Sigrid Holmen, travelling to a private interview with Carl Donnan, reflects:
"We are together, the two halves of the human race. We know now that man will live; there will be children and hearthfires on another Earth - in the end, on a thousand or a million other Earths." (p. 112)
That is the Andersonian future in any timeline. And hearthfires will outlast civilizations. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Terran Empire will become a fireside legend and, in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys, the sunken city of Ys becomes a hearthside story. For both of these references, see here.
Multiple pasts and futures but one multiverse.
We again approach the conclusion of After Doomsday. Where after that?
9 comments:
To be human is to attach all possible importance to the human race.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: And that's exactly how normal human beings should rightly think, feel, believe.
It was sickening to read of women, bleating about reducing their "carbon footprint," butchering their babies. BAH!!!!!
Paul: The cover illustration for that paper-back edition of ROMA MATER has to be one of the best covers I've seen for any of Anderson's books.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes and I don't think that we have had that one on this blog before.
Paul.
Who were these women who butchered babies?
Kaor, Paul!
Possibly five or six years ago I read an article about how a pregnant woman (sic) in London was blathering, that to reduce her "carbon footprint," she had her baby aborted. Sickening, disgusting, outrageous!
Ad astra! Sean
One woman. An abortion. Five or six years ago.
As I commented previously, note that the "human Race" in AFTER DOOMSDAY will be very, very different from that before it.
They've gone through a -selective- genetic bottleneck. The average IQ will be much higher, and the average physique will be much better.
And they will learn as well as teach.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Humans being what they are, I absolutely expect there were other women bleating such nonsense who murdered their babies to reduce their "carbon footprint'!
Even many fallen away Catholics will regard three things with special horror and dismay: defiling the Blessed Sacrament, suicide, and abortion.
Mr. Stirling: I do see your point, about how that genetic bottleneck might result in the descendants of the "Franklin"/"Europa" crews being more intelligent and having a better physique than is the average. The skeptic in me, believing as I do that if something is too good to be true then it won't be true, wonders how long that higher than average IQ will last as numbers increase.
Ad astra! Sean
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