Can a single work of the imagination encompass both gods and galaxies? An intervention by Thor in a story like "Starfog" would destroy the integrity of a hard sf narrative. Such a narrative should proceed from start to finish entirely by its own logic. But reality is vaster than any single kind of narrative. Anderson's works present a multiverse with an inter-universal inn patronized by Nicholas van Rijn from the same universe as "Starfog" and also by characters who have met gods in other universes.
In James Blish's The Day after Judgement, characters who have seen demons nevertheless find it hard to believe that such beings exist when they are travelling in a jet aircraft. Blish shows an ultimate conflict between the technological and the supernatural. The Strategic Air Command attacks Dis when that demon city has been raised to the Earth's surface in Death Valley.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, I agree the premises and logic of the different genres a writer sets his stories in has to be respected if those works of fiction are to SUCCEED artistically. I agree that to show Thor as a real being in a hard SF story like "Starfog" would ruin it.
But I don't believe there's "...an ultimate conflict between the technological and the supernatural." Catholics can believe in the laws of nature as deduced by the sciences and in God, Who created the angels, some of whom fell and became demons. So I disagree with Blish there. I see no real conflict/contradiction between faith and science, properly understood.
Ad astra! Sean
Though remember Clarke's Law: a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I suspect quantum or nuclear devices would look magical to a Victorian.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Good point, re Clarke's Law. I even mentioned that "Law" in a recent combox comment.
Not sure about your second comment. After all, the work of late 19th century physicists like Maxwell helped to lay the foundations of quantum mechanics and nuclear science. I wonder how writers like Verne, Wells,Haggard, Doyle, Kipling, etc., might react to nuclear devices in the 1890's?
Ad astra! Sean
"Verne, Wells,Haggard, Doyle, Kipling, etc., might react to nuclear devices in the 1890's?"
Henri Bequerel stumbled on radioactivity in 1896 & was smart enough to think "that's strange" and do further experiments. Soon he & other scientists realized that there is some immense store of energy in atoms that slowly leaks out in radioactivity & there was lots of speculation about possibly getting the energy out faster & so getting useful work done this phenomenon. Eventually Wells at least wrote stories that included nuclear energy for both constructive & destructive purposes.
BTW from this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Becquerel
"As often happens in science, radioactivity came close to being discovered nearly four decades earlier in 1857, when Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor, who was investigating photography under Michel Eugène Chevreul, observed that uranium salts emitted radiation that could darken photographic emulsions."
Kaor, Jim!
Thanks! I was esp. interested at finding out radioactivity might have been discovered as early as 1857. What might have happened if people like Becquerel had started working on that by 1860? Nuclear power plants and weapons by 1914?
I was esp. to see on Fox News today reporting about a potentially crucial break thru in developing fusion power! If fusion becomes practical that would be a much better form of nuclear power than using fission.
Ad astra! Sean
Fusion power: we got that on the news here.
Kaor, Paul!
This potential break thru in developing fusion nuclear power is something I want to find out more about!
Ad astra! Sean
I approve of continued research on fusion, but I am doubtful about it being practical anytime soon. It has some difficulties that tend to get ignored.
See this for some of them including some I hadn't considered before reading it.
http://alderspace.pbworks.com/w/page/142684632/myths%20of%20fusion
Kaor, Jim!
But I'm not expecting fusion nuclear power to be practical soon. According to what I've read, the recent potential break thru was "proof of concept," evidence showing it could work. Still lots of bugs and kinks to clear away.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: nuclear weapons and power plants are one of the clearest cases of theory having to proceed practice; without Einstein, they're just not conceivable.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Granted! But the idea of radioactivity and all its implications being discovered as early as 1857 still intrigued me. Did it have to be ONLY Einstein and his work making practical use of nuclear energy possible? Couldn't other geniuses like Clerk Maxwell have done the same?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Maxwell and some others hit the edges of relativity. Maxwell's equations are much more straightforward when viewed through relativistic frame, for example -- if you use the neo-Newtonian one common in the 19th century they're relatively "ugly" and complex.
But it required increasing evidence contradicting the reigning synthesis and a consciousness of its inadequacy before it could be blown up.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that very "ugliness" you mentioned just MIGHT have made Maxwell and other scientists so dissatisfied with that neo-Newtonian framework that they could have duplicated Einstein's work decades before the GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY was published.
I'm still intrigued with the idea of practical nuclear power by 1914!
Merry Christmas! Sean
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