"'Human Earth is preserved in memory. What is posthuman Earth but a planet approaching the postbiological phase?'" (I, p. 107)
Here is confirmation that, by now, Terrestrial humanity is extinct. But have some human beings gone elsewhere? Chapter II opens:
"There was a man called Kalava..." (p. 109)
This might have meant an extra-terrestrial colony but doesn't but, of course, we have discussed it before. The reintroduction of humanity was the last thing that we expected so that is what Anderson, through Gaia, does and this is the second half of what makes Genesis a Frankensteinian novel.
The question in PART ONE is: are human beings right to let post-organic intelligences supersede them?
The question in PART TWO is: is a post-organic intelligence right to re-create humanity?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
More bluntly, what we see in the last part of GENESIS is life being destroyed by the heat of an expanding Sun.
My answer to the question in Part One: absolutely no!!! Part Two, yes!
Ad astra! Sean
Incidentally, "There was a man called X" is how the Icelandic sagas usually open!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Which was no surprise, given how Poul Anderson drew on his Scandinavian background.
Ad astra! Sean
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