- Pournelle, Jerry.
Exile—and Glory.
Riverdale, NY: Baen Publishing, 2008.
ISBN 978-1-4165-5563-6.
-
This book collects all of Jerry Pournelle's stories
of Hansen Enterprises and other mega-engineering
projects, which were originally published in
Analog, Galaxy, and
Fantasy and Science Fiction between
1972 and 1977. The stories were previously published
in two books:
High Justice
and
Exiles to Glory,
which are now out of print—if you have those
books, don't buy this one unless you want to upgrade
to hardcover or can't resist the delightfully
space-operatic cover art by Jennie Faries.
The stories take place in a somewhat dystopian future in
which the “malaise” of the 1970s never
ended. Governments worldwide are doing what governments
do best: tax the productive, squander the revenue and
patrimony of their subjects, and obstruct innovation and
progress. Giant international corporations have undertaken
the tasks needed to bring prosperity to a world
teeming with people in a way which will not wreck the
Earth's environment. But as these enterprises implement
their ambitious projects on the sea floor, in orbit, and
in the asteroid belt, the one great invariant, human
nature, manifests itself and they find themselves confronted
with the challenges which caused human societies to
institute government in the first place. How should
justice be carried out on the technological frontier? And,
more to the point, how can it be achieved without unleashing
the malign genie of coercive government? These stories are
thoughtful explorations of these questions without
ever ceasing to be entertaining yarns with believable
characters. And you have to love what happens to the
pesky lawyer on pp. 304–305!
I don't know if these stories have been revised between
the time they were published in the '70s and this
edition; there is no indication that they have either
in this book or on
Jerry Pournelle's Web site.
If not, then the author was amazingly prescient about
a number of subsequent events which few would have imagined
probable thirty years ago. It's a little disheartening to
think that one of the reasons these stories have had such
a long shelf life is that none of the great projects
we expected to be right around the corner in the Seventies
have come to pass. As predicted here, governments have
not only failed to undertake the challenges but been an active
impediment to those trying to solve them, but also
the business culture has become so risk-averse and oriented
toward the short term that there appears to be no way
to raise the capital needed to, for example, deploy solar
power satellites, even though such capital is modest compared
to that consumed in military adventures in Mesopotamia.
The best science fiction makes you think. The very
best science fiction makes you think all over again
when you re-read it three decades afterward. This is the
very best, and just plain fun as well.
August 2008 