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You Never Forget Your First
Apr. 11th, 2016 08:03 pmOver the years I've read a great deal of science fiction. I know I was reading it by the time I was in fourth grade, because I know I was trying to write it by that time. (It was about as good as you'd expect from a fourth-grader, a clumsy ripoff of Andre Norton. I never finished it.)
Even amidst that plenty, though, there are two books that had a great impact on me. One was Andre Norton's Star Rangers, which was my introduction to the idea of a long time - a future so distant that the location, though not the idea, of Earth had been lost. (It's not all that rare an idea - cf., in particular, Asimov's Foundation and Earth - but none of the others, and certainly not the Asimov, have ever felt so far away for me.) That book may have awakened my lifelong fascination with history. I borrowed the book from a school library, but never had a copy of my own until a year or so ago, when I acquired a Kindle edition. I still shiver when the castaways find the ancient conference room and walk along the table, reading the names of the planets associated with each chair, and finally the last one, at the head of the table: "Terra of Sol". (I'm tearing up, right now.)
The other one was Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars. I think that was the first Clarke I ever read, and it blew the time horizon of Star Rangers out of the water. A far future Earth. The Moon is gone... A mighty galactic civilization rose. was torn apart by an act of hubris, raggedly rebuilt itself, set a guard against the menace it had unleashed, and then... went away. Alvin's final vision of Vanamonde's destiny, when the forces imprisoning the Mad Mind will fail, and the two of them will meet in a battle that "might ring down the curtain on Creation itself" - that was my first view of Deep Time. (I don't know if those are the exact words, but they should be close. It's been nearly fifty years since I read them.)
Today, I went online and bought an electronic copy of The City and the Stars. Soon I will read it again, after so many years.
Even amidst that plenty, though, there are two books that had a great impact on me. One was Andre Norton's Star Rangers, which was my introduction to the idea of a long time - a future so distant that the location, though not the idea, of Earth had been lost. (It's not all that rare an idea - cf., in particular, Asimov's Foundation and Earth - but none of the others, and certainly not the Asimov, have ever felt so far away for me.) That book may have awakened my lifelong fascination with history. I borrowed the book from a school library, but never had a copy of my own until a year or so ago, when I acquired a Kindle edition. I still shiver when the castaways find the ancient conference room and walk along the table, reading the names of the planets associated with each chair, and finally the last one, at the head of the table: "Terra of Sol". (I'm tearing up, right now.)
The other one was Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars. I think that was the first Clarke I ever read, and it blew the time horizon of Star Rangers out of the water. A far future Earth. The Moon is gone... A mighty galactic civilization rose. was torn apart by an act of hubris, raggedly rebuilt itself, set a guard against the menace it had unleashed, and then... went away. Alvin's final vision of Vanamonde's destiny, when the forces imprisoning the Mad Mind will fail, and the two of them will meet in a battle that "might ring down the curtain on Creation itself" - that was my first view of Deep Time. (I don't know if those are the exact words, but they should be close. It's been nearly fifty years since I read them.)
Today, I went online and bought an electronic copy of The City and the Stars. Soon I will read it again, after so many years.
