A raid from the past.
I'd say so. Sounds like fun. And it is. Everyone will find something for themselves. And the layer emerging from under classical, in this case hard SF is in this case the most interesting. The criticism of our way of life, the world's imagination by the cultural and social prism, the criticism above all of the political perception of life, strikes like both. An alien planet with a society raised without a civilizational hump bears anarchist traits, only superficially.
In fact, it turns out to be a community based on deep trust in the individual. And respect her. Unimaginable in the world's societies. Well, aside from tribal cultures, that's sarcasm from me?
SF literature, which to this day is being treated stepmotherly. Many readers do not see its potential. On the basis of the "fiction" it is not only possible to build plots for themselves (so shootings, fighting on various weapons, space battles, etc.) to transfer information to the planet around us without the consequences of bearing the cost of literary literature specified as "realism?". You can smuggle a lot in here, even if you gotta hide it. We remember Zaidla's social and political fiction. His dystopia. A mention to a reality headed by leadership towards the only happy society, ruled in advance by infallible organization leaders. Everyone knew what invaders the author wrote about. The ones with the red five-point star. Just due to the fact that they looked like different versions of UFOs didn't matter. We readers knew.
What are we dealing with in Hogan? First of all, with the immersive, so masterful game and narrative. Something good for everyone. A giant interstellar ship from Earth is heading for a fresh world. Armed to the teeth. With a tiny army on board. Among this army, a company that is different than all. besides good to become a model, so it is at the bottom as the name implies: company “D”. So, a perfect soldier? But why? due to the fact that he can respect his life for perfection. Somehow, I can see “Gold for the arrogant” in front of me right away, and of course the celebrated function of Donald Sutherland, the Sergeant “The Freak”. It kind of reminds me. Here, the boys he's in charge of are mobilizing for profit...
In the Invasion of the Past, the reason is much more crucial and much higher in the hierarchy of moral acts: to save (and this in a literal sense) part of humanity on the planet Chiron. It's true, then it turns out that they were fighting not precisely for the part they thought they were fighting about?
The very beginning of the book gives an eye to the reader, allows you to feel the function of friends of these people with the company “D” where the boys abruptly win all the army maneuvers, which were expected to be a good fun for a fewer days, and the punch line for this success reads, “Success is like a fart of its own that smells nice” is not only rather accurate attention (although possibly a bit untasteful), but above all it ranks in the position of fraternizing with the reader. scope out to him.
So we're going this way. And we find an interesting and compact plot. Reading will delight us. Do not feel the crucial burden of education of the author of the novel, who is an engineer and theoretical physicist. Instead, we find numerous, more or little hidden references to moral principles that guide human conduct.
In a confrontation with Chiron's society, I would say: virginally unaware of the mechanisms of power and politics aimed at a powerful cosmic giant to the planet, we will learn much more about ourselves and what is in our minds. Chiron is about individual skill, ability, and willingness to do what you know and like. Therefore, there is respect and honor for everyone, from a simple artist and cleaner, as long as he paints and cleans with the ability to do this work. It's about skill. Perfect ability to execute a given job. Everyone is equal, working together for the good of everyone. No 1 is humiliated. They're not laughing at anyone. all profession is valuable, all job.
Meanwhile, the ship that just arrived at Chiron carries with it practically all the ballasts of civilization we know on a regular basis; noisy media, politicalism, homies, sucking up, exploiting others and many another of our flaws, stemming from a social agreement in which we have been screwed from the very beginning of our school education, where we learn to perceive and follow instructions. Sometimes without thinking...
It's different on Chiron. It's the person, her skills. The actual ones.
People from the ship find themselves. Mostly...
There are those who want to live at the expense of others, who want to have everything the Chirons have for free...
Thus, this ossified, exposed core of unchanging, corrupted power permeated by the desire to have (not only material, but besides the government of souls) politicians. They want to be on top, to have, at any cost, anything possible. Even the deaths of his constituents. The people those politicians were expected to take care of. According to democracy. Be their representatives. The clash of unpolluted civilization Chirona has stripped them of the remnants of the illusion they have surrounded. People get the truth. They're rebelling. In the book we have for the defence of average people company “D”. Those autsaiders. Losers, socially ill-adjusted.
The Chirons are preparing a fewer surprises, too. It comes to the culmination of a hard-headed duel with an anarchist society uncovering its social identity in Chiron's perfect society. I can feel this fresh breath of revolution on the pages of the book. He plays like muscles under the skin, strained in effort to shed the yoke of slavery. It's a long way to go. The company of losers, however, returns to its place, is complete. Despite the pleasance of surviving on Chirona, they stand for freedom for the last time. Pathetic? A little, but sometimes it is essential to do so. Besides, it's eloquently literary. In emotional-emotional issues, too, are you faithful, relationship and a sense of work above all else?
Meanwhile, the weapon is in another hand. This is about atomic power. Here's a small space opera: The spindle-fighting heart of the mothership. Could destruct all life on the planet. “The usurpers” know that the bad people against whom they have stood are determined for everything, and most of all, that they will never let them to quit control of others—the exercise of their absolute power supported by the power of the weapons they have at their disposal. Well, then they're gonna request a gun. And in this part of the book there are scenes, building an answer to the moral context of the pronunciation of the novel. The key, culminating scene is the thought of 1 of the heroes: Colman: the approach of parts of the company “D” under his command to steel bunkers, guarding access from the mothership, to the combat device - spindle. They approach slow with their weapons down. They show their hidden opponents, send a message. We're armed, but we're not hiding, we know it's not about killing ourselves in the name of a comfortable, delicious life of politicians upstairs. We just want to live, and we know we're on the right side. An interesting, somewhat idealistic thought for signaling, in the sphere of the usage of socio-technique, assuming that on the another side it will not encounter a brain-washed leming. But it's very effective. They stand in front of the airlock, with their guns lowered and motionless, waiting for an SS officer to decide (a masterful letter convergence of abbreviated peculiar Services troops [elite], with others, of bad fame from the Second planet War period) on the another side, this 1 analyses, thoughts and answers without audibly the question: “Any loser would hazard taking a higher stake than the 1 that these lids have already placed...” The officer's decision is what all the soldiers in the planet should be: he surrenders his post. So [unliterally] throws his weapon on the ground and acknowledges that utilizing it is not a good way to solve conflicts. He respects the highest value: human life. And he joins those who fight for them.
"Colman raised his head and began to look again at the impenetrable approaches to the bulkhead gate, one more time imagining the inevitable slaughter that a frontal attack would lead to. And on both sides – who would have the chance to gain anything they care about? He had no dispute with the people in charge of this defensive position, they had no dispute with him or any of his men. So why was he lying here with a weapon in his hand trying to figure out the best way to kill them? due to the fact that they had guns there, and they most likely spent quite a few time figuring out the best way to kill him. no of them knew why he was doing it. It's just the way it was done.
(What to do?) He tried to set his head on the way a Chiron would use.
[...]
- There's an army approaching the airlock - a linear ward - 30 or a small more...
[...]
...human figures slow appeared, walking from the side of transit pipes and freight rails. Deep down, they were walking loose, but as they approached the platform they were moving into an increasingly tight line. They moved carefully and carefully, but not stealthyly, and clearly avoided utilizing the cover. And they kept their guns on their belts, with barrels pointing down in a way that could mean anything but threats.
[...]
They led him, walking a fewer steps ahead, a advanced sergeant and a corporal wearing glasses. They stopped like they were waiting for something; behind their backs the full ward of Lesley stood inactive closed his teeth, looking at them through an reflection gap. These people risked their lives – depending on the answer to the questions he faced.
[...]
He could close the airlock and engage in the defence of the conflict Module; or reinforced by the linear forces that came down, he could defend the open airlock against the SS-mans approaching from the Module before the remainder of the Army joins. He had to make the decision now.
[...]
...looked back at the sergeant, the corporal, the people behind them in a silent appeal to reason. They besides risked everything that Celia and others did not do for nothing. Whatever failure Lesley would risk, he couldn't have staked more than the 1 those people had already staked."
The anti-war thesis, the pacifistic one, is besides visible. I agree with her. Well presented in this passage is the attitude of soldiers to each other: they truly have nothing against each another as people. It's politicians who put reasons in their heads...
On Wrzecien there is simply a handful, this cancer of the social body, which can no longer be reduced, which, for various reasons, will not back distant from anything to establish its power of power. With this fragment of the social organism, nothing can be done, but to remove it: fire?
Yeah.
The fresh since I met her, inactive from the old Fantasy” was close to me. I've read it respective times. Why? The author has his thesis, which he gradually and in a very awesome way proves on the pages of the book. Very attractive for young and rebellious. He shows us society [ours, worlds] as imperfect in confronting perfect to exposure the disadvantages of the former, especially pointing to cynical politicians manipulating the majority of society they have of horror! To serve. However, in the vast majority, they service themselves, their eunuchs, as well as coworkers, who may even announcement all matts, but agree to them in return for profits. And for the remainder of society there stay emotions, blaming “the other” any vague promises, general: blah blah blah – media mush on all levels. And, of course, an absolute deficiency of respect for another human being, a fellow countryman.
Views on others: nations, social groups, cultural groups, etc.:
"The Chinese do not have the habit of assessing the full group of people in bulk and presume that everyone who belongs to them is the same. They didn't start hating all the soldiers due to the fact that they accidentally wear coats of the same colour as the band that's out there, and they won't start hating all Grounder. They do not think in specified categories.”
Context... do we know?
“There are no evil nations, there are bad people”
What do we do? – we let lies into our heads, in any circumstantial socio-technical manipulation of new-words: Bad Jews, Germany, Russians.... etc.
Why are these lies pressed? due to the fact that individual (or many “someones”) uses them to make their own imagination of a planet where confrontation makes it easier for them to exercise power. It distracts the public from them. If they had not been exposed, they would have stood before us as though naked, and we would have seen that their ideals, deeds and behaviours were most likely dictated by the desire for profit and the maniacal desire, not for power, but for authority.
"The political past of the Earth was teeming with accidents where authorities deliberately provoked disturbances [start-up-out] to justify a violent reaction in the eyes of their own peoples."
Hogan places society on the other side, for which the highest value is expertise – where the work performed is simply a circumstantial kind of highest good.
Thus, specified a solution, acknowledges and respects even the simplest professional, who does his occupation well, perfectly. With appropriate sacrifice. A painter, a garbage man, a cleaner, and others.
And the means of payment is to work for the community. A respectful attitude towards members of this community. A perfect society? Of course, questions arise. due to the fact that on this level it reminds us of what we had in our home – socialism. The author had rather an idealistic approach to this layer of his idea. He wanted to prove his thesis, point out to the reader the errors of systems operating around us based on the same mechanisms, which disagree only somewhat in the colour of local cultures. He's doing great. However, it should be mentioned that it escapes from deeper analyses and conclusions, does not analyse and does not take into account the problems of behaviour and reaction between people. due to the fact that even if people raised in Chirona by robots were deprived of all cultural and social-political baggage, human reactions remain. The full psychology of individual intercourse. Spirituality, searching for yourself in an individual. Would it be possible to receive specified an abstract as the society presented, without the tiny ideal? The more so, somewhere in the text is the question of whether everyone is so super perfect? Honestly Author Chironian's voice answers that there are those who, however, do not stand up to the task. However, it does not fit into the philosophical-psychological consideration of why this happens. Thus the answers to questions about the intellectual condition of a man in specified a phase of intellectual development, where substance becomes a dominium, we will not find. But, well, I guess the author didn't mean to drain specified a complicated intellectual work. His thesis pointed out, developed and proved. On that level, it worked. Let us, however, have this [small?] imperfection in head so as not to fall into same - delight. However, from the point of view of literature and the SF canon, the pace of action, ideas that have been used, military threads, and besides love - the position defends itself perfectly.
In the political and social layer, we can ask ourselves a question by comparing the reality surrounding us: Is this truly a fiction? And here the book is dangerously becoming a mirror of our present reality, and a passage about strings over the heads of people who are so powerfully controlled that without these proverbial strings they proceed to make the same movements as if they were still, and their animators kept directing them - for any readers, it may even be prophetic.
James P. Hogan A raid from the past first title: Voyage from Yesteryear
A passage from the cover of an earlier edition, which I remembered powerfully at 1 time:
"What will be the consequence of a clash between a wealth-filled Chiron society of free people, where everyone does what they feel is right, where there is no government, courts or police, where the only “money” in circulation is human respect – and armed invaders from the past?..."
(translation: Juliusz Garztecki publisher: Square place and year of publication: Warsaw 1993 ISBN: 83-85856-00-5)
Current edition:
Original title: Voyage from Yesteryear
Date of issue: 2025-04-22
ISBN: 978-83-8338-315-6, 97883833833156
Publishing house: Rebis
Series: Time device [Rebis]
Categories: Fantasy, Science-fiction
Pages: 464
Link to the publisher's screen page: ]]>https://www.rebis.com.pl/en/book-invasion-with- past-james-p-hogan,BIHB12970.html]]>
