I read this book when it came out in 1975. Enjoyed it and still remember parts of it but honestly I haven't thought of it for years. Great to be reminded of it.
Good review, thought i did have one moderate correction to make- This story is not actually a 'Time Travel' Story in the technical sense. Meaning he did not have a *Power* or a *Device* where he could move up and down the Timestream. All he did was create a process that vastly increased his lifespan. Some might consider that a nitpick, but just being able to live longer isn't really Time Travel. In a Sense all the Protagonist did was discover another version of 'The Elixir', tens of thousands of years before Mainstream Humanity did. Again, good video excellent find.
Your mention of this book led to me downloading the audiobook version and listening to it on a road trip. MIND OPENING STUFF. This is not the first mention in literature of global warming, planetary super computers, or resource wars. There was plenty of speculation about this in the 1900s and earlier in fringe science. you may be able to find things like this in Haiti trust archives
I think the first story was definitely the most insightful, the way it opened with Manhattan covered in forest, leading Our Hero to think he'd found a world devoid of humanity, certainly of civilization...until he saw an immense dirigible passing overhead. Pulled aboard, he finds himself among civilized people using sophisticated technology...almost none of it using any metal at all. Manhattan is forested, not because it has been abandoned but simply because it is part of an immense tree plantation, growing wood for industry.
Great video! Glad I found your channel to which i duly subscribed after your segment of Asomov's "Nightfall". Manning reminds me of Olaf Stapledon, ony Stapledon is way more talentend and visionary. I would love you to do a Stapledon segment - I read "The Starmaker" and "The Last and First Men" at fifteen or sixteen in my youth in Manila, galvanizing my love for SF!
@ 9:50 This is by no means a new concept. It's straight up the Land of the Lotus Eaters from the Odyssey, just a bit more rational. Machines instead of fruits and someone should take care of the sleepers, obviously! Obviously, there's a lot more to a story than the basic premise and I'd gladly read this story- Lawrence Manning seems to have put a lot of thought in the stories presented in this video!
I have heard of this one quite recently in connection with readings for my podcast. i believe it was reprinted in Before the Golden Age, a big anthology edited by Isaac Asimov, but, now you've said it's in three parts and essentially a full lenght novel, i suspect they only printed the first part. I don't actually think supercomputers as such were discussed much before 1933. There's some stuff about machines becoming powerful as in Erewhon by Samuel Butler (origin of the "Butlerian Jihad") in the 1870s, but it's not described in a way anything like that. The first computers hadn't even come into existence yet in the 30s. I read the July 1939 issue of Astounding recently and there is a really exciting article in there about calculating machines, but they are just described as labour saving devices, and the vacuum tubes are used for power transmission, not to represent on/off states. So, interesting.
Cannot recall the author of WITH FOLDED HANDS, story possibly from Astounding Stories, late 1940's or early '50s. Story: advanced robots from space descend on earth Everyone gets one which does everything for them. Everything, all anyone has to do is sit with folding hands.
Golden age sci-fi was the best. Science hadn't advanced enough to give authors issues with accuracy. There was air on Mars, life on Venus. The future seemed always just around the corner. Not the dark, dystopia we're accosted with these days.
The yellow cover I show in the video is the UK version, so I think it was released simultaneously in both countries. I'd say poke around at used book stores or eBay. Also, someone mentioned there is an audiobook version here on youtube. Happy hunting!
Well everything is inspirerend and/or or based on something else . It's always fun to try and find earlier (potential ) sources .The Wachowskis were inspired by the Dan Simmon's Hyperion, were humanity is trapped by a super AI civilization, and used as batteries .Who knows what inspired Dan Simmons ? Could well be this story.
The Machine Stops is amazing. I read it over 40 years ago and still remember it because it shocked me. Written 100 years ago and forecast the connected world we live in nowadays. Amazing.
In the 1920s Charles Ferdinand Ramuz wrote a book called "Sturz in die Sonne" (I'm not sure if there is an English translation) about a kind of global warming that is caused by the Earth falling into the sun.
hindu cosmology on universe as dream... Brahma is the creator and great magician who dreams the universe into being. The dream itself is maintained by Vishnu, the Preserver, who uses maya to spin the complex web that we know as reality. It is not that the world itself is an illusion, only our perception of it.
