Monday 11 January 2021

Age In Fiction

Should fictional series characters age as if in real time? My basic answer is "yes" but there is scope for clever tricks such as Ian Fleming plays with James Bond. (See here.)

Poul Anderson's three Trygve Yammura novels are close together in time.

Anderson created three sets of unaging characters who, of course, are in a different category.

Anderson's Technic History characters have access to antisenescence but nevertheless age. Indeed, change - social, historical, personal - is the theme of the series.

Asimov decided that his Black Widowers would remain in a literary eternity, unchanging and unaging. Sixty six stories equals sixty six monthly meetings, thus five and a half years. That is ok but I would have objected if it had become five and a half decades!

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

As you said, the question of aging doesn't really matter much in Anderson's Trygve Yamamura or Asimov's Bladk Widower stories. About three or four years for Yamamura, and 5.5 for the Black Widowers. Not really long enough in time for aging to be a real issue.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

I remember realizing with a bit of a shock that Bond was around the same age as my father -- a WWII veteran.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And we see Dominic Flandry approaching age 70 in THE GAME OF EMPIRE.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: though with Technic antisenescence treatments, that's probably more equivalent to about 50.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I agree. While I think of Flandry as being 67 in THE GAME OF EMPIRE, he probably looked and felt like a healthy fifty, because of antisenescence.

I think Technic antisenescence treatments could preserve good health and extend life spans to about age 110. Which sounds like a good deal to me!

Ad astra! Sean