"Kyra nodded. 'Of course. No deliverance from personal death.' No deliverance anywhere in sight, after it turned out that aging was built into the human genome. You could improve matters only up to a point." (p. 161)
A perfect example of an sf premise. Narratives differ as their premises do. Thus:
in Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, a few mutants are unaging and eventually all lives can be extended indefinitely;
in Anderson's World Without Stars, the antithanatic ends aging;
in James Blish's Cities In Flight, the antiagathics end aging;
in Robert Heinlein's Future History, an early member of the long-lived Howard Families is an unaging mutant;
etc.
Harvest Of Stars' premises include STL, not FTL, no extraterrestrial intelligences and conscious AI.
Other sf premises include whether time travel is possible and, if so, whether time travelers can "change the past."
In each case, Poul Anderson examines not one but every option.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And in FOR LOVE AND GLORY, we see Anderson speculating it might be possible to indefinitely extend human life spans, for those who want it, thru periodical life extending treatments every thirty or forty years. Which I thought more plausible than a single one time treatment like the antithanatic of WORLD WITHOUT STARS.
Ad astra! Sean
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