two large counter-rotating cylinders;
linkages;
ports;
locks;
shields;
collectors;
transmitters;
docks;
the large, turning, golden, solar sail.
Crew of auxiliary craft engaged in a joint exercise beam pictures of Chronos to telescreens in private apartments inside Chronos.
Chronos agrosections produce not only air and food but also wood, hide and fiber. Some crew members make their own furniture. Metal has to be recycled for the water pipes in the new park in Starboard Hull. While that area is vacant, it will be used by a role-playing group. Crew members can holiday in places like Lake Armstrong.
The J. Peter Vayk, which went to Mars, had a crew of a thousand. The Chronos is probably bigger.
Most reading material is screened from the data banks but individuals have shelves with a few valued volumes. Colin Scobie has:
Childe's border ballads;
an eighteenth century family Bible;
a signed The Machinery Of Freedom, nearly disintegrated.
My copies of Time Patrol and The Shield Of Time disintegrated and had to be replaced.
15 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree that for the most part, in exploratory ships like the CHRONOS, reading material will be screened from data banks. But I'm old fashioned enough to prefer hard copy books. So, some of my choices for "real" books, besides the Bible, would be Dante's THE DIVINE COMEDY, and Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
I would probably have to be satisfied with just one or two hard copy books by Anderson. Difficult to choose only two out of so many! Perhaps a one volume collecting of the "Young Flandry" books?
Sean
Sean,
I would always want to have the complete Time Patrol.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That too would be a good choice.
Sean
I prefer hardcopy, other things being equal; but they aren't, because e-readers are so much more portable. Also my house doesn't have room for more books -- according to the movers, we had 3.5 tons of them when we moved to Santa Fe in 1995, and we didn't stop acquiring them once we got here.
Good gracious heavens, Mr. Stirling! You literally had 3.5 TONS of books at that time???
Sean
Heavy reading!
3.5 tons is what the mover told us... and they did a second estimate because at first they thought they must be getting it wrong. My wife and I are both inveterate readers!
George Martin (author of the Game of Thrones series) here in Santa Fe solved the book storage problem by buying up houses in his neighborhood and converting them into libraries for his collection. That's a bit beyond my means!
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I can see why the movers thought a second estimate was necessary--3.5 tons of books IS rather implausible! I think I have several THOUSAND books, but not TONS of them.
And you have to be a really successful, hot selling author like George Martin or Stephen King to buy houses to use solely as libraries! (Smiles).
Sean
This sounds like a way to cut that 3.5 tons of books down to size.
https://www.archmission.org/nanofiche
I like that at worst it takes nothing more high tech than a good microscope to read. That means you can archive technical knowledge to be read in the aftermath of civilizational collapse if such should happen.
Kaor, Jim!
Gee whillikers, some, like me, still likes hard copy books! (Smiles)
Also, civilizational collapse might be so drastic that microscopes becomes extremely rare or impossible to manufacture for a very long time. I prefer the solution seen in Anderson's VAULT OF AGES, where the anonymous founder of the time vault had many books printed on special, long lasting paper with sturdy bindings.
Ad astra! Sean
So in your equivalent of the Motie's museums you put some macroscopic books explaining enough about glass making & optics to allow the finders to make microscopes to read the rest of the archive.
Kaor, Jim!
I too have read THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, and I should have remembered those Motie museums. But one problem with that is how neo-savages are all too likely to smash museums and burn whole libraries as fuel for fire in a civilizational collapse. So I can still see microscopes becoming rare and difficult to manufacture.
Ad astra! Sean
As further insurance, but the macroscopic writing & diagrams on nickel sheets similar to the nanofiche books.
At least those won't get burned by people desperate to stay warm through a nuclear winter.
Kaor, Jim!
Engraving useful information on walls or sheets of metal would help!
Ad astra! Sean
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