The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167475 Message #4040368
Posted By: keberoxu
17-Mar-20 - 08:18 PM
Thread Name: BS: Voice of the Dolphins (Szilard)
Subject: BS: Voice of the Dolphins (Szilard)
In some ways, this collection of novellas/short stories in the science-fiction genre calls to mind A Canticle for Leibowitz, which has a thread of its own in the BS section.
"Leibowitz" presumes a post-apocalypse, post-nuclear-bomb scenario.
"Voice" is different, in that the civilized world is on the brink of a nuclear war, and by the most curious agency, is manipulated to negotiate disarmament instead.
Whereas "Leibowitz" has religious orders and scholars preserving what little knowledge and learning has survived the apocalypse, "Voice" contrasts science -- molecular biologists in particular -- with international politics.
Both authors, however, are clearly opposed to the nuclear arms race and in their different ways make eloquent cases for how mankind is -- or ought to be -- more than war-mongering aggressors.
Anybody familiar with Sell's liver paste? It was a US product during the Second World War if I read right. And it is with Sell's liver paste, according to this fiction, that an institute peopled with distinguished scientists from all over the world, entices dolphins to communicate with human scientists and to assist them with an agenda of nuclear disarmament. Give the dolphins enough Sell's liver paste, the premise goes, and they will do just about anything.