split in panic. They dodged and darted through the streets, but everywhere they went was nowhere safe.

Another feather landed, throwing chunks of steel into the air. Then another feather landed. Another. Another…

Oh, The Be!!!

A tentative, concerned hand touched Klarka Panova’s freckled shoulder. The pregnant woman collapsed on the tunnel’s hard, dirt floor. People rushed to her aid. One woman asked, with a manic, obviously superficial, calm. Klarka, what it is?

Klarka flopped her shaking hands on her kicking belly. Tears streaked her grime-painted face. They dead, she mumbled, hoarsely. They all dead.

We know.

Another large concussion blast rocked the tunnel, blanketing the terrified refugees with dirt.

"Now, now, could you kindly move forward, everyone? I know it’s a bit cramped in here, but there’s just enough room for everybody to fit. Yes, you, please come a little closer. Yes, yes. Thank you, everyone.

"Now, what we have here is your typical Demetran living quarters of the middle twenty-third century. You’ll notice the accommodations are quite cramped. There are little to no amenities for what was even then considered ‘modern living.’ It’s hard to believe this little cubicle housed a family of three, but some cubicles the same, exact size used to house up to ten individuals.

"Be careful, there. Yes, this is what was called a ‘stove.’ This primitive device used natural gas and flame to prepare or ‘cook’ food. And this behemoth is a ‘refrigerator.’ This is a cooling unit that was used to store and somewhat preserve food. If you’ll look carefully inside, the top compartment of this refrigeration unit is the