Mike, whom I have mentioned before, has just borrowed Anderson's Genesis and says that his son might also read it so I might get some local discussion of this work. Given that Anderson set out to write some different kinds of future histories after the Technic History, I prefer Genesis to the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy because Genesis is shorter, just one normal-sized novel, also more compact and comprehensive.
In the Psychotechnic and Technic Histories, intelligent organic beings traverse interstellar spaces faster than light whereas, in Genesis, post-organic intelligences traverse such spaces slower than light - a complete antithesis. I think that the Genesis scenario is less implausible. Are post-organic intelligences possible? Given that they are more and other than computers, they must be theoretically possible. Brains can be intelligent so artefacts duplicating brain functions can be intelligent.
Will there be or is there already interstellar travel, whether STL or FTL, anywhere in the universe? Astronomers have found no evidence of it. Reality always turns out to be different from whatever has been imagined.
Genesis is the culmination of Anderson's future histories, Stapledonian in time-scale. Anderson stated that he had followed Stapledon's example with fictional time-scales when writing Tau Zero.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I understand what you mean by considering GENESIS being more compact and convenient to handle. But I would argue the far longer HARVEST OF STARS tetralogy gave Anderson more room and "time" for examining many of the similar concepts found in GENESIS.
The problem with TAU ZERO is that Anderson was dissatisfied with that book. Deadline pressure forced him to turn in to the publisher the ms. of that story before the author was satisfied with it. I thought just now that STARFARERS might be more like Anderson wanted TAU ZERO to be.
Ad astra! Sean
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