Interstellar Flight And Freedom addressed the theme of interstellar escape from Terrestrial tyranny in sf novels by Heinlein, Anderson, Blish and Stirling. Blish's Cities In Flight/Okies future history embodies this theme twice. At the end of Volume I, spaceships escape from the Solar System as the Bureaucratic State conquers Earth and bans space flight. At the end of Volume III, former Okies colonize the Greater Magellanic Cloud, which is receding from the Milky Way, while their culture goes under in the home galaxy. However, Volume IV, The Triumph Of Time, expresses a contradictory theme: everything, even the universe, ends.
Poul Anderson's World Without Stars describes interstellar/intergalactic freedom on a vaster scale. Spacemen with indefinitely extended lifespans, in this respect resembling Blish's Okies, can make an instantaneous jump between any two points in space although they must first accelerate to match the velocity of their target galaxy. Anderson also combines intergalactic flight with the end of the universe in Tau Zero.
My perennial conclusion: read Anderson and Blish.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I tried to reread Blish's Okies books a few years ago, and, alas, I lost interest when I got to the third volume. I had read all the OKies books with pleasure many, many years ago, but somehow my tastes had changed since then and I found the Flying Cities books unsatisfactory.
But I can still read others of Blish's works with pleasure, such as A CASE OF CONSCIENCE.
But what is your own, personal, view or belief/preference in these "Interstellar Flight and Freedom" blog pieces? Do you think some people should leave Earth for reasons ranging from feeling themselves oppressed for religious/political reasons, boredom or frustration at home, or to preserve a heritage?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
People should leave Earth for all these reasons and more, not least so that humanity will no longer have all its eggs in one basket, like the dinosaurs. However, the mass of mankind will remain on Earth and issues need to be resolved on this planet. We should not just be left under the thumb of the Bureaucratic State/Federation/Draka(!) etc.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree! I forgot about adding the sheer folly of mankind keeping all our eggs on only one planet! Yes, of course, the great majority of people living on Earth would never leave it.
It's also my hope that the rise of new nations and societies off Earth would tend to have an ameliorating influence on the Home world, as happened with the US vis a vis Europe. And thus tend to soften or end despotism back Home. And I also think the knowledge and discoveries to be found and made off Earth would have practical benefits for handling problems on Manhome. Benefits that would not have been discovered except by leaving Earth.
My vague impression is that UK science fiction does not tend to as gung ho as much of US science fiction was about interplanetary/interstellar travel and colonization. But I'm sure some British SF writers approve of such things!
Ad astra! Sean
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