[Avec France Culture] In this broadcast of Brave New World dedicated to the oceans, the Numerama column looks at three works which show how the ocean serves ecological science fiction.
Lobsters that eject a toxic substance, swarms of crabs, orcas that attack boats, giant ice worms… these are all the terrible events that take place in Abyss (on France.TV).
This series postulates the existence of a strange threat coming from the oceans in the four corners of the world. At issue… humanity. Yes, the ocean is defending itself: humanity has polluted, dominated, disrupted, and now nature is rebelling.
It’s a distressing story. But Abyss is not, however, a horror or horror series: it is an ecological thriller that overturns the rules of the game. The ocean suddenly takes over humanity, which seems quite powerless in the face of this colossal ecosystem and mysterious.
When the ocean is positive
For a more “positive” context, I really want to take you to an island. Located, of course, off the coast of Brittany. This is the island of Recouvrance, imagined by Emilie Quebarlec in a captivating novel about the power of transformation: The Recouvrance trails. This work, published on January 17, 2024, begins like a road movie: two broken teenagers converge on this island. I can’t tell you anything about the true nature of the island, but the ocean plays the role of a horizon, which sometimes engulfs you, sometimes gives you the feeling that everything remains possible. It is all the stronger as an almost psychological context as it takes place in 2034, while climate change weighs on the shoulders of the two young characters.
This passage says it all: “ Across the world, ocean levels were rising, gradually absorbing beaches, flooding residential neighborhoods and engulfing atolls at sea level. But here, the cliffs held up against the onslaught of the elements. The island resisted disaster with a consistency that defied all predictions. »
Head to the open sea
So direction Lux. It’s by Maxime Chattam, and it’s a literary masterstroke. There, it’s literally a mini sun that suddenly appears in the middle of the ocean. To understand what it is about, a huge boat is installed below, with scientists, philosophers, novelists, people from all professions on board.
It’s literally an unknown artifact, in the middle of a vast expanse of water about which we know almost nothing, facing an uncertain future – that’s reassuring! And, in this novel, everything is based on our ability to project our certainties, uncertainties, hopes, concerns, onto this ball: we come away with the sensation that we have yet understood anything about our world.
This type of science fiction ultimately mobilizes the ocean in the same way as space, with this very ecological observation: closing the book by telling yourself that it’s not so bad, humility.
To listen to this Brave New World broadcast
The show presented by François Saltiel, The best of worlds, is available in replay on the Radio France website as well as on all listening platforms (Spotify, Deezer, etc.). Find the Numerama column every week, with Marie Turcan and Marcus Dupont-Besnard, at the end of the show.
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