What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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Return From the Stars
SOLVED: Adult Fiction
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SOLVED. SciFi - Astronauts Return to Earth in the Far Future and Try to Adapt to a Changed World [s]
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I think I have read this book recently after a spending spree at the used bookstall at the markets. Is the society very agricultural, with little evidence of science at all? And then they find out what technology they have is hidden and used only when they have to? I'll have to go check the pile of books I got that day.
Return From The Stars by Lem Stanislaw, 1980.Kirkus Reviews First published in 1961, and not much like any of Lem's recent work. Astronaut Hal Bregg returns from a pioneering ten-year flight to Fomalhaut, to find that by Einsteinian time-logic 127 years have elapsed on Earth. Stumbling through the unintelligible wonders of the new world, he learns that violent impulses are now automatically erased from all minds in infancy. With them have disappeared any capacity for conscious physical risk and any disposition to value risky endeavors; despite the immense technical achievements of the new civilization (e.g., gravitation engineering), all thoughts of space flight have long been abandoned and the return of the Fomalhaut survivors is regarded with a tolerant indifference worse than hostility. The plot is slight; the real focus is the competing claims of Earth and space past, present, and future. The writing is leisurely and elaborate, with a lot of gorgeous descriptive set-pieces. One can see the elements of some favorite Lem paradoxes here, but they are treated with a sort of unhurried romanticism that may come as a surprise to admirers of his more astringent fables. Atypical work from a master, but carried off with characteristic panache.
(Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 1980)
April, wow! Thank you. That's it.Valerie, no that sounds like a different book. In Return from the Stars there is lots of futuristic technology all over the place.
Humans have been engineered to be less aggressive and are incapable of intentionally hurting another person. They are also a bit smaller and weaker than in the past. The astronauts really stand out, not only by being taller than everyone else, but also because they are very muscular as a result of living for a few years at 1.5 Gs of acceleration. Society is not interested in the astronauts' mission and mostly views them with pity. There were no more space missions after the astronauts left. Tall buildings are a thing of the past. All vehicles have safety chips in them that prevent collisions, and inertial dampers make for smooth rides. Money is less important, as most essential things, like food, are free.
There is a scene where an astronaut visits the oldest tree in the city, one that was around when he left Earth, and meets a very old man there, who turns out to be the son of his mission coordinator and whom he had met once when he was six.
Some of the astronauts get funding for a new space mission with more advanced technology, so they can leave Earth. The mission would have them return to Earth thousands of years in the future.