"Un-Man" showed us Mars. "The Big Rain" shows us Venus being terraformed. No story shows us Venus terraformed. "Holmgang" shows us asteroids. The Jovian orbit has two dense clusters of extensively mined Trojan asteroids. Spaceships depart from the trailing group for trans-Jovian space and from the leading group for the inner Solar System. Leading Achilles and trailing Patroclus are permanent boomtowns.
"The Last Chance on Achilles...is a rowdy bar where Guardsmen come in trios." (I, p. 21)
Johnny Malone from Luna City likes the Last Chance because everywhere else, except Venus which he does not like, is becoming too civilized. This is the moment when Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History most resembles Robert Heinlein's Future History. Space was changing as Rhysling aged and wanted to return to the Green Hills of Earth...
2 comments:
I think this may be a mistake. A spacefarer's bar isn't going like one for sailors in the old days -- they're going to be highly educated technical specialists, not two-fisted rope-haulers. A high degree of impulse control goes with that sort of education.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I partly agree. But I think we'll see some rowdy big bruiser types even in a space faring civilization, as we see in Anderson's Flying Mountains story "Say It With Flowers." Such persons could know a good deal of practical science and engineering and still be "two fisted" types. If only as a means of letting off steam and seeking relaxation!
Ad astra! Sean
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