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a physics totally different from any that we have any hint of today, a physics in which general relativity is just a special case. The upheaval that that implies is beyond imagination. Nevertheless, when we need to get our hero from star to star in a reasonable time, we go ahead and use "hyperspace" or whatever. This is legitimate enough in itself, provided we respect the body of well-established fact otherwise. Indeed, speculation about the nature and characteristics of, say, hyperspace can form quite an interesting element in the story. |
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Scientifically preposterous environments are acceptable when really necessary to the author's purpose. Bradbury's Mars comes to mind. Here, though, we border on out-and-out fantasy (. . .) |
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First I would like to return to planet building. It exemplifies the literary riches to be found in science, riches almost entirely neglected by the socalled mainstream. There are other uses of hard science in science fiction, for instance in creating imaginary biologies, but planet building is closest to our topic of environments. Besides, I have spoken on it and written about it repeatedly in the past, and so can claim to know some aspects of it pretty well. I am by no means alone in this, of course, and can name Greg Bear, Greg Benford, and David Brin, all of them masters of the craft. |
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This is not the place to repeat myself. I simply want to skim over the subject as a way of showing that when we abide by the findings of science as best we can, we do not constrict ourselves. Rather, we get inspiration, and the tools with which to do a job that inspires and excites readers. I have sometimes called science fiction the tribal bard of science. Like a bard of old singing of the exploits of heroes, science fiction sings of wonders and possibilities revealed to us by our quest for knowledge. This is not the only thing science fiction does, of course, or even what it mostly does, but I do submit that it is something no other literary form ever really gets into. |
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Poul Anderson, "Nature: Laws and Surprises," Mindscapes: The Geographies of Imagined Worlds, ed. George E. Slusser and Eric S. Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989), pp. 89 |
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Poul Anderson has been writing science fiction for over 40 years. In 1989 he published one of his most successful novels, The Boat of a Million Years, an adroit study of the mixed blessings of immortality. Harvest of Stars reads like something salvaged from a drawer of old rejects. |
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