Tuesday 14 July 2020

They Have Their Exoduses

Having nearly finished rereading Poul Anderson's Genesis, I began to think about the theme of Exodus and couldn't stop:

we know what the Biblical Book of Exodus is about;

Virgil's Aeneid recounts the exodus of the ancestors of the Romans from Troy to Italy;

Geoffrey of Monmouth's History Of The Kings Of Britain begins with the exodus of the ancestors of the Britons from Troy to Britain;

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History ends with the exodus of the human race to the Galactic Center;

Hloch's Sky Book Of Stormgate, which we do not read, recounts the exodus of the ancestors of Stormgate Choth from Ythri to Avalon;

Anderson's Technic History recounts the exodus of human beings from the Solar System to the edge of another spiral arm;

Anderson's Tau Zero recounts the exodus of human beings to a new universe;

James Blish's Earthman, Come Home ends with the exodus of Okies from Arm II of the Milky Way to the Greater Magellanic Cloud;

in Blish's sequel, The Triumph Of Time, Amalfi suggests a further journey to the next galaxy, NGC 6822, a million light years away, but instead the spindizzy-powered planet, He, flies to the metagalactic center where it is possible to create new universes.

As Lewis Carroll's Hatter would say: "That's enough about Exoduses!"

Later the same evening: I did forget at least one Andersonian exodus. Which?

8 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

The Exodus from Demeter in THE FLEET OF STARS?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

That is yet ANOTHER one.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Ha! Bu not the "exodus" you had in mind?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

No. I was thinking of the exodus of the Constitutionalists to Rustum.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Dang it! I should have thought of the Constitutionalists! (Smiles)

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Most nations have an exodus as a foundation myth -- the Mexica/Aztecs, to name just one other.

Most of them have some foundation in fact because human history (and pre-history) is a palimset of migrations and population movements.

Paleo-genetics is now letting us actually trace them.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And the peoples doing those exoduses usually wiped out the previous inhabitants!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Another sf exodus is of the Puppeteers from Known Space.