Inspiration and Relation To Other Works
The book's narrative describes a historical framework which serves as a setting for a number of Resnick's other woks of fiction, including the novels Ivory, A Miracle of Rare Design, and Santiago.
The story is very obviously inspired by Resnick's personal interest in Africa. Mankind's behavior and motivation is a direct continuation of 16th to 19th century European colonialism and imperialism: ruthless exploitation and domination of other cultures, justified by an ideology of racial superiority. "Birthright" is based on the speculation that this behavior could be a fundamental trait of humans, which would be exhibited in just the same way towards extraterrestrial aliens. The later part is apparently based on the rather less speculative notion that seemingly invincible empires can and invariably do crumble and disappear, often quite quickly. History provides numerous examples, including Ancient Rome, the Mongol and British Empires and the domain of Alexander the Great.
"Birthright" can also be seen as the antithesis of the SF stereotype of vicious, dangerous aliens who threaten mankind, as seen e.g. in Starship Troopers, the Predator and Alien movies, and many others. In Birthright, it is mankind itself that is the most vicious and dangerous of galactic races, also the basis for Resnick's short story With Friends Like These and works by others, such as The Damned trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
Read more about this topic: Birthright: The Book Of Man
Famous quotes containing the words inspiration, relation and/or works:
“Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is undoubtedly something religious about it: everyone believes that they are special, that they are chosen, that they have a special relation with fate. Here is the test: you turn over card after card to see in which way that is true. If you can defy the odds, you may be saved. And when you are cleaned out, the last penny gone, you are enlightened at last, free perhaps, exhilarated like an ascetic by the falling away of the material world.”
—Andrei Codrescu (b. 1947)
“Was it an intellectual consequence of this ‘rebirth,’ of this new dignity and rigor, that, at about the same time, his sense of beauty was observed to undergo an almost excessive resurgence, that his style took on the noble purity, simplicity and symmetry that were to set upon all his subsequent works that so evident and evidently intentional stamp of the classical master.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)