tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post1292052346647142481..comments2024-03-28T07:57:49.338+00:00Comments on Poul Anderson Appreciation: The Frankenstein QuestionsKetlanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08588156788583883454noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-38931354717333590662015-09-26T09:05:01.786+01:002015-09-26T09:05:01.786+01:00Kaor, Paul!
Oh dear, I have read three or four of...Kaor, Paul!<br /><br />Oh dear, I have read three or four of Jules Verne's books, but I'm by no means an expert on his writings. I fear I simply don't know enough to be able to compare him with Poul Anderson. Except that some consider Verne to be directly ancestral to the "hard" branch of SF.<br /><br />SeanSean M. Brookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13973738112230622557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-41027321980799722102015-09-26T09:02:34.001+01:002015-09-26T09:02:34.001+01:00Hi, David!
First, your comments reminded me of Fr...Hi, David!<br /><br />First, your comments reminded me of Frank Herbert's DUNE, esp. an event set long before the events in that book, the Butlerian Jihad, a holy war waged to destroy and stamp out "thinking machines." Apparently conscious level, self aware computers.<br /><br />I'm by NO means an expert on the ethics of cloning, but I think the common Catholic view is that some forms of cloning are morally licit. Such as, for example, taking cells from a kidney and using them to clone a new kidney. It is totally unethical to abort a baby and use cells from the remains for cloning.<br /><br />And I'm somebody is now trying to clone a human being, not merely organs.<br /><br />SeanSean M. Brookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13973738112230622557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-35784834643894777432015-09-25T18:26:20.639+01:002015-09-25T18:26:20.639+01:00Sean,
would you be able to write an article compar...Sean,<br />would you be able to write an article comparing Verne and Anderson?<br />Paul.Paul Shackleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04180596532266581425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-27292678718013757382015-09-25T18:20:36.186+01:002015-09-25T18:20:36.186+01:00John Maddox Roberts wrote *The Strayed Sheep of Ch...John Maddox Roberts wrote *The Strayed Sheep of Charun* (later expanded as *Cestus Dei*) about a future in which national governments had collapsed and theocracies took over -- rather improbably, Judaism was a "great power" right alongside Islam and (unified under Roman Catholicism) Christianity. The other two of the "big five" were Buddhism and Hinduism. <br /><br />The relevance is that all faiths had in common an abhorrence of cloning-like techniques which could rapidly produce large numbers of workers ... or soldiers. They spoke of such as "the soulless," and the revelation that the colony world Charun used those processes was enough to make Muslim and Jewish representatives offer to support a Christian-led holy war against the Charun system. So in Roberts' fictional world, at least, the creation of intelligent life by humans was absolutely condemned.David Birrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08973889429164886381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-27023586805907505312015-09-25T16:16:12.957+01:002015-09-25T16:16:12.957+01:00Kaor, Paul!
God, of course, being the Lord and Cr...Kaor, Paul!<br /><br />God, of course, being the Lord and Creator of the cosmos, has the right to create life. I don't know, however, if any Catholic theologians have discussed the issue of whether human beings can rightly create new life, esp. intelligent life. An interesting point!<br /><br />And one persistent omission in your discussions of the precursors of science fiction is Jules Verne. I argue that the author of such classics of proto hard SF as TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON has as much right to be considered a main precursor of modern SF as Mary Shelley and H.G. Wells.<br /><br />SeanSean M. Brookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13973738112230622557noreply@blogger.com