Exurb1a

The Fifth Science is a “future history”, a series of twelve short stories charting the long-term fate of humanity and whatever might come after us. And “long-term” doesn’t mean decades or centuries; it means hundreds of thousands of years, more on the scale of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy say.
   While parts of this book are done fairly tongue-in-cheek (the story about an obsession with taking “selfies” being the obvious example) the impression I got, even so, was of a show more writer bashing, if not his head exactly, then his imagination against an invisible ceiling, straining to come up with something new enough for a future this distant but not quite managing it. For example, even that far ahead they’re still using computers, and having to actually cross space to get from A to B. Or again, one of the themes here is of the Universe itself being conscious: either made so by our descendants, or becoming conscious itself, or having always been conscious—all interesting, but not new. The problem is that we can’t help peering into the future in a dead-straight line, as if standing on a railway track, imagining variations on, or improved versions of, things which exist already—extrapolating from what we already know. But the actual world, human culture in particular, doesn’t go much like that; it zigs and it zags, stops and starts, suddenly veers off in some unforeseen direction…then goes more sort of sideways…
   Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy reading The Fifth Science; I did, it’s not a bad book at all. It did remind me of the Foundation trilogy though: I liked those too (read them half a lifetime ago) but one thing I distinctly remember is that their future and its inhabitants seemed uncannily like the author’s own time—written during the 1950s, its Galactic Empire had a definite ’50s feel to it. Same here: written now, this Empire feels like now. Perhaps, in being this ambitious, we’re just attempting the impossible. show less

A highly complex metaphor for the human race. I really enjoyed the creativity of the sci fi as well as the themes it covers including religion.

I wonderful collection of poems by exurb1a that I need to get in a paper version. Although his morals are questionable, his way of thinking is so far out of the box of normalcy that its entertaining.