Sea Of Stars

Sf writers describe stars seen from space. Perhaps this is when a man or woman is in their most direct relationship to the universe as a whole. We have quoted Poul Anderson's many descriptions of the Milky Way. James Blish also does this well. In the story to which I have recently referred, he describes the Solar System seen by a man who is leaving it:

"...a sea of stars in which the planets were only other sparks, lost in vastness and impossible to identify without the aid of the computer..."

-James Blish, "Darkside Crossing" IN Galaxy, December 1970, p. 21.

And, when the Sun has become so small that it too can only be identified by the computer:

"The lone star that had spawned Man's home was now only a bright dot among thousands of other dots; no longer Zarathustra's and Mithra's great object of worship, but only a grain of incandescent sand on a remote, permanently dusky beach.

"Dane was expatriate, as no man had ever been before - nor would he ever see that Sun again." (p. 23)

The phrase, "...lone star..." is evocative - as is an object of worship reduced to a grain of sand on a remote and dusky beach. Sf takes us out and into the universe.