Even in the midst of a dramatic action scene, Anderson pauses to describe natural beauty:
"Korych flamed over the edge of the world. That sunrise was gold and amethyst, beneath a million stars." (p. 137)
No scientific advance has ever been exactly as imagined by sf writers. Armstrong and Aldrin were not Cavor and Bedford. The same will be true of faster than light travel if that is ever to be achieved. Sf writers have made us very familiar with a particular imaginary scenario: spaceships traversing hyperspace or warp space journey between stars many times faster than light but nevertheless may require weeks or months to cross "known space" because of the distances involved, although how long it is supposed to take can be forgotten for the sake of advancing the story.
The stars are visible from the hyperspace in Anderson's Technic History but other versions of hyperspace are featureless voids or, in Larry Niven's Known Space future history, mere absence, not darkness but what you see behind your head.
Dominic Flandry makes at least five long hyperspace journeys, each in the company of a different woman. I am just about to reread the first of these in Ensign Flandry. Please note: one woman each time, not four. These are occasions for conversation and closer acquaintance, opportunities for the author to develop the characters and to have them explain themselves and their mission to each other.
Interstellar travel is a symbol of freedom in American sf but there is a contrast between this freedom and enclosure in a metal vessel. Maybe more imaginative work needs to be done on other means of interstellar travel?
5 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I dunno, if human beings ever achieve a FTL drive, it will most likely include the need to use PHYSICAL ships for transporting people and cargoes over interstellar distances. Unless, as seen in "The Chapter Ends," we hypothesize genetics being used to change human being so that mental powers are developed enabling them to pass over interstellar distances by an act of the will. An idea I find far more implausible than a FTL drive. After all, there are SOME serious scientists who think there MIGHT be a way of getting around the light speed barrier. And I frankly hope to live long enough to see a FTL drive!
Sean
Sean,
But maybe we can travel in large habitats with internal ecologies rather than metal spacecraft?
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
You mean "worldships"? Or what some call "generation ships." That might be one way of reaching the stars if you had to use STL means of reaching them. Esp. if we had a device like the "spindizzy" seen in Poul Anderson's collection TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS. The very last story in that book is about solving a problem hindering the preparations for sending a generation ship to the stars.
Sean
Sean,
Spindizzy in Blish's Okie stories. "Geegee" (?) in FLYING MOUNTAINS.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Darn and drat! My memory erred there! (Smiles)
Sean
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