Saturday 11 April 2020

But...

Sandra Miesel's utopian litany summarized in the previous post ends with:

"But there were shadows..."
-Sandra Miesel, FORWARD IN Poul Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League (Riverdale, NY, 2018), pp. 3-5 AT p. 5.

Stylistically, does that remind you of anything?

In his Technic History, Poul Anderson summarizes the achievements of the Polesotechnic League, then adds:

"Nevertheless, it had its troubles."
-Poul Anderson, "Margin of Profit" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 135-173 AT p. 146.

Later, he summarizes the deliberations of the Council of Hiawatha, then adds:

"But when a century had passed -"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT IX, p. 143.

History has its buts.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And history will ALWAYS have its shadows and buts. I am fed up with dreamy Utopian fantasies of an impossible perfect society. Or should that be FINAL SOCIETY, to take a term from Stirling's Draka timeline? Or such fantasies might have us ending up like the "high ones" from one of Anderson's stories!

Ad astra! Sean