Lee Willard

The Press at Honaseka (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

In an ancient land that thought of itself as the 'Known World' until recently, there lies a group of cities only a day's hike from one another that are the cultural melting pot of this 'known world.' Thru most of it's history few paid any attention to the outside world. Then, two centuries ago this area was discovered by an outside group, a civilization of Elves with many advances in technology. They brought advanced crops that banished hunger until the population grew. They brought advanced medicines that allowed those with the means to overcome diseases that had taken many in former ages and allowed them to enhance their beauty and strength. They brought machines that could record music, machines that could paint pictures incredibly lifelike and detailed, machines that could communicate over vast distances nearly instantaneously.
But two of the boons they brought have been especially disruptive to the cultures of the 'Known World'. One was extended youth. At first the medicines that extended youth were very expensive so that only the wealthiest could afford them. At first they were secret so very few knew of them. As time went on, the price came down and more of the population knew of them and could take advantage of them, with the result that cheating old age and death is no longer secret.
The second great change was a plague that made people sterile. At first the sterility plague was distant. It is spread only by exchange of bodily fluids, most thought it was spread only by sexual union. As we will witness, the plague has now reached the area where the people we will observe lived. For seven generations the poor have known that the wealthy live on. They resented it, and there was often trouble, but their preachers tell them that living on is a sin that keeps the ageless from their reward in the afterlife. Until now they've always lived on thru their children but today the plague is ending all that. The generation that will have no one to care for them in their old age is already born, and all the resentments, both social and religious, are coming to a head.
When we of Earth get to this point in biological science, let us hope that we come thru it as cleanly and easily as we see in this story. There is no doubt that the treatments will be only for the privileged and secret for quite some time. We will probably never know when they become available to the elites of Earth but already many parts of this have been kept from us. A cure for grey hair exists today, but Clairol has bought the American rights and does not allow it to be imported to this country. Telomere treatments have been researched, but news of them has already been suppressed.
In this story we see how the transition from ephemeral to eternal was made in one of the most backward areas of Kassidor, and one of only two where there was a long delay in bringing the benefits to nearly all of society. We follow the lives of six people thru the forty years when that transition occurred, 11ad. To 51ad. Two of them have made the transition long ago, three are affluent enough that they knew they would live on even when they were young and one of them longed to stay young but was too poor to ever suspect he would make it.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Lee Willard
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. April 2021
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781005364656
• Artikelnr.: 72788259

Autorenporträt

I am a retired embedded systems engineer and sci-fi hobbyist from Hartford. Most of my stories concern Kassidor, 'The planet the hippies came from' which I have used to examine subjects like: What would it take to make the hippy lifestyle real? How would extended lifespans affect society? What could happen if we outlive our memories? How can murder be committed when violence is impossible?

I have recently discovered that someone new to science fiction should start their exploration of Kassidor with the Second Expedition trilogy. To the mainstream fiction reader the alien names of people, places and things can be confusing. This series has a little more explanation of the differences between Kassidor and Earth. In all of the Kassidor stories you will notice the people do not act like ordinary humans but like flower children from the 60's. It is not until Zhlindu that the actual modifications made to human nature to make them act that way are spelled out. To aide that understanding I've made The Second Expedition free.

I am not a fan of violence and dystopia. I believe that sci-fi does not just predict the future, but helps create the future because we sci-fi writers show our readers what the future will be and the readers go out and create it. I believe that the current fad of constant dystopia and mega-violence in sci-fi today is helping to create that world, and I mention that often in reviews and comments on the books I read. I also believe that the characters in those stories who are completely free of any affection are at least as unnatural as the modified humans of Kassidor.

In my reviews, * = couldn't finish it. ** = Don't bother with it. *** = good story worth reading. **** = great and memorable story. ***** = Worth a Hugo.