Voyage from Yesteryear |
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Del Rey: New York, 1982 |
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377 pages | April 2002 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Voyage from Yesteryear opens with the end of the current space era, the launch of an interstellar probe ship. No magical faster-than-light drives, just pluggin' away with what we know now. Some farsighted people see that while such a slow probe can't carry passengers, it can carry material and information to create colonists if a suitable star system is found, and robot educators to carry the colony through the early times. With freedom and technology, the colony thrives. The only problem is, after a series of wars and decimation of population, the various remaining powers on Earth decide to "rescue" the lost colony. There's a great vision of the kind of "generation" starship that could be workable, even with current technology, and an interesting account of the voyage, with entrenched politics and sociology being challenged by less-conventional thinkers: Colman found it a relief to end up working with somebody like Sirocco. Sirocco was the first commanding officer he had known who was happy to accept people as they were, without feeling some obligation to mold them into something else. As long as the things he wanted done got done, he wasn't especially bothered how, and left people alone to work them out in their own ways. It was refreshing to be treated as competent for once — respected as someone with a brain and trusted as capable of using it ...
Before anyone gets the idea that Voyage from Yesteryear is some big political treatise, let me assure you that it's a great space adventure first, and a morals / politics lesson second. Hogan is great at this kind of thing — championing individuality, capability, responsibility — but not at the expense of a good story line. Read it if you're just a fan of "hard-science" science fiction, if you're a Libertarian or wannabe, or if you're just sick of fiction championing the lowest common denominator. Oh, and by the way, if you can find Russell's story, read it too. If you're a self-aware, self-responsible, anti-bureaucracy person, you'll love 'em both.
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© 2002 Ron Grube |
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