Tuesday 26 March 2024

5000 Years

The Long Way Home.

Effectively, this is a time dilation novel. If a spaceship approaches light speed, then its mass increases while its internal duration decreases significantly. When this spaceship, the Explorer, reaches light speed by ceasing to be a mass and becoming, temporarily, a wave, its internal duration decreases to zero: the same effect but more so.

How does a modern man cope when transported into the past by time travel? Novels by Mark Twain and L. Sprague de Camp and two short stories by Poul Anderson.

How does a modern man cope when transported into the future by suspended animation, temporal stasis, time dilation or time travel? Too many works to list, including several by Anderson, including this one.

The adjustment begins when Captain Langely of the Explorer is interviewed by the:

"'...chief field officer of the Solar militechnic intelligence corps...'" (p. 28)

Langely has been hypnotically interrogated and educated in Solar. He learns some history:

overpopulation
declining resources
war
famine
depopulation
collapse
cycle resumed
gravity control
genetic engineering
terraforming of Mars, Venus and Jovian moons
post-World War XXVIII reconstruction
the Technate
extra-solar colonization
war of colonial independence
the League of Alpha Centauri and other such states

6 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

The Solar agent has a tang of Flandry.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I agree, Chanthavar Tang voLurin is reminiscent of Flandry.

Ad astra! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

The Technate sounds like a compound of element 43 ;^)

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

And I thought of the AIs we see in the HARVEST OF STARS and GENESIS who came more and more to be the real rulers of Earth.

Ad astra! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

I was thinking of this :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pertechnetate

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

Yes, but the founders of the Technarchy were probably thinking more in terms of technology, technical expertise, having a scientific cast of mind, etc.

Ad astra! Sean