During the Apollo era, Walter Cronkite, the famous TV newsman, told a story about interviewing Neil Armstrong. He had asked him what he and Buzz Aldrin would do with their last hours of life on the Moon, should the Lunar Module Ascent Engine fail and strand them there. He was hoping, he said, for some poetic response about doing a last experiment for the benefit of Mankind or contacting their loved ones back on Earth. What Armstrong actually said, though, is something any one of our major characters in Lunatics! would understand implicitly: “Well. I imagine we’d be working on that engine.”
Continuing with themes in the stories for Lunatics… Here’s number six: Theme #6 Risk Averse Society versus the Thrill of the Frontier Of course, being too safe is a little scary in itself. Part of the reason people want to go is because it’s exciting. But the mores of Earth-bound society make it a sin to take too large a risk. How will that morality conflict with the ambitions of our settlers? Will they be blocked “for their own good”?
