"Earth is a quiet world.
"Oh, yes, wind soughs in the great forests that have come back, now that so few people live there; birds sing, cataracts brawl, the oceans rush on the moon's trail around the globe."
-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), XVII, p. 120.
I had been searching through Poul Anderson's works for three words, "the moon's trail." I think that that phrase is extremely evocative. The moon's trail links all the ages of Earth from the far past to this imagined far future. A far future forested Earth is also to be found in The Peregrine, a similar novel except that it is a volume of a future history series whereas World Without Stars is a one-off although set in a fascinating future of antithanatics and instantaneous intergalactic space jumps.
Also to be found on the quiet Earth:
ample enjoyment in starport towns;
educational centres bright with galactic youth;
flourishing arts;
living science and scholarship;
preservation of the old;
traditions;
Earthside property left in the charge of robots for centuries...
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That last bit, "immortals" being able to leave for centuries and coming back to find their homes perfectly clean and maintained sticks in my mind. While I'm doubtful of the kind of "immortality" seen in WORLD WITHOUT STARS, it is one of Anderson's most intriguing stories.
Ad astra! Sean
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