Two Directions

Futuristic sf can take two directions:

How will continued technological advances affect society?

Will mankind survive if technological civilization collapses?

Kith addesses the first question; Maurai addresses the second.

Post-collapse novels like:

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart;
several by Poul Anderson;
the Change series by SM Stirling -

- make positive statements about the resilience, aptitudes and adaptability of human beings.

After the Change, I would want to have ex-SAS men like Stirling's Sam Aylward and the Lorings on my side. I heard of a guy who failed to get into the SAS on his third and, by the rules, final attempt although this time he had completed all the tests. When told that he had failed, he whined, "But why have I failed? I did everything right this time!" He was then told that now he had failed. That was the final test. Even I know that the correct response would have been, "Yes, sir! Permission to ask why, sir?" But I would not have got anything else right.

"Before The Gods That Made The Gods"

"Before the gods that made the gods" is a line in a poem by GK Chesterton. See here. It is also the title of Part Three of Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991). Part Three is set in the Time Patrol Academy in 31,275,389 BC. Thus, the title conveys the idea of a beginning before our earliest beginning - a very long time ago.

SM Stirling's King Bjarni Ironrede describes the Native Americans as:

"'...the First People who came here when the Ice withdrew and worshipped the Gods before the Gods.'"
-SM Stirling, The King Of Montival (New York, 2009), Chapter Nine, p. 166.

The Shield Of Time, Part Four, "Beringia," shows the ancestors of the Native Americans crossing Beringia from Asia into North America.

After being proclaimed king, Bjarni spends a night on the roof of his father's howe where he dreams conversations with the dead. Poul Anderson's characters converse with their dead here.

Bjarni says:

"'...the lord and the land and the folk are one.'" (Chapter Eight, p. 162) -

- and symbolizes this by wearing a belt that resembles the world-encircling serpent. Thus, Bjarni's waist is the equator!

In George R Stewart's post-apocalypse novel, Earth Abides, an imaginative child says that coins show the faces of the gods before our gods. He explains that our gods made the buildings, roads and bridges whereas the gods before them made the sun, sky and sea...

The Red Plague

"The Deserter."

The Red Plague is:

"'...lethal, and has an unknown incubation period, and has now attacked some of our men. Do you see? It could kill off whole populations, bring down whole civilizations.'" (p. 66)

Might the next mutated virus kill everyone on Earth or, the next worse thing, kill so many people that civilization collapses? There are many currents threats. This could be another of them. Of course, it has happened in sf:

Survivors (TV series);
The Last Man by Mary Shelley;
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.

For The Last Man on the blog, see here; for Earth Abides, see here. (Scroll down.)

A pleasant thought! I will try to put it aside while I drive my daughter and granddaughter to photograph deer on a country estate on this English Sunday afternoon.