Sunday 1 July 2018

Time And (Sex In) Space

(This post has been carried across from the Science Fiction blog here. Paul sends his apologies but his conversion to a different broadband carrier is proving problematic. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.)

Time

In an unfinished novel, "The Dark Tower," CS Lewis argues that physical time travel is impossible and then presents mental transference between timelines.

In two stories and one novel, Robert Heinlein presents three classic statements of the circular causality paradox.

In many stories and novels, Poul Anderson addresses every aspect of time travel.

(Sex In) Space
In Heinlein's " - All You Zombies -," the time traveler changes sex and is both his own parents. While female, she joins the:

"'Women's Emergency National Corps, Hospitality & Entertainment Section...'"
-Robert Heinlein, " - All You Zombies - " IN Heinlein, The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag (London, 1980), pp. 126-137 AT p. 128 -

- known in other periods as:

"'Auxiliary Nursing Group, Extraterrestrial LegionS'..."
-ibid. -

and:

"Women's Hospitality Order Refortifying & Encouraging Spacemen..."
-ibid.

Heinlein makes the same points as Lewis in "Ministering Angels":

it is recognized that men sent into space for extended periods will need a release of tension;
"'But most volunteers were old hookers...'" (ibid.)

By the time of Anderson's Young Flandry Trilogy, space travel is no longer difficult or dangerous so that more acceptable young women can be sent to extrasolar Naval bases.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm sorry you are having so much trouble switching from one carrier to another. All these difficulties will soon be resolved, I hope.

As I wrote on the combox for this blog piece in the SF blog, I thought Heinlein created here some amusing acronyms: WENCHES, ANGELS, and WHORES.

It's my belief you also had this bit from Chapter 2 of ENSIGN FLANDRY in mind, as Commander Abrams was leaving his office at the Imperial base of Highport on Starkad: "On his right the sky was tinted by feverish glowsigns, and he caught snatches of drumbeat, trumpets, perhaps laughter. Madame Cepheid had patriotically dispatched a shipful of girls and croupiers to Starkad. And why not? They were so young and lonely, those boys."

I had thought "Madame Cepheid" the proprietor of a single casino and licensed brothel, till David mentioned how "Madame Cepheid" was mentioned again in WE CLAIM THESE STARS, and a "cepheid agency" in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS. His idea was that "Madame Cepheid" was the name of a business running franchised casinos/licensed brothels.

Sean