that the howling peoples will camp in the ruins of the Empire (see here);
that the barbarians will howl among smashed buildings and the smoke of burning books (see here).
And, in another fictional future:
"...the howling peoples dwelt in smashed cities and kindled their fires with books."
-Poul Anderson, The Enemy Stars (London, 1979), p. 7.
Why all this howling? Is civilization a continual effort to suppress howlers who will one day bring down civilization, smash buildings and burn books? Is that what a policeman thinks when he moves someone on?
Civilization, while it exists, responds both to criminals and to its own critics. If and when civilization collapses, some of the survivors will try to build something better from the ruins - and to preserve books.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think you are missing something characteristic of many barbarians and savages: sheer DELIGHT in smashing and destroying things. Esp. things they could not understand. So I think it makes sense for Dominic Flandry and THE ENEMY STARS to use metaphors like "howling peoples" for that kind of attitude.
And we do see people trying to preserve books after the Western Roman Empire fell. And even writing some new books of their own. Here I have Benedictine monasteries in mind, whose scribes copied not only the Scriptures but also many secular works which would have been otherwise completely lost.
Maybe scribes at a monastery in the remote future will copy some of the works of Poul Anderson!
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Here's an example, from Dave Drake and S.M. Stirling's THE HAMMER (Book II of THE GENERAL) of what I believe Poul Anderson meant by "howling peoples" (pages 215-16). Nearly 2000 years in the future, after the fall of the interstellar Terran Federation," civilization was struggling to rise again on the colony world Bellevue, where a strangely mutated remnant of the Federation lingered as the "Civil Government of the Holy Federation (and looking much like the Eastern Roman Empire). An emperor (called "Governor" on Bellevue) was bent on the conquest and unification of the entire planet, aided by a great general, Raj Whitehall (secretly advised by an ancient self aware Battle Computer called "Center"). Raj Whitehall had invaded the Southern Territories formerly held by the Civil Gov't and now occupied by barbarians called the "Squadron" (ruled by kings called "Admirals").
In an earlier battle, the barbarian Admiral's brother had been killed and Raj sent the head to the Admiral under flag of truce. This is the bit I want to quote: "The Admiral was still kneeling by his brother's head, wailing and beating the ground with his fists. Many of the men around him were doing likewise, or gashing their faces with their knives as a sign of mourning. Their howls were near as loud as those of their dogs, and as inhuman. 'Children," Raj thought. 'Vicious grown-up children, and nothing but the Army to keep them from wiping out all the adults in ther world.' " To which Center replied: 'in the universe, Center said. 'a universe of vicious children for us to school, as we will do in time.' "
What we see here were barbarians unable to think ahead, of the long term. And falling apart and literally howling when confronted with something that shocked them.
Sean
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