Tuesday 12 September 2017

The Life Of An Immortal

Poul Anderson writes about "immortals." See here. These are people who die neither of old age nor of disease but who can still die by accident or violence. Heinlein's Howard Families have the gift of longevity and include one mutant immortal, Woodrow Wilson Smith/Lazarus Long.

How does Larry Niven write about "immortals"? How might they die?

Their kitchen dispose-all disruptor field might expand to engulf them;
their transfer booth might disassemble them but fail to deliver them;
their slidewalk might accelerate and throw them off;
every boosterspice plant in the Thousand Worlds might die.

None of these events is very probable.

The narrator of "Safe at Any Speed" survives when his aircar is swallowed by a roc on Margrave. The car continues to fly on autopilot but cannot detect a mountain through the roc's body, therefore crashes, killing the roc but protecting its single passenger whose radio also does not work so that he has to continue playing solitaire for half a year until the roc's body decomposes enough to let him cut his way out. The lights, food-maker, air-maker and clock continue to work though not the TV. The washroom fails after a while but he fixes it. After his rescue, he receives compensation from General Transportation and writes them an ad which is the short story.

A very Niven future.

Larry Niven, "Safe at Any Speed" IN Niven, Tales Of Known Space (New York, 1975), pp. 217-220.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I like Larry Niven's earlier works more than I do his later stories. I've tried to read some of them but gave up. They seemed so lacking in that special something that makes people read stories. I found them dull, flat, ponderous. I fear some writers lose the ability to write well and convincingly as they grow old. Not all, mind you, such as Poul Anderson!

Sean