"God was rising in the west..." (I, p. 5)
"God," it will transpire, is our galaxy seen from a planet orbiting a star in intergalactic space. When rereading such a novel, it is easy to skip the two-page opening chapter when we know that the human point of view begins in Chapter II. This, like the concluding chapter discussed in the preceding post, is extremely evocative:
"On another evening, very far away, I had heard another song. This was when I got back to City." (II, p. 7)
The first person narrator explains that he had conducted some business on the surface of the planet Landomar, then returned in his space boat to the centuries-old satellite appropriately named "City" with its glowing towers, parapets, domes and ports. On p. 7, he hears the music played on an omnisonor by Hugh Valland whom he then meets for the first time although, writing his autobiography at a later date, he has already referred to Valland as somehow unique among spacemen a few paragraphs earlier.
But why did Guild Captain Felip Argens, as he turns out to be called, begin by referring to another song on another evening very far away? The answer is that what we read is an excerpt from the published autobiography. Thus, before we began reading, Argens had already referred to some song heard on some evening that we learn nothing about, an evening some time later than this one in City. These characters live for centuries, even, in Valland's case, for millennia, so their experience is longer than we can possibly learn about. They share this fate with the mutant immortals in The Boat Of A Million Years and also with Anderson's Time Patrollers. Surely they would cease to be human in any recognizable sense?
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would still consider these "immortals" to be humans, even if very peculiar human beings.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that immortality would effectively mean eternal exile if you lived long enough -- you'd be in a completely different cultural setting, with different moral assumptions and reflexes.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That certainly seems to describe Hugh Valland, in WORLD WITHOUT STARS, an "immortal" who was away from Earth for generations or centuries at a time.
But, we also see mention of how there were certain other "immortals" on Earth who never left the planet, but were content to live quietly in out of the way places away from the space ports. For centuries after centuries they lived their own insulated, inward looking lives. That means, to me, these small communities preserved their own "moral assumptions and reflexes.
And this kind of conservatism seems to be the norm on many of the colonial planets of WORLD WITHOUT STARS. Anderson seems to have thought this kind of "immortality" would mean the same leaders, their families, friends, neighbors, etc., would pretty much have the same "moral assumptions and reflexes" for untold centuries.
But I'm skeptical of this kind of "immortality" being likely!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it would certainly -slow down- change, but not stop it. I suspect that younger people would also leave in droves, driven to it by the stodginess of their parents... and grandparentsl... and great-grandparents... and great-great-grandparents...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, in such a scenario bored and frustrated youngsters would leave for worlds where they wouldn't have to knuckle under to great-great-great-great grandpa!
Ad astra! Sean
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