tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636157128315691395.post8921560844145326203..comments2023-05-19T09:47:33.420-06:00Comments on Seldon's Gate: Mentat says 'hello' and breaks a shipReave Vanshar (Steve McAllister)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04967498644616503968noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636157128315691395.post-4319339125448163512011-04-06T14:28:23.490-06:002011-04-06T14:28:23.490-06:00You know, speaking of world building, you and I sh...You know, speaking of world building, you and I should co-write a GURPS supplement and submit it to Steve Jackson Games. <br /><br />Coming soon -- <br /><br />GURPS: Ecotechnic Age. Or, GURPS: Eco-apocalypse. Or, GURPS: Dark Green. Or, GURPS: Anthropocene. <br /><br />On a related note, I would like to read a New York Review of Books style review essay on how science fiction is coming to terms with the realization that there almost certainly will not be a high-tech, space opera future for at least the next 1000 years or so. I know our co-blogger, Steve, feels that such a future may eventually happen, after human societies re-establish themselves on a more ecologically sound footing. <br /><br />One of Stephen Baxter's characters in the novel "Flood" makes reference to the failure of science fiction to anticipate the actual future we face. The character in question is a former NASA climatologist, looking around at a 2040s world inundated by hundreds of meters of sea level rise. He remarks, towards the end of the novel, that when the flooding began in the 2010s, the human race was perhaps 50 years away from permanent human settlements in the Earth-Moon-Mars-asteroid region. But then came the blind-side impact of the newly discovered mega-oceans of water being released from the Earth's mantle to drown civilization. <br /><br />I think Baxter's novel serves as a parable of global warming in general. In extreme, fanciful form, Baxter illustrates how the human race might be forced to confront a future very different from what the techno-optimists of the twentieth century imagined. Bacigalupi seems to be doing the same thing. Sorry, kids, no transhumanism or space colonies for you. Just hell and high water water.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636157128315691395.post-34733691662226212472011-04-05T23:28:56.490-06:002011-04-05T23:28:56.490-06:00Nice review, thanks! Just started reading it, and ...Nice review, thanks! Just started reading it, and now I'm even more intrigued by your descriptions of the clipper ships and the implications of ecotechnic societies in the Far North. <br /><br />One of my unfulfilled ambitions for blogging here is to do some world-building -- scenarios for a future post-carbon society that turns out to be reasonably prosperous and just. I did write one overview scenario, for the previous blog, have been wanting to flesh it out a bit. But world-building takes a huge amount of time and energy. Urgh.<br /><br />At least I can read Bacigalupi's worlds instead.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com