The Poetry of Science Fiction
I was thinking about a science fiction story I read in my teens. Enemy aliens make the sun go out somehow. A young man and his mother struggle on in an apartment building. The story lovingly details all the shifts and jury-rigs he has to do to keep the warmth in, to keep the warmth going, to chip off blocks of frozen atmosphere and thaw them. There is an implausible happy ending, or at least I thought it was implausible when I read it at age 12.
They say that science killed poetry. They have a point. But there is a potential for poetry there also. One could try to create an image of bitter cold, building up the images word by word. But none of it would be quite as effective as this story going step by step what these lone survivors had to do to survive. In memory its as good as or even better than To Build a Fire.
I was thinking about this yesterday and then I had an insight into the apocalyptic phrase that right up until the end they ‘were marrying and were giving in marriage.’ That turns out to be a very true psychological insight. The catastrophe happens but you discover that life still grinds on in fits and starts. Your mind sometimes runs down old familiar paths.
Tom D
January 14, 2021
I read “A Pail of Air” as a teen too and read it to my kids when they were teens. An awesome little story! It gives a whole new meaning to hard times. I just found it on gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51461/51461-h/51461-h.htm
Tom D
January 14, 2021
The last year has been pretty difficult with the Great Covid Panic, the ongoing culture war, and the election. Still, life goes on and fortunately for all of us, mortality is just a part of our full eternal life. True success in this life is most assuredly not what the World teaches it to be. God lives, He is our Father, and his glorious plan for our eternal happiness continues on just fine.
Bookslinget
January 14, 2021
I thought the dialogue between Spock and Data as they shared a shuttle in an episode of ST:TNG was profound enough to be considered poetic.
The only other Star Trek episode that stands out in similar fashion was one of the dialogues between Sisko and the worm-hole aliens in ST:DS9.
Their relationship was too often slapstick and cliche, but at least one episode or story-arc regarding Q and Picard was written well.
Science fiction too often uses special effects and gee-whiz style contrivances. And it sometimes falls back on “cowboys and indians in space” like Star Wars.
Some of the best was Twilight Zone.