Friday 21 April 2017

Ways To Survive

Fictionally, how many ways are there to survive into the very remote future?

(i) Time travel:
HG Wells' The Time Machine;
Poul Anderson's "Flight to Forever."

(ii) Time dilation:
Anderson's Tau Zero.

(iii) Temporal stasis:
Anderson's "Time Heals."

(iv) Longevity/immortality:
Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children;
Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years;
Anderson's World Without Stars;
John C. Wright's The Golden Age.

(v) Inorganic intelligences:
Anderson's Genesis.

(vi) Resurrection:
Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series.

(vii) Suspended animation:
Wells' The Sleeper Wakes.

(viii) Reincarnation:
ERB's The Moon Maid;
the Golden Age Hawkman.

As always, a longer list than expected and some unexpected inclusions. Anderson appears six times and Wells twice.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

For your point (iv) I would have included Anderson's very last novel FOR LOVE AND GLORY. In that story mankind had worked out a means of periodically extending human life spans indefinitely for those who wished it.

And for your point (vii) Anderson used suspended animation to enable crews and passengers survive long STL travel to other stars in ORBIT UNLIMITED.

Sean