Voyage From Yesteryear

Rating:
Summary: Yee haw! Freedom wins
Review: One of my favorite books. Have read it at least 4 times. Wish I had never sold my Sci-Fi book club edition; because now I will have to pay more to get a new copy. This book along with The Healer (F. Paul Wilson) and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (RAH) changed my views on government and politics and freedom. It's also a damn fine story. I was up in the wee hours reading this book. Good hard SF and social commentary. Remember; reality is for those who can't handle science fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Pure science fiction
Review: One of the foundations of SF is examining the consequences of science and technology on society. Here Hogan creates two diametrically opposed societies - those of Earth founded on limited resources and those of the newly colonized planet Chrion having unlimited resources. You won't find deep character development in this book, the focus is on the effects of technology on society - what we can become. Telling the story from the viewpoint of solders on the second colonization starship traveling and landing on the planet Chrion, Hogan explores his vision of what humanity can be. Chrionians value and trade respect, possessions are in abundence and free from automated factories. On the second colonization starship traveling from a militarized Earth, imagine the consequences to those powers to be when character matters! Unlimited resources you ask? Hogan postulates, the mind is a unlimited resource.

Rating:
Summary: inspiring account of a gift culture
Review: September, 1999. Madison, WI. Voyage From Yesteryear is one of my favorite books. I've read at least 4 times and will read it again. Several things struck me after my last reading.

The culture described is similar to the culture of open-source software programmers. This culture has been described by Eric Raymond (an open-source software guru) as a 'gift culture' as opposed to an 'exchange culture'. A gift culture is one where a person's worth is judged by how much he or she gives away. An exchange culture (the conventional Amerison/western economy) values a person by how much power and money he or she possesses. In a money economy it is easy to do bad things: just give them more money or power. Pimping, murder, politics, spying, down-sizing, advertising, etc. (All these professions would still exist, but much less.)

After this last reading I recognized that Hogan is speculating on 2 cultural developments: 1. A society that didn't inherit all our hang-ups and conditioning. 2. A society with limitless energy and material resources.

I share the doubt of another reader that the Chironian culture could function beyond some natural limit (200,000...2M ?) While goods may be be freely available to people, land will become a limited resource. What happens when all the Centauri planets are terraformed and filled up? They will need to invent a method to move huge numbers of people to other star systems.

Each time I read Voyage from Yesteryear I speculate on how the Congreve and crew will manage when it returns to a shattered and hate-filled Earth. I try to 'think like a Chironian' and see the path. As yet, I'm still tripping over my American conditioning before I get very far. I shall keep on thinking, though.

Rating:
Summary: inspiring account of a gift culture
Review: September, 1999. Madison, WI. Voyage From Yesteryear is one of my favorite books. I've read at least 4 times and will read it again. Several things struck me after my last reading.

The culture described is similar to the culture of open-source software programmers. This culture has been described by Eric Raymond (an open-source software guru) as a 'gift culture' as opposed to an 'exchange culture'. A gift culture is one where a person's worth is judged by how much he or she gives away. An exchange culture (the conventional Amerison/western economy) values a person by how much power and money he or she possesses. In a money economy it is easy to do bad things: just give them more money or power. Pimping, murder, politics, spying, down-sizing, advertising, etc. (All these professions would still exist, but much less.)

After this last reading I recognized that Hogan is speculating on 2 cultural developments: 1. A society that didn't inherit all our hang-ups and conditioning. 2. A society with limitless energy and material resources.

I share the doubt of another reader that the Chironian culture could function beyond some natural limit (200,000...2M ?) While goods may be be freely available to people, land will become a limited resource. What happens when all the Centauri planets are terraformed and filled up? They will need to invent a method to move huge numbers of people to other star systems.

Each time I read Voyage from Yesteryear I speculate on how the Congreve and crew will manage when it returns to a shattered and hate-filled Earth. I try to 'think like a Chironian' and see the path. As yet, I'm still tripping over my American conditioning before I get very far. I shall keep on thinking, though.

Rating:
Summary: Background and summary
Review: Sometime back around 1976, before I moved to the U.S., I was sitting around in a pub with some friends, putting the world's problems right, when on of them asked me what the answer to the trouble in Northern Ireland was. I replied that there wasn't one; and then, after thinking for a minute, added ". . . unless you find a way to separate the children from the adults for at least a generation." For as long as the hatreds and prejudices were programmed in at an early age, there would be no end to it. It was a roundabout way of saying that there was no practicable solution that I could see.

Maybe one of the things that makes writers a little bit different is that having said something like that, they don't just forget about it but start turning it over in their minds. I found myself wondering how a society might develop that was descended from a first generation that had never been exposed to the social and psychological conditioning processes of conditioned human adults. The outcome was VOYAGE FROM YESTERYEAR, published by Ballantine/Del Rey in 1982. (That also helps answer another question that writers are always being asked, namely, how long it takes to write a book).

An Earth set well into the next century is going through one of its periodical crises politically, and it looks as if this time they might really press the button for the Big One. If it happens, the only chance for our species to survive would be by preserving a sliver of itself elsewhere, which in practical terms means another star, since nothing closer is readily habitable. There isn't time to organize a manned expedition of such scope from scratch. However, a robot exploratory vessel is under construction to make the first crossing to the Centauri system, and it with a crash program it would be possible to modify the designs to carry sets of human genetic data coded electronically. Additionally, a complement of incubator/nanny/tutor robots can be included, able to convert the electronic data back into chemistry and raise/educate the ensuing offspring while others prepare surface habitats and supporting infrastructure, when a habitable world is discovered. By the time we meet the "Chironians," their culture is into its fifth generation.

In the meantime, Earth managed in the end to muddle through. The fun begins when a generation ship housing a population of thousands arrives to "reclaim" the colony on behalf of the authoritarian regime that emerged following the crisis period. The Mayflower II brings with it all the familiar apparatus for bringing a recalcitrant population to heel: authority, with its power structure and symbolism, to impress; commercial institutions with the promise of wealth and possessions, to tempt and ensnare; a religious presence, to awe and instill duty and obedience; and if all else fails, armed military force to compel. But what happens when these methods encounter a population that has never been conditioned to respond?

The book has an interesting corollary. Around about the mid eighties, I received a letter notifying me that the story had been serialized in an underground Polish s.f. magazine. They hadn't exactly "stolen" it, the publishers explained, but had credited zlotys to an account in my name there, so if I ever decided to take a holiday in Poland the expenses would be covered (there was no exchange mechanism with Western currencies at that time). Then the story started surfacing in other countries of Eastern Europe, by all accounts to an enthusiastic reception. What they liked there, apparently, was the updated "Ghandiesque" formula on how bring down an oppressive regime when it's got all the guns. And a couple of years later, they were all doing it!

So I claim the credit. Forget all the tales you hear about the contradictions of Marxist economics, truth getting past the Iron Curtain via satellites and the Internet, Reagan's Star Wars program, and so on.

In 1989, after communist rule and the Wall came tumbling down, the annual European s.f. convention was held at Krakow in southern Poland, and I was invited as one of the Western guests. On the way home, I spent a few days in Warsaw and at last was able to meet the people who had published that original magazine. "Well, fine," I told them. "Finally, I can draw out all that money that you stashed away for me." One of the remarked-too hastily--that "It was worth something when we put it in the bank." (There had been two years of ruinous inflation following the outgoing regime's policy of sabotaging everything in order to be able to prove that the new ideas wouldn't work.) "Okay," I said, resignedly, "How much are we talking about?" The one with a calculator tapped away for a few seconds, looked embarrassed, and announced, "Eight dollars and forty-three cents." So after the U.S. had spent trillions on its B-52s, Trident submarines, NSA, CIA, and the rest, that was my tab for toppling the Soviet empire.

There's always an easy way if you just look.

Rating:
Summary: This book could have been good.
Review: The book starts out well, but the author's explanation of social evolution contradicts the biological evolution Hogan likewise promotes in this book. This story could have been good other than the author's scientific and semi-moralistic inserts. At some points I had the feeling that he was trying to rationalize his own beliefs by authoring them in the book almost separate from the story.

Rating:
Summary: Imaginative, interesting, but the plot rambles.
Review: This is a novel well worth reading because it makes you think. As always, Hogan is trying to think outside the box, and he tries to make the reader to do the same. In that, he succeeds in this very worthwhile novel.

The time is the late 21st century. There has been a third world war, and America and the world has more or less recovered from the aftermath. But America is transformed into a near-fascist state. There are hints that the Asians are practicing liberal democracy and that the Europeans are more or less junior rivals to America.

The novel involves a race by the three powers (America, Europe, and Asia) to re-establish contact with a colony established on Alpha Centauri's main planet--the colony had been jointly established prior to the war. The Americans arrive first, and the clash between the Americans and the colonists is the central theme of the book.

The main notion of the book is that people and nations carry their prejudices from generation to generation, and that it may take some form of "fresh start" to eliminate these prejudices. Hogan notes that America represented such a fresh start when it was founded, and Americans have shaken off much in the way of class structure and other undesireable components of European culture. Likewise, in his novel, the colonists have made a "fresh start," and have abolished racial prejudice (or even racial awareness), as well as any concept of a market economy or of the anglo-saxon justice system.

Hogan's basic premise makes sense--that a fresh start such as took place in America might help eradicate ancient prejudices. As he writes elsewhere, if we could somehow get one generation of the folks in Northern Ireland away from their parent's prejudices, this ancient quarrel would doubtless end for all time.

Unfortunately, some of Hogan's speculation fails to hold water. His replacement for a justice system is having people shoot bad guys out of hand. Only trouble with this is that it is exactly what people used to do a couple of centuries ago. This caused feuding and an endless cycle of family reprisals. So we invented courts. Here, Hogan has us going backwards, candidly probably due to his lack of historical knowledge in this regards. Similarly, Hogan postulates that the Centaurian colonists would abandone money and a market system because everyone would work their fair share and take their fair share--the notion is that productivity is so high with modern technology that there is no need to ration resources. Nonsense, as the fall of socialism/communism has shown. Human greed is limitless and there will always be a need to somehow ration labor and resources. Here, Hogan makes a nice try that falls flat. These are not major quibbles, by the way.

As a novel, Voyage From Yesteryear is so-so. The characters are not well developed, the storyline is murky, and the book rambles. In one sense you always know where it is going--a clash between the Americans and the colonists. But other than this broad theme, the book rambles erratically. You might think that these flaws render the book mediocre. That is not true. This novel's strengths are its ideas and speculations about both science and human societies. It is quite readable and does constitute a good read.

This is an interesting book with interesting ideas and speculation. It is well worth reading whether or not you agree with all of Hogan's speculation. This one gets 4 stars. That ain't bad.

Rating:
Summary: Imaginative, interesting, but the plot rambles.
Review: This is a novel well worth reading because it makes you think. As always, Hogan is trying to think outside the box, and he tries to make the reader to do the same. In that, he succeeds in this very worthwhile novel.

The time is the late 21st century. There has been a third world war, and America and the world has more or less recovered from the aftermath. But America is transformed into a near-fascist state. There are hints that the Asians are practicing liberal democracy and that the Europeans are more or less junior rivals to America.

The novel involves a race by the three powers (America, Europe, and Asia) to re-establish contact with a colony established on Alpha Centauri's main planet--the colony had been jointly established prior to the war. The Americans arrive first, and the clash between the Americans and the colonists is the central theme of the book.

The main notion of the book is that people and nations carry their prejudices from generation to generation, and that it may take some form of "fresh start" to eliminate these prejudices. Hogan notes that America represented such a fresh start when it was founded, and Americans have shaken off much in the way of class structure and other undesireable components of European culture. Likewise, in his novel, the colonists have made a "fresh start," and have abolished racial prejudice (or even racial awareness), as well as any concept of a market economy or of the anglo-saxon justice system.

Hogan's basic premise makes sense--that a fresh start such as took place in America might help eradicate ancient prejudices. As he writes elsewhere, if we could somehow get one generation of the folks in Northern Ireland away from their parent's prejudices, this ancient quarrel would doubtless end for all time.

Unfortunately, some of Hogan's speculation fails to hold water. His replacement for a justice system is having people shoot bad guys out of hand. Only trouble with this is that it is exactly what people used to do a couple of centuries ago. This caused feuding and an endless cycle of family reprisals. So we invented courts. Here, Hogan has us going backwards, candidly probably due to his lack of historical knowledge in this regards. Similarly, Hogan postulates that the Centaurian colonists would abandone money and a market system because everyone would work their fair share and take their fair share--the notion is that productivity is so high with modern technology that there is no need to ration resources. Nonsense, as the fall of socialism/communism has shown. Human greed is limitless and there will always be a need to somehow ration labor and resources. Here, Hogan makes a nice try that falls flat. These are not major quibbles, by the way.

As a novel, Voyage From Yesteryear is so-so. The characters are not well developed, the storyline is murky, and the book rambles. In one sense you always know where it is going--a clash between the Americans and the colonists. But other than this broad theme, the book rambles erratically. You might think that these flaws render the book mediocre. That is not true. This novel's strengths are its ideas and speculations about both science and human societies. It is quite readable and does constitute a good read.

This is an interesting book with interesting ideas and speculation. It is well worth reading whether or not you agree with all of Hogan's speculation. This one gets 4 stars. That ain't bad.

Rating:
Summary: Found it Irritating
Review: Though the book had some good plot points, I found the overall tone offensive. Mr. Hogan is apparently an atheist or agnostic, and believes in evolution. In his book he consistently bashes religion, making anyone who is religious appear to be either a fanatic or inclined towards greed and other base emotions. None of the protagonists ever mentions God or His place in the universe.

I also found his arguments for Chironian society riddled with flaws. The most glaring - that Chironians place no value on stable family relationships, have no sense of commitment to a spouse, and there is never any jealousy or contention among family members or society in general. Just because the original Chironians came from computer programs and were raised by robots does not eliminate human's genetic leaning toward violence and confrontation.

I read another of Mr. Hogan's books recently and found the same anti-God bias. I will not be wasting my money on any more of his books.

Rating:
Summary: Minor political satire dressed up as SF
Review: VOYAGE FROM YESTERYEAR depicts a libertarian utopia coming into contact with a sort of neo fascist, conservative American dream gone awry. Hogan sets up his premise with a fairly standard SF storyline, and uses this platform to explore this political drama. I was disappointed, however, because too little time was spent in this exploration. Instead, Hogan's story ends up as a fairly uninspired SF actioner with a wholly predictable ending. Still, entertaining if not engrossing. Somewhat reminiscent of L. Neil Smith's PALLAS.