Gunnar Heim:
-The Star Fox, p. 205.
Hugh Valland:
"'Exactly which government out of a million would you choose to act? This is too damn big a cosmos for anything but individuals to deal with it.'"
-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), III, p. 22.
Too big for any individual man or even for an entire government? Yes.
Too big for governments but not too big for individuals? Valland's statement seems to contradict not only Heim's statement but also itself. But we know what Valland means. No one is dealing with the universe as a whole, in any case. A company and a university are dealing with one planet.
However, the crew of the Meteor are having to consider the most fundamental of cosmic processes:
"'The galaxies were formed by the condensation of monstrous hydrogen clouds...'" (p. 18)
Sf writers and readers need to remember that instead of just treating planetary surfaces as settings for assassination attempts on the God-Emperor or whatever.
(The attached blurb reminds us that sf authors so often write about wars.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
What Valland meant, of course, was that it's often only the man at the spot who will able to do anything about the problem there. Trying to refer the crisis to the "home office" is more likely to cause endless delay as people argue back and forth about what can be done. With the problem going from bad to worse!
Ad astra! Sean
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