Saturday 13 January 2024

Contexts


We discuss not only Poul Anderson but also his vast literary context: Wells, Heinlein and more. Tolkien and Lewis are parallels. And here a quotation from Rudyard Kipling is appropriate:

"What do they know of England who only England know?"

What do they know of sf who read only sf but not its mythical and literary origins or its historical and scientific contexts? Prometheus is our ancestor. Frankenstein was the Modern Prometheus and his problem, whether it is right to create human life, continues in Anderson's Genesis which is both an end and a beginning.

Onward and upward or, in my case, into Lancaster town centre on various errands.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Some might include Jonathan Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS as being at least embryonic science fiction. I esp. thought of his satirical parody of early scientific researchers in the third book of the TRAVELS.

Ad astra! Sean