The Great Explosion

2024-10-19T09:19:37Z

2601:1C0:5900:85B0:8B30:E07D:F47:BDD6: /* top */Fixed typo in the header section. The author's last name was missing an "l."

{{Short description|1962 novel by Eric Frank Russell}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{infobox book | 
| name = The Great Explosion
| author = [[Eric Frank Russell]]
| image = File:TheGreatExplosion.jpg
| caption = First edition
| country = United States
| language = English
| series = A Torquil Book
| genre = Science fiction
| publisher = [[Dodd, Mead and Company]]
| release_date = 1962
| media_type = Print ([[Hardback]], 1962, [[Paperback]], [[Avon (publishers)|Avon]] 1975)
| pages = 187 ''(first edition)'', 160 ''(first paperback printing)''
| isbn =
| oclc = 5846254
}}

'''''The Great Explosion''''' is a satirical [[science fiction]] [[novel]] by English writer [[Eric Frank Russell]], first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections. The final section is based on Russell's 1951 short story "...And Then There Were None". Twenty-three years after the novel was published, it won a [[Prometheus Award|Prometheus Hall of Fame Award]].

==Plot==
The Blieder drive, a [[faster-than-light]] drive system, has permitted the population of Earth to colonize the galaxy. Each planet has become home for a particular social group. Four hundred years after the diaspora (the "Great Explosion" of the title), a spaceship from Earth visits three of the planets, the first steps to unifying the galaxy under a new Empire. The ship contains two thousand Terrans including many pompous officials, an army of bureaucrats, a military force and the ship's crew, including some misfits. Things do not go entirely as hoped, as the incompetent military authoritarians of the ship encounter three very different societies.

The first planet was a [[penal colony]]; it is now many independent [[kleptocratic]] [[despotism]]s preying on each other. The second planet, Hygeia, is populated by health and fitness fanatic [[nudist]]s. The third planet, Kassim, was colonized by a religious group, but when the ship arrives, the Terrans cannot find any human life, only empty villages overgrown by jungle. They decide not to land on the planet, because the captain fears that the colonists could have been killed by a disease and he doesn't want to endanger the crew. The final planet, K22g, has developed an unusual [[social system]]. The population call themselves Gands (after [[Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi|Gandhi]]) and practise a form of [[social class|classless]], philosophically [[Anarchism|anarchic]] [[libertarianism]], based on [[passive resistance]] ("Freedom - I won't!" and "[[Mind your own business|Myob]]!"); and a moneyless [[gift economy]] based on [[barter]] and favor-exchange, using "obs" (obligations). To perform a service for somebody "lays an ob" on them; they can then "kill the ob" by returning the favor.<ref name=Cambridge223>{{cite book|editor1-first=Edward|editor1-last=James|editor2-first=Farah|editor2-last=Mendlesohn|editor2-link=Farah Mendlesohn|first=Edward|last=James|chapter=Utopias and anti-utopias|page=223|title=The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction|year=2003|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=0-521-01657-6}}</ref> As the planet's population are demonstrably non-hostile, the officials have to approve shore leave, which brings the crew into contact with the anarchist natives. Many find reasons to stay on the planet, refusing to return to the ship. The officials have to get the ship back into space before they lose so many that the ship will never fly again.

==See also==
* [[The Waitabits]] - a similar story by Russell involving Earth bureaucrats encountering unusual aliens.
* [[LETS|Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS)]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* Complete text of [http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm "...And Then There Were None"] (excerpted from the novel, not the original novella)
* Complete text of [https://web.archive.org/web/20050315170821/http://tmh.floonet.net/books/tgetoc.html "The Great Explosion"]
* Complete text of [http://www.simpleliberty.org/research/the_great_explosion-00.htm "The Great Explosion"] from [http://www.simpleliberty.org/research/back_door.htm Simple Liberty]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Explosion, The}}
[[Category:1962 British novels]]
[[Category:Novels by Eric Frank Russell]]
[[Category:English novels]]
[[Category:1962 science fiction novels]]
[[Category:Libertarian science fiction books]]
[[Category:Dodd, Mead & Co. books]]

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The Great Explosion