(urth) [SPAM] Re: Van Vogt. (Was: Re: I Claudius)

[Jeff Wilson]

Andy Robertson wrote:

> TBOTNS is a "Dying Earth" story - a story set in a future in which the Sun 
> (and therefore creation itself) has become senile, and reality frays. 
> 
> This theme descends (like all SF does, I believe) from ancient Indo-European 
> religious and cultural forms, in this case the idea that the Universe is 
> cyclically renewed through flood and flame. 
> 
> VV, as far as I know, never wrote in this vein.   In fact VV was really 
> writing, and wrote again and again (to the point of wearying at least this 
> reader),  about quite another ancient Indo-European theme - the idea that a 
> man can effectively become a god. 

VV's novel, _THE UNIVERSE MAKER_, combines the two themes (as you can 
probably guess from the title), as well as the Wolfean theme of an 
emergent, higher ethical order emerging from an indefinite cycle of 
recapitulation and attempting to control it.

Jeff