It is my opinion that Anderson's texts easily bear this amount of careful rereading and academic study. I know that there is repetition on the blog. However, each time I write something, it feels fresh, so I keep doing it. But we move on sometimes. I think that I have stopped unfavorably comparing Isaac Asimov with Poul Anderson - although just writing that gets me going again.
Whereas Asimov presents the abstract idea of an interstellar empire, Anderson shows us its concrete reality, always emphasizing that each planet is a world, with an ecology and a history, not just a platform for spaceships to land on. Whereas Asimov does not explain the convenient sf cliche of hyperspace, Anderson presents several alternative scientific rationales for FTL, including his unique quantum micro-jumps version of hyperspace in the Technic History.
In a book about sf, I once read a version of hyperspace that I have not seen in any fictional work. Matter cannot exceed light speed through space but a volume of space containing matter could be moved at above light speed? Or something? Maybe Anderson could have added this one to his list.
3 comments:
"In a book about sf, I once read a version of hyperspace that I have not seen in any fictional work. Matter cannot exceed light speed through space but a volume of space containing matter could be moved at above light speed?"
That sounds like the Alcubierre drive & to the extent that Star Trek's warp drive can be rationalized it sounds like that.
Jim,
I have come across that version.
Paul.
Kingsley Amis wrote a book on sf and presented the "moving space" version of hyperspace as if it was the only one.
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