"Jason and the Argonaut might have glided by."
-Fred Hoyle, October The First Is Too Late (Harmondsworth, Middlesex), Chapter 10, p. 102.
A ship is traveling from Britain 1966 to classical Greece. Just as Poul Anderson's Time Patrolman Manse Everard might have seen the ship of Odysseus and Everard met Hiram of Tyre, Hoyle's characters might have seen the Argonaut and Hoyle's narrator will meet Socrates.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And we meet a science fictional "Socrates" in L. Sprague De Camp's novel THE GLORY THAT WAS. The author, among other things, was in my belief criticizing in that book the idea of using "social experiments" on real human beings to determine "good" social changes.
Sean
Kaor, Sean!
And have you perchance read Jo Walton's THE JUST CITY and its sequels? Athene and Apollo decide to experiment with setting up Plato's Republic, a thousand years or so before Plato, on a volcanic island that is fated to be destroyed. Among other things, Socrates shows up, Athene having transported him from the moment of his death to the city of Plato's imagination, and starts asking uncomfortable questions about the city and the means used to obtain the children who are being raised to be its citizens.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
P.S. And I have read THE GLORY THAT WAS.
Kaor, Nicholas!
Alas, no, I have not read Jo Walton's THE JUST CITY, etc. Yet MORE gaps in my SF reading!
I have read enough of Plato's Dialogues to see WHY the irritated Athenians condemned Socrates to death! His "gadfly" questions and merciless logic would drive anyone crazy!
How did "the just city" obtain children, btw? NOT by normal reproduction?
Regards! Sean
Kaor, Sean!
Various Platonists from throughout history are taken by Athene to become the masters of Plato's Republic, and raise the ten year old children who will become its citizens. The qualifications are that one must have read the REPUBLIC in Greek (reading it in English or some other language won't suffice), and pray to Athene to make it real. They get the children by buying Greek-speaking children a few at a time in slave markets at various times and places.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Nicholas,
A STAR TREK episode that I never saw was "Plato's Stepchildren."
Paul.
Kaor, Nicholas!
I don't like what you say about Walton's ideal Platonic republic. it seems periously close to being totalitarian, which was in fact the ideal in Plato's REPUBLIC. Conservatives like me could not agree with Plato's political views.
Best regards! Sean
Kaor, Sean!
I don't think that Ms. Walton gives unqualified approval to the city she portrays, to say the least. One critic said of the book, that while Jo Walton is not a Christian, she does seem to have a firm understanding of original sin.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Kaor, Nicholas!
That makes me think better of Jo Walton's books. Esp. if she has no tom fool illusions about human nature!
Best regards! Sean
Sean,
The original Tom Fool lived at Muncaster Castle near here. we are immersed in history.
Paul.
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