[aklug] Book Review and Extrapolation

Enuff of Natty:

It is probably not entirely OTL to give a couple of book reviews. I
have read a fair amount of Science Fiction in my (long) day. I also
read a lot of historical fiction and non-fiction. I have found that
reading Science Fiction from a particular time period can also be a
comment on the time period itself. In fact it serves as an
extrapolation of technical and social issues of the time of
publication.

I first started reading Sci-Fi in the 1950's (I was born in 1949).
This was the 'duck and cover' days, and I lived in an area that had
more atomic warheads than any other part of the free world (North
Dakota). Many of the settings of the Sci-Fi Novels were of a
post-atomic-apocalyptic world.

But I divert. The book I am reading now is called "City" and was
written by Clifford Simak in 1952. Simak starts with two assumptions
that were around at the time and many times referred to in the
popular periodicals of the time such as Popular Science and Popular
Mechanics. The assumptions were:
1)Atomic power would be plentiful, portable and cheap. Thus small
atomic engines.
2)A high-speed family plane (powered by small, cheap atomic
engines), would replace the family car.
3)Atomic - powered humanoid robots as the 'Servant Class'

Simak extrapolates from this -
1) an out-migration from the cities to a world of country estates
staffed by robots.
2)Social turmoil in the Farming communities as a result of the
out-migration and mutation of some farm people into super-geniuses.
(My folks love that one! Since they have been farmers all their lives
and been very, very good at fighting city hall.)

And much, much more. A very human book. Simak was a country boy and
more concerned with private thoughts than privates parts, such as
Piers Anthony.

The second book I read recently that got my attention is the
"Zimmerman Telegraph". It was written by Barbara Tuchman, who also
wrote "The Guns of August". This is a real story about communication
technology. The communication Technology of the early 20th century,
and events leading up to WWI. Highly recommended. Lots of
skulldugery.

2 great reads.

Speaking of extrapolation, I took a class in Parallel Processing at
Mat-Su College 17 years ago. The extrapolations from that class
predicted multi-processor PCs by this time. We're not talking Quads,
but 64-processor (and more systems) using tesseracts as the modeling
for the interpocessor communication.

Oh well, extrapolation doesn't always work.

-- 
Tim 
tim at johnsons-web dot com or akwebsoft dot com
http://www.akwebsoft.com
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