Sir Nigel Loring thinks:
"...I'm more at home in an England of farmers and squires and parsons than one of cities and motorways and the Internet..."
-SM Stirling, The Protector's War (New York, 2006), Chapter Three, p. 95.
I prefer the cities, motorways and Internet. But I suggest that in future we can have both: a civilization transcending divisions between work and leisure and between city and country with enclaves of farms, squires and parsons for anyone who wants them.
We enjoy reading both about the catastrophic Change and about post-Change rurality. Very few would enjoy living through the former. Some would enjoy living in the latter, although Stirling emphasizes how much physical effort is necessary for survival. This is Society for Creative Anachronism fiction which, of course, reminds us of Poul Anderson.
Here is another local reference: Odell's Bistro on High St (p. 98). I have not found the Bistro by googling although the name Odell is there.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
True, we both live now in countries dominated by very URBANIZED areas and cities. And I don't think this dominance by big cities is entirely or always good. So, I have some sympathy for Sir Nigel's preference for a society led by squires, farmers, and parsons (the latter will soon no longer be ANGLICAN parsons). But this would be possible only in a society wise enough to accept that decentralization, within limits, is better than the over centralization we now have.
In fact, this is the kind of socio/political situation Poul Anderson would prefer: a balancing of urban and rural interests. Such as what we see on his fictional planets Aeneas and Dennitza in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN and A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS.
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Sean
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