(In the attached image, Ramnuans on onsars approach the Lord of the Volcano, although this was way back in VIII.)
We have previously discussed Flandry's elegiac thoughts in Chapter XIII but perhaps not this one:
"...new, perhaps more hopeful civilizations would come to birth in the future, and he had been among those who guarded their womb." (p. 215)
Back cover blurb rightly described this novel as the culmination of a series. However, it is also the first of six installments collected together as Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy. Flandry's thought quoted above anticipates certain later installments where new civilizations are built and grow. Even during the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire, Roan Tom initiates an interstellar alliance that could form the basis of the Allied Planets, the first of the post-Technic interstellar civilizations. (These civilizations are post-Technic not in the sense of being post-technological but only in the sense that the Technic civilization that had succeeded the Terrestrial Western civilization has come to an end with the Fall of the Empire.)
The Spenglerian "Fall of the West" is a big concept in James Blish's Cities In Flight Tetralogy. Read it also.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Ditto, what you said about Flandry reflecting with hope that his toils and struggles would not be totally fruitless.
Your mention of Roan Tom reminded me of his hypothetical thoughts at the beginning of "A Tragedy of Errors" about the practical results springing from the Fall of the Empire. And of how he had no grand aspirations in mind, that he had simply been trying to survive, and for his family to survive.
In fact, I think Roan Tom would far rather the Empire had not fallen!
Ad astra! Sean
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