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Fallen Angels (science fiction novel)
Encyclopedia
Fallen Angels (ISBN 0-7434-3582-6) is a Prometheus Award
-winning novel
by science fiction
authors Larry Niven
, Jerry Pournelle
, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen
. The novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom
, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices. It also champions modern technology and heaps scorn upon its critics - budget cutting politicians, fringe environmentalists and the forces of ignorance. An ebook of this text was among the first released by the Baen Free Library
.
The novel takes aim at several targets of ridicule: Senator William Proxmire
, radical environmentalists and mystics, such as one character who believes that one cannot freeze to death in the snow because ice is a crystal and "crystals are healing." It also mocks ignorance in journalism, which greatly helps the main characters (for example, one "expert" cited in a news article believes that the astronauts must have superhuman strength, based on a photograph of a weightless astronaut easily handling heavy construction equipment) and the non-reality based community in general. Several real people are tuckerized
into the book in a more positive light, including many fans who made donations to charity for that express purpose and a character called "RMS" (presumably Richard M. Stallman) who leads a network of hackers
called the Legion of Doom
, connected by a series of pre-Internet BBS
systems.
laws which, in attempts to curb global warming
, have ironically brought about the greatest environmental catastrophe in recorded history - an ice age
which may eventually escalate into a Snowball Earth
.
The exact process is described: Clouds are water condensation
. This cannot occur without particulate matter in the atmosphere. The emission laws have removed most of this, reducing cloud cover
, meaning the ground loses heat faster. This in combination with the drop in greenhouse gas
es has resulted in the acceleration of the existing ice age; now self-perpetuating as glaciers have a much higher albedo
.
As a radical Nazi-like environmentalist party now controls the US government, the scientific explanation is denounced as "propaganda
from life-hating technophiles", and blame for the ice age is instead solely placed on the society surviving in orbit. Science fiction fandom
forms the core of a pro-technology underground in the United States, working in tandem with Hacker
movements. Other technologists were accused by the government of pursuing "materialist science" were removed from their jobs and forced underground, where they were generally unable to continue their work. This rabid distaste for technology has resulted in the collapse of the economy and lack of education and a complicit media has left the majority of the population credulous and easily manipulated. The Greens have been in power for most of the lives of the characters.
As glacier
s rapidly advance south, Canada and the northern United States are all but destroyed. Near the edge of the glaciers, in the Twin Cities, barbaric feudal systems arise as the federal government and markets collapse, leaving violence and disease in their wake. In orbit, Mir
and Space Station Freedom
survive in tandem with a Lunar colony, but with no support from Earth. The city of Winnipeg
is the last major outpost of Canadian civilization, warmed and inhabitable due to immense amounts of solar power beamed from the space stations.
Astronauts from the orbital society flew a modified scramjet
, redesigned to harvest nitrogen from the Earth's atmosphere. As government policy declares that these ships are responsible for the ice age, the ramjet is shot down with a surface-to-air missile
. The pilot and copilot, an Earth-born American named Alex MacLeod and a space-born Russo-American named Gordon Tanner, are forced to crash land in Canada atop the glaciers.
Upon hearing of this, the fan underground embarks on a rescue mission - a group of fans rides north through the Dakotas to rescue them before they can be apprehended by the Government. Upon reaching the Dakotas, they must travel largely on foot, as their van is unable to traverse the glaciers. However, they have a major advantage over their foes in the government - their relationship with the space station provides them with superior navigational abilities; following the fall of scientific society, the United States Air Force
(USAF) no longer enjoys access to satellite reconnaissance. They are able to reach the downed spacecraft well in advance of the USAF.
Their escape is aided in a similar manner. Though the Angels are unable to walk
due to their overexposure to weightlessness
and must be dragged behind them on sleds, the microwave power transmission beam reserved for Winnipeg is diverted to warm the travelers as they return south to their van. In addition, a tribe of nomadic Inuit
peoples shares supplies with them in thanks for the warmth provided by the microwave beam.
Upon finally reaching their van, the fans flee to a small science fiction convention
of some 50 fans at a mansion owned by one of their own. Once there, one of the fans takes on the role of personal trainer to teach the Angels methods to adjust to Earth's gravity including various asana
s from yoga
. At the con, the fans brainstorm a daring plan - before the Greens had come to power, one of the Board of Trustees for the Metropolitan Museum of Boston by the name of Ron Cole supposedly refurbished a Titan II rocket. This rocket still exists at the Museum of Science and Industry
at Chicago. The fans and the Angels leave for Chicago just moments before the mansion is raided by the Green police.
The trip to Chicago gives the reader a brutal depiction of American life without basic technology. A blizzard forces the fans to take shelter in a farm town - where at least one person dies in each blizzard for lack of heating oil. Hitching a ride in a consignment of cheese has the fans captured by the feudal inhabitants of Milwaukee who are burning the excess houses in the city for heat. He has the food swapped with moonshine
liquor and forces the group into slavery to pay off a series of trumped-up "fines". Only assistance from a fellow fan amongst their captors enables them to continue on to Chicago.
By the time they have reached Chicago, their hopes are crushed. The rocket is a decaying wreck, and Cole is a shadow of his former self due to invasive 'reeducation
' treatments. However, Cole is able to put them on another path - a privately constructed
single-stage-to-orbit
spacecraft at Edwards Air Force Base
, disguised by the simple and effective method of its designer, Gary Hudson
, declaring it nonfunctional.
Prometheus Award
The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
-winning novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
authors Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
, Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....
, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen
Jim Baen
James Patrick "Jim" Baen was a noted U.S. science fiction publisher and editor. In 1983 he founded his own publishing house, Baen Books, specializing in the adventure, fantasy, military science fiction and space opera genres...
. The novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices. It also champions modern technology and heaps scorn upon its critics - budget cutting politicians, fringe environmentalists and the forces of ignorance. An ebook of this text was among the first released by the Baen Free Library
Baen Free Library
The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 112 full books can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection...
.
The novel takes aim at several targets of ridicule: Senator William Proxmire
William Proxmire
Edward William Proxmire was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989.-Personal life:...
, radical environmentalists and mystics, such as one character who believes that one cannot freeze to death in the snow because ice is a crystal and "crystals are healing." It also mocks ignorance in journalism, which greatly helps the main characters (for example, one "expert" cited in a news article believes that the astronauts must have superhuman strength, based on a photograph of a weightless astronaut easily handling heavy construction equipment) and the non-reality based community in general. Several real people are tuckerized
Tuckerization
Tuckerization is the act of using a person's name in an original story as an in-joke. The term is derived from Wilson Tucker, a pioneering American science fiction writer and fanzine editor, who made a practice of using his friends' names for minor characters in his stories...
into the book in a more positive light, including many fans who made donations to charity for that express purpose and a character called "RMS" (presumably Richard M. Stallman) who leads a network of hackers
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
called the Legion of Doom
Legion of Doom (hacking)
The Legion of Doom was a hacker group active from the 1980s to the late 1990s and early 2000. Their name appears to be a reference to the antagonists of Challenge of the Superfriends...
, connected by a series of pre-Internet BBS
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
systems.
Setting
Set in an unspecified 'near-future' (one of the main characters has childhood memories of the Exxon Valdez disaster) in which a radical environmentalist movement, joined with a coalition of religious groups, has gained control of the US government and imposed draconian ludditeLuddite
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...
laws which, in attempts to curb global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, have ironically brought about the greatest environmental catastrophe in recorded history - an ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
which may eventually escalate into a Snowball Earth
Snowball Earth
The Snowball Earth hypothesis posits that the Earth's surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen at least once, some time earlier than 650 Ma . Proponents of the hypothesis argue that it best explains sedimentary deposits generally regarded as of glacial origin at tropical...
.
The exact process is described: Clouds are water condensation
Condensation
Condensation is the change of the physical state of matter from gaseous phase into liquid phase, and is the reverse of vaporization. When the transition happens from the gaseous phase into the solid phase directly, the change is called deposition....
. This cannot occur without particulate matter in the atmosphere. The emission laws have removed most of this, reducing cloud cover
Cloud cover
Cloud cover refers to the fraction of the sky obscured by clouds when observed from a particular location...
, meaning the ground loses heat faster. This in combination with the drop in greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
es has resulted in the acceleration of the existing ice age; now self-perpetuating as glaciers have a much higher albedo
Albedo
Albedo , or reflection coefficient, is the diffuse reflectivity or reflecting power of a surface. It is defined as the ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it...
.
As a radical Nazi-like environmentalist party now controls the US government, the scientific explanation is denounced as "propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
from life-hating technophiles", and blame for the ice age is instead solely placed on the society surviving in orbit. Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
forms the core of a pro-technology underground in the United States, working in tandem with Hacker
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
movements. Other technologists were accused by the government of pursuing "materialist science" were removed from their jobs and forced underground, where they were generally unable to continue their work. This rabid distaste for technology has resulted in the collapse of the economy and lack of education and a complicit media has left the majority of the population credulous and easily manipulated. The Greens have been in power for most of the lives of the characters.
As glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
s rapidly advance south, Canada and the northern United States are all but destroyed. Near the edge of the glaciers, in the Twin Cities, barbaric feudal systems arise as the federal government and markets collapse, leaving violence and disease in their wake. In orbit, Mir
Mir
Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...
and Space Station Freedom
Space Station Freedom
Space Station Freedom was a NASA project to construct a permanently manned Earth-orbiting space station in the 1980s. Although approved by then-president Ronald Reagan and announced in the 1984 State of the Union Address, Freedom was never constructed or completed as originally designed, and after...
survive in tandem with a Lunar colony, but with no support from Earth. The city of Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
is the last major outpost of Canadian civilization, warmed and inhabitable due to immense amounts of solar power beamed from the space stations.
Plot summary
Scramjet
A scramjet is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow...
, redesigned to harvest nitrogen from the Earth's atmosphere. As government policy declares that these ships are responsible for the ice age, the ramjet is shot down with a surface-to-air missile
Surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...
. The pilot and copilot, an Earth-born American named Alex MacLeod and a space-born Russo-American named Gordon Tanner, are forced to crash land in Canada atop the glaciers.
Upon hearing of this, the fan underground embarks on a rescue mission - a group of fans rides north through the Dakotas to rescue them before they can be apprehended by the Government. Upon reaching the Dakotas, they must travel largely on foot, as their van is unable to traverse the glaciers. However, they have a major advantage over their foes in the government - their relationship with the space station provides them with superior navigational abilities; following the fall of scientific society, the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
(USAF) no longer enjoys access to satellite reconnaissance. They are able to reach the downed spacecraft well in advance of the USAF.
Their escape is aided in a similar manner. Though the Angels are unable to walk
Human adaptation to space
Human physiological adaptation to the conditions of space is a challenge faced in the development of human spaceflight.The fundamental engineering problems of escaping Earth's gravity well and developing systems for in-space propulsion have been examined for well over a century, and millions of...
due to their overexposure to weightlessness
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
and must be dragged behind them on sleds, the microwave power transmission beam reserved for Winnipeg is diverted to warm the travelers as they return south to their van. In addition, a tribe of nomadic Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
peoples shares supplies with them in thanks for the warmth provided by the microwave beam.
Upon finally reaching their van, the fans flee to a small science fiction convention
Science fiction convention
Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of various forms of speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as movies and...
of some 50 fans at a mansion owned by one of their own. Once there, one of the fans takes on the role of personal trainer to teach the Angels methods to adjust to Earth's gravity including various asana
Asana
Asana is a body position, typically associated with the practice of Yoga, originally identified as a mastery of sitting still, with the spine as a conduit of biodynamic union...
s from yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
. At the con, the fans brainstorm a daring plan - before the Greens had come to power, one of the Board of Trustees for the Metropolitan Museum of Boston by the name of Ron Cole supposedly refurbished a Titan II rocket. This rocket still exists at the Museum of Science and Industry
Museum of Science and Industry
MOSI may refer to:* MoSi — molybdenum silicide, an important material in the semiconductor industry* MOSI - Master Out Slave In, a signal on the Serial Peripheral Interface Bus* MOSI protocol, an extension of the basic MSI cache coherency protocol...
at Chicago. The fans and the Angels leave for Chicago just moments before the mansion is raided by the Green police.
The trip to Chicago gives the reader a brutal depiction of American life without basic technology. A blizzard forces the fans to take shelter in a farm town - where at least one person dies in each blizzard for lack of heating oil. Hitching a ride in a consignment of cheese has the fans captured by the feudal inhabitants of Milwaukee who are burning the excess houses in the city for heat. He has the food swapped with moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
liquor and forces the group into slavery to pay off a series of trumped-up "fines". Only assistance from a fellow fan amongst their captors enables them to continue on to Chicago.
By the time they have reached Chicago, their hopes are crushed. The rocket is a decaying wreck, and Cole is a shadow of his former self due to invasive 'reeducation
Reeducation
Reeducation may refer to:* A euphemism for Brainwashing, efforts aimed at instilling certain beliefs in people against their will* Reeducation through labor, also called laojiao, a form of penal detention in China; or the Soviet gulags for "re-education of class enemies" and reintegrating them...
' treatments. However, Cole is able to put them on another path - a privately constructed
Private spaceflight
Private spaceflight is flight above Earth altitude conducted by and paid for by an entity other than a government. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pioneered space technology augmented by collaboration with affiliated design...
single-stage-to-orbit
Single-stage-to-orbit
A single-stage-to-orbit vehicle reaches orbit from the surface of a body without jettisoning hardware, expending only propellants and fluids. The term usually, but not exclusively, refers to reusable vehicles....
spacecraft at Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located on the border of Kern County, Los Angeles County, and San Bernardino County, California, in the Antelope Valley. It is southwest of the central business district of North Edwards, California and due east of Rosamond.It is named in...
, disguised by the simple and effective method of its designer, Gary Hudson
Gary Hudson
Gary Hudson has been involved in private spaceflight development for over 25 years.Hudson is best known as the founder of Rotary Rocket Company, which in spending ~$30 Million attempted to build a unique single stage to orbit launch vehicle known as the Roton...
, declaring it nonfunctional.