More Tales of Pirx the Pilot

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Sci-fi? Sure, I like it, but only the trashy stuff. Not so much trashy as phony The kind I can dip into between shifts, read a few pages at a time, and then drop. Oh, I read good books, too, but only Earthside. Why that is, I don’t really know. Never stopped to analyze it. Good books tell the truth, even when they’re about things that never have been and never will be. They’re truthful in a different way. When they talk about outer space, they make you feel the silence, so unlike the Earthly kind—and the lifelessness. Whatever the adventures, the message is always the same: humans will never feel at home out there. Earth has something random, fickle about it—here a tree, there a wall or garden, over the horizon another horizon, beyond the mountain a valley … but not out there.

People on Earth can’t imagine what a pain the stars are—what a drag it is to cruise the cosmos, even for a year at full thrust, with never a change of scenery! We fly, sail around the world, and think: So that’s what outer space is like! But there’s just no comparison.

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