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This Week’s Book Review: Stellaris
The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop are a group who believe man can and must go to the stars. In 2016 the TVIW held a track on Homo Stellaris. Its task was to describe the foundations of a space-based society.
“Stellaris: People of the Stars,” edited by Les Johnson and Robert E. Hampson, is one of the fruits of that year’s workshop. It is a collection of non-fiction essays and science fiction stories about what it takes for humans to travel and live outside the Solar System.
Both non-fiction and fiction limit themselves to the possible based on today’s science. Extrapolation is permitted, especially in the life sciences. Faster-than-light travel and communications was excluded on the grounds that these cannot occur without some type of fundamental breakthrough in physics.
The essays cover the challenges inherent in slower-than-light travel between star systems. These include medical, biological, and security issues associated with multi-year travel in a hostile environment in a confined volume. They also examine the psychological and philosophical challenges. They also touch upon the issue of what defines humanity. When genetic tinkering is required to allow people to live in space or on ecosystems hostile to those adapted to that of Earth, when do you stop being human?
This issue is most thoroughly examined by the science fiction stories in the book. They are written by an all-star cast of modern writers of hard SF. The list includes Sarah Hoyt, William Ledbetter, Kevin J. Anderson, Todd McCaffrey, Les Johnson, and Daniel Hoyt. All of the stories were written for this collection.
“Burn the Boats,” by Sarah Hoyt, “Stella Infantes” by Kacey Ezell and Philip Wohlrab, and “The Smallest of Things by Catherine L. Smith examine the implications of genetic engineering as a means of enabling humans to live on alien worlds. “Those Left Behind” by Robert E. Hampson looks at bioengineering. Along with Daniel Hoyt’s “Exodus,” it explores the effect of slower-than-light travel on the families of the pioneers who remain on Earth.
Kevin A. Anderson’s haunting ”Time Flies” and Todd McCaffrey’s “At the Bottom of the White,” look at commercial trade using slower-than-light spaceships. “Our Worldship Broke!” by Jim Beall and “Nanny” by Les Johnson explore system failure on multi-year spaceflghts, both hardware and personnel.
“Stellaris” offers readers a view what of might be our future in space. Originally released in 2019, this is a new paperback reissue of this book.
“Stellaris: People of the Stars,” edited by Les Johnson and Robert E. Hampson, Baen Books, 2020, 448 pages, $8.99 (Paperback)
This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Published in Literature
I think slower than light travel to the stars only works if the vehicles are set up as ends in themselves, not as a means of locomotion. I mean, the goal is to set up a functioning society, not to get somewhere; that’s secondary.
In several of the stories the slowboats are ends in themselves, a society made up of perpetual wanderers who desire a gypsy existence. But ultimately there has to be a destination, and the percentage of people who wish to live as gypsies is small. Free land and a society you get to build yourself is a pretty strong lure for a lot of people.
Mark,
Sounds like a fascinating collection, and so I just bought it for download. (So tell your client your reviews sell books. ;) )
I’ve long wondered about the motivations that might drive humanity to the stars, given the speed limits. I can just barely imagine some being willing to take the journey if some kind of life-suspension technology were available; it just seems implausible that enough would be motivated to spend the remainder of their life in space, never mind the moral dilemma of committing children to such a journey.
Even less plausible is the thought of either interstellar trade or interstellar war. Again, absent a faster-than-light drive or something that achieves the same end, it simply seems implausible that anyone, or anything, would bother.
On the other hand, automated factories broadcast to the stars as a long-term investment might be within the reach of a far richer world a century or two from now. Which invites the question, of course, of why we don’t seem to have any in our solar system already (presuming we don’t).
Thanks for the review!
Hank
I’m not so sure. Not many think it’s implausible for people to live their lives in orbiting space stations. How would this be different?
I’m not sure how many actually think spending the rest of their lives in orbit is an attractive proposition, but let’s take it as a given that you’re correct.
And you may be right: if the ship were sufficiently well-appointed as to feel like a resort in space, and life were sufficiently luxurious, you could probably get a fair number to go for it. I can imagine an interstellar Club Med being quite attractive.
I just don’t see how a functioning micro-culture able to sustain its founders and their children would be appealing. That would seem to require real work — unlike say a Club Med.
But maybe you’re right. If the trip were short enough, and the ship were comfortable enough (something like Gerard O’Neill’s orbital colony, perhaps), roomy and Earth-like, then you might get a decent population of sufficiently youthful and capable people to go for it.
I’m probably projecting my own affinity for terra firma on the population at large, and that’s usually a mistake: seven billion people include lots of all sorts. So yeah, good point: you’re probably right.
No, you’re probably right. The kind of people who would be interested in living in a ship until they died would probably be just the kind who wouldn’t be able to manage it. And the trip would be hundreds of years.
Shoot Randy, you kind of persuaded me already. ;)
Anyway, I’ll let you know what the book has to say about it when I finish it.
I am not sure that a generational slow boat to the stars would work – we’ve lost the ability to work on projects that we’ll never see the completion of. Look at the great cathedrals in Europe. They took generations to build, the workmen who laid down the foundations didnt live to see the completion of the project. I dont see any projects being undertaken now, that we dont expect to complete.
You haven’t seen my yard….
The Crazy Horse Memorial has been in progress since 1948.
The excavation of Pompeii is expected to take centuries.
Jews prayed, “Next year in Jerusalem”, for 500 years or more before the refounding of Israel.