(i) Both are future historians. I have tried but failed to get into Cherryh's future history series but don't let me discourage anyone else from trying. Better men than me are well into Cherryh's series.
(ii) Just as Anderson has contributed to some other authors' fictional universes (see here), Cherryh has done likewise at least once. Furthermore, her contribution has been to Superman which I have said that I would have liked Anderson to have done. (See here.) From what I remember, Cherryh, like Maggin, conveys some sense of what it would be like to fly at super-speed. However fantastic the content, a novelist, working only with words, must present not only visual descriptions but also the characters' points of views.
Anderson presents fliers (Ythrians) and mermen.
18 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I've also tried reading one of Cherryh's books, but it didn't "grab" me.
Anderson invented flying Diomedeans before he came up with Ythrians (partly because of a suggestion from Campbell). And reused "Ythri," which he took from the original version of "Honorable Enemies."
Ad astra! Sean
I’m a huge Cherryh fan, but her writing style doesn’t appeal to everyone. For “realistic” science fiction, though, her stuff is hard to beat - especially the Alliance-Union universe around the Company Wars era with its strong focus on stations as opposed to the endless colonizable planets we see so much elsewhere. She also absolutely nails space combat at high fractions of c in a way that no one else has come close to.
So glad I found your blog. I was trying to refresh my memory on Hans Molitor and you’re damned near the only source online, my friend. It’s a tragedy how the giants like Anderson and Dickson are fading away. Thirty years ago their books were still all over the shelves of the used bookstores, and now they’ve almost vanished from even there. Thanks for keeping it alive!
TJ,
Thank you. This is very encouraging. You make me want to post more about Manuel Argos but maybe not tonight.
Paul.
Kaor, TJ!
It's good to see another voice here! As you say re Cherryh tastes will differ as regards her works. I would argue that Anderson handled futuristic war very well, such as the space navy battle between the Terrans and Merseians in ENSIGN FLANDRY. I would also recommend Stirling's Draka books for extensive examination of how advanced tech might affect war (esp. the third vol., THE STONE DOGS).
I have nothing against "stations" (O'Neill habitats?) and I hope they will be built. But I still think that if it becomes possible to colonize other planets most humans would prefer that.
Your mention of the Reluctant Usurper, Hans Molitor, made me think of two guest articles Paul kindly uploaded here: "The Imperial Gardener" and "The Widow of Georgios," which may possibly interest you. I mentioned Hans in at least one of them.
I agree, it's tragic how the works of Anderson and other fine SF writers are disappearing. I get so irked every time I look over the science fiction section at Barnes & Noble to find so many of Asimov's overrated books and nothing by Anderson!
I would suggest looking up NESFA Press because it republished many of the short works of Anderson and many other SF writers in high quality hard backs.
Ad astra! Sean
"I have nothing against "stations" (O'Neill habitats?) and I hope they will be built. But I still think that if it becomes possible to colonize other planets most humans would prefer that."
How close to the conditions on Earth would be needed for human colonization?
Gravity, day length, air composition etc. would all be easier to duplicate in a rotating space habitat than on another planet.
Within this solar system, day length on Mars is close enough to earth, and gravity on Venus is almost certainly close enough. If Martian gravity is too low for human health there is no way to modify that. Changing the conditions on Venus other than gravity to close enough for humans would take a *long* time and enormous industrial capacity. Given that humans live near the poles with long periods of continuous day or night, I expect that the long rotation period of Venus could be lived with if the temperature, air, and amount of surface water can be adjusted.
However, building lots of O'Neill cylinder would be much easier. Though there is no reason we could not do both.
Kaor, Jim!
Anderson would agree, conditions on terrestroid would range from very Earthlike to extremely marginal. But he believed humans would be adaptable enough live on planets in conditions we would think very uncomfortable. I'm reminded of how, in THE GAME OF EMPIRE, the humans who colonized the highlands of Imhotep adapted to a gravity 30% greater than that of Terra.
As we know, from the HARVEST OF STARS books, Anderson thought the gravity of Mars high enough to allow humans to live and reproduce there. Also, in THE CASE FOR MARS, Robert Zubrin argued in detail why he believed humans could live there. As for Venus it might not necessarily take a huge effort, at least at first, to terraform it. Jerry Pournelle, in his article "The Big Rain" (A STEP FARTHER OUT, Ace 1980), discussed how that might be done.
Again, I have no objection to O'Neill habitats and I wish some had already been built. However, you overlooked a weakness that may discourage their construction: their vulnerability to attack in times of war or civil war. O'Neill habitats, even if they have powerful defenses, seem too easily likely to be destroyed. And, unless you go Berserker, planets and their populations would be harder to totally destroy (e.g., see "A Tragedy of Errors").
Ad astra! Sean
Surely we are not going to take war into orbit and to other planets? We have to end wars before we leave Earth. Right now, a lot of resources are being invested in destruction and not in restoring the environment or in making Earth fit to face the rest of the universe.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course we will, because human beings are like that, prone to strife and conflict. It's unrealistic to expect otherwise.
Any kind of peace on Earth is not going to come via sweet reasonableness. It's far more likely one ambitious power or another will try to conquer the world (such as Maoist China). The best I can think of would be something like the Solar Commonwealth of the Technic stories or the United Commonwealths of Anderson/Dickson's Hoka tales.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are not prone to strife and conflict. But the idea that human beings who naturally cooperate and help each other are prone to strife and conflict serves the interests of those who want to maintain current divisions which threaten to destroy humanity.
I do not advocate sweet reasonableness. You frequently reply to things that have not been said!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And you persist in overlooking how much of that "cooperation" also goes into many kinds of organized conflicts, such as wars. And many humans are not going to change in the ways you wish.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I do not deny that much cooperation goes into conflict. Why should I deny that? I cite it when I am arguing how fundamental cooperation is to humanity. Even the Nazis had to cooperate with each other in order to exterminate someone else. That proves that we are fundamentally a social species, not isolated conflicting individuals.
I do not predict that many individuals will, purely as individuals, change from whatever they are now into something else. How could that happen? Why should it? I do say that society changes and that we cooperatively, collectively, democratically can and should have much more say in the kind of society that we want to live in. Millions vocally oppose the current war-mongering by those at the top. I do say that exactly the same individuals who are violent in one set of social conditions are non-violent in another set of social conditions. Your idea that, even when there are no longer any material or social causes of conflict, perfectly peaceable and law-abiding citizens will nevertheless suddenly want to attack and kill each other for no reason whatsoever is completely unrealistic.
But we have said all this before. It is as if past arguments are completely forgotten.
Paul.
Sean:
Somewhere in the videos by Isaac Arthur
https://www.youtube.com/@isaacarthurSFIA/videos
he suggests putting a non-rotating shield of material around a rotating space habitat. This would be to protect the habitat from radiation & accidental or deliberate impacts.
This would be helpful against nature, carelessness, or humans being less good than Paul hopes.
Sean, you seem to have a mental block against considering the possibility of humans being somewhat more like Paul believes than you do.
I do recommend the book "Humankind: A Hopeful History" by Rutger Bregman, for evidence that humans at least *can* be more like Paul's hopes than you believe. I don't consider it 'utopian', he does look seriously at the evils done by humans as well as the good that gets left out of the news headlines and history books (if it bleeds it leads).
Kaor, Paul and Jim!\
Paul: And sometimes I feel like Sancho Panza struggling to keep Don Quixote from flying off into complete unrealism.
Jim: Iow, Isaac Arthur was a bit like me, disinclined to be completely trustful of human beings.
I do have a "mental block," I think and believe as an orthodox Catholic who believes ours is a Fallen race. Which means, with all due respect to you, I am never going to believe in at least the more extreme Utopian hopes I've seen. I will concede we can sometimes do better, with the caveat we have no guarantees such advances will be permanent. And I don't believe they all will be.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I have shown that my ideas are grounded in reality.
We are not Fallen. All the evidence is that we have evolved and risen and can rise further.
Paul.
Sean,
How is it unreal to say that when material and social causes of violence are ended, violence itself will end? You do not adequately respond to specific points that I make. You just continue to dismiss my conclusions because they contradict your presuppositions.
When you make statements like "We are Fallen," I make the corresponding counterstatements, e.g. "We are not Fallen." I am trying to make a point here, that we need more than mere statements.
If you merely repeat what you said in the first place, "prone to violence..." etc, then I repeat my previous replies like "There are many times, places and circumstances in which we are not violent." This does not advance a conversation. It merely repeats it.
My attempts to reflect on the argumentative process and at least to clarify our understanding of it if nothing else do not bear fruit. We remain stalled at the very first stage of the argument: statements; counterstatements; points that I make that are not replied to.
Paul.
I anticipate more repetition. My conclusions contradict history and experience? But the future WILL be different and CAN be different in specific ways that we can spell out now and that I have already spelt out.
Kaor, Paul!
I still disagree. I've seen no proofs, only hopes and speculations. My belief remains that of Psalm 145.3: "Put not your trust in princes, in man, through whom there is no salvation." And verse 4 is also appropriate: "When his spirit has departed, he shall return to his earth; then shall all his schemes perish."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course you still disagree. That is not the point. I do not expect you to agree. I do hope that you will at last see that there is more than mere hope or speculation to a particular line of argument (with which you will still disagree, of course). I cannot PROVE that anything will happen in future but it is more than a mere hope or speculation to argue: that advanced technology CAN produce abundance; that abundance CAN make it no longer necessary to compete for resources, territory, oil, trade routes, markets, profits or employment; that liberation from the necessity for such competition CAN make life qualitatively better and release creative potential among not everyone but significant numbers of people; that, in such a world, there would no longer be any need for weapons production, armies, police protecting "private property" or warehouses full of commodities to be sold, not shared.
Do you still think that I am saying that this WILL happen? Do you still think that this is mere hope and not an argument from the fact of technological progress to the POSSIBILITY of changed material and social conditions leading to changed social relationships and also, over time, to changed individual psychologies? (I feel that I say a lot here that is simply ignored.)
Paul.
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