Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners

https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/

Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
fiction.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
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My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
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James Nicoll wrote:

>Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>
>https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-for
>erunners/
>
>Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in
>science fiction.

In the Martha Wells Murderbot stories, there is "alien remnant
technology". This is dangerous, poorly understood, and interdicted from
exploitation. And valuable.

In the first several stoires, this was of the macguffin sort. It was
the efforts by one corporation to get their hands on it, and the
after-effects, that served as one of the main plot drivers.

In the Network Effect novel, it was much different. This was of the
“Sealed Evil in a Can” sort, as a major remnant site on a lost colony
world and its effects were the main plot.

Brian

On Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 6:53:51 PM UTC-4, James Nicoll wrote:
> Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/
>
> Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
> fiction.
>

Forerunner civilizations are pretty common in Banks' Culture series,
often (but not always) because they Sublimed and left their stuff behind.

There's also a lot of forerunner stuff throughout Erikson's Malazan series.
- Tony

On 07/07/2022 17.53, James Nicoll wrote:
> Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/
>
> Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
> fiction.

The mention of "Sealed Evil in a Can" immediately brings to mind The
Blight in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Or doesn't that count since the society
(if not the exact species) that engendered it is still around?

--
Michael F. Stemper
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

On Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 4:53:51 PM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
> Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/
>
> Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
> fiction.

1) I like the fact that the stories chosen illustrate the varied ways in which
the shared theme can be put to use. A series of brief reviews of stories
with a shared theme should attempt to give some idea of the field encompassed
by that theme.

2) I am glad that at least one obvious classic was included: Omnilingual.
I have to admit, I've tended to feel, though, that the clue the protagonist
stumbles on that evaded everyone else... seemed to me, even on first
reading, to be *obvious*. Surely in a scientific expedition to Mars, even
if the focus was on archaeology, there would be _someone_ around with
a STEM background!

3) The mention of the "Baldies" in the Andre Norton story... makes me
wonder if the ST:TNG episode "The Chase" wasn't a shout-out to it.

John Savard

On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 7:24:36 AM UTC-6, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 07/07/2022 17.53, James Nicoll wrote:
> > Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
> >
> > https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/
> >
> > Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
> > fiction.
> The mention of "Sealed Evil in a Can" immediately brings to mind The
> Blight in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Or doesn't that count since the society
> (if not the exact species) that engendered it is still around?

To me, "sealed evil in a can" brings Slaver stasis boxes to mind. And, to me,
the classic story would be _World of Ptaavs_. But I can see why he would
reject that as an overused or trite example, in favor of "With Friends Like
These...".

John Savard

On 09/07/2022 09.49, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 7:24:36 AM UTC-6, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 07/07/2022 17.53, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>>>
>>> https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/
>>>
>>> Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
>>> fiction.
>> The mention of "Sealed Evil in a Can" immediately brings to mind The
>> Blight in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Or doesn't that count since the society
>> (if not the exact species) that engendered it is still around?
>
> To me, "sealed evil in a can" brings Slaver stasis boxes to mind. And, to me,
> the classic story would be _World of Ptaavs_.

Most Slaver boxes contained cool tech, not Slavers themselves.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Exodus 22:21

In article <tabvif$11t33$1@dont-email.me>,
Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 07/07/2022 17.53, James Nicoll wrote:
>> Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>>
>>
>https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/
>>
>> Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
>> fiction.
>
>The mention of "Sealed Evil in a Can" immediately brings to mind The
>Blight in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Or doesn't that count since the society
>(if not the exact species) that engendered it is still around?
>

If it's a beer can, and more like peeved-assholery than evil, that's Skippy.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On 2022-07-07, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
> Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/
>
> Five different narrative uses to which forerunners may be put in science
> fiction.

It would be really great if more of these articles could feature works
released in this century, or since the 1980s.

Forerunner lore is present in (for example) Essa Hansen's _Graven_ books, and
in Alex Winters _Big Ships_. We can find the same lore in Karen Osborne's
_Architects of Memory_ and the entirety of Linda Nagata's _Nanotech_ oeuvre.

All of these books exist, and all of them are published in the last 20 years.

--
dgold <news@dgold.eu>

Daniel Goldsmith wrote:

>Forerunner lore is present in (for example) Essa Hansen's Graven
>books, and in Alex Winters _Big Ships_. We can find the same lore in
>Karen Osborne's _Architects of Memory_ and the entirety of Linda
>Nagata's Nanotech oeuvre.

I'm having trouble finding anything by an Alex Winters along those
lines.

Brian

Daniel Goldsmith wrote:

>Forerunner lore is present in (for example) Essa Hansen's Graven
>books, and in Alex Winters _Big Ships_.

Oh, did you perhaps mean _A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe_ by
Alex White?

Brian

On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 2:08:05 PM UTC-6, Daniel Goldsmith wrote:

> It would be really great if more of these articles could feature works
> released in this century, or since the 1980s.

And I have the precisely opposite reaction to James Nicoll's columns;
I wish he would talk more about the books I've actually read back when
I was reading science fiction!

John Savard

On 2022-07-07, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

> Five SF Stories About Long-Vanished Forerunners
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/07/07/five-sf-stories-about-long-vanished-forerunners/

Iain M. Banks's _Against a Dark Background_ falls into the McGuffin
group. It's a standalone novel set in a lone solar system in
intergalactic space. With no chance to reach neighboring stars,
civilizations have come and gone, terraformed the planets, and
littered the whole solar system with their artifacts. The McGuffin
in question is the last Lazy Gun, a bizarre weapon with a sense of
humor, and I seem to recall that the protagonist also picks up an
ancient... wait for it... motorcycle!

| There’s one great example of real-world decipherment of an unknown
| script and language: Linear B
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B#Michael_Ventris'_identification_as_Greek).

No! The whole point is that Linear B writing turned out to be in
a _known_ language, an archaic flavor of Ancient Greek written in
a poorly suited script that must have been designed for a different
language. And in fact there are older writings, Linear A, that use
more or less the same script, but plugging in the sound values from
Linear B yields a truly unknown language, apparently unrelated to
any known language, and thus uninterpretable.

| There’s also a great example of script not yet deciphered: the
| Indus script (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script).

Key point: "There are doubts whether the Indus script records a
written language or is instead a system of non-linguistic signs or
proto-writing similar to merchant's marks and house marks, and to
the contemporary accounting tokens and numerical clay tablets of
Mesopotamia."

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On 2022-07-09, Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> The mention of "Sealed Evil in a Can" immediately brings to mind The
>>> Blight in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Or doesn't that count since the society
>>> (if not the exact species) that engendered it is still around?
>>
>> To me, "sealed evil in a can" brings Slaver stasis boxes to mind. And, to me,
>> the classic story would be _World of Ptaavs_.
>
> Most Slaver boxes contained cool tech, not Slavers themselves.

And then there's the story ("There is a Tide") where the Slaver
stasis field turns out to be something else entirely. A human and
an alien ship race to the assumed treasure in orbit around a planet;
the human loses, gets stuck on the surface, and has an "oh shit"
moment when he notices that the ocean of this moonless world has
tides.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On 2022-07-10, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 2:08:05 PM UTC-6, Daniel Goldsmith wrote:
>
>> It would be really great if more of these articles could feature works
>> released in this century, or since the 1980s.
>
> And I have the precisely opposite reaction to James Nicoll's columns;
> I wish he would talk more about the books I've actually read back when
> I was reading science fiction!

While that's a viewpoint with validity, its sad to think that you don't read
sf now. There is just so much wonderful out there to be found. The genre is
healthy, and expanding, and wondrous.

--
dgold <news@dgold.eu>

On Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 9:08:15 AM UTC-6, Daniel Goldsmith wrote:
> On 2022-07-10, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 2:08:05 PM UTC-6, Daniel Goldsmith wrote:
> >
> >> It would be really great if more of these articles could feature works
> >> released in this century, or since the 1980s.
> >
> > And I have the precisely opposite reaction to James Nicoll's columns;
> > I wish he would talk more about the books I've actually read back when
> > I was reading science fiction!

> While that's a viewpoint with validity, its sad to think that you don't read
> sf now. There is just so much wonderful out there to be found. The genre is
> healthy, and expanding, and wondrous.

That is very good news to hear. It has appeared to me that it was nearly
moribund, compared to the glory days of old, but it could have fallen under
my radar for reasons that are my fault...

John Savard

On Sun, 10 Jul 2022 16:06:42 +0100, Daniel Goldsmith wrote:

> On 2022-07-10, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 2:08:05 PM UTC-6, Daniel Goldsmith wrote:
>>
>>> It would be really great if more of these articles could feature works
>>> released in this century, or since the 1980s.
>>
>> And I have the precisely opposite reaction to James Nicoll's columns; I
>> wish he would talk more about the books I've actually read back when I
>> was reading science fiction!
>
> While that's a viewpoint with validity, its sad to think that you don't
> read sf now. There is just so much wonderful out there to be found. The
> genre is healthy, and expanding, and wondrous.

I would say it is more a symptom of the field being incredibly divided.
You have the big publishers with their hedged garden of modern day
Victorianism, the small publishers doing what they can to stay alive (or
just doing what they want regardless) and the self publishers trying to
outdo the pulps.