Terangi Maclaren is going to investigate "'...a truly burned-out star.'" (p. 11) There has been argument as to whether the universe is old enough for a star to have exhausted both its nuclear and its gravitational energy. But surely, as long as a star exists/has mass, then it has gravity? And, if it has imploded to zero volume, then it leaves the gravitational energy of a black hole?
"'...it's conceivable this one is left over from some previous cycle of creation!'" (ibid.)
How do cosmic cycles work? If the most fundamental particles are deconstructed and remade, then no macroscopic object can survive. In Anderson's Tau Zero, one spaceship sails around the re-forming monobloc. In his The Avatar, the Others control forces that enable them to travel into a new universe. In James Blish's The Triumph Of Time, an interstellar civilization called the Web of Hercules, by controlling matter-antimatter interactions, is able to leave a record that is read in a subsequent universe.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
To me one of the most interesting things about THE ENEMY STARS was Anderson's use of the idea of matter teleportation, a device which somehow "deconstructs" and teleports matter instantaneously and "reconstructs" that matter into the persons and objects shipped that way. I remember finding that very difficult to "grok" (using Heinlein's word). In fact, I think Anderson himself found "matter teleportation" so implausible that he used it only in this fairly early novel and two short stories.
Sean
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