Thursday 9 November 2017

Bigger Than Heinlein... II

See Bigger Than Heinlein...

Robert Heinlein's original five-volume Future History goes interstellar only in its third last installment, Vol IV, and does not show us an interstellar civilization whereas Poul Anderson's much longer History of Technic Civilization, complete in seven omnibus volumes, goes interstellar in its second installment, in Vol I, and shows us several stages of interstellar civilization.

Heinlein's Vols I-III show us a similar cycle on a smaller, specifically Solar, spatio-temporal scale -

Heinlein: expansion; collapse; theocracy; revolution; liberation.

Anderson: expansion; collapse; imperium; greater collapse; later liberation.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I am not at all sure the later "liberation" we see in the Commonalty of "Starfog" will LAST. Nothing in that promises that the Commonalty will permanently remain dynamic and focused on maximizing liberty.

Sean