Mars and Venus could be terraformed (enormous technological change) but no one is interested (massive psychological change).
In extraterrestrial settings, Anderson's characters encounter unforeseen hazards, which are then explained. Here is another. As mountaineers traverse a Lunar ledge, the rock gives way under the first in file. Why? From pockmarks near the break, Svoboda deduces:
"... - once in the past a shotgun meteoroid shower had struck here. Probably radiation spalling then weakened the stone further..." (p. 477)
How did Anderson think of so many plausible unforeseeables?
The immortal bureaucrat kept himself so obscure throughout history that he appeared in only one earlier chapter of Boat. Gnaeus Cornelius Patulcius served the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, the Turkish Republic and the Dynasts, went public with the other Survivors, helped the high technology civilization to incorporate less developed societies, then returned to obscurity but is now unemployable as a mediator or operations manager because community has dissolved into individuals without any common interests or identity.
Chapter XIX, section 8, is about human minds interacting and merging with AI and will require further rereading. We have read eight sections and there are eight Survivors but has each had a section to him/herself?
I. Hanno.
2. Tu Shan.
3. Aliyat.
4. Wanderer.
5. Yukiko.
6. Svoboda.
7. Patulcius.
8. Flora.
Yes.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Commenting on the first paragraph: I would be bitterly disappointed if, in the future, if mankind then had the means, Venus and Mars was still NOT terraformed! I am not entirely sure I would like the future we see in the concluding chapter of BOAT. It seems too insular, inward looking, more and more refusing to look outwards. I prefer the alternative scenario seen in WORLD WITHOUT STARS, where mankind was also able to become immortal, but many still looked outwards and went on to settle other worlds.
However, I remain skeptical that the kind of immortality we see in either BOAT or WORLD is even possible!
Sean
Sean,
WORLD WITHOUT STARS has intergalactic FTL, though.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! Given FTL, the immortals we see in WORLD did not have to remain content with either inward navel gazing or idle amusements, they were abe to go and achieve REAL things in the galaxy. A situation which was also the case in FOR LOVE AND GLORY.
Sean
Post a Comment