"'Too bad, isn't it, that this tremendous quest of ours hasn't made us worthy of itself. We're the same limited, foolish, mixed-up, ridiculous primitives we always were. Today's Earth people wouldn't have our problems. But it is we, not they, who've gone out here.'" (pp. 516-517)
This is relevant to the two previous posts.
Well, that's something, then. It takes all sorts to inhabit a universe and a particular sort to explore it.
Pytheas has now been away from the Solar System for seven hundred and fifty Terrestrial years. We do not know what has become of Earth or its people in that time. Poul Anderson does not have to imagine it. If the Survivors do ever return to Earth, then it will be a considerably longer time later and long after the end of this novel. If there had been a sequel, then I would have preferred it to be about what they continue to find out in the galaxy.
7 comments:
The advanced alien species they find, IIRC, were not encouraging...
Kaor, Paul!
And explorers and adventurers are going to be the ambitious, restless, discontented, frustrated types. People who feel stymied, hemmed in, thwarted at home.
Ad astra! Sean
As the unofficial Canadian national anthem goes:
"Westward from the Davis Strait
'tis there 'twas said to lie;
The sea-route to the Orient
For which so many died.
They came seeking gold and glory;
They left weathered, broken bones
And some long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Ah, for just one time
I would take the northwest passage
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
And draw one warm line
Through a land so wide and savage,
And take a Northwest Passage to the sea."
"Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers
for anyone who wants to hear a complete version.
There are some excellent cover versions too.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Falling behind again, because of mundane, real stuff. Trying to make a start catching up.
And I agree with and sympathize with the mindset and attitude of "Northwest Passage."
I also thought of Kipling's "Admiralty" poem that Anderson quoted from at the end of THE ENEMY STARS.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: that's a good poem. Though my favorite includes:
"When you march up the Via Aurelia
As thousands have done before
Remember the Luck of the Soldier
Who never say Rome anymore!
Oh, dear was the lover who kissed him,
And dear was the mother who bore;
But then they found his shield in the heather
And he never saw Rome anymore.
When you march up the Via Aurelia
That leads from the City to Gaul;
Remember the Luck of the Soldier
Who rose to be master of all!
He carried the sword and the buckler,
He mounted his watch on the Wall;
Then the Legions hailed him as Caesar,
And he rose to be Master of All!
It's twenty-five marches to Narbo
It's forty-five more up the Rhone,
And the end may be death in the heather
Or life on an Emperor's throne..."
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Very good, I like Kipling's verses. And that bit about the "luck of the soldier" including having the Legions hailing one of them to be Master of All was esp. true during the anarchy of the Third Century Crisis of the Empire, from the assassination of Alexander Severus to the accession of Diocletian.
And you wrote a version of this poem for THE GENERAL books, co-authored with David Drake. A song that made Governors of the Civil Government of Holy Federation on Bellevue very antsy!
Ad astra! Sean
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