/lit/ - Literature

I have just finished the second of two books by Poul Anderson and I have written a short review of each. The first was written in 1970 and the second in 1989. Both novels were Hugo award nominees and presumably offer a reasonable assessment of Anderson's matured style in science fiction. As I found both books to have a consistent style and similar themes, I will critique both together after summarizing each novel.

>"Tau Zero"

This novel concerns itself primarily with the concept of time dilation at relativistic speeds. A colony ship is launched at yonder star but en route a collision occurs, causing system failures so that the ship cannot safely decelerate. Instead, the crew elects to accelerate so that they can more quickly reach extragalactic space. This proves unfeasible as does every subsequent idea until ultimately the ship passes through the extinction of the universe and into the rebirth. The action primarily focuses on the crew and their attempts to come to grips with their situation. The situation nominally changes but the underlying problem remains the same so the actual change is solely in the relative age of the universe and the psychological impact on the crew.

>"The Boat of a Million Years"

This novel proposes the existence of immortal humans. The book opens with a vignette set around a Phoenician who the reader comes to understand is immortal. Subsequent scenes repeat this theme, where either new immortals are introduced or the narrative of preceding immortals is taken up again in a later era. The first two-thirds or so of the book proceeds in this fashion before the plot reaches the near future. Thereafter, the story shifts to a intergalactic colonization voyage undertaken by the immortals, who seek new challenges to justify their indefinite lifespans. Anderson envisions his immortals as being simply long-lived mutations rather than having additional superhuman qualities that other incarnations of this concept (vampires, etc.) rely on. This adds an interesting dimension to the idea and places limits on them so that the plot doesn't simply reduce to immortals secretly ruling the world.