Re: The Future, Space Travel, and Immortality

From: lightning (lightning_at_toadmail.com)
Date: 08/02/04 

Date: 1 Aug 2004 22:13:14 GMT

Xomicron <xomicron@wp.pl> wrote in
news:Xns953284378A991DF@alaska.local:

> Can anyone think of books that has mankind being virtually immortal
> in the far future? The only books I can think of are _The Man Who
> Awoke_ by Laurence Manning, and _Time Enough for Love_ by RAH(which
> I never read in it's entirety).

Just about any "interstellar empire" story (like in Asimov's
*Foundation* stories) where there aren't nasty aliens would imply
that the lifespan of the human race would be at least on the order of
stellar lifetimes.

*Between the Strokes of Night* by Charles Sheffield and Murray
Leinster's short story *The End* have humans going through a "big
crunch" scenario and coming out the other side.

We have a very precarious perch here on Earth. I've seen no serious
political description of what a completely sustainable high-tech
society would look like, and certainly nobody is seriously working
toward one. Also, one nasty interperetation of the Fermi paradox is
that the Galaxy is a dangerous enough place that intellegent life
doesn't last long enough to get really advanced (unknown nasty
astronomical phenomena, Berserkers).

Note -- I find that *Time Enough for Love* is a lot better if you
consider it as a novel, interspersed with short stories that RAH
couldn't sell by themselves. Ending is still silly, IMHO. 

-- 
lightning@toadmail.com                
http://lightningbug.blogspot.com "I no longer want to change the
world.  I want to potty train the world. Then we won't have to change
it any more."

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