Flashback chapters entitled "Dataspace" outline Anson Guthrie's early biography in our period. He gets someone pregnant, which will be important later, drops out of engineering school in Seattle, spends years in South America, is married and divorced, addresses ecological issues that are relevant now and visits Australia where he meets Juliana Trevorrow who will become Juliana Guthrie. The Australians plan to build a spaceport and Guthrie wants to be part of "...developing improved launch systems." (12, p. 137) Anderson could have written a novel about Guthrie's life in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Some future histories begin in their author's present. Anderson follows precedents established by Wells and Stapledon.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I seem to have completely missed these references to Anson Guthrie's first wife, it being only Juliana I remembered.
If Elon Musk was inspired by Heinlein's THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON, then I can't help wondering if he also read Anderson's HARVEST books and was similarly inspired.
Btw, I got some chapters of Stirling's latest novel. Now I'm struggling to access the text. I have to figure out how to use MICROSOFT WORD, which I've never felt any need of using before. But I will keep on trying.
Ad astra! Sean
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