"Poul Anderson, 1995"
-Poul Anderson, Introduction IN Anderson, Operation Chaos (Sutton, Surrey, 1995), facing p. 1.
In some sf, there are many parallel universes and our "real world" is one of them, a particularly hateful one according to the viewpoint character of Poul Anderson's "Eutopia." But, in reality, as far as we know, alternative universes and histories are our own fantastic mental reflections of this single world that we inhabit. That is why we enjoy finding the familiar within the exotic.
Poul Anderson created the Merseians to be standard space opera villains: green-skinned, reptiloid, hairless and tailed. They became a more rounded intelligent and civilized species as their stories were incorporated into a more serious speculative series. In their last appearance, they not only fight space battles - of course - but also plan what propaganda to feed to gullible Terrans. They begin to sound like some kinds of Terrans that are known to us! But they still remain exotic, colourful, extrasolar aliens.
In Robert Heinlein's "Magic, Inc.," there are legal repercussions for a company that transports goods on a direct route across town by flying carpet, forgetting that the magic will fail when the carpet passes over consecrated ground... That really is the familiar within the exotic.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What interests me about "Eutopia" was that I was still too young at the time I first read it to understand why the ending of that story was so shocking. It took me time to realize the institutionalized child abuse of that "good place" showed it was just as bad as our timeline.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
"Eutopia" belongs to a subset of Anderson's stories with surprising, distasteful, even shocking endings. Examples I've thought of being "Welcome," "The Martyr," and WORLD WITHOUT STARS. There may be others that should be listed here, but I don't recall their titles.
Ad astra! Sean
"The past is another country; they do things differently there."
In other words, people in severely different cultures inhabit a different perceptual and moral universe. They're literally not seeing what you see, or experiencing what you experience.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, but that does not mean all of the things done in "severely different cultures" are good or tolerable. I would not consider a culture run by NAMBLA a good one!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, that's your perspective, which is as valid as anyone else's.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
But child abuse is indisputably a bad thing. There are limits, lines have to be drawn.
Ad astra! Sean
I agree that children should be protected, as just one example.
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