-Poul Anderson, NESFA vol 2, p. 107.
To me, that first reason is no longer acceptable. If an sf writer wants to transport characters from Earth to another planetary system, then he can:
accept the limits of slower than light travel;
locate the other system fairly close to the Solar System, focus his narrative on events in the other system and fudge the issue of STL v. FTL;
do something original with FTL as Anderson tried to do each time he resorted to it;
find a way within current relativity theory to allow for FTL as Carl Sagan did in Contact;
do something that I haven't thought of (I am the fan, not the writer);
but please do not just invoke an unexplained sf cliche called "hyperspace."
This blog has discussed Anderson and other writers connected to Anderson and is now discussing Anderson on other writers. Onward.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I certainly hope Hal Clement is proven right about FTL being possible and we, personally, live to see a FTL drive invented. And I esp. like how Poul Anderson had Persis d'Io summarizing a popular science writer's attempt at explaning how the FTL drive we see in ENSIGN FLANDRY and the other Technic History books works.
I hope I still have the POPULAR SCIENCE issue where I read it, but that magazine ran an article about one scientist attempting to work out how FTL just might be possible. I hope he, or others like him, succeed!
I agree, it would be better if SF writers either try to work into their stories how FTL just might work or accept, better, EMBRACE the constraints and limitations of STL. An example of how ingeniously this can be done, from Anderson's works, would be "Star Ship." The "History of Rustum" timeline stories also comes to mind as other examples of Anderson using STL.
Sean
For what I regard as the least implausible version of FTL
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight2.php#id--Scientific_Drives
and scroll down a bit to "Luke Campbell's Notes" on 'wormholes'. This might allow restricted FTL with no "closed timelike curves" ie: no time travel.
As for embracing the constraints & limitations of STL, one interesting take on that is the novel 'Lockstep' by Karl Schroeder, in which whole societies on different worlds go into coldsleep in lockstep & people travel during the coldsleep periods.
Kaor, Jim!
I've not read Karl Schoeder's story, so I have to comment with care. I do think it's unlikely for entire to leave Earth en masse by either FTL or STL means. At most, small groups might pool their resources to pay for a few hundreds or a few thousands leaving Earth. Which was how the Constitutionalists settled Rustum in Anderson's Rustum series.
I also believe Anderson will be proven right for why many would be willing to leave Earth for other worlds, if that becomes practical: some will leave an Earth they consider either hostile to them or to avoid losing their identity, to avoid being morphed into the dominant civilization. I.e., people will leave for political and religious reasons.
Ad astra! Sean
In Karl Schroeder's story the people who leave earth & go to various bodies in the Oort cloud to set up the 'Lockstep' society, consider the earth of their time 'hostile to them'.
I find 'Lockstep' a bit implausible but still an interesting premise. There are other people who don't live in 'lockstep' mostly those who stay near stars.
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