The Future is Closer
Brenda Clough
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/space/10solar.html?_r=1&hpw
Brenda
Joseph Nebus
>And it is Arthur C Clarke's future!!
>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/space/10solar.html?_r=1&hpw
Clarke's are usually the futures I'd pick given the free choice.
If it's possible to avoid the massive die-off of humans on Earth, at
least; maybe that was a phase he was going through in the 70s, as so
many did.
Note that a Space Elevator contest recently nearly met the goals
for the first-place prize, too:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/science/space/08nasa.html?ref=space
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Nicoll
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>Brenda Clough <Bre...@sff.net> writes:
>
>>And it is Arthur C Clarke's future!!
>
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/space/10solar.html?_r=1&hpw
>
> Clarke's are usually the futures I'd pick given the free choice.
>If it's possible to avoid the massive die-off of humans on Earth, at
>least; maybe that was a phase he was going through in the 70s, as so
>many did.
>
kind of guy.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Joseph Nebus
>In article <nebusj.1...@vcmr-86.server.rpi.edu>,
>Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>>Brenda Clough <Bre...@sff.net> writes:
>>
>>>And it is Arthur C Clarke's future!!
>>
>>>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/space/10solar.html?_r=1&hpw
>>
>> Clarke's are usually the futures I'd pick given the free choice.
>>If it's possible to avoid the massive die-off of humans on Earth, at
>>least; maybe that was a phase he was going through in the 70s, as so
>>many did.
>>
> Which novel(s)? I thought he was more of a gradual drawdown
>kind of guy.
Hm. Well, _Rendezvous with Rama_ starts off with a meteor strike
in Central Europe. That doesn't quite qualify as a massive die-off, but
it's still got to be a death total getting on the order of magnitude of a
World War. (I remember Venice sinking as explicit damages; I suppose that
it's better than if the meteor hit the Mediterranean but still, very much
not good.)
_Imperial Earth_ is the centerpiece for this as there's the Time
of Troubles --- I think that was the name for it, but it's been a couple
years since I read it last and I can't find my copy right away --- where
the human population dropped by something on the order of 90 percent its
pre-catastrophe level. My impression was the fall took one or two
generations, although it's possible Clarke was vague about this. Still,
considering the dropping has to be done in at most three centuries and
most likely far less implies a lot of vacant houses in the neighborhood.
_The Fountains of Paradise_ closes off with an Earth that's been
left fallow while the Sun has one of its cold spells. While there's the
network of space elevators to provide reasonably fast, cheap access to
space and allow for a roughly orderly evacuation, evacuating something
like ten billion people off the planet in their lifetime seems to strain
whatever the plausible launch mechanisms are. Perhaps I'm reading into
it something Clarke didn't mean (I'm not positive there's any clear idea
given for how long evacuation does take), although freezing the planet
over does suggest a major ecological die-off in species that humans don't
find cuddly or tasty which aren't rats.
Stepping a little outside the 70s, _The Songs Of Distant Earth_
(the novel version) leads with the complete obliteration of Earth as a
planet. There are colonies, some established prior to the book's
existence, and the ship of evacuees that gets the story started, but
that's not just nearly all humanity killed but near everything.
_Childhood's End_ similarly has all of humanity --- well, perhaps
it's not killed but transformed (that does seem to be Clarke's intent),
but it's still killed every other form of life on Earth, and for that
matter Earth as a world at all.
_Against The Fall Of Night/The City And The Stars_ has humanity
glommed up by the Mad Mind wreaking havoc on the entire Galaxy. I believe
that most people are assumed to be absorbed into the Not So Mad Mind, but
what's left of humanity --- and the rest of the world --- is not so much
and it's my impression that the same could be said about the rest of the
Galactic Empire.
And while humans make out all right, _2010: Odyssey Two_ has an
entire ecosystem much vaster than the Earth's deliberately destroyed.
The coda to, I think, _2061: Odyssey Three_ has the dimming of Lucifer,
implying the destruction of the Europa ecosystem and the immediate
massive hardship for humanity's colonies on Ganymede and Callisto. That
may now be apocryphal given _3001_, but, if you didn't read that then
what would you conclude?
I have the faint idea that _The Ghost From The Grand Banks_
includes a coda set after the end of human life on Earth, but not any
details about how it ended, and actually the only solid memories I have
of it are somebody fixed the Y2K problem (remember the Y2K problem?),
somebody else made a vibrating windshield for cars, and someone had a
Mandelbrot-shaped swimming pool.
I've not read the collaborations other than _Rama II_ and
letting my eyes glaze over a bit of _The Garden of Rama_, which shows
how far I will go for punishment.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Nebus
> Hm. Well, _Rendezvous with Rama_ starts off with a meteor strike
>in Central Europe. That doesn't quite qualify as a massive die-off, but
>it's still got to be a death total getting on the order of magnitude of a
>World War. (I remember Venice sinking as explicit damages; I suppose that
>it's better than if the meteor hit the Mediterranean but still, very much
>not good.)
Addendum: it turns out the opening chapter, at least, to _Rama_
is available on Google Books.
Clarke gives 600,000 killed in the meteor strike and mentions a
million with hearing loss from the strike. This is below the order of
magnitude for a World War, all parties counted. But Wikipedia gives the
estimate of a half million Italians dead from June 1940 to May 1945, and
of necessity most of the casualties from the 2077 meteor strike would be
Italian, so there's a sense where I'm not too far off.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Nicoll
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>
>>In article <nebusj.1...@vcmr-86.server.rpi.edu>,
>>Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>>>Brenda Clough <Bre...@sff.net> writes:
>>>
>>>>And it is Arthur C Clarke's future!!
>>>
>>>>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/space/10solar.html?_r=1&hpw
>>>
>>> Clarke's are usually the futures I'd pick given the free choice.
>>>If it's possible to avoid the massive die-off of humans on Earth, at
>>>least; maybe that was a phase he was going through in the 70s, as so
>>>many did.
>>>
>> Which novel(s)? I thought he was more of a gradual drawdown
>>kind of guy.
>
> Hm. Well, _Rendezvous with Rama_ starts off with a meteor strike
>in Central Europe. That doesn't quite qualify as a massive die-off, but
>it's still got to be a death total getting on the order of magnitude of a
>World War. (I remember Venice sinking as explicit damages; I suppose that
>it's better than if the meteor hit the Mediterranean but still, very much
>not good.)
That's just a regional tragedy, like the tsunami a few years ago.
Unfortunate but its affect on total humans alive is proportionately small.
> _Imperial Earth_ is the centerpiece for this as there's the Time
>of Troubles --- I think that was the name for it, but it's been a couple
>years since I read it last and I can't find my copy right away --- where
>the human population dropped by something on the order of 90 percent its
>pre-catastrophe level. My impression was the fall took one or two
>generations, although it's possible Clarke was vague about this. Still,
>considering the dropping has to be done in at most three centuries and
>most likely far less implies a lot of vacant houses in the neighborhood.
I'll have to go dig up my copy but that's not the way I remember it.
> _The Fountains of Paradise_ closes off with an Earth that's been
>left fallow while the Sun has one of its cold spells. While there's the
>network of space elevators to provide reasonably fast, cheap access to
>space and allow for a roughly orderly evacuation, evacuating something
>like ten billion people off the planet in their lifetime seems to strain
>whatever the plausible launch mechanisms are. Perhaps I'm reading into
>it something Clarke didn't mean (I'm not positive there's any clear idea
>given for how long evacuation does take), although freezing the planet
>over does suggest a major ecological die-off in species that humans don't
>find cuddly or tasty which aren't rats.
The ice age scene is something like a thousand years in the
future (and wasn't there an inhabited ring all the way aroudn the Earth
by that point). A thousand years is a long time to evacuate the world.
Also, and I will admit Clarke may not have known this, it is possible
to deal with cold temperatures using a technology we in Canada call
'central heating'.
> Stepping a little outside the 70s, _The Songs Of Distant Earth_
>(the novel version) leads with the complete obliteration of Earth as a
>planet. There are colonies, some established prior to the book's
>existence, and the ship of evacuees that gets the story started, but
>that's not just nearly all humanity killed but near everything.
>
> _Childhood's End_ similarly has all of humanity --- well, perhaps
>it's not killed but transformed (that does seem to be Clarke's intent),
>but it's still killed every other form of life on Earth, and for that
>matter Earth as a world at all.
That's 1950s, well before the 1970s.
> _Against The Fall Of Night/The City And The Stars_ has humanity
>glommed up by the Mad Mind wreaking havoc on the entire Galaxy. I believe
>that most people are assumed to be absorbed into the Not So Mad Mind, but
>what's left of humanity --- and the rest of the world --- is not so much
>and it's my impression that the same could be said about the rest of the
>Galactic Empire.
Also well before the 1970s.
> And while humans make out all right, _2010: Odyssey Two_ has an
>entire ecosystem much vaster than the Earth's deliberately destroyed.
>The coda to, I think, _2061: Odyssey Three_ has the dimming of Lucifer,
>implying the destruction of the Europa ecosystem and the immediate
>massive hardship for humanity's colonies on Ganymede and Callisto. That
>may now be apocryphal given _3001_, but, if you didn't read that then
>what would you conclude?
I ddin't read 2061 (Well, I think I got 40 pages in and was
bored to tears) but I find it a subpar example of Clarke's 1970s
work because it was published in 1987.
> I have the faint idea that _The Ghost From The Grand Banks_
>includes a coda set after the end of human life on Earth, but not any
>details about how it ended, and actually the only solid memories I have
>of it are somebody fixed the Y2K problem (remember the Y2K problem?),
>somebody else made a vibrating windshield for cars, and someone had a
>Mandelbrot-shaped swimming pool.
I have no memory of GHOST.
> I've not read the collaborations other than _Rama II_ and
>letting my eyes glaze over a bit of _The Garden of Rama_, which shows
>how far I will go for punishment.
I wouldn't count those as Clarkes anyway, no more then I would
Paul Preuss' VENUS PRIME series (and at least each VP novel contained
one ACC short story).
James Nicoll
From IMPERIAL EARTH:
Page 47: "Thus the supposedly unshockable Terrans were genuinely
horrified at encountering families with three -- and even four! --
children on Titan. The twentieth century's millions of skeleton babies
still haunted the conscience of the world, and such tragic but
understandable excesses as the "Breeder Lynching" campaign, not to
mention the burning of the Vatican, had left permanent scars on the
human psyche. Duncan could still remember Calindy's expression when
she encountered her first family of six: outrage contended with
curiosity, until both were moderated by Terran good manners. He had
patiently explained the facts of life to her, pointing out that there
was nothing eternally sacred about the dogma of Zero Growth, and that
Titan really needed to double its population every fifty years.
Eventually she appreciated this logically, but she had never been able
to accept it emotionally."
Page 286: "But humanity was exhausted by the effort of global rebuilding
following the Time of Troubles, and in the aftermath of the Population
Crash there was little enthusiasm for the colonization of new worlds."
So I was wrong about IMPERIAL EARTH.