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HUMAN_WONDER

                                                   March     6, 2004
                                          Revised: November 17, 2004


Damon Knight lead off the pack
with his "In Search of Wonder".               Blish/Atheling responded
                                              with the Sophocles line:
David G. Hartwell continues this
tradition in "Age of Wonders":                  "Wonders are many, but
                                                none so wonderful as man."

Hartwell discusses the Niven story
"Inconstant Moon" as arousing
the sense of wonder, but to me
it's really clear that the
central feature is not amazement
at that abnormally bright moon,
but the comprehension of the
person staring at it. It's a
story about a man who
immediately realizes something        LUCIFERS_HAM
that takes everyone else a long
time to understand.

    The point of the story is *not*
    wondering at the cosmos... this
    is the old fantasy of being the          "Nightfall" and "Universe" are
    Competent Man.                           less celebrations of wonder
                                             than cautionary tales.

The central concern of SF is not             Each is a story about a
just "wonder", but wonders that              people who are without
are comprehended, wonders tamed.             mental flexibility, who
                                             have let circumstance
  As Hartwell himself puts it:               narrow their vision.
  "What makes the story Sf is
  not the magic but the                        The reader, it is
  explanation that suggests                    understood, is not
  that the magic is actually                   one of them.
  possible."  p. 83
                                                    HOPE_OF_THE_SLANS
Not just possible, but
tameable, within human
scope.

    Blish's remarks                  (Yes, Feynman's
    are apropos, but                 doggerel is also
    can be flipped.     The human    apropos.)
                        engagement
    Not just the        with the                       I had an English
    cosmic ballet,      wonder is                      teacher once that
    but a human dance   the real                       talked about the
    with the cosmos.    focus.                         experience of looking
                                                       up at the sky:

                                                         "It makes you feel
         Ah, the extreme                                  very small,
         dissapointments of the                           doesn't it?"
         sulfuric acid of Venus,
         the sterilizing                                  While the class
         radiation of Jupiter...                          nodded, I thought
                                                          "Actually, no,
                                                          it doesn't"
         And then, Varley's
         suburbanization of                               SF does not
         Mercury via personal                             celebrate the
         force field...                                   majestic, it
                                                          insists that
         Need we resort to that?                          humanity is as
                                                          great as any
                                                          wonder.

                                                          The jesters...

                                           LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS

                                                          The deep ones...

                                                     IN_DEEP

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