Science Fiction - First Civilizations

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Is that the story line where stars themselves might be capable of directly supporting life on their surface? I was thinking about that the other day and couldn't remember the name of the books or of the Author!

Yes, the cheela develop a space-faring civilization on the surface of a neutron star - the pace of development of their civilization is visible to human observers - until the cheela civilization's development zooms past human civilization's development.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Yes, the cheela develop a space-faring civilization on the surface of a neutron star - the pace of development of their civilization is visible to human observers - until the cheela civilization's development zooms past human civilization's development.

Yep, and that's just in the 1st of the two books. I think it's interesting how the neutron star influences human development and then the humans influence the development of the Cheela in turn. The idea of different rates of time between people on a planet and people in orbit was used in one of the later episodes of Star Trek Voyager. I couldn't help but think who ever wrote the episode must have read some of Robert L. Forward's books. It used a planet rather than a star, but otherwise many elements of the story were similar.

[curtw]

I can't believe the discussion has gone this far without hitting Frederik Pohl's "Heechee" series (Gateway is the first).

And David Brin's Startide Rising has some of those enigmatic hints/mysteries...

[cromag]

As I was going through this thread the first series I thought of was Frederik Pohl's Heechee books -- curtw beat me to it.

Another book I thought of that kind of matches your specs is Earthblood, by Keith Laumer and Rosel George Brown. The (nearly) extinct race is humanity. There are many alien species, but a full human (100% Earthblood) specimen is a rarity. It is very much "old school science fiction," which you'd expect from Keith Laumer. Until recently it was available from Baen -- right now it's marked "unavailable." You might want to keep an eye out for it, or pick up a used paper copy.

[WillAdams]

One problem w/ such a list is that the fact of there being a progenitor is often a plot-point.

Timothy Zahn's _Ikarus Hunt_ (but the reveal is early enough that it's on the back cover).

There's a Mike Brotherton novel where the reveal is at the end though, and quite the revelation.

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

There's a Mike Brotherton novel where the reveal is at the end though, and quite the revelation.

Title?

[WillAdams]

Star Dragon

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

Star Dragon

Thank you.