Friday 8 October 2021

Cosmic Fiction

In mainstream fiction, stars are seen at night and that is the extent of the involvement with the cosmos whereas sf is fiction with a cosmic context. In Poul Anderson's Brain Wave, cosmic radiation affects Terrestrial brains. In Larry Niven's Known Space future history series, human beings are mutated Pak breeder colonists of a former Slaver food planet. In CS Lewis's Ransom Trilogy, the three volumes are set respectively on Mars, Venus and (wait for it) Earth. However, Ransom returns to Earth able to speak Solar, thus to converse with extra-planetary visitors, and this is the best novel in the series.

Sometimes cosmology and cosmogony are central to the plot of a novel, e.g., Anderson's Tau Zero, World Without Stars and Starfarers. Shortly, we will revisit Anderson's non-fiction article, "Science and Creation."

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph here: what did you mean by "Sometimes cosmology and cosmology are central to the plot of a novel,.."? That second "cosmology" seems redundant, did you have another concept in mind?

And I would like to see a volume collecting only the non-fiction essays of Anderson. Esp. including the items I listed in my "Uncollected Works of Poul Anderson" article. And of course those essays of his we can find in others of his pub. works.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

The other concept was "cosmogony" but it came out wrong.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

That clarifies what you meant! Got it now.

Ad astra! Sean