Beyond the Farthest Suns by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online Page A

before.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œThere is a signal emerging from the black holes. A single Thrina tone, very strong.”
    â€œThat’s what started this whole thing,” Anna said quietly. “Ignore it, and let’s go home.”
    On the edges of the Rift, the old and the sick, the detritus of civilization awaiting rebirth elsewhere, the Aighor pilgrims received the Thri­na, and there was rejoicing.
    The death-ships resumed their voyages.
    Afterword
    â€œThe Venging” is not just about black holes, of course; I’m laying out the details of a space economy that lives and breathes information. This is not the first such prognostication of the Information Age, what I will later (in Slant ) call the Dataflow age, but it’s an early example. Anna’s tapas (the root word in Sanskrit denotes “heat,” and the word itself refers to deep meditation) is now to some extent available as tablet computers and smart phones. For historical perspective, however, remember some of the books and movies and TV shows that were influencing me: Forbidden Planet , John Brunner’s heavily cybernetic Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up, and Star Trek ’s tricorder.
    In 1977, in the wake of the success of Star Wars , studios and producers all over Los Angeles woke up to find the motion picture landscape changing drastically. Science fiction films—formerly relegated to B-movies by the critics, and occasional blockbusters such as Forbidden Planet and 2001: A Space Odyssey —were rapidly becoming standard fare and very profitable.
    I was living in Long Beach at the time with my first wife, Tina. I published an article in the Los Angeles Times Calendar section, describing the roots of Star Wars in written SF. Suddenly, I started fielding calls from producers all at sea about science fiction, and over the next few weeks, I took a number of interesting meetings. I had a lovely lunch with Gene Roddenberry, who was planning a television reincarnation of Star Trek . Mr. Roddenberry had appreciated a comment I made in my article about how science fiction was the kind of horse best ridden by an individual, and how studios turned these stories into camels—a horse designed by a committee.
    I met with a number of people at Dino De Laurentiis Productions, and had the pleasure of explaining why hot air rises to Dino’s son, who, sadly, died a few years later in a plane accident. De Laurentiis was about to go forward with an ill-conceived but beautifully art-directed version of Flash Gordon, and had already optioned Frank Herbert’s Dune. I tried to convince them to film one of my favorite novels, The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson’s, but no go. Also nix on Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero.
    I heard from a friend, Rick Sternbach, that Disney Studios was working on a film involving a black hole. The project’s name at that stage was Space Probe One. Here, I thought, was a sterling opportunity. I called the studios and asked about the possibility of becoming a technical advisor. I carried a folio of paintings and a total devotion to the idea of black holes and how they would look. My first meeting was with famed designer John Mansbridge, who then passed me on to Peter Ellenshaw, a master craftsman responsible for matte paintings in many movies. He was art director on Space Probe One. (He was also the father of Harrison Ellenshaw, another fine matte artist who produced backgrounds for Star Wars and many subsequent films.)
    I showed all who were interested my painting of a black hole, done as a possible cover for “The Venging.”As I spoke with Ellenshaw, studio head Ron Miller (no relation to the astronomical artist) came into Ellenshaw’s office to chat, and was soon followed by the screenwriter. He seemed a little out of his depth, but Miller was faithfully sticking with him, and that was and is rare in movies.
    It was a heady afternoon. Mansbridge told me