Wednesday 11 April 2018

Posts And Issues

Poul Anderson's works inspire different kinds of blog posts:

summaries and discussions of the contents of his works;

discussions of the issues raised by the works;

comparisons of his works with those of Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, Stirling etc.

Works to be compared include:

hard sf - human consequences of technology;
future histories - forwards through time;
cosmological sf - outwards through space;
alternative histories - sideways in time.

Thus, there is no limit in any direction. Anderson's works address major issues and evoke diverse responses. When one character finds it hard to comprehend that her husband is dead so that it seems as if he will come through the door at any moment (see here), my response is to reflect on the origins of belief in the Resurrection but that reflects my philosophical preoccupations. Other responses are welcome in the combox.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I tend to favor hard SF of the kind written by Poul Anderson, but I like well done alternate histories as well, by either Anderson, Stirling, or some of Turtledove's works.

Sean