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Voyage from Yesteryear
An army from Earth battles to regain control over a space colony that has developed advanced technology but has evolved into a society that will do anything to retain their liberty. Reissue.
382 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published March 1, 1999
13 people are currently reading
1102 people want to read
About the author
James P. Hogan
114 books268 followersJames Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
August 1, 2024
Voyage from Yesteryear is a very entertaining and thought-provoking hard-science novel with space-opera action sequences alternating with political/sociological speculation. Hogan posits a society formed by humans raised by robots/computers, without any elder human influence/interference. They form something of a Libertarian scientific Utopia, which clashes with the war-torn Terran society they inevitably encounter. Hogan wasn't strong here with individual characterizations, but it's a fascinating big-concept novel. The book club edition I have has a rather poor, muddy cover, but the Del Rey paperback has a very nice Darrell Sweet painting.
June 14, 2014
It's not common for me to be reading a science fiction book mid-way, stop all of a sudden and then wonder: "Why is this guy writing science fiction at all? He writes... too good for him to be in this genre."
That for me was one of the most shocking things about Voyage from Yesteryear. How careful and neat the writing, descriptions and prose was. Hogan surprised me with his way to explain the simple gestures that people do as they interact, the way in which people's inner thoughts twist and bend under the pressure of the outside world, and most especially, how he perfectly captures the changes in emotions and perceptions in a rapidly-changing society.
Much can be said, and has already been said, about the plot of the book. The idealistic (borderline naive) concepts it puts forwards; the eerie way in which much of its technologies are spot-on accurate after 30 years since publication; the awesomeness of the Mayflower II spaceship; and so on. But what I want to praise in this occasion is Hogan's unique and ridiculously appropriate writing style for this story. Reading him, it makes me wish HE would have been the one narrating the events in other big sci-fi stories like RingWorld or Childhood's End. He would have elevated them into literary genius in my opinion.
Great, great read.
That for me was one of the most shocking things about Voyage from Yesteryear. How careful and neat the writing, descriptions and prose was. Hogan surprised me with his way to explain the simple gestures that people do as they interact, the way in which people's inner thoughts twist and bend under the pressure of the outside world, and most especially, how he perfectly captures the changes in emotions and perceptions in a rapidly-changing society.
Much can be said, and has already been said, about the plot of the book. The idealistic (borderline naive) concepts it puts forwards; the eerie way in which much of its technologies are spot-on accurate after 30 years since publication; the awesomeness of the Mayflower II spaceship; and so on. But what I want to praise in this occasion is Hogan's unique and ridiculously appropriate writing style for this story. Reading him, it makes me wish HE would have been the one narrating the events in other big sci-fi stories like RingWorld or Childhood's End. He would have elevated them into literary genius in my opinion.
Great, great read.
May 8, 2014
This story is based on the idea of what if you could completely disconnect a generation of humans, if they could grow up without our prejudices, without our mythology, but with our scientific knowledge. The book begins as a group of humans from earth are about to end a voyage arriving at a planet that was populated by humans that were born after they arrived, and had no connection with earth or an older generation. While the travelers viewed them as children, they rapidly discovered they had a lot to learn.
July 1, 2022
Hogan is one of my favorite hard scifi authors and I have read this one several times of the years. Voyage from Yesteryear is, under the physics and science, really a 'culture clash' novel along the lines of The Dispossessed (another favorite of mine). This starts off with the announcement of the first interstellar probe to Alpha Centauri in 2020 (Voyage was first published in 1982); this probe would also carry enough automated machines/robots to lay the foundation of a colony, along with the DNA of several thousand people. The plan is once the probe finds a suitable planet, the machines will breed children while also building a colony, which the children would live once they were old enough.
Flash forward several decades and Earth is a mess of war. Three large powers are vying for dominance and there is a race on to send a ship to the new colony to claim it as their own. The first ship, The Mayflower II is from North America and it is huge, carrying 30,000 people on its twenty year voyage. Hogan is not very subtle here, giving us a ship organized largely on fascist lines as reflecting the current government at home. But what will they find on the colony? Turns out, the colony is quite prosperous, basically a post-scarcity world, where people gravitate toward what they are good at and enjoy. In this anarchist/libertarian utopia, there is no one in charge, as, after all, no one is good at everything! There is also no money and no want; people get status by being capable and good at what they do, not due to money or wealth.
The main protagonist is a army grunt named Colman, who wanted to be an engineer, but did not have the family connections, etc., to get to school. Turns out life in the colony is very different, as connections, wealth and power are meaningless outside of your personal abilities. When the ship arrives, the commander is frustrated at the perceived lack of government-- there is not even a formal reception! They are given housing and some go on massive 'shopping sprees' because everything is free. The mission, however, is military and aims to 'secure' the colony before the other ships from Earth arrive.
What follows thereafter is basically a depiction of culture clash, where the 'normal' ways of making sense of society and the world around us are undermined by the colonials, who have a very different outlook. The ministers are appalled! The ship's commander sees nothing but anarchy! Yet, one by one the ship's people 'defect' and opt for the colonial way, one without wealth and power, and one without need. There are some very fun sections here, for example, when the ship's commander tries to set up a currency, but as things are free, the colonials think this is very funny.
Hogan's science fiction is of the hard variety, and expect numerous digressions on physics and other things throughout. Also expect that the characters are really secondary to the overall story; character driven fiction this is not. Yet, the utopian, post-scarcity world is fascinating; the only other author to really develop such a theme is Banks with his Culture series. What would such a world be like? How would people interact? Hogan really plays up the utopia aspect here, especially to contrast it to what is considered 'normal' to Western society to show just exactly how inferior it is. He plays a heavy hand with this, but I still enjoyed it. As a story teller, Hogan has his moments, with some excellent action scenes on occasion, but again, expect some meandering around to show off his science chops. Good stuff! 4 solid stars!!
Flash forward several decades and Earth is a mess of war. Three large powers are vying for dominance and there is a race on to send a ship to the new colony to claim it as their own. The first ship, The Mayflower II is from North America and it is huge, carrying 30,000 people on its twenty year voyage. Hogan is not very subtle here, giving us a ship organized largely on fascist lines as reflecting the current government at home. But what will they find on the colony? Turns out, the colony is quite prosperous, basically a post-scarcity world, where people gravitate toward what they are good at and enjoy. In this anarchist/libertarian utopia, there is no one in charge, as, after all, no one is good at everything! There is also no money and no want; people get status by being capable and good at what they do, not due to money or wealth.
The main protagonist is a army grunt named Colman, who wanted to be an engineer, but did not have the family connections, etc., to get to school. Turns out life in the colony is very different, as connections, wealth and power are meaningless outside of your personal abilities. When the ship arrives, the commander is frustrated at the perceived lack of government-- there is not even a formal reception! They are given housing and some go on massive 'shopping sprees' because everything is free. The mission, however, is military and aims to 'secure' the colony before the other ships from Earth arrive.
What follows thereafter is basically a depiction of culture clash, where the 'normal' ways of making sense of society and the world around us are undermined by the colonials, who have a very different outlook. The ministers are appalled! The ship's commander sees nothing but anarchy! Yet, one by one the ship's people 'defect' and opt for the colonial way, one without wealth and power, and one without need. There are some very fun sections here, for example, when the ship's commander tries to set up a currency, but as things are free, the colonials think this is very funny.
Hogan's science fiction is of the hard variety, and expect numerous digressions on physics and other things throughout. Also expect that the characters are really secondary to the overall story; character driven fiction this is not. Yet, the utopian, post-scarcity world is fascinating; the only other author to really develop such a theme is Banks with his Culture series. What would such a world be like? How would people interact? Hogan really plays up the utopia aspect here, especially to contrast it to what is considered 'normal' to Western society to show just exactly how inferior it is. He plays a heavy hand with this, but I still enjoyed it. As a story teller, Hogan has his moments, with some excellent action scenes on occasion, but again, expect some meandering around to show off his science chops. Good stuff! 4 solid stars!!
August 23, 2015
This book is one of my all time favorites. I actually read it first when I was about 12 years old. I found it, dogeared and in rough shape, in the bottom of a box in an old run down used bookstore. It was the image of the ship on the cover that intrigued me and sparked my imagination, but what occurred next I couldn't have foreseen. This is the novel that sparked my love affair with Science Fiction and the Speculative Fiction genre as a whole.
You can read the back of the book for a description of what happens, I'm not planning on retelling the narrative or anything in this short review. In this novel, James Hogan tells a story that is believable, adventurous, wondrous, and uplifting.
---------------------------
Complete side-note, and a personal story about me & this novel.
When I first read this story at the age of 12 or so, it was my first taste of "Science Fiction" in the novel form. It blew me away, and I immediately started to consume as much of the genre as I could. I always remembered the story set forth in this novel, but the skills of a 12 year old Bookworm don't match those of one in his 30's. You see, I lost the original before I even learned to drive and couldn't (after years) remember the title or the authors name.
This posed a huge problem for me, you see over the years I found myself wanting to go back and re-experience this story. I wanted to re-read this book more than any book I had read. The 12 year old me of course didn't know that he would ever want to "re-read" a book after having read it. He couldn't comprehend that.
So here I am in my 30's and I started thinking about this book again. Not having thought about it in years my mind was automatically in the position of "I won't be able to find that book!" I had never stopped to re-evaluate the methods that I had at my disposal. Until just recently when it dawned on me to get onto Answers.yahoo.com and simply describe the story and then ask.
It took 3 hours for someone to come back with a reply and direct me not only to a wiki page for the book, but to tell me the authors name and describe the book even more fully than I had.
Elation. That was all I could feel. Not letting go of this one again.
You can read the back of the book for a description of what happens, I'm not planning on retelling the narrative or anything in this short review. In this novel, James Hogan tells a story that is believable, adventurous, wondrous, and uplifting.
---------------------------
Complete side-note, and a personal story about me & this novel.
When I first read this story at the age of 12 or so, it was my first taste of "Science Fiction" in the novel form. It blew me away, and I immediately started to consume as much of the genre as I could. I always remembered the story set forth in this novel, but the skills of a 12 year old Bookworm don't match those of one in his 30's. You see, I lost the original before I even learned to drive and couldn't (after years) remember the title or the authors name.
This posed a huge problem for me, you see over the years I found myself wanting to go back and re-experience this story. I wanted to re-read this book more than any book I had read. The 12 year old me of course didn't know that he would ever want to "re-read" a book after having read it. He couldn't comprehend that.
So here I am in my 30's and I started thinking about this book again. Not having thought about it in years my mind was automatically in the position of "I won't be able to find that book!" I had never stopped to re-evaluate the methods that I had at my disposal. Until just recently when it dawned on me to get onto Answers.yahoo.com and simply describe the story and then ask.
It took 3 hours for someone to come back with a reply and direct me not only to a wiki page for the book, but to tell me the authors name and describe the book even more fully than I had.
Elation. That was all I could feel. Not letting go of this one again.
March 30, 2020
This book was lent to me and unfortunately it was not a very effective book for me. It's science fiction, and the plot is about Earth on the verge of WWIII, and they sent a colony ship to Alpha Centauri, to the planet Chiron to set up a colony in case earth is destroyed. Fast forward several decades, the Earth was NOT destroyed, so now they sent another ship over to Chiron to "reclaim" the colony. I'll cut to the chase and say this was basically one of those soap-box novels for the author to preach to the reader his political views. There was very little nuance. The colony over at Chiron basically developed into a post-scarcity anarcho-socialist utopia, where everything is free and everyone just worked hard because that's the right thing to do, etc. Whereas, the ship coming from earth wanted to recolonize Chiron to what they believe was the right form of society, a kind of semi-facsist ultra-capitalist authoritarian oligarchy. It's all very heavy-handed, most of the dialogue between folks from earth and ones from Chiron were like cartoon dialogue, where the Chiron folks telling them how amazing things were, and folks from Earth refusing to believe or budge from their (fascist) positions. All the characters were pretty one-dimensional, and there weren't any discussion of the downside of an anarcho-socialist society/economy. The same kind of subject was explored by Ursula Le Guin in "The Dispossessed", with much more subtlety and balanced thoughts. This book just seemed like wishful thinking of some kind of political evangelist. Not a fan.
September 6, 2015
I won't summarize the book. Instead, I'll just discuss its merits and flaws. The book begins very well. The premise is intriguing, the start is compelling and believable and draws you right in. The scene that sets our warring world some time in the future works well, and all you really need to know is that an enormous ship, The Mayflower II, sets out for the planet Chiron. A brilliant scientist had sent a ship there some decades earlier filled with robots and babies. Thus the story's tropes and main premise is laid out: earth is all at war and destroyed, a vast vessel carrying a mirror image of modern American society is sent to colonize a planet. This planet is a convenient blank slate. The babies that were sent there were raised by robots. They have no modern conventions or habits or prejudices to learn from their parents and existing society. Until now, the book is intriguing. Unfortunately, it all withers out as soon as the colonists arrive on the blank slate planet.
The greatest flaw in the book is most certainly with the Chironian world that Hogan has concocted. I'm disappointed to say that it is simply weak. The lovely style and compelling narrative of the start of the book crumbles apart when the ship finally arrives at Chiron. The author takes on a lecturing tone, the new world is a utopia, everyone is smart, everyone is skilled, everyone is content. The world appears to me to be totally shallow. I can't help but compare Hogan's anarchist utopia with Ursula Le Guin's anarchist world in The Dispossessed. Le Guin doesn't create a simplistic utopia modelled on a recognizable American city, but a real place with well thought out believable problems and societal ills. Le Guin's world reveals a deep understanding of human psychology and society and the often petty motivations our egos harbour. She portrays an anarchist society with believable problems of majoritarianism, mob rule, herd mentality, where egos and a sense of inferiority can still have a detrimental effect on society even if there are no possessions and everything is shared. In Hogan's world, by contrast, the world appears flawless, a fresh new beginning where the first colonizers were brought up by robots. A perfect blank slate. And yet they build homes seemingly to traditional American architectural styles, they speak normal American English, and despite having no established social conventions whatsoever to learn from the machines on this new planet, they somehow find no better way to socialize in the evenings than in bars. Hogan's lecturing about the Chironian culture's currency not being money but competence is left rather flat when the American colonizers arriving on the Mayflower II can walk right off their ship after a 20 year journey to a completely recognizable bar complete with totally mundane bartenders and waiters as we all know them. As if going to an American bar is some sort of physical law of entertainment that all cultures will inevitably develop independently. This seems really flat and difficult to believe after reading Le Guin's public mess halls where everyone serves themselves and the cooks are grumpy everyday workers filling in a day's work like anyone else. Hogan's bartenders meanwhile are just everyday folk who couldn't stomach living freely off society and decided at the age of 10 to spend their lives mastering the intricate arts of bartending as a way to "give back". The premise is that in Chironian culture, everyone starts to feel ashamed by the age of 10 of living without contributing anything, and that feeling then drives them to work and select careers. They continue to do this because they respect mastery and learning. This is all just childishly simplistic and unconvincing when you compare it with how Le Guin explored labour and work, how she explored the power of language to affect social conventions. In Le Guin's world, the anarchists create their own architecture and devise a language devoid of personal pronouns to erase the idea of personal possession. She explores the effects on relationships and on child-rearing. In Hogan's, this just means everyone has lots of guiltless sex and are able somehow to use '70s pop-culture references. Everything is the same as 1970s-80s America except everyone is awesome and enlightened.
"The whole planet, [Colman] realized as he reflected on it, was a powerhouse of progress, unchecked by any traditions of unreason and with no vested-interest obstructionists to hold it back. If the pattern continued until Chiron became a fully populated world, it would effectively leave Earth back in the Stone Age within a century." P. 221
Another element that irritated me to no end was Hogan's simplistic portrayal of religion, as well as the psychological buffoonery of the attempted colonizers. The colonizers on the Mayflower II are impossibly obtuse. Some critics have lauded this as first rate comedy, bitingly clever in its indictment of modern society. I, on the other hand, found it eye-roll-inducingly tedious that an advanced society meant to satirize our own can create an enormous spacecraft to fly tens of thousands of human beings 20 years across galaxies to colonize another planet, but somehow lacks the intelligence to even understand or comprehend the societal structure they find on Chiron. As if our current society is completely devoid of the concepts of libertarianism or anarchism or socialism. The narrative symbol for modern American society, the people on board the Mayflower hold endless meetings to ruminate upon the society they have found; "where are their leaders??" they ask incredulously ad nauseum. They embarrass themselves repeatedly in front of the Chironians with their pomp and pageantry that the author obviously intends to be seen as hollow and pathetic. The author's pedantic lecturing style when introducing Chiron and its culture is at its worst when it comes to religion. It has the tone and all the intellectual gravitas of a 15 year-old's newly discovered atheism. The bumbling buffoon of a Priest runs around the streets of the planet's capital city, perhaps in an homage to Zarathustra, hysterically yelling at people to believe in God, in what I'm sure the author thought was a compelling and powerful scene. The Priest's yelling is taken seriously by a young boy who then engages him in formal argument like an ancient Greek rhetorician. Armed with the twin enlightening powers of science and logic, the young boy frowns in frustration as he simply cannot see any reason to believe something that cannot be seen. The Priest then smugly asks the boy why people believe in the atom if it can't be seen. Then the boy dramatically and gloriously takes him down by pointing out that atoms, unlike this thing called God, have evidence behind them that can be measured and tested. Checkmate religion. He then waists no time in dissecting the fallacious logic of the Trinitarian God that the Priest is arguing for. The whole thing comes off as 9th-grade level debate, and the dramatic scene intended to hit the reader with the force of pure reason and superior argumentation and force him to experience an epiphany on the absurdity of religious belief, falls flat on its face.
Overall, I'm happy to have read this book as it is considered a classic of the genre. I found the premise underlying the story to be compelling. I simply couldn't stomach the author's lecturing style, the simplistic utopia he designs that is totally devoid of depth, and his overt scientism. All the good characters "believe" in science and logic. All the bad ones are politicians or religious figures. Most disappointing is that the book fails to explore what it promotes thoroughly, it doesn't make a convincing argument for it. It doesn't really explore what life would be like in an anarchist society. It doesn't give any answers. It doesn't tell you how to get there, but instead Chironian culture is created by a set of babies sent on a spacecraft without adults, in what the author argues is a new step in evolution brought about by heretofore non-existent conditions. It doesn't go into much detail about how this society functions, other than the fact that everything is free and everyone is hardworking and happy and productive. All it really does is poo poo modern society a bit and provide wish fulfilment for people who fantasize about seeing politicians and world leaders exposed and made to look ridiculous.
Finally, a spoiler regarding the ending:
The greatest flaw in the book is most certainly with the Chironian world that Hogan has concocted. I'm disappointed to say that it is simply weak. The lovely style and compelling narrative of the start of the book crumbles apart when the ship finally arrives at Chiron. The author takes on a lecturing tone, the new world is a utopia, everyone is smart, everyone is skilled, everyone is content. The world appears to me to be totally shallow. I can't help but compare Hogan's anarchist utopia with Ursula Le Guin's anarchist world in The Dispossessed. Le Guin doesn't create a simplistic utopia modelled on a recognizable American city, but a real place with well thought out believable problems and societal ills. Le Guin's world reveals a deep understanding of human psychology and society and the often petty motivations our egos harbour. She portrays an anarchist society with believable problems of majoritarianism, mob rule, herd mentality, where egos and a sense of inferiority can still have a detrimental effect on society even if there are no possessions and everything is shared. In Hogan's world, by contrast, the world appears flawless, a fresh new beginning where the first colonizers were brought up by robots. A perfect blank slate. And yet they build homes seemingly to traditional American architectural styles, they speak normal American English, and despite having no established social conventions whatsoever to learn from the machines on this new planet, they somehow find no better way to socialize in the evenings than in bars. Hogan's lecturing about the Chironian culture's currency not being money but competence is left rather flat when the American colonizers arriving on the Mayflower II can walk right off their ship after a 20 year journey to a completely recognizable bar complete with totally mundane bartenders and waiters as we all know them. As if going to an American bar is some sort of physical law of entertainment that all cultures will inevitably develop independently. This seems really flat and difficult to believe after reading Le Guin's public mess halls where everyone serves themselves and the cooks are grumpy everyday workers filling in a day's work like anyone else. Hogan's bartenders meanwhile are just everyday folk who couldn't stomach living freely off society and decided at the age of 10 to spend their lives mastering the intricate arts of bartending as a way to "give back". The premise is that in Chironian culture, everyone starts to feel ashamed by the age of 10 of living without contributing anything, and that feeling then drives them to work and select careers. They continue to do this because they respect mastery and learning. This is all just childishly simplistic and unconvincing when you compare it with how Le Guin explored labour and work, how she explored the power of language to affect social conventions. In Le Guin's world, the anarchists create their own architecture and devise a language devoid of personal pronouns to erase the idea of personal possession. She explores the effects on relationships and on child-rearing. In Hogan's, this just means everyone has lots of guiltless sex and are able somehow to use '70s pop-culture references. Everything is the same as 1970s-80s America except everyone is awesome and enlightened.
"The whole planet, [Colman] realized as he reflected on it, was a powerhouse of progress, unchecked by any traditions of unreason and with no vested-interest obstructionists to hold it back. If the pattern continued until Chiron became a fully populated world, it would effectively leave Earth back in the Stone Age within a century." P. 221
Another element that irritated me to no end was Hogan's simplistic portrayal of religion, as well as the psychological buffoonery of the attempted colonizers. The colonizers on the Mayflower II are impossibly obtuse. Some critics have lauded this as first rate comedy, bitingly clever in its indictment of modern society. I, on the other hand, found it eye-roll-inducingly tedious that an advanced society meant to satirize our own can create an enormous spacecraft to fly tens of thousands of human beings 20 years across galaxies to colonize another planet, but somehow lacks the intelligence to even understand or comprehend the societal structure they find on Chiron. As if our current society is completely devoid of the concepts of libertarianism or anarchism or socialism. The narrative symbol for modern American society, the people on board the Mayflower hold endless meetings to ruminate upon the society they have found; "where are their leaders??" they ask incredulously ad nauseum. They embarrass themselves repeatedly in front of the Chironians with their pomp and pageantry that the author obviously intends to be seen as hollow and pathetic. The author's pedantic lecturing style when introducing Chiron and its culture is at its worst when it comes to religion. It has the tone and all the intellectual gravitas of a 15 year-old's newly discovered atheism. The bumbling buffoon of a Priest runs around the streets of the planet's capital city, perhaps in an homage to Zarathustra, hysterically yelling at people to believe in God, in what I'm sure the author thought was a compelling and powerful scene. The Priest's yelling is taken seriously by a young boy who then engages him in formal argument like an ancient Greek rhetorician. Armed with the twin enlightening powers of science and logic, the young boy frowns in frustration as he simply cannot see any reason to believe something that cannot be seen. The Priest then smugly asks the boy why people believe in the atom if it can't be seen. Then the boy dramatically and gloriously takes him down by pointing out that atoms, unlike this thing called God, have evidence behind them that can be measured and tested. Checkmate religion. He then waists no time in dissecting the fallacious logic of the Trinitarian God that the Priest is arguing for. The whole thing comes off as 9th-grade level debate, and the dramatic scene intended to hit the reader with the force of pure reason and superior argumentation and force him to experience an epiphany on the absurdity of religious belief, falls flat on its face.
Overall, I'm happy to have read this book as it is considered a classic of the genre. I found the premise underlying the story to be compelling. I simply couldn't stomach the author's lecturing style, the simplistic utopia he designs that is totally devoid of depth, and his overt scientism. All the good characters "believe" in science and logic. All the bad ones are politicians or religious figures. Most disappointing is that the book fails to explore what it promotes thoroughly, it doesn't make a convincing argument for it. It doesn't really explore what life would be like in an anarchist society. It doesn't give any answers. It doesn't tell you how to get there, but instead Chironian culture is created by a set of babies sent on a spacecraft without adults, in what the author argues is a new step in evolution brought about by heretofore non-existent conditions. It doesn't go into much detail about how this society functions, other than the fact that everything is free and everyone is hardworking and happy and productive. All it really does is poo poo modern society a bit and provide wish fulfilment for people who fantasize about seeing politicians and world leaders exposed and made to look ridiculous.
Finally, a spoiler regarding the ending:
August 19, 2018
I generally don't look favorably upon books whose essential premise is that all of our societal ills are the result of learned behaviors and socialization, and at first glance it seemed like this was going to be another book in that vein. However, the further along I got, the more I realized that this book is actually an early exploration of a post scarcity economy. The idea is not that human nature is primarily culturally defined, but rather that Chiron was able to make the transition faster because Earth was stuck in a local minimum that Chiron, being a post-scarcity economy from the beginning, was able to avoid.
I think the view that Hogan puts forward is a bit rosier than would actually happen even under the specific conditions, but in general he gets his thesis across in a way that's understandable and enjoyable and definitely thought-provoking.
Hogan's books in general seem to be in the old Asimov-style mold that focuses on ideas rather than characters and plot, so none of his characters have terribly much depth to them, but in that regard I think that Voyage from Yesteryear is an improvement over Inherit the Stars (and the rest of the Giants series), where the characters are largely just empty vessels for advancing the plot and putting forward the ideas. This book had real characters and even had a bit of a Catch-22 feel to it.
I think the view that Hogan puts forward is a bit rosier than would actually happen even under the specific conditions, but in general he gets his thesis across in a way that's understandable and enjoyable and definitely thought-provoking.
Hogan's books in general seem to be in the old Asimov-style mold that focuses on ideas rather than characters and plot, so none of his characters have terribly much depth to them, but in that regard I think that Voyage from Yesteryear is an improvement over Inherit the Stars (and the rest of the Giants series), where the characters are largely just empty vessels for advancing the plot and putting forward the ideas. This book had real characters and even had a bit of a Catch-22 feel to it.
January 28, 2015
Excellent! Utopian fiction, but with elements of hard sci-fi and action mixed in. A real page turner, and one I would enjoy re-reading at some point.
Chiron is one kind of utopia I imagine I would actually like to live in. I would highly recommend this book.
Chiron is one kind of utopia I imagine I would actually like to live in. I would highly recommend this book.
April 26, 2021
2.4⭐
Middling story about a robotically settled space colony being threatened by the authoritarian government of Earth. The social and political assumptions of the novel are simplistic and naive, the story is ok, nothing exceptionally creative or original (many of the key plot elements were explored in Arthur C Clarke's 1958 short story 'The Songs of Distant Earth', which Clarke later turned into a novel).
Middling story about a robotically settled space colony being threatened by the authoritarian government of Earth. The social and political assumptions of the novel are simplistic and naive, the story is ok, nothing exceptionally creative or original (many of the key plot elements were explored in Arthur C Clarke's 1958 short story 'The Songs of Distant Earth', which Clarke later turned into a novel).
April 8, 2017
On a technical level this is a wonderfully written book, but other than that I found this pretty "meh".
I Actually quite liked the first chunk of this, I found the parts on the ship interesting and the characters multidimensional. But as others have mentioned this is a very preachy book, and you're told very early on once the ship arrives at its destination that Chiron way of life is the best, no if or buts about it. The world is flawless, the people are flawless, and anyone who disagrees is a degenerate who deserves what's coming to them. Oh, and in typical 70's utopia fashion there's no such thing as monogamy - I have no idea if that was a cliche when this was written, but it's a cliche today while I'm reading it, so points deducted for that.
And honestly this book was just boring. There's a big "science" chunk towards the end, where the author attempts to explain why the Chiron's world is they way it is because of anti-matter, which was just dull. Once on Chiron none of the characters are particularly compelling, and the plot takes too long to get to the climax.
Over all, this was a book with an interesting premise, but I just really was not impressed.
I Actually quite liked the first chunk of this, I found the parts on the ship interesting and the characters multidimensional. But as others have mentioned this is a very preachy book, and you're told very early on once the ship arrives at its destination that Chiron way of life is the best, no if or buts about it. The world is flawless, the people are flawless, and anyone who disagrees is a degenerate who deserves what's coming to them. Oh, and in typical 70's utopia fashion there's no such thing as monogamy - I have no idea if that was a cliche when this was written, but it's a cliche today while I'm reading it, so points deducted for that.
And honestly this book was just boring. There's a big "science" chunk towards the end, where the author attempts to explain why the Chiron's world is they way it is because of anti-matter, which was just dull. Once on Chiron none of the characters are particularly compelling, and the plot takes too long to get to the climax.
Over all, this was a book with an interesting premise, but I just really was not impressed.
July 29, 2012
Loved the book, the ideology, and the writing. I like Hogan. I would like to see a society such as the one described here, and certainly like to live in one. I also believe that it is a realistic future to hope for.
June 27, 2011
Excellent primer for the establishment and sustaining of a Libertarian society. And a good book on top of that.
July 31, 2017
Sometimes it's nice to read a Utopian science-fiction that mercilessly skewers jingoist, capitalist, religious society, even if it is a bit idealized. There is such a glut of militant and military SF, so it's good to be reminded that occasionally SF can portray a progressive and optimistic view of the future, freed from the chains of our current cultural assumptions. I doubt humanity will ever see this kind of anarchic freedom, especially with the way things are now with that fucking orange Drumpf in office, steering the entire USA off a cliff, and attempting to drag the entire world down with, but sometimes it's nice to dream. Hogan spins a compelling yarn, with decent writing, and a touch of humor, and the science part of the fiction was quite well done.
March 29, 2012
I remember this as a great science fiction novel.
April 29, 2024
Tightly written conventional sci fi with a science-and-intrigue shell; at its core this is a clear image of a classless and stateless society. Like all utopian images it gets a lot wrong - gender still exists and everyone is heterosexual, for one thing; it’s no replacement for communist theory. But images can convey a feeling of what a really rational society would be like. This one does that well. Might be the first time I've found an action novel touching.
September 2, 2023
Thoughtful parable of colonialism and militarism running headlong into self-organized liberty. Unknown to me until recently, and worth it.
June 19, 2020
1/5 stars for science-fiction.
4/5 for social-fiction.
This novel has a strange combination of love and hate. It touches very interesting aspects of human behavior and our need to shape some sort of socioeconomic organization, which clashes with the sickness of the obsession for power, wealth accumulation and cultural dominance. It also elaborates the need for any person to feel respected and being accepted by a community, a basic human pillar but that is maybe one of the big failures in our present-day extremely selfish and competitive society. These aspects, combined with interesting debates on the contradictions and hypocrisy of the army and religious beliefs, makes the novel a very enlightening reading, although Ursula K. Le Guin touched similar ideas in "The Dispossessed" in much superior way.
However, the societal points are not enough to shape a good novel. The characters are extremely simple and flat, behave as either heroes or villains, and since the very beginning of the novel it is very clear who is going to side with who in a conflict. The science-fiction aspects are ridiculously unrealistic, which totally kills any feeling of verisimilitude. Present day society building km-sized spaceships in a decade, really? And even filled with cities and entire ecosystems? Worse, even after a planet-wide war followed by hunger and misery? Come on, it is like expecting devastated Germany in 1945 to build an amusement park in the Moon by 1955.
This was my second attempt to enjoy something from J.P. Hogan after "Inherit the Stars". Good ideas with not very successful developments. This author wants to make science-fiction so spectacular that totally forgets about a minimum realism and logic. What a pity.
4/5 for social-fiction.
This novel has a strange combination of love and hate. It touches very interesting aspects of human behavior and our need to shape some sort of socioeconomic organization, which clashes with the sickness of the obsession for power, wealth accumulation and cultural dominance. It also elaborates the need for any person to feel respected and being accepted by a community, a basic human pillar but that is maybe one of the big failures in our present-day extremely selfish and competitive society. These aspects, combined with interesting debates on the contradictions and hypocrisy of the army and religious beliefs, makes the novel a very enlightening reading, although Ursula K. Le Guin touched similar ideas in "The Dispossessed" in much superior way.
However, the societal points are not enough to shape a good novel. The characters are extremely simple and flat, behave as either heroes or villains, and since the very beginning of the novel it is very clear who is going to side with who in a conflict. The science-fiction aspects are ridiculously unrealistic, which totally kills any feeling of verisimilitude. Present day society building km-sized spaceships in a decade, really? And even filled with cities and entire ecosystems? Worse, even after a planet-wide war followed by hunger and misery? Come on, it is like expecting devastated Germany in 1945 to build an amusement park in the Moon by 1955.
This was my second attempt to enjoy something from J.P. Hogan after "Inherit the Stars". Good ideas with not very successful developments. This author wants to make science-fiction so spectacular that totally forgets about a minimum realism and logic. What a pity.
July 5, 2015
Badger had recommended this novel several times over the years so I finally made a point of checking this 33 year old book out of the library. It stood the test of time very well and was in fact rather prescient about what we now call a post-scarcity economy. Nifty little "The Earthlings are Comming!!" story with some effective battle scenes. Not a great novel though, it needed a more ruthless editor as several of the passage were too plodding and the characters didn't really have much depth. It would make a good movie or mini series I think.
I wondered why Hogan didn't get more play when the entire post-scarcity thing was being the hip new cool thing to talk about, he wrote several books that have popped up on my radar and I am pretty sure I have read at least some. So why didn't he get more praise? Well turns out that sometime during the 90s he went a bit funny in the head and started Dances with Conspiracy Theories and became an HIV skeptic, then started questioning evolution and when he got to holocaust denialism people did what people do with crazy old Englishmen nattering on about conspiracies in Northern California.
I wondered why Hogan didn't get more play when the entire post-scarcity thing was being the hip new cool thing to talk about, he wrote several books that have popped up on my radar and I am pretty sure I have read at least some. So why didn't he get more praise? Well turns out that sometime during the 90s he went a bit funny in the head and started Dances with Conspiracy Theories and became an HIV skeptic, then started questioning evolution and when he got to holocaust denialism people did what people do with crazy old Englishmen nattering on about conspiracies in Northern California.
May 22, 2010
"Success is like a fart. Only your own smells nice"
In this lackadaisically whimsical plodder of a novel, Hogan poses a future where an exploratory spacecraft is sent off with genetic material to seed a planet in war-torn tension-filled times on Earth. Years later when things settle down, a US vessel sets out to see the results of the mission - along with a European and Asiatic craft on their heals, all intent upon converting the Humans that aren't quite Human to their individual belief systems and governmental regimes.
Naturally, things don't go to plan and the people of Chiron are happily doing well without external intervention. The Chironian way of life is quite appealing to several of the Novel's main characters and it is a fascinating, if sometimes slow, insight into their lives and the lifestyle of an alienly Human culture.
In this lackadaisically whimsical plodder of a novel, Hogan poses a future where an exploratory spacecraft is sent off with genetic material to seed a planet in war-torn tension-filled times on Earth. Years later when things settle down, a US vessel sets out to see the results of the mission - along with a European and Asiatic craft on their heals, all intent upon converting the Humans that aren't quite Human to their individual belief systems and governmental regimes.
Naturally, things don't go to plan and the people of Chiron are happily doing well without external intervention. The Chironian way of life is quite appealing to several of the Novel's main characters and it is a fascinating, if sometimes slow, insight into their lives and the lifestyle of an alienly Human culture.
January 24, 2013
I enjoyed the book. I had read it back in High School and loved it then, and now reread it again for the first time in over 22 years.
The discussion of an anarchistic post-scarcity society was a good one and rather compelling. Everyone works at what they're good at, mostly on individual projects, and all resources are shared cash-free, relying on recognition as the coin of the realm so to speak, with free stores and really free markets. Of course this relies heavily on automation to produce basic goods and abundant energy, though this isn't really a barrier IMHO as I do think we have the technology for this already, much less in a society built around an interstellar colony ship.
The discussion of an anarchistic post-scarcity society was a good one and rather compelling. Everyone works at what they're good at, mostly on individual projects, and all resources are shared cash-free, relying on recognition as the coin of the realm so to speak, with free stores and really free markets. Of course this relies heavily on automation to produce basic goods and abundant energy, though this isn't really a barrier IMHO as I do think we have the technology for this already, much less in a society built around an interstellar colony ship.
April 18, 2010
An interesting read in which Hogan explores what preconditions exist for a society to function effectively without government or money. Unlimited resources, automated manufacturing and food production, and good education seem to be the main ones. He has a bit of a stab at law and order but I found it unconvincing. He doesn't take into account the fact that there will always be mentally ill people in society, and that competition for mates, land and status will still exist even if we have no money. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book overall and it is definitely food for thought.
December 12, 2016
Are we really capable of establishing a Utopian society, even given some early indoctrination? I doubt it, but it's a great premise for a battle of ideologies: Hogan's depiction and the inevitable clash with the hierarchical authorities of old earth is thought provoking... And unlike many SF authors, Hogan is able to create a convincing world that doesn't strain the ability to suspend one's disbelief and without adding unecessary fantasy elements. It is very well paced too and is one of those books that I like to reread from time to time.
April 16, 2018
From 1982, but feels much older. More like one of those mid-century Heinlein-esque tracts about an anarcho-libertarian utopia, written by somebody who has a good handle on engineering and chemistry but (despite what he thinks, and despite writing a whole novel around it) not the slightest notion of how real people actually think and behave.
September 30, 2015
Powerful meanings, interesting unfolding story with clear plots and tied in are helpful insights for understanding science. Compare Earth to a new world, the madmen we have controlling so much but believe we want things the way they are, vs intellectual changes.
January 23, 2018
Just barely a three star. To be written in the 80's it hasn't got very good women characters. Only one or two seemed "real", the rest cardboard and not so great. But, a decent story and good use of the "culture clash" idea.
March 22, 2024
Book #: 25
Title: Voyage from Yesteryear
Author: James P.Hogan
Series: none
Format: 382 pages, Mass Market Paperback, own
Pub Date: First published January 1, 1982
Started: 3/11/24 Finished: 3/17/24
Awards: Prometheus Award for Best Novel (1983)
Categories:
PS18 A book set in space; PS19 A book set in the future; GR35 A science or science fiction book; CCLS3 A Book from an Author That You Love; CCLS42 A Book with more than 200 Pages; CCLS44 A Science Fiction Book;
Rating: ***** five out of five
As a child, my favorite book was Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. As a teen, my favorite books was Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. It was probably not a co-incidence that the character was a teen growing up in the 50's and I was a teen growing up in the 60's. I thought it was the greatest book ever because it resonated with me. I refuse to ever read it again because I know it will not resonate like it once did. As an adult, my favorite book is probably Voyage from Yesteryear. I could not find my copy and my wife ordered a new copy for me in her most recent book order, so naturally, I sat down and started reading it.
Humanity is on the verge of wiping itself out. The book was written in 1982 and said our extinction event was in 2021. A plan was made to send embryos out to a habitable planet for robots to raise so humanity won't go extinct. When the first generation became old enough, they shut off the robots and built their own society, one that doesn't value material possessions but human respect and knowledge. Many years later, the re-formed United States sends a ship to 'rescue' them, and teach them religion and military order. Necessary because 'the Communists' have another ship coming less than five years behind them. The Chironians, the inhabitants of the colony planet, aren't having any of it. The US Military will just have to use force on this primitive society.
When I start feeling depressed about where society is heading, I read this book and remember that it doesn't have to be this way. A better society is possible, we just have to convince everybody else as well. I know it's a difficult task, but it's possible. YMMV.
Title: Voyage from Yesteryear
Author: James P.Hogan
Series: none
Format: 382 pages, Mass Market Paperback, own
Pub Date: First published January 1, 1982
Started: 3/11/24 Finished: 3/17/24
Awards: Prometheus Award for Best Novel (1983)
Categories:
PS18 A book set in space; PS19 A book set in the future; GR35 A science or science fiction book; CCLS3 A Book from an Author That You Love; CCLS42 A Book with more than 200 Pages; CCLS44 A Science Fiction Book;
Rating: ***** five out of five
As a child, my favorite book was Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. As a teen, my favorite books was Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. It was probably not a co-incidence that the character was a teen growing up in the 50's and I was a teen growing up in the 60's. I thought it was the greatest book ever because it resonated with me. I refuse to ever read it again because I know it will not resonate like it once did. As an adult, my favorite book is probably Voyage from Yesteryear. I could not find my copy and my wife ordered a new copy for me in her most recent book order, so naturally, I sat down and started reading it.
Humanity is on the verge of wiping itself out. The book was written in 1982 and said our extinction event was in 2021. A plan was made to send embryos out to a habitable planet for robots to raise so humanity won't go extinct. When the first generation became old enough, they shut off the robots and built their own society, one that doesn't value material possessions but human respect and knowledge. Many years later, the re-formed United States sends a ship to 'rescue' them, and teach them religion and military order. Necessary because 'the Communists' have another ship coming less than five years behind them. The Chironians, the inhabitants of the colony planet, aren't having any of it. The US Military will just have to use force on this primitive society.
When I start feeling depressed about where society is heading, I read this book and remember that it doesn't have to be this way. A better society is possible, we just have to convince everybody else as well. I know it's a difficult task, but it's possible. YMMV.
April 17, 2025
#współpracabarterowa
A gdyby tak ludzie mogli wychować się bez naleciałości kulturowych, uprzedzeń, wierzeń mając dostęp tylko do wiedzy naukowej? Co by mogło z nich wyrosnąć?
To jest fascynujące sci-fi! Skłaniające do refleksji socjologiczno-społecznych.
Ziemi miażdżonej chaosem wojennym udało się przetrwać, trzy mocarstwa walczą o dominację. Kto pierwszy podporządkuje sobie kolonistów, którzy żyją na planecie Chiron? Czy Chirończycy, którzy dziesiątki lat wstecz zostali wysłani w formie zarodków i wychowali się pod opieką robotów nie znający hierarchizacji społeczeństwa i władzy zdołają odeprzeć zbrojną ekspedycję z przeszłości?
W tej utopijnej wizji świata kosmiczne dzieci nie znają pojęcia władzy ani pieniądza, bogactwo nie ma znaczenia, kierują się tym, co umieją i są w tym dobrzy. Co gdyby Ziemian zderzyć z bezklasowym, bezpaństwowym, nienapędzanym pragnieniem bogactwa, nieprzerośniętym ego społeczeństwem? Ziemianie w swej zgniłej moralności i butności zawsze będą dążyli do ujarzmiania innych planet pod swoje widzimisię.
Ziemianie tak gloryfikują swój styl życia, a co jeśli inni mają lepszy? To przerażające jak łatwo jest innych odbierać swoją miarą. To, że ktoś żyje inaczej, wcale nie znaczy, że gorzej. Jak lekceważąco jest w stanie traktować człowiek tych, którzy nie pasują jego światopoglądu.
Jestem pod wrażeniem tego pomysłu, zderzenie się z innym systemem wartości jest oszałamiające. Odkrywanie kawałek po kawałku innej społeczności zachwyca. Uświadamia jak ludzie żyją pod presją narzuconych zasad, wpojonych wierzeń, ale czy mają one wszędzie zastosowanie? Jak może zmienić się percepcja w obliczu innej rzeczywistości? Czy uprzedzenia da się wyplenić?
To świetna książka, która długo potem rezonuje w głowie. Warto!
A gdyby tak ludzie mogli wychować się bez naleciałości kulturowych, uprzedzeń, wierzeń mając dostęp tylko do wiedzy naukowej? Co by mogło z nich wyrosnąć?
To jest fascynujące sci-fi! Skłaniające do refleksji socjologiczno-społecznych.
Ziemi miażdżonej chaosem wojennym udało się przetrwać, trzy mocarstwa walczą o dominację. Kto pierwszy podporządkuje sobie kolonistów, którzy żyją na planecie Chiron? Czy Chirończycy, którzy dziesiątki lat wstecz zostali wysłani w formie zarodków i wychowali się pod opieką robotów nie znający hierarchizacji społeczeństwa i władzy zdołają odeprzeć zbrojną ekspedycję z przeszłości?
W tej utopijnej wizji świata kosmiczne dzieci nie znają pojęcia władzy ani pieniądza, bogactwo nie ma znaczenia, kierują się tym, co umieją i są w tym dobrzy. Co gdyby Ziemian zderzyć z bezklasowym, bezpaństwowym, nienapędzanym pragnieniem bogactwa, nieprzerośniętym ego społeczeństwem? Ziemianie w swej zgniłej moralności i butności zawsze będą dążyli do ujarzmiania innych planet pod swoje widzimisię.
Ziemianie tak gloryfikują swój styl życia, a co jeśli inni mają lepszy? To przerażające jak łatwo jest innych odbierać swoją miarą. To, że ktoś żyje inaczej, wcale nie znaczy, że gorzej. Jak lekceważąco jest w stanie traktować człowiek tych, którzy nie pasują jego światopoglądu.
Jestem pod wrażeniem tego pomysłu, zderzenie się z innym systemem wartości jest oszałamiające. Odkrywanie kawałek po kawałku innej społeczności zachwyca. Uświadamia jak ludzie żyją pod presją narzuconych zasad, wpojonych wierzeń, ale czy mają one wszędzie zastosowanie? Jak może zmienić się percepcja w obliczu innej rzeczywistości? Czy uprzedzenia da się wyplenić?
To świetna książka, która długo potem rezonuje w głowie. Warto!
June 20, 2017
1983 grade B+
2017 grade B
While many descriptions list the book as hard scifi and it does include extrapolated science, it is really a story about social and political science. In part one, a ship of about 20000 bureaucratic, stuffed shirt, and militaristic earth people head off to “add” to and provide a government for an existing colony. That colony was established by robotic seed ship about 80 years before. In part two the two cultures begin to mix. It does not go well for many of the earthers because the new culture is vastly different and much more liberated. In part three the action begins in ernest and the conflict is resolved.
It is actually a very good story but it is massively overwritten in places, especially in part one but also part two and a little of part three. There are long descriptions of character's back stories to provide the motivations for their actions. But they were basically not necessary. Since the paragraphs in these areas were long, some stretching a page and a half, it was easy to skip by reading the first sentence or two and skipping to the next paragraph. If it did not make sense at that point, I read the last few lines of the previous paragraph. It was tough to stick with the book at points and I had to force myself to go on. There was also one whole chapter dedicated to explaining how scientific thought had progressed differently in the two cultures. One page would have been enough. - The prolog is very tedious to read.
Be sure to pay attention to the character names (first and last). There are a lot of them and it can be confusing later if you don't know who is who.
2017 grade B
While many descriptions list the book as hard scifi and it does include extrapolated science, it is really a story about social and political science. In part one, a ship of about 20000 bureaucratic, stuffed shirt, and militaristic earth people head off to “add” to and provide a government for an existing colony. That colony was established by robotic seed ship about 80 years before. In part two the two cultures begin to mix. It does not go well for many of the earthers because the new culture is vastly different and much more liberated. In part three the action begins in ernest and the conflict is resolved.
It is actually a very good story but it is massively overwritten in places, especially in part one but also part two and a little of part three. There are long descriptions of character's back stories to provide the motivations for their actions. But they were basically not necessary. Since the paragraphs in these areas were long, some stretching a page and a half, it was easy to skip by reading the first sentence or two and skipping to the next paragraph. If it did not make sense at that point, I read the last few lines of the previous paragraph. It was tough to stick with the book at points and I had to force myself to go on. There was also one whole chapter dedicated to explaining how scientific thought had progressed differently in the two cultures. One page would have been enough. - The prolog is very tedious to read.
Be sure to pay attention to the character names (first and last). There are a lot of them and it can be confusing later if you don't know who is who.
August 2, 2019
The writing is well done, sort of a more succinct Arthur C. Clarke. The premise is clever and draws you in: A spaceship leaves a war-torn desolate earth for a planet that had been inhabited years earlier by humans embryos brought up only by robots.
Raised only with scientific knowledge and without base needs, religion, or tribalism, the new humans have formed a cashless society without any hierarchy or govt. This is where the author's treatise begins to fall apart a bit for me.
It's a civilization where virtually everyone works very hard in whatever "job" they choose, even though all their material needs are met. Recognition of one's work or intelligence is enough. They have somehow shed greed, jealously, laziness, and other human frailties... a bit like scientific logic and reason based quakers, but without the religion.
I won't go further to give away the whole story, but the influx of the old humans with all their baggage into this new world is the meat of the tale. I do find it interesting that many readers of this book insert their on ideology on this utopian world; from libertarian right to left anarchism. My own belief is that a non-hierarchical society is virtually impossible, but a modern social democracy with lots of rules (and yes, taxes) is as close as we can become.
Raised only with scientific knowledge and without base needs, religion, or tribalism, the new humans have formed a cashless society without any hierarchy or govt. This is where the author's treatise begins to fall apart a bit for me.
It's a civilization where virtually everyone works very hard in whatever "job" they choose, even though all their material needs are met. Recognition of one's work or intelligence is enough. They have somehow shed greed, jealously, laziness, and other human frailties... a bit like scientific logic and reason based quakers, but without the religion.
I won't go further to give away the whole story, but the influx of the old humans with all their baggage into this new world is the meat of the tale. I do find it interesting that many readers of this book insert their on ideology on this utopian world; from libertarian right to left anarchism. My own belief is that a non-hierarchical society is virtually impossible, but a modern social democracy with lots of rules (and yes, taxes) is as close as we can become.
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