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own inertia. But its diversion to inspect the dark star, an act which requires positive intervention, is a decision which changes the course of history. By turning aside from a predetermined path, men find a greater good than the one they sought. The error that wrecks the Southern Cross is in the long run a felix culpa. It occasions heroic deeds which would not have otherwise occurred, and so forges triumph out of tragedy. |
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The voyage of the Cross as a metaphor for human progress is complemented by parallels drawn between space and sea. These resonances affect Anderson personally since he is a space advocate, a sailing enthusiast, and a sea-captain's grandson. Both space and sea are fascinating (" 'Any ocean is, is too-big, bold, blind for ustoo beautiful' ") but pitiless environments (" 'The sea never forgives you' ") which men must master in order to achieve the fullness of their being. As Kipling says, "By the bones about the wayside ye shall come into your own!" Space incubates substance as the sea does life, both are mothers who devour what they have brought forth. Each demands feeding, and "she calls us still unfed," no matter how many worlds or sailors are consumed. But there will always be some ''dreamers dreaming greatly" to take risks. There is no substitute for sacrifice. Starfaring spacemen buy admiralty with their blood as their seagoing ancestors did in ages past. But Anderson believes that "our enterprise beyond the sky will keep alive that sense of bravery, wonder, and achievement without which man would hardly be himself." |
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Sandra Meisel, Against Time's Arrow: The High Crusade of Poul Anderson (San Bernadino, CA: Borgo Press, 1978), pp. 4546 |
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There is a set of ideas quite common among more commercially oriented sf authors which has produced hackwork from hacks, entertainments perfect of their kind from authors of minor gifts, and, from authors of real talent, as often as not slack potboilers full of lazy writing and pasteboard characters. These ideas might be summarised as a belief in intellectual and technical slickness and viscerally exciting, well-paced storytelling as replacements for, rather than adjuncts to, sensitivity to language and three-dimensional characterisation. This belief is dressed up with (Kingsley) Amis's idea that in sf the idea is hero and dignified with the claim that since all art is basically in competition with the breweries for |
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