The interstellar exploration period of the Swedish timeline and the Polesotechnic League period of the Technic History timeline are diametrically opposed in governance and ethos. Poul Anderson shows us different futures.
The political disagreements between the drunk and the Swedes generate some character conflict but they also do something else. They give us one last look at such conflicts. The crew of the Leonora Christine will travel through spaces and ages when all such Terrestrial disagreements have become meaningless.
HG Wells' Time Traveler travels first to 802,701 AD when Victorian social classes have "speciated," i.e., have become two distinct species. Thus, he has not yet traveled far enough into the future to leave behind him the consequences of the conflicts of his own period. However, he does do this when he sees the "Further Vision" of a dying Earth. The Leonora Christine goes further.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And some of the crew men and women of the "Leonora Christine" had great difficulty accepting the irrelevance of Earth, even after it became plain Earth no longer even existed.
Sean
Post a Comment