We are impressed by the amount of rebuilding that has been done in the decades since the devastation of World War III. A two mile long, three hundred stories high apartment building, a city in its own right, with landing flanges for individual air boats, looms over the Illinois corn fields of Midwest Agricultural where a few clumps of trees have been planted and old, no longer used, highways are still visible.
We might be disappointed that the plot of this story is not the daily life of the future but good guys versus bad guys: a UN agent spies on and is captured by conspirators. However, there is a deeper point. Already familiar with this story, we are able to skip to a later section where the identity of the enemy is revealed. It is not an equivalent of SMERSH, SPECTRE or Ernst Stavro Blofeld but, in a passage that we have already quoted more than once:
"The enemy was old and strong and crafty, it took a million forms and it could never quite be slain. For it was man himself - the madness and sorrow of the human soul, the revolt of a primitive against the unnatural state called civilization and freedom." (pp. 125-126)
Do we quite agree with this way of putting it? Not necessarily, but it is a powerful statement of a fundamental problem.
See also The Protean Enemy.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't really agree with this "fixation" about the small details of every day life. Some, yes, to flesh out backgrounds and give color to stories, but no more than that. To have SF stories only about the insignificant of daily life would make them boring, IMO.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we can have stories set in the future that are not just cops and robbers stuff. Several instalments in Anderson's future histories do meet this criterion.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because Anderson never dwelt too much on the small details of everyday life. E.g., to write page after page about whether to have toasted bread or muffins for breakfast would be going too far!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But some stories were about more ordinary affairs: "How To Be Ethnic...," "Wingless," "Rescue on Avalon."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But these were also problem/conflict solving stories. Their real interest laid in how to resolve a problem, not boring things like toasted muffins.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Toasted muffins! I am losing the thread here.
Paul.
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