History Literature / FallenAngels

Sherrine joins Bob and a cadre of friends from the underground sci-fi fandom she thought she'd never see again on a quest to save the downed Angels and get them back to the Space Hab. But their mission won't be as simple as digging the astronauts out of the ice. They'll have to find a rocket to get take the spacers back into orbit; no easy feat in a country that shuttered the space program. And the government is hot on their trail, with the chase headed up by the cunning Captain Lee Arteria of the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations. What follows is a mad dash across the United States and a make-or-break effort to get the Angels off-planet.

The book is largely a satirical nose-thumbing at "anti-science" contingents of the late 80's: namely environmentalists, humanist academics, and politicians who cut the budget for the space program. It's also a tongue-in-cheek love letter to sci-fi fans and fandom culture of the late 80's, teeming with references to classic works of science fiction and big names in the genre. (There's even a web page [[http://news.larryniven.net/biblio/display.asp?key=243 listing all the cameos and character references]] that appear in the book -- the original link is down as of 2023, but an archived copy can be found in [[https://web.archive.org/web/20220901182008/https://news.larryniven.net/biblio/display.asp?key=243 the Wayback Machine]] )

The book is largely a satirical nose-thumbing at "anti-science" contingents of the late 80's: namely environmentalists, humanist academics, and politicians who cut the budget for the space program. It's also a tongue-in-cheek love letter to sci-fi fans and fandom culture of the late 80's, teeming with references to classic works of science fiction and big names in the genre. (There's even a web page [[http://news.larryniven.net/biblio/display.asp?key=243 listing all the cameos and character references]] that appear in the book.)

* RefugeInAudacity: When the illegal Science Fiction Convention at Tremont Fielding's mansion is raided by the Green Police, the Cops, and the Air Force, aspiring science fiction writer Anthony Horrowitz strolls up to the assembled forces and asks them to review his latest illegal works on the samizdat net, including "Vampire Unicorns from Planet Thraxisp." This functions as part of the convention's efforts to distract the various police agencies long enough for the astronauts to make their escape.

* FilkSong: Famous filk artists make a cameo appearance at several points in the book, including Creator/LeslieFish as "Jenny Trout" and Creator/FrankGasperik as "Harry." Several famous filk songs are included word-for-word or alluded to in the text. [[Creator/JuliaEcklar Julia Ecklar's]] "Phoenix" is repeated several times:
-->And my wings are made of tungsten, my flesh of glass and steel\\
I am the joy of Terra for the power that I wield\\
Once upon a lifetime, I died a pioneer\\
Now I sing within a spaceship's heart - does anybody hear?

* FanConvention:

** [[spoiler: In the epilogue, the first return mission of the Titan rocket lands in the Caribbean for the first of many expected resupply missions for the Space Hab. It is met by the joyous attendees of "Cruise-Con," the first science fiction convention to be held on a yacht.]]

%% * ZeroGSpot: How else would children have been conceived onboard the Space Hab?

** Despite being [[PersecutedIntellectuals outlawed by the government]], science fiction fans still gather together in clandestine conventions to dress up, trade goods, and sing filk songs. Some cons are so small they only have a dozen or so fans in attendance. Cruz-Con, in Santa Cruz, consisted of a handful of fans camped out on the lawn of [[Creator/RobertAHeinlein Robert Heinlein's]] estate.
** After the Angels are rescued from their crashed ship, they're driven to the secret convention at Tremont J. Fielding's mansion to recover.
** The rescuers and the Angels attend another convention as they road-trip across the midwest, this time held in a motel.
** [[spoiler: In the epilogue, the first return mission of the Titan lands in the Caribbean for the first of many expected resupply missions for the Space Hab. It is met by the joyous attendees of "Cruise-Con," the first science fiction convention to be held on a yacht.]]

* GlacialApocalypse: An attempt to counteract ClimateChange worked altogether too well and lowered the Earth's temperature enough for large glaciers to form, which in turn have been reflecting away enough light and heat to cool the Earth more and more the larger they grow, resulting in a runway global cooling event. Canada and most of the northern United States have been destroyed by the advancing ice, while barbarism and feudal systems have formed along their advancing edges where government and civilization are breaking down. Winnipeg has managed to keep itself thawed in the middle of the ice through solar power beamed down from space stations, while the US government's totalitarian rulers [[HeadInTheSandManagement largely refuse to admit that any problem exists]].

** ''Anyone'' who works or teaches in the sciences (a group of nuclear physicists are mentioned to have been lynched by a mob of angry luddites), but the story focuses on the tribulations of the science fiction fandom. The sci-fi fans who have been driven underground are all sane, level-headed, empathetic people, while the government agencies and police forces that hunt them (and the various feudal conclaves they run across) are staffed by dogmatic lunatics, bubble-headed hippies, and/or greedy, petty, self-serving proxmires with their head in the sand.
** The Space Habbers are reviled by the technophobic governments on Earth, by virtue of living in a high-tech orbital colony.

* GlacialApocalypse: An attempt to counteract GlobalWarming worked altogether too well and lowered the Earth's temperature enough for large glaciers to form, which in turn have been reflecting away enough light and heat to cool the Earth more and more the larger they grow, resulting in a runway global cooling event. Canada and most of the northern United States have been destroyed by the advancing ice, while barbarism and feudal systems have formed along their advancing edges where government and civilization are breaking down. Winnipeg has managed to keep itself thawed in the middle of the ice through solar power beamed down from space stations, while the US government's totalitarian rulers [[HeadInTheSandManagement largely refuse to admit that any problem exists]].

* RefugeInAudacity: When the illegal Science Fiction Convention at Tremont Fielding's mansion is raided by the Green Police, the Cops, and the Air Force, aspiring science fiction writer Anthony Horrowitz strolls up to the assembled forces and asks them to review his latest illegal works on the samizdat net, including "Vampire Unicorns from Planet Thraxisp," as part of the convention's efforts to distract them long enough for the astronauts to make their escape.

First published in 1991 by Creator/LarryNiven, Creator/JerryPournelle, and Creator/MichaelFlynn, ''Fallen Angels'' takes place on (and above) an Earth that is in the grip of an new ice age as a result of mankind's attempts to curtail runaway global warming. [[AntiIntellectualism Technophobic]] governments have been voted into power to save the environment from the evils of pollution, technology, and free-thinking. Glaciers are expanding every year, with huge sheets of ice reaching down past the U.S.-Canadian border. Resources are scarce, tensions are high, and knowing or caring too much about science can land anyone in serious trouble.

I am the joy of Terra for the power that I wield\

* RoadTripPlot: The rescuers must first drive up to the North Dakota Glacier where the Angels are stranded, then smuggle the downed spacers across the Midwest -- through Wisconsin, then down to Chicago -- before they finally make their trip out to [[spoiler: the Titan rocket launch site in California, and finally back into space]].

** [[spoiler: In the epilogue, the first return mission of the Titan lands in the Caribbean for to resupply the Space Hab. It is met by the joyous attendees of "Cruise-Con," the first science fiction convention to be held on a yacht.]]