When Jaccavrie enters the Cloud Universe, she tells Daven Laure:
"'You need to be drawn out of your fantasizing...Though you recognize your daydreams for what they are, you can't afford them. Not now.'" (p. 758)
This harks back to the very first Technic History instalment, "The Saturn Game," which is also about space exploration.
Laure had been remembering:
"...the old, old myth of the Yawning Gap, where fire and ice arose and out of them the Nine Worlds, which were doomed in the end to return to fire and ice..." (p. 756)
This also harks back:
"...blocks quarried from the cold side of Ginnungagap..."
-Poul Anderson, "The Saturn Game" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 1-73 AT III, p. 39.
In James Blish's Cities In Flight, the cosmic collision is called the Ginnungagap because it generates new universes.
The Norse creation myth is the most scientific: opposite but interacting forces generate life and consciousness in a void. Norse mythology and hard sf go well together. Poul Anderson wrote both.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But I have read as well of suggestions by some writers that Norse/Scandinavian myths were influenced by contact with Christianity. Which could have happened thru traders, wandering mercenaries, or even diplomatic contacts.
Ad astra! Sean
Perhaps some influence was also from the proto-science of Greco-Roman philosophy.
Kaor, Jim!
Possibly, but not very likely. How likely would a barbarian from the Scandinavia of circa AD 500 be familiar with the Roman and Greek philosophers?
Ad astra! Sean
Whether the influence was from Christianity or Greco-Roman philosophy, it would be second hand, likely garbled, explanations from traders etc.
Kaor, Jim!
Exactly! Second or third hand knowledge at best. And garbled to boot!
Ad astra! Sean
Bear in mind that the overwhelming majority of Christians were illiterate until historically quite recently.
They heard stories read from the Bible, or saw them depicted visually in Church art or mystery plays, and the like. But they weren't really familiar with the details.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True. And I have heard of how some esp. devout Christians, if illiterate, would memorize large parts of the Bible, when read aloud to them.
Most Catholic churches still has those visual aids: the Stations of the Cross, images of the saints, stained glass windows depicting incidents from the Bible, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
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