"We think, in one mood, of Mr Wells' Martians (very unlike the real Malacandrians, by the bye) or his Selenites."
-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT 1, p. 151.
We all know that "the real Malacandrians" are just Lewis' fictional Martians, no more real than Wells' but, while reading this novel, we willingly suspend disbelief! Of course they are real. Ransom has met them.
In similar vein, that narrator of Poul Anderson's After Doomsday comments:
"No wonder the speculative writers has misunderstood their own assumptions. The universe was too big for them.-" (3, p. 29)
Anderson knows that he is one of those speculative writers and that he will not be getting it right, either.
This long commentary by the narrator of After Doomsday stretches, in the Ballantine paperback, for just under two pages of the text and is punctuated by two dashes. Thus:
"-Big indeed..." (p. 27)
"...too big for them.-" (p. 29)
The commentary, explaining the galactic context of the million civilization-clusters, interrupts and is grammatically set apart from a dialogue between Donnan and Goldspring. The narrative continues.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And let's not forget Anderson's THE WAR OF TWO WORLDS, written at a time when there was still some hope Mars had intelligent life. It's also Anderson's "comment" on Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS.
Ad astra! Sean
People do tend to forget how (*)8ing -big- just our galaxy is... and there are lots and lots and lots of galaxies.
BTW, for a book I just finished (THE LORDS OF CREATION) I used an inhabited Dyson Sphere (in the book they call it a Freeman Sphere... 8-) of one AU in diameter.
That would have a surface area on the interior equivalent to 540 -million- Earths.
One of the viewpoint characters calls it "Super-Pellucidar" or "Pellucidar on Steroids".
NB: you can get gravity on the interior of a Dyson Sphere.
You spin it at a certain speed; that gives you 1g on the equator.
But you also add extra mass at the poles -- it would look like a sphere with two giant golf tees at either end from the outside.
If you arrange it carefully, you'd get a uniform 1g over the entire interior.
In the book, the "Lords of Creation" (it's the sequel to THE SKY PEOPLE and IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS) made it 200 million years ago, and have been dumping plants and animals (including people) there for the entire period.
Or their automated systems have, nobody knows. The "gate" mentioned at the end of CRIMSON KINGS opens a passage from off the Bahamas to an ocean on the interior of the Sphere.
I was wondering where those Lords of Creation had disappearedto.
disappeared to.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I agree, the universe is inconceivably vast, with billions or trillions of galaxies.
You are such a busy writer! You have been writing at least two books set in Antonine Rome--and here we find out you were also writing a third volume set in the timeline of THE SKY PEOPLE! I certainly hope we can read both your Antonine books and THE LORDS OF CREATION.
Paul: Or the mysterious aliens who terraformed Venus and Mars could have become extinct, like the Chereionites. Or is that too anticlimactic?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Anything is possible.
Paul.
"Freeman Sphere... 8-) of one AU in diameter."
If that is diameter rather than radius, the sun in the center would have to be substantially dimmer than ours, to appear about as bright from the surface.
Either way if the inhabitants don't have economic transportation faster than current airline speed, things would be similar to the interstellar situation in Technic Civilization. They can be aware of cultures living much farther away than it is practical to reach. With the difference that radio makes *communication* with the whole sphere quite easy.
Kaor, Jim!
A very intriguing premise, what Stirling is doing! It reminds me as well of Larry Niven's RINGWORLD. In fact, THE LORDS OF CREATION should be considered an updating of Niven's idea.
Ad astra! Sean
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