Alien Earth, by Megan Lindholm
Alien Earth, by Megan Lindholm.
It's been years since I read this, but I hauled it out and put it away in under forty-eight hours last week. A grim view of the future,
Alien Earth tells of humanity in exile, having destroyed its own habitat and rescued by a curious species called the Arthroplana. Generations later, ecological tyranny imposed by a human government renders people mere visitors in the Universe as everyone strives to make absolutely no difference in life and nature whatsoever. Rather than
living, humanity is reduced to merely
existing. All seventy-three thousand of us.
The story is constructed around the appearance of bludgeon-heavy moralism, but one thing that's hard to resolve is exactly what the moral of the story is. On the one hand, we see a blatant statement about the tyranny of environmentalism, but any cause can be taken to such an extreme. To the other, there is commentary about the destructive aspects seemingly inherent in human nature. And, of course, there are plenty of politics and ulterior motives to wonder through.
As we move deeper into our global warming crisis/hand-wringing/panic (circle one), this one only gets more and more relevant. It's worth hauling out if even for that very reason alone, but I'm telling you, it's a hell of a read, too.