A future history needs plenty of short stories to give it body. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, I value "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" because it shows domestic life in the Solar Commonwealth and "Lodestar" because it shows the generation gap between Nicholas van Rijn and his granddaughter as problems accumulate in the Polesotechnic League. In Anderson's
Genesis, I value
PART ONE,
V, because it shows the peaceful pastoral setting of Laurinda Ashcroft's life and work. A history is made of moments like these. (And I have blogged enough for today.)
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I mostly agree, despite me having more sympathy for Old Nick than I do for his granddaughter's reservations.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that history is -partly- peaceful pastoral moments.
And other parts aren't -- like my grandmother watching Zeppelin bombers over London, dropping bombs on her.
I'm here because the bombs didn't kill her, and because watching them motivated her to join the V.A.D. as a nurse, which is how she met my grandfather.
She once told me how she'd wake up in her childhood to the sound of the mill-girls' wooden clogs on the cobblestone street, walking to work in the Lancashire textile-town she was born in.
That was a peaceful moment. Her bit in London in 1916 wasn't.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Which goes to show how accidental and contingent human history and lives are!
Ad astra! Sean
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