Tag Archives: cosmology

If space isn’t empty

I’m reading Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky and hit a great connection with Perelandra.

Both of them build a great sense that space isn’t empty.

It flips my defaults in a way I love.

Reading Perelandra left me with a profound sense of the rich fullness of the cosmos, the space between the worlds swamped in life-giving energy, Earth tucked away in a quiet little pocket cut off (or shielded?) from the blinding overflow.

Shards of Earth takes the idea of the void that stares back and pretty brilliantly literalizes it. When you travel through un-space (which allows interstellar travel), you find yourself completely, utterly, chillingly alone.

And then, even worse, you find you’re not alone.

It’s cthonic and eerie, shades of Cthulhu, gigantic unknowable presence(s?) in the deep.

As I’ve soaked in the two effects together, it all feels very Genesis 1.

The chaotic deep, far older than time and space.

The ancient Spirit of God hovering.

The “and there was light.”