- Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand -- Brian Aldiss

Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand -- Brian Aldiss

Written by Mike Noel

Tuesday, 23 November 2004

Galaxies Like Grains of Sand is a book that portrays the history of mankind with short vignettes of select millennia during the 40 million year history starting with the 21st century. The history of the 21st century shows a warlike mankind that virtually eliminates himself with unimaginable technological weapons. Throughout the next several centuries the whole of the human race is reduced to a scant few scattered across the globe. The following chapters show the resurrection of mankind and the progress through technology, space flight, psychological enlightenment, mutation that brings cellular-level self-awareness, and finally the spread of humanity to hundreds of thousands of planets throughout the galaxy

The story culminates with a chapter that starts on a remote edge of the galaxy. A trader inadvertently drifts beyond the edge of the galaxy and by chance finds a new planet where planets shouldn't be. Various circumstances bring a new breed of Man from this planet to the old galaxy. He sets in play a series of events that hasten the inevitable unraveling of the now worn out galaxy and presents himself as Nature's new version of Man. A new version from which Nature will begin anew the experiment of evolution in a newly forming galaxy.

The new Man finally shows the old Man that he and his 40 million year history were simply one galaxy out of the many, like grains of sand, in which Nature was playing out experiments in evolution. Old Man, as it turned out, was a rather successful experiment and therefore Nature chose to start the new galaxy at that level, instead of the amoebae, to see how the next 40 million years would play out. The portrayal of humanity was stark and animalistic. Not the slightest nod was given to the spiritual or eternal aspect of mankind. Instead the story emphasized the insignificance of the human race, not to mention the single individual. Because of the lack of any address towards a very important, some say most important, aspect of humanity the story fails to transmit its message with full potency.