Skip to content
Menu
Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!
  • home
  • what sits on my desk
  • what i read
  • about me
  • contact
Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!
09/22/202210/02/2022

RARE EARTH

Today is the atumnal equinox. Say it–ah TUM nal...  kinda rolls off the tongue.

…when the Sun is exactly above the Equator, this year cacluated to be at 8:04 pm, EDT,  and day and night are of equal length. Today the sun begins the journey south to mark the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

Exactly above the equator…imagine being in space and seeing that! ‘Course, there is not really a line and I can’t even come up with where you would have to be in space…but still, pretty cool thought.

Way back in the last century, I took an astronomy class for my college science credits.  Mrs. Larson was the professor, she and her husband square danced with my parents.  I loved astronomy.  To this day I remember the parts about the eighteen nodes of the moon, the orbit of the sun, the impact of the moon on the tides, waning and waxing moons, identifying the constellations, which I am still lousy at and the solar system.

Space, the final frontier!  <can’t you just hear the music swell?> Ah, James T. Kirk and his hallmark opening to Star Trek.

I am a huge science fiction reader. Huge! From Martians Go Home in the second grade–shocking sweet Mother Patricia no end–to John Carter traveling to Mars by thought to the warp drives of Star Trek and the folding of space with spice in Dune, I’ve been to lots of places. And, like most I would love to meet an alien–ya know, the kind from outside our atmosphere!

Back in 2000 I found a book by authors Ward and Brownlee. In RARE EARTH the authors postulate that we are the amazing beneficiaries of confluence of events that make the Earth habitable by high brain functioning beings. That in orders of magnatiude really won’t happen elsewhere. That we really are alone.

Kinda sad, sort of. But in no way daunting. After all,  writing fiction is about what could be imagined, not always what is possible or probable. And, here we are on this ONE, this ONLY planet capable of fostering and maintaining higher forms of life over thousands of years. Wow.

Which is one of the reasons why, for the most part, Isaac Asimov is one of my favorite SCIFi writers.  I can’t think of a book of his that is about actual extraterrestrial beings, and not humans who have risked traveling in the vacuum of space to find and terraform or colonize another planet.

At the very end of ROBOTS OF DAWN, the final in the CAVES OF STEEL trilogy,  Asimov’s  main character, Elijah Baley,  has a conversation with the mind reading robot, Giskard.  As part of the series, the Spacers, who have longer lives than those humans who still stay on Earth, want to use robots to go out and colonize more of space.  But Giskard states robots colonizing will not help the human race but that it should be humans who do the work. He adds that the Earthmen have walls that are ‘crude and literal’ but escapable.  While the Spacers have walls that are immaterial and unseen, making them inescapable. It is here that Giskard mentions the Galatic Empire, presumably of Foundation series, recognizing the inherent qualities of doggedness, steadfastness and determination of the Earthmen  that will prove to be necessary to colonizing space in a huge way.

Reading the robot series again after decades was interesting–remembering scenes, a blue dress, an institute lab,  yet forgetting some of the mystery. It was in ROBOTS OF DAWN, this time, that I remembered the genius of being human.

Rare earth, indeed.

Musings from a reader first, lover of dark chocolate and Irish whiskey, tennis player and writer of mysteries, science fiction, and historical non-fiction.

Recent Posts

  • THE MISSIONS
  • NOT THE DOG
  • TIME
  • ONE WORD
  • In Praise of A Niece

Categories

  • Art & Craft
  • Musing
  • Reading
  • Writing The Past

My Favorite Places

SCBWI
SCBWI Carolinas
Sisters In Crime
SinC Triad Chapter Murder We Write

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2019
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • June 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • December 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • August 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
©2023 Write Early, Write Often…Write Something! | Powered by WordPress and Superb Themes!