Magic works in Anderson's Operation Chaos and its sequel, Operation Luna, and in Blish's Black Easter and its sequel, The Day After Judgment.
Gods withdraw in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys Tetralogy and God dies in Blish's Black Easter.
Blish's flying cities are starships (see Sargassos) and Anderson's starships are compared to "a mobile city" (see Star Ship).
Both authors wrote mostly hard sf but also other genres.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's been a long time since I red Blish's BLACK EASTER, but is God said to have truly died in that book, or was it left ambiguous?
I can imagine space LINERS, either STL or FTL. And I would expect the larger liners to be able to carry enough crew and passengers to be small cities. And the same could probably be said for the superdreadnoughts of the Imperial Navy.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"God is dead" was stated at the end of BLACK EASTER but the question was re-opened in the sequel. When Fr. Domenico saw the demon Pope, he deduced, "This is the Anti-Christ, therefore Armageddon has not happened yet." However, the demon was indeed the new Pope representing the new God, Satan. But then Satan put forward a number of speculations in his Miltonic speech, including that God might merely have withdrawn.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that brings up the thought that God might have "withdrawn" to bring home to Satan the futility of his ambitions!
Ad astra! Sean
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