2017/01/21 K3+ Post
Reference #9 (Book taken as a whole)
Edward M. Lerner first came to my attention as one of the contributors to “Analog Science Fiction and Fact”.
http://www.analogsf.com/The first of several stories collected in Reference #9 appeared in Analog in November of 2000, and the book itself is Copyright © 2010.
Mr. Lerner's writing for Analog certainly adheres to the culture of Analog, which emphasizes real or plausible science as the framework for fiction.
Having first read several the stories that became the input to Reference #9 in the magazine, I recalled that Mr. Lerner had set out to imagine what a network of civilizations separated by light years might look like. While my purpose in ordering the book was to look for clues about how such a radio network might develop in practice, as human communities move away from Earth, I admit that I enjoyed reading Werner's imaginative account of surprises of various kinds which ultimately resolve to a satisfying conclusion that feeds into the next book in the series.
Begin Quotation from Afterword on Page 280:
InterstellarNet began in musings about a far-future, star-spanning human civilization. I presumed the pesky constraints of relativity: no FTL travel.
End Quotation.
The specific hard science elements for which I was searching are certainly present, but they are relatively few in number. The benefit of Mr. Lerner's treatment of these elements is that the reader is provided substantial tapestry upon which to build imaginings of the reader's own, knowing that Mr. Lerner has invested his academic training and real world experience in building his imaginary future upon a solid foundation. Alas, the failings of human beings are appropriately explored in the work.
The conclusion I have drawn from my careful reading of Reference #9, is that communication from the Solar System to remote locations will most reasonably require construction of a communications hub (and eventually several for redundancy) which are in orbit around the Sun, to minimize as much as possible the complexity of attempting communication from the surface of a planet such as Earth.
Such a communications hub could be one of the million person communities I am contemplating in the Magellan Thread, in this forum.
The next book in Mr. Werner's series will consider interstellar travel under the constraints of Relativity.
Begin Quotation from Afterword, Page 283:
The starships are slower than light, of course – I'm not about to make InterstellarNet obsolete.
End Quotation.
I am not persuaded by those who imagine a future with faster than light travel, or even travel at any significant fraction of the speed of light. My vision is aligned with writers of past decades, who imagined slow movement of entire communities of humans away from Earth. If technology provides faster travel, I am confident energy requirements will be enforced by Nature, so that use of any such technology will be limited. In my opinion, the vast majority of humans living in the centuries ahead will live more modestly than a few jet-setters of those ages.
(th)
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