In working through this module, in analyzing SF stories of exploration and colonization, I want you to see the criticism of present worlds in the imagining of future and faraway worlds. I want you to see the SF hero as a model of competence and a new way of functioning. I want you to look deeply at the meaning and effects on an audience of these kind of stories, especially for an audience (like the audience of the SF genre we discussed in module one) which is frequently not socially successful or admirable.

But that's not all I want.

I don't want you to lose a sense of the true thrill, the romance, the electric charge of looking into the distance, and not knowing what's out there, but setting out anyway.

Read this poem (click the picture of Ulysses' ship to view it) . A lot of SF (and other genre fiction, too) is about the desire Ulysses expresses in the poem, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

There is emotional resonance for all of us in the adventurous quest. We've all explored undiscovered country, and we've all enjoyed it at the same time as we've feared it. When Kirk's voice (click the Enterprise to hear it....if you have software to play an mp3 file) says "...to boldly go?." don't you shiver? You should.

No specific discussion board for this section. Go back and add to the discussions with your impressions of the stories you read.

Don't forget to take the quizzes for each of the three stories you read for this module.

Title	Direct Link to Online Text (you will have to login with your library barcode)	Page number (in The Ascent of Wonder)
"The Cold Equations"	Link	442
"It's Great to be Back"	Link	103
"Down and Out On Ellfive Prime"	Link	180

Remember, the password is "quiz" (without the quotes, right?)