Friday, 2 July 2021

Starfarers, Prologue

Starfarers, PROLOGUE.

The fifteen-page Prologue is divided into four sections. In the first, Captain Nansen's grandfather, accompanied by his father, is seven. The Milky Way is described as "...galactic belt gleaming frosty." (p. 1)

Astronomers have detected remote X ray points moving fast. Interstellar spacecraft? High energy space tech should be detectable across an interstellar distance? But we are not detecting any. Does that mean there is none?

In the second section:

"...man does not live by bread alone, nor by economics and politics. It was the vision of ships flying through heaven that got us back into space in earnest." (p. 3)

A Biblical quote that we have had before. See Bread Alone.

We discussed the third section here and here.

Maybe we will consider the fourth section tomorrow.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And we see analogous allusions to this famous text from the Bible in the Psychotechnic series as well. E.g., "Man does not live by bread or citizen's credit alone."

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Where is that reference?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Oops! I erred a bit. That line was not by Anderson himself, but in the comments apparently written by Sandra Miesel after "Quixote and the Windmill," from page 30 of THE PSYCHOTECHNIC LEAGUE (Tor Books: March 1982): "Mankind does not live by bread--or citizen's credit--alone."

Ad astra! Sean