Today, we have driven to a holiday venue near Lichfield for a week. We will then have a weekend visiting family in Leicester before returning to Lancaster.
Issues
In Brain Wave and the Psychotechnic History: Can intellect overcome instinct?
In the Technic History: Why do civilizations rise and fall?
In the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy and Genesis: What will be the ultimate humanity-technology interaction?
In the Maurai History: What kind of technology and civilization might result if the Southern Hemisphere were to become globally dominant after a Northern nuclear exchange?
In the Rustum History: Might an irreconcilable ideological conflict cause extrasolar colonization even at sublight speeds?
In the Time Patrol series: Is innocence once lost irretrievable? What is the fundamental relationship between chaos and consciousness?
In After Doomsday: How might a small group of survivors cope with the destruction of all life on Earth?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I hope you have copies of both the original 1954 edition of THE BROKEN SWORD and Anderson's 1971 revision of the book. It's interesting to see what he kept and what he did not. And the different ways of presenting such material.
AS for the issues or questions you raised, I'll offer a few comments.
I would like to know exactly WHAT instincts our intellect is supposed to master. Nor do I think it's necessarily bad to have instincts.
Far too briefly, I would argue that civilizations rise when a new and powerful culture takes forms and the people who comprise that culture believes in it and acts to expand its reach and power. And a civilization declines when something happens to shake its people faith in it.
I think you meant to ask "WHAT will be the ultimate humanity-technology interaction?" in THE HARVEST OF STARS series and GENESIS. MY preference would be what we see at the end of THE FLEET OF STARS, with mankind breaking out of the smothering cocoon of a life of pointless luxury wrapped around it by the sophotects and defiantly expanding into the Galaxy.
I thought Anderson satisfactorily answered your question re the Maurai stories: a post thermonuclear war successor civilizations would have to make do with poorer and leaner resources absent use of nuclear energy.
Yes, I think it could very well happen that irreconcilable philosophical/ideological conflict could cause enough people to leave the Solar System for another planet, even if STL means have to be used. So I did not find the situation seen in ORBIT UNLIMITED that implausible.
I think "innocence" can be lost if that is understood to mean a loss of trust or confidence in persons or institutions. Such as the sense of disillusionment Manse Everard came to feel, to some degree, in "The Only Game In Town."
I sure as heck HOPE that if something like what is seen in AFTER DOOMSDAY happens, any survivors of Earth will have leaders as tough and competent as Carl Donnan. In fact, in some ways, he reminds me of Stirling's character, Michael Havel.
Sean
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