Existence

AFTERWORD

I get questions from all directions. For example: “What relevance does the literature called science fiction offer-what light can it shine-on ‘eternal human verities’ or the core mysteries that vex all generations?”

A quite different query comes from fans of the hardcore stuff-bold, idea-drenched sci-fi: “Why are most serious authors no longer writing deep space adventures, using warp drive to explore on a galactic scale? Have you all just given up and surrendered to Einstein?”

Two seemingly opposite perspectives, from a very broad reader base! Yet, I found both concerns converging during the long, arduous process of writing Existence. Let me answer the second one first.

No, I haven’t lost any love for grand, cosmic vistas, or contact with strange minds, or even great cruisers roaming the interstellar expanse. I’ll return to the Uplift Universe soon, where vivid heroes and villains don’t have just one way to cheat relativity, but twenty! I promise gigatons of sense-o-wonder.

Still, “warp drive” is kind of like playing tennis with the net lowered. Way fun, but more and more, authors like Bear, Robinson, Banks, Asaro, Sawyer, Kress, Vinge, Benford, Baxter, and others want to see what they can do with the hand nature dealt us. And if that means dancing with Einstein? Well, so be it.

Existence is about the cosmos that we see. Stark, immense beyond immensity, and unwelcoming to moist mayflies like us. Strangely-dauntingly-quiet. And perched in this vast emptiness is the oasis speck of Earth. More fragile than we imagined.

Yet, despite all that, might there be ways to persevere? To endure? Perhaps even to matter?

Which brings us back to question number one. Like most (usually) serious SF authors, I’m appalled by the notion of eternal human verities. A loathsome concept, foisted by brooding, husk-like academics, proclaiming that people will forever be the same, repeating every Proustian obsession, every omphaloskeptic navel-contemplation, and every dopey mistake of our parents, all the way until time’s end. A horrible concept that is-fortunately-disproved by history and science and every generation of bright kids who strive to climb a little higher than their ignorant ancestors. And to raise kids of their own who will be better still. The greatest story. The greatest possible story.

Yes, great works of the past are enduring as art. The poignancy of Aeschylus and Shakespeare will remain timelessly moving and valuable. We’ll never lose fascination for and empathy with the struggles of earlier generations. Still, what intrigues me, far more than “eternal” static things, is how people grow. (And let’s define “people” in a way that’s broad, that’s challenging!)

How children sometimes learn from the mistakes of other generations… or else deliberately refuse to. How, on occasion, they actually improve themselves, their town, nation, even species… and go on to commit fresh mistakes of their own invention! Using the art of gedankenexperiment to explore those potential improvements-and errors-is interesting! A compelling chance to peer ahead, or to the side. That-rather than mere starships or light-saber nonsense-is what our genre offers and none other.

We live in a strange time, when our newfound taste for diversity is growing into fascination with the strange, even alien. When we’re on the verge of picking up every tool that God is said to have used and boldly applying them in our own turn at co-creation, for well or ill. Whether by plan or happenstance, we apprentices are building that tower again. And, possibly, we’re about to build new companions, too. New friends. Again, for well or ill.

Admit it. Scary or not, that’s fascinating.

Now the challenge. Never before have human beings so benefited from membership in a sagacious, scientific, and increasingly virtuous civilization. Wisdom flowers and spreads… even as does silliness. Like the absurd assertion (repeated ad nauseam by left and right) that wisdom hasn’t grown! A damnable outright lie.

This is a bona fide renaissance, threatening to make everything better, in all ways. A renaissance that must find every potentially lethal error and hence, ironically, benefits from endless criticism. Helpful, vigorous criticism-but not chic-cynical despair.

What of the question implicit in the title, Existence?

The alternative to continuity is The End of the World as We Know It… or TEOTWAWKI. Well, you got a survey of possible dooms in this book! It sure is a minefield out there. But poking at the ground in front of us-finding the quicksand and land mines and snake pits-is exactly how worry can gradually transform into hope. Finding a path across the next century is our task, and millions take it seriously.

Along the way, we need to keep reminding ourselves, this awkward phase of early adolescence will pass, if now and then we also lift our heads. Looking ahead.

We aren’t a curse upon the world. We are her new eyes. Her brain, testes, ovaries… her ambition and her heart. Her voice. So sing.