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!'"
5 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
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