Memorable passages include Saunder's farewell to the sun:
"So, good-by, Sol, he thought. Good-by, and thank you for many million years of warmth and light. Sleep well, old friend."
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT Chapter Six, p. 284.
Taury's reminiscence (see here):
"'...I thought I deserved this last farewell to the days when we fought with our own hands, and fared between the stars, when we were a small band of sworn comrades whose dreams outstripped our strength.'" (p. 275)
Saunder's reflection on his experience of future history:
"Man's works were so horribly impermanent; he thought with a sadness of the cites and civilizations he had seen rise and spend their little hour and sink back into the night and chaos of time." (Chapter 3, p. 238)
4 comments:
Paul:
Though not directly relevant, your second and third quotes reminded me of this, from *The Rebel of Rhada* by Robert Cham Gilman (Alfred Coppel):
"Across the deepening night a meteor flashed with brief intensity. It seemed to Kier that it was like the life of a man against the night of history. And if it seemed brief and to no purpose, at least it burned brightly and gave a touch of light to the dark."
Anderson, in *The Broken Sword*, likewise compared human life to a meteor: "Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself."
Reading Poul's early stuff is interesting from a technical point of view -- you see his inherent strengths and how he refined them with technique.
Agreed.
Kaor, DAVID and Mr. Stirling!
David: drat, I never seem to think of such cool and apt quotes from Anderson's works. Nice!
Mr. Stirling, I agree! And, in one my essays I divided his works into early, middle, and late phases. And we see the strength and power of his mature works amply prefigured in his early phase.
Sean
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