For Chapter 19 I had in mind the Solar Stirling engine, one of a number of intriguing developments in the arena of sustainable power. I first read of the original Stirling engine in Scientific American decades ago, and was never quite able to figure out how it worked, but I saw the potential in its external combustion. When I learned of the solar variant, I went after it. The material I got related to Sunpower Inc., a small company designing and producing such engines. It turned out to be mind-bendingly complicated to grasp in detail. I read the book The Next Great Thing, which was interesting in its coverage of Sunpower’s desperate efforts to make the engine work, but not very clear on technical detail. My son in law John read it and contacted Sunpower and got more material. Researcher Alan read it and consulted with John, and discussed it with me. But when I presented it in the novel, I had to simplify so drastically for clarity that most of that research was wasted. This is the nature of research novels; some of the best material has to be left out. But the Solar Stirling engine exists, and may indeed be a significant aspect of the future. Of course my planned community uses proven old technology like the hydraulic ram too, and is getting into the useful plants hemp and kenaf, which truly do represent two of the world’s best hopes for the future production of useful fibers. The existing timber and pulp industries managed to suppress such alternatives in the past, but as the trees run out and the need becomes more pressing, significant changes will occur. For the setting I chose a type of planned community that intrigued my elder daughter Penny and me as we listened to a tape of Pete Seeger’s song “The Garden.” For the sponsoring religion I used the Quakers, because I was raised as a Quaker and profoundly respect its principles, though I elected not to join that religion as an adult. Quakers tend to be good businessmen and socially conscious citizens, and many are concentrated in the state of Pennsylvania, so well could be associated with a project of this type. This is not the first time I have had reference to the former Quaker use of “thee;” it occurs in my unpublished World War II novel Volk and a variant is in my ADEPT fantasy series of novels.
The cloud harvesting shown in Chapter 20 is already being done today, in the area described; it solved the water problems of local villages in the Andes.
So there was a good deal of misadventure, or at least changed direction, in the course of the writing of this novel, and much of it did not go at all the way I had anticipated. But that’s the thing about writing, especially historical fiction: the author can indeed not have it all his own way. Perhaps that is the way it should be. The settings and the characters should have some say in their presentation.
I didn’t have that kind of problem in the early chapters, because there there is no recorded history to align with; the social aspect is mine to invent. And while I find the whole of history interesting, my greatest interest is in the early aspects. I saw the significance of the lockable knees in a public service TV program, and locked on to it immediately: such a seemingly small thing, with such a significant effect. To be able to stride without fatiguing the legs—a subtle but crucial change that enabled human beings to travel erect longer with less energy, and less heating, than other hominids. Scavenging for bone marrow was in the same program, and similarly critical; it gave mankind a good food source where for most creatures there was nothing, because they lacked the ability to crack open the bones. Provided he could not only get there, but get it away from other animals: encouragement to develop effective weapons.
But for me, the most important change was how mankind handled heat. I was satisfied that human beings lost much of their body fur during an aquatic phase, as shown in the two prior novels, but Alan dug up two obscure articles that showed another theory. None of the books seemed to have it, which is odd, because it is the most compelling argument I have seen in this particular arena. Lose the fur, dissipate the heat that your burgeoning brain generates—and suddenly mankind is the naked ape. Forget the Aquatic hypothesis; this makes sense on the open plain, where mankind was striding. It all fits together. Alan also found evidence that there are a number of (small) holes in the human skull that allow veinous blood to pass between the brain and the skin. Normally it flows from the brain to the skin, but when the body is under heat stress, it reverses, and the cooler blood of the skin flows to the brain. The fossil record shows that the number of these channels has increased steadily as the brain expanded.
Then the triple ploy, which is my own conjecture, based on research that showed me scattered parts of it. Sex, love, attachment, used in sequence to capture and hold a man who would rather be sowing his oats far more broadly. The change of the female breasts to become not merely to feed the baby, but to make her continuously appealing to the man. Thus the foundation of monogamy, because now it was possible for a single woman to satisfy the continual passion of a single man; and better for him to stay close to her than to wander too far afield, because otherwise she could breed at any time with someone else. In battle of the sexes, the man became larger and stronger and possessed of more physical ambition, but the woman became the major ongoing object of his desire. The downside was that this led also to prostitution and rape, because the woman could not readily turn off her sex appeal. But overall, it seems likely that even today a woman would rather live without a man, were she otherwise provided for, than a man without a woman. She has what he wants. Even the most intelligent, independent, or least scrupulous men still fall for the triple ploy.
There is also my answer to the reason for mankind’s burgeoning brain, the largest known in the animal kingdom, relative to body size. He had already established his niche in the world, and was no longer in danger of extinction because of starvation or prédation by panthers. It seems likely that the development of vocabulary and language was the engine that powered that expansion—but why was it necessary? That monstrous brain was a phenomenally expensive burden, forcing significant changes in all the rest of his body and life; why balance such a delicate albatross on the top of his precariously erect body? Because mankind’s main competition now was either his own kind, or a near relative. He was in a mental arms race, and he who was slightly stupid lost out. This race continued until modern man developed linguistic tools as potent in their fashion as locked knees and hand weapons had been in theirs: syntax and high-velocity speech. These enabled modern man to accomplish more, verbally, with less actual brain, than Homo erectus could manage. That translated into better planning and organization, superior tools and weapons, and coordinated drives to achieve long-range objectives. Neither Homo erectus nor his offshoot Neandertal man could compete. But though the modern brain is not the largest ever, it remains a giant compared to that of any other creature.
And art, that enabled mankind to form larger and thus more powerful groups without as much internal dissent. If there is anything that defines mankind, aside from his intelligence, it is art. No other creature we know of even cares about it. Every human culture has its art, and many past cultures have left dramatic artistic monuments.
So the things that I hope made an impression in this volume are locked knees, bone marrow scavenging, the brain/heat/fur-loss/clothing connection, the triple ploy, the arms race, and the art/numbers connection. Thereafter it’s mostly history, wherein the nuances of the creature’s vast potentials are constantly played out. I hope you have found that worthwhile too.
And where is this history leading? To disaster, as I see it. Mankind’s burgeoning brain enabled him to conquer the world, and his continuing interest in reproduction enabled him to overpopulate it. Panthers may have limited his population in the early days, but they have long since been nullified. No natural limit seems to exist. Now it seems that only mankind can limit mankind’s population, and that isn’t happening. Except—one of the seemingly conquered predators is returning. Disease. It is taking the place of the panthers. Through history it was always formidable. The plagues of Athens and other cities, and the bubonic plague, are only samples of an ongoing and deadly threat. There is also war, wherein t
he human creature’s most formidable enemy is other human beings. Over the millennia various ways have been tried to protect communities from attack by other communities, without perfect success. Isolation and defense did not save the Ice Man’s village from destruction, and might not have saved the community of Dreams, but for a special circumstance. Massive linear walls and defenses saved neither the Chinese nor the French. As long as there are too many people for the available resources, neither isolation nor defense lines can suffice. Mankind’s refusal to take reasonable precautions, to discipline itself, is leading to an infinitely more brutal discipline by nature, and by mankind itself.
Because GEODYSSEY is a series, I try to have characters from prior novels appear in later novels, though each book has its own primary cast. Did you recognize them? Bub from Shame of Man raped Flo in Chapter 1. This time Blaze from Isle of Woman appeared in Chapter 4. Ember appeared in Chapter 5, with her husband Scorch and baby Crystal. I try to show such prior characters at the age they were in the historical time of the particular setting, but this can be tricky, because Blaze and Ember aged four years per chapter, while Hugh and Anne from Shame of Man aged only one year per chapter. Thus Blaze and Ember aged about seventy years in the course of human history, while Hugh and Anne aged only about twenty years. Sam, Flo, and the other siblings of Hope of Earth aged only about six months between chapters, or about a decade in the full novel. Thus when the characters of different novels interact, they do so at different ages. Blaze was ten in Chapter 4, while Ember, who paralleled him, was fourteen in Chapter 5. This is especially tricky in the case of Mina, the foundling who turns out to be Flo’s lost baby; she aligns with this novel here, and ages at a different rate in the prior one. As I tried to clarify in the Introduction, the people are not really the same, nor are they strictly the descendants of those in earlier chapters; they are essentially similar types that appear throughout all human history. At any rate, Crockson, who is mentioned in Chapter 9 and appears in Chapter 10, is from Woman, and Ittai as already mentioned is from Man, while Kettle is from Woman. Guillaume, Jacques’s commanding officer in Chapter 18, is the French version of Bill (William) from Man, the intelligent one, whose son Bille will later meet and love Mina. “Bil” actually first appeared in Chapter 3, along with his band leader Joe, also from Man. He appears again in Chapter 19, with his wife Fay and daughter Faience. Min appears again in Chapter 20, as Minne, with a problem of age because of the different time lines. But because all the characters live their full lives in each of their settings, Min can be nine years old in this novel though she was closer to fourteen at this time in the prior novel. Bub also appears again. How can he be a leader of raiders here, when he had other roles in the prior novel? Because these characters are actually representations of types, appearing all over the world all through human history, doing different things in different situations. The real unity in the series is its background: the phenomenally rich course of human experience.
So will the real human history lead to cannibalism, as in Woman, or in exhaustion of resources, as in Man, or in disease, as in Earth? I fear that if it does not, it still will be supremely unpleasant. If we don’t take warning and do something to change course very soon. I hope we do. Our knowledge and intelligence and plain common sense should enable us to avoid destruction and become the true hope of Earth—if we choose to apply them.
Piers Anthony, Hope of Earth
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