Algis Budrys On Poul Anderson's Tau Zero

Algis Budrys, "Galaxy Bookshelf" IN Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1970, pp. 93-95; 191-192 AT p. 192.

According to Budrys, in Tau Zero:

time is "...expressed in dying, contracting space...";

space is expressed "...as a blossoming function of rolling time...";

both "...become no more than captive media for the drama of the mighty machine masters."

Are they? Do they? I don't think that space-time becomes "captive." It and the groups of groups of groups of galaxies and the cyclical cosmos dwarf the Ship of Man.

Budrys thinks that the novel's biggest problem comes when Anderson tries to "...tell both a superscience story and a humanistic one..." because anyone who does this is "...doomed to re-tell Aniara..." From what Budrys tells us about Aniara, I do not think that Tau Zero re-tells it.

British sf writer, Bob Shaw, said in conversation that Tau Zero merely alternated between its human and cosmic narratives instead of integrating them.

An interesting google fact is that Aniara's translators included Hugh MacDiarmid whom we have mentioned before. See Historical Material.

Budrys concludes that "...the moment of triumph is the moment of letdown in this attempt." Far from it.