In "Entity," the spaceship captain is an Andersonian problem-solver experiencing a moment of realization like many other Anderson characters.
A new source of energy being found a few decades after the beginning of interstellar travel makes it hard to fit this story into the Psychotechnic History. Maybe "Entity," like "Symmetry," should be included in the collection not on a "Here is a consistent history" basis but on a "These are the stories that the author thought of fitting into his first future history" basis. Some textual changes could have been made to enhance the consistency of the series but any such changes would have had to have been made by the author.
My next self-appointed task as a blogger is to reread and reassess "Symmetry." Then it will be time to return to Anderson's novel, The Avatar.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, any revisions of stories written by Anderson should be made only by him. Which he actually did with some of the Technic History stories.
Hmmm, but what if a few unfinished stories by PA were found in his papers after his death? Could they be rightly "finished" by another author if his Estate gave permission to do so? What do you think?
Sean
Sean,
I think yes but the finished text would have to be credited to both authors.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, if a few unfinished stories were found in his papers and finished by another author, with the Estate's permission, they should be credited to both writers.
I think Greg Bear and S.M. Stirling would be the most natural choices for this kind of posthumous co-authorship. I kind of hope there are a few unfinished drafts of stories by Anderson!
Sean
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