Continuing The Beginning

Part One, Chapter I of Poul Anderson's Genesis (New York, 2001), pp. 3-7, fills exactly four pages of text. It is not yet science fiction. An unnamed boy on an Alaskan hill observes a galaxy with a sophisticated telescope during an autumn night. Maybe the telescope is sf? It is speech-controlled.

He sees:

the Milky Way
the Great Bear
Capella
Polaris
Arcturus
Altair
Vega

- "...a bewilderment of stars." (p. 3)

I have been tracking Andersonian phraseology about "stars" so "...a bewilderment of..." is another for the list.

The boy has an active life:

amateur astronomy;
gyroball team practise;
working out Fourier series;
taking a girl to a dance;
maybe reciting a poem he has written about her...

He sees a satellite and aims to be out there. He also speculates about the role of intelligence in the universe. So will he, in later chapters, be an astronaut and will the novel address his speculations?

Chapter II, pp. 8-10, just two pages of text, summarizes human development up to the moment when human-designed artificial intelligence has become entirely responsible for enhancing artificial intelligence. The chapter concludes by telling us that the boy became a man, adventured on Earth, then went into space, while the machines evolved.

Chapter III, pp. 11-32, twenty one pages of text, with five numbered sub-divisions, begins by naming the boy who had become a man and an astronaut, Christian Brannock, and tells us that "...he looked back on his life and his afterlife in fullness." (p. 11) Afterlife! I know what is coming, of course, but on this rereading, I am paying more attention to the details of how Poul Anderson takes us there. I am also just about to read some of the third Modesty Blaise novel for a total contrast!

Meanwhile, for more on Anderson's opening paragraphs, see here and here.