Anderson's characters, and other sf characters, travel between the stars. But stars are a feature of all fiction because any fictional characters can, like us, look up and see them. Bryan Talbot's Helen looks at the stars and asks what do we matter? But later, seeing the stars again, she says that we are fragile, unlikely and precious. In Poul and Karen Anderson's
The King of Ys, one of the Nine Witch Queens of Ys senses the cold distances between the stars. That Tetralogy ends with the beginning of the Dark Ages and the seeds of the Middle Ages and maybe the Witch Queen senses an eventual interstellar age. At the end of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, mankind migrates beyond Sagittarius to the Galactic Centre. Late enough at night, all fiction seems to be one.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Psalm 8 offers a good response to Helen's despair. It reads, in part: "When I see thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established: what is man, that thou art mindful of him or the son of man, that thou art concerned about him?" Then the Psalmist answers those questions: "And thou hast made him a little less than the Angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor; thou hast given him power over the works of thy hands, thou hast placed all things under his feet:..."
However wretched and small mankind is, we still matter to God.
Ad astra! Sean
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