This is the Chinese translation. The original English name is children's end. The literal translation should be "The End of Childhood".
It sounds like the last man on earth is a bit taller.
When Zhang Zhong saw this book, the first thing he thought of was the author Arthur C. Clark, who is considered a banner in the world of science fiction.
Some people call him, along with Heinlein and Asimov, the Big Three of science fiction.
Compared with the other two, Clark's works are a little harder.
Although whether science fiction is hard or not cannot be the only criterion for the quality of a work, the fact that science fiction novels can be hard speaks for itself.
His description of satellite communications was surprisingly consistent with the development of the real world, so the geosynchronous satellite orbit was named Clark orbit.
The reason why Clark's works are so powerful should be related to his experience. He has been a science enthusiast since he was a child, and he was very talented at a very young age. When he was twelve years old, because he could not afford college fees, he served as a trustee of the school.
He got a job as an auditor in the Society's Pensions Department, and at the age of seventeen joined a senior research group calling itself the British Interstellar Society.
During World War II, Clark joined the Royal Air Force as a radar technician and participated in the development of early warning radar defense systems. During the war, he mainly operated approach radars.
Later, he served as a corporal instructor in No. 9 of the Radio School. In 1943, he was appointed as an Air Force second lieutenant. In the same year, he was promoted to an Air Force lieutenant. He retired with the rank of Air Force captain in 1946. He attended London College and graduated with honors in mathematics and physics.
Double bachelor's degree.
He once wrote an article for "Radio World" entitled "Extraterrestrial Relay", in which he predicted in detail the geostationary satellite system for long-distance communications that could transmit radio and television signals to the world.
At that time, this idea was ahead of its time, so the scientific community was skeptical about it. It was not until twenty years later that humans launched the "Morning Bird" geostationary satellite.
Judging from these resumes, he does not look like a science fiction writer at all, but more like a scientific researcher.
This "The Last Man on Earth" is the last of Clark's "End of Earth Trilogy". In this novel, Clark made a prediction about the future of mankind.
It is not correct to say that it is a prediction. Clark does not seem to mean to predict, he is more like proposing a hypothesis.
A hypothesis and attempt to give an answer to the question "How can human beings solve the problem of unification?"
How can mankind be unified?
In "The Last Man on Earth", aliens arrive. The technology of these alien creatures is extremely advanced and they are not at the same level as humans on earth. At that time, these alien creatures were very friendly from the beginning and showed to the people on earth that they
They are not here to invade the earth, they are here to help mankind with love and sincerity.
If aliens say this, people on earth will definitely not believe it, but they can't make a choice and are waiting and watching.
At this time, a government stood up and angrily criticized the aliens, saying that if you don't leave, we will destroy you.
Of course the aliens didn't leave, and the government was very tough and launched the missile directly. However, the missile flew over and hit the alien's spaceship, but the alien's spacecraft was unscathed.
At this time, humans realized the fact that these aliens were too powerful and could not compete with them.
Since you can't resist, you can only obey.
Fortunately, these aliens kept their word, saying that if it is not an invasion, it is not an invasion, and they coexist harmoniously with humans. This went on for a long time, until one day, the human children got a strange disease, and they would dream about it every night.
A place filled with stars.
All children under ten years old have this disease, but not those over ten years old.
Later, the children also had super powers and ate like crazy.
Human beings asked the aliens again and again, and the aliens finally answered their questions.
From the aliens' mouths, humans learned that there is a more advanced life above these aliens.
This advanced life is called super intelligence, and the way children become is related to this super intelligence.
These children will eventually become star children, and aliens will pick them up.
It's like human beings are a crop that one day finally bears fruit, and these aliens are the loyal farmer servants of the super intelligence, collecting the fruits for the super intelligence - the children who become star children.
Facing the powerful power of aliens, humans have no choice but to watch helplessly as all human children under the age of ten are taken away.
From then on, there were only people over the age of eleven left on the earth, and there was no sign of a woman becoming pregnant.
Without the ability to reproduce, the race cannot continue, and humanity can only sit and wait for extinction.
Those aliens did not leave, they accompanied the earthlings on their last journey.
A long time later, until there was only the last earthling left on the earth, he was once an eleven-year-old child, but now he is the oldest one.
There is no energy or food on earth, and he even needs aliens to send him food.
Faced with such a situation, the aliens could only sigh. As farm servants, they had seen too many such scenes.
In this way, the human species disappeared from the earth.
…
The future of mankind described by Clark in this book is obviously very pessimistic.
He raised a hypothetical question: How can mankind achieve unity.
One of the answers he gave in the book is: There must be a transcendent force to suppress it.
Clark believes that what mankind is missing from the goal of unification is not love or the ideal of one world. What we lack is a force with absolute superiority. Even this force does not need to exist all the time, as long as everyone can witness its power once.
.
A scholar once put forward a conclusion, saying that the rules of society are determined by the most violent ones.
This scholar calls this rule a meta-rule, and all social relations are derived from this basis.
"well."
After quickly reading "The Last Man on Earth", Zhang Zhong sighed silently. The helplessness revealed in this book was heart-stopping.
It’s not just the helplessness of human beings, but also the helplessness of those alien beings who are transcendent to humans on earth. They can only serve as super-intelligent servants, wandering in the universe, and as long as they meet a high-level
The species will settle down, and when the "fruit" matures, they will leave with the "fruit".
As for when the "fruit" will mature, they don't know.
Although these aliens did not perish, their fate was as tragic as human beings.
From beginning to end, the author did not explain what the rules of this universe were or where the star children would end up. He just left such a story for readers to think about.