HARVEST OF STARS

New York: Tor, 1993. First edition. Fine in a fine dust jacket. (7206). Octavo, boards. Anderson speculates on the possibility of a future dominated by exponentially powerful artificial minds. "Anderson's last major enterprise was the Guthrie Family sequence -- comprising HARVEST OF STARS (1993), THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE (1994), HARVEST THE FIRE (1995) and THE FLEET OF STARS (1997) -- which puts on display both his continued grasp of current dreams of technology fixes, and as well the oddly resentful sense of disenchantment not untypical of writers at the end of the last century. These drives govern a tale in which Earth after centuries of savage environmental exploitation (though Anderson explicitly blames environmentalists for this) -- is no longer capable of sustaining humanity's quest for new adventures, and for a new home. The escape from the dying planet is sustained and exhilarating. Through the four volumes, the scale and complexity expands inexorably; there is no quick way to represent the final effect, except perhaps to suggest that Anderson had decided here to tell every kind of story he was capable of - fantasy, hard SF and entertainment routines intermix constantly -- as a summary and summa of his long career. On the evidence of this sequence, it is clear that for half a century he knew what he was doing." - John Clute, SFE (online).