Post by Matthew on Feb 10, 2010 12:56:53 GMT
I wont even start on the holes in the plot but I thought it had a couple of interesting themes in the slavery and control of coal production.
Not sure if a pandemic struck Britain would revert to slavery for all sorts of reasons, not least the cultural revulsion at the idea although having some form of hard labour reserved as a way of punishing wrong do'ers is an interesting one, especially given the pressure to avoid having non productive mouths to feed.
How future coal production would be organised though would be something that mattered a lot but I think it would be at least 5 years before it became a real issue. There would be huge stocks available to any potential survivors without having to resort to pickaxes and Canarys in a cage and the only thing that would limit that would be the break up of the road network.
I have always envisaged a pandemic ravaged Britain at the 22 years later stage (in honour of 'Earth Abides') as being on par with late Victorian society in that steam power, fueled by coal, would be the primary source of energy generation along with having the infastructure to support that in terms of repairs and even production of new equipment.
Oh and also the whole thing with Peter Grant at the end. Makes me wonder if we are going to see an ending to this series more in line with the one in the original book as opposed to the TV series.
Not sure if a pandemic struck Britain would revert to slavery for all sorts of reasons, not least the cultural revulsion at the idea although having some form of hard labour reserved as a way of punishing wrong do'ers is an interesting one, especially given the pressure to avoid having non productive mouths to feed.
How future coal production would be organised though would be something that mattered a lot but I think it would be at least 5 years before it became a real issue. There would be huge stocks available to any potential survivors without having to resort to pickaxes and Canarys in a cage and the only thing that would limit that would be the break up of the road network.
I have always envisaged a pandemic ravaged Britain at the 22 years later stage (in honour of 'Earth Abides') as being on par with late Victorian society in that steam power, fueled by coal, would be the primary source of energy generation along with having the infastructure to support that in terms of repairs and even production of new equipment.
Oh and also the whole thing with Peter Grant at the end. Makes me wonder if we are going to see an ending to this series more in line with the one in the original book as opposed to the TV series.
