Janice reflects that the Britannian ancestors who came to the Dyson sphere were so historically recent that they were:
"Post Jules Verne, or mid-Jules Verne, at least." (p. 155)
For a long time, I have thought of Poul Anderson as a successor of:
Mary Shelley
Mark Twain
HG Wells
L. Sprague de Camp
Robert Heinlein
- but have not included Verne in this list maybe because I think in terms of English-language sf?
In Alan Moore's The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the early twentieth century space race is between the British who have Cavorite and the French who have a big cannon...
Retro-sf should acknowledge and combine the heritages of Wells and Verne. The latter disliked Cavorite:
"'Il invente!'"
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
If the British who got herded into that Dyson sphere arrived there "mid-Jules Verne," I might date that to about 1880.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Maybe Verne disliked "Cavorite" because it was too much like magic.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes. Not based in science. Wells "...invents."
Wells often used "arbitrary" increases in technological capacity, then explored the -consequences- of the discovery without going into much detail about it. Verne tended to limit himself to things that could be done with contemporary materials and knowledge -- tho' in his submarine adventure, the sub has the capacity of a nuclear engine.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Good SF writers should invent--and do that plausibly, as Anderson so often did.
Mr. Stirling: Yes, but it was that unconvincing arbitrariness that made much of Wells' SF unsatisfactory to me--as seen in THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU.
I'm more inclined to favor Verne's approach, sticking to what can be done using current knowledge/materials. Yes, in 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, Verne went plausibly beyond what was then known.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, but Wells anticipated a lot of scientific developments -- not exactly or in detail, but in the sense that the capacity to do X did come along.
In other words, he knew that science would produce capacities unknown in his own time.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I can agree with what you said about Wells' shrewd futuristic speculations--while still disliking some of his stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Wells did have his foibles. For example, he overestimated the effects of air bombardment in physical and psychological terms, but then, most people (including air commanders) did.
People before WWII overestimated the impact of conventional bombing -- they anticipated that it would completely panic people and wreak a level of devastation that would paralyze the war effort.
Bomber commanders had an incentive to believe that, of course.
But it wasn't true. For example, in early 1945, Curtis LeMay staged an incindiary raid on Tokyo that killed 100,000 people in a single night -- more than either of the nuclear strikes, btw.
It didn't materially affect the readiness of the Japanese people to keep on fighting.
Sean: In the ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, Wells effectively anticipated advanced DNA sculpting, which we're just now developing.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yes, before WW II, people overestimated what could be achieved by bombing. A determined gov't, bad or good, could take countermeasures, such as hiding or dispersing munitions plants/factories, civil defense measures for lessening casualties, etc., could be implemented.
There were fears in the US that any invasion of a desperate Japan fanatically fighting on to the last bayonet would result in 500,000 American deaths. Even after the two atomic bombings it needed the direct, rare COMMAND of Emperor Showa before Japan finally surrendered. The Emperor decided enough was enough, humiliation was better than national extinction.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
But THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU struck me as crude and unsatisfactory, it wasn't much more than Dr. Moreau surgically making animals look like humans.
That seems new to me, "advanced DNA sculpting." Something like the "biosculpt" of Anderson's Technic stories?
Ad astra! Sean
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