After Doomsday is cosmic sf and begins:
"Earth is dead. They murdered our Earth!'" (1, p. 5)
The Day After Judgement is theological fantasy and begins:
"The Fall of God put Theron Ware in a peculiarly unenviable position..."
-James Blish, The Day After Judgement IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 427-522 AT p. 431.
In sf, Earth can end and, beyond that, even the whole universe can end. The latter happens in Tau Zero by Poul Anderson and The Triumph of Time by James Blish. In fantasy, the theological environment can change. In The Day After Judgement, God has died, to be replaced by Satan. In Lucifer by Mike Carey, God retires, to be replaced by his granddaughter, Lucifer's niece. (This version of the Adversary does not want the job.)
The sterilization of Earth seems like pretty small stuff in this context - but not to all of us who live here.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Now I'm puzzled, was THE DAY AFTER DOOMSDAY Anderson's preferred title for AFTER DOOMSDAY?
Ad astra! Sean
I don't know which he preferred.
AFTER DOOMSDAY is punchier.
Disasters are always more disastrous when they happen to -you-, of course...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, as regards what you said about the title of AFTER DOOMSDAY. But, whenever possible, an author's title should be preferred.
Ha, I agree! Just as it's more fun reading Niven/Pournelle's LUCIFER'S HAMMER than it would be to actually have to try surviving the catastrophe in that book.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: "Adventure -- someone else in deep **it, far away."
There's a classic joke about an old salt telling a young boy about the terrors of a bad storm at sea. The boy asks: "And what did you do then, Tom?" To which he replies: "Why, then I died, Jimmy!"
A good ending for a ghost story.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I agree! Plus, Anderson gave us several variations, more genteelly worded, on that line.
Paul: I "think" Lord Dunsany did exactly that, writing a ghost story with an ending like that.
Ad astra! Sean
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