-Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (London, 2010), CHAPTER 1, p. 29.
"Above them the sky duskened and a planet shone white - Saturn, [Guthrie] believed."
-Harvest Of Stars, 10, p. 123.
In both of these passages, a character identifies a heavenly body. However, in mainstream fiction, the stars remain lights seen at night and will not otherwise impact the narrative whereas, in futuristic sf, travel to Saturn and further has become commonplace. In fact, I think that it is rare for a star and a constellation to be named in a contemporary novel.
In Harvest Of Stars:
"The sun vanished and darkness flowed fast. Wind whittered low and chill." (ibid.)
Guthrie and his companion are besieged by revolutionary "Senderistas" so, as ever in Anderson's works, hastening darkness and cold, whittering wind punctuate the text and seem to offer an appropriate commentary on human conflict.
15 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
If/when Elon Musk and others manage to found off Earth human settlements, then mainstream literature will have to begin making such observations about the stars, planets, constellations. Because settlements on locations off Earth will begin affecting us.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is going to be very strange when contemporary novels refer to routine interplanetary flight. Back in 1969, we thought that we would be at that stage in the early 21st century.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I only WISH those optimists had been right! We could have made a start using the technology of the Saturn V rockets. Instead we got the Great Stagnation in a REAL space program, beginning in 1973.
Some contemporary novelists might now be at least mentioning SpaceX and Musk's extraplanetary efforts.
Ad astra! Sean
Yup, it’s going to be strange - but very good — to see mainstream fiction set on Mars and the moon.
Nowadays, I always have to add the qualification, "If technological civilization lasts long enough to establish regular space travel..." In 1960s sf, the two future scenarios were interplanetary (majority) and post-nuclear-war (minority). Now, in real life, the two scenarios are interplanetary and post-ecological-catastrophe.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling! Amen! It might even make mainstream literature (most of which bores me) more interesting.
Paul: I would not totally exclude war, however. Esp. if China, because of its worsening internal problems (political, fiscal, sociological) gets desperate enough to lash out. Or Kim Jong Un in N Korea might be crazy enough to nuke S. Korea or Japan. Or jihadists might provoke more wars.
Ad astra! Sean
How has a major conflict with nukes been avoided this long? I know the US and USSR accepted the logic of MAD but they are not the only players in the field.
Kaor, Paul!
Because, so far, powers with nukes have not thought the benefits of using them outweighed the drawbacks and costs. But there's no guaranteeing that kind of caution will last forever!
Ad astra! Sean
People don't start wars unless they think they can win them -- that is, achieve their victory conditions.
War, like the rest of politics, is about getting what you want.
(I'm leaving aside the motivations of the party that's attacked, as being simpler and more obvious.)
Those who start wars often wrong in their calculations, and confirmation bias and motivated reasoning (aka "wishful thinking") often come into play. And they tend to forget that you can -start- a war (or any other act of escalation) unilaterally, but you can't -stop- it unilaterally. The other side gets a say.
But it's not an irrational process.
Even spectacularly bad calculations -- eg., Greece attacking Turkey in the 1920's or Japan going for the US in 1941 -- had some semblance of rationality.
The Greeks thought the Turks were down and out after WW1, and didn't know about their alliance with the Soviets; the Japanese were gambling on the Germans thoroughly diverting the US, so they'd never have to face the full American military potential.
But if both sides have substantial stores of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, it's difficult to come up with a calculus that makes a favorable result at all credible.
That's why we never had the Battle of the Fulda Gap; the Soviets never launched their 50,000 tanks at us.
Because our reply (we didn't have a credible conventional deterrent) would be to blow up the world. And the Soviets always knew we could, and believed we would.
The Peace of the Mushroom Cloud.
So I don't think it at all likely that industrialized Great Powers will ever face off in a straight-up slugfest again, not WW1 or WW2 style.
Other forms of conflict, yes: that, no.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You make a very convincing argument. One I find hard to disagree with. Your mention of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reminded me of how Hitler foolishly declared war on the US a few days later. Never mind Germany's alliance with Japan, I think the smart thing for Hitler to have done was to keep quiet and let the US become fully embroiled with Japan, and not bother about the war in Europe. I recall Churchill writing in his history of WW II that one of his greatest fears was of precisely that, the US focusing on Japan, and not on Germany. The German declaration of war on the US was a great relief to Churchill!
I do see your point about how it's unlikely nuclear armed industrialized powers will go directly to war against each other. But I have wondered if miscalculations might still bring on such a conflict. E.g., what if the Peking regime, as a result of provocations like those aggressive probings of Taiwan's air defense zone, conclude a US with a feeble president like Biden would not react forcefully in the island's defense and tries to take it over, only to find out the US would not tolerate the conquest and strikes back? There could still be war between China and the US.
A weak leader in country A could make country B decide it could take more chances than it would have if A had a stronger leader. And B could still miscalculate!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it's a matter of the downside risk; the 'what if I'm wrong?' part of the decision process.
You take smaller chances when it's very high. Getting 3000 of your cities obliterated (which the US could do in an afternoon) makes it very high indeed.
Even if you have a very strong feeling the other side -won't- do that, you have to take into account that they -could-. That is, they have the -capacity- to obliterate you in a couple of hours.
For example, in 1922 the Greeks calculated that they could destroy the already-defeated Turkish army.
They were wrong and paid a heavy price -- but if the downside of being wrong had been extermination, they probably wouldn't have tried even if they were convinced it wouldn't come to that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Meaning, for all his loud talk and provocative blustering, you don't think Xi will try to take over Taiwan by force? Maybe, IF "Josip" had not been showing himself to be so weak and catastrophic a President. I can't help but think the Biden Administration's unprecedented incompetence may convince the enemies of the US they can take more chances than they would with almost any other president. We live in far too dangerously interesting times!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: No, I don't. It would be better if the US simply made explicit that an attack on Taiwan means war, and in that war we'd be prepared to use nuclear weapons first and without limits. However, that's a built-in risk of any such action.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I like that idea, esp. if Taipei gave up the fiction of still being the Republic of China gov't in exile and declared itself an independent nation. Peking would rage, but it would clarify the situation and make it easier for the US to do as you suggest. Problem is, I don't expect clarity and good sense from "Josip" and his radical left supporters.
Ad astra! Sean
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