The Dance of Shiva

Fred Hoyle, an astronomer, remarks in the preface to The Black Cloud (Harper, $2.95), his first science fiction novel: “I hope that my scientific colleagues will enjoy this frolic. After all, there is very little here that could not conceivably happen.” His use of the word “frolic” is significant, because playfulness is, it seems to me, one of the most striking aspects of science fiction. For science fiction is a new form, a form that has been prophetic of a new age, and is essentially involved in it.

It seems natural that playfulness should accompany newness and youth. The playful kitten. The frisky puppy. Of course the exuberance of the creative mind as it enters a new field is very different from the frolic of young animals. Playfulness need not be kittenish or comic. Shiva, the Destroyer and Renewer, is often shown as dancing. It was his dance (in the aspect of Durvaras) that caused the decline of Indra’s power and led to the Churning of the Ocean —that tremendous mythological event so suggestive of the transition from Age to Age. As the gods and demons agitated the Sea of Milk new forms and identities arose, among them the moon. And Shiva danced in the depths, and the moon was his portion.

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C. Robert Morse

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Fred Hoyle, an astronomer, remarks in the preface to The Black Cloud (Harper, $2.95), his first science fiction novel: “I hope that my scientific colleagues will enjoy this frolic. After all, there is very little here that could not conceivably happen.” His use of the word “frolic” is significant, because playfulness is, it seems to me, one of the most striking aspects of science fiction. For science fiction is a new form, a form that has been prophetic of a new age, and is essentially involved in it.

It seems natural that playfulness should accompany newness and youth. The playful kitten. The frisky puppy. Of course the exuberance of the creative mind as it enters a new field is very different from the frolic of young animals. Playfulness need not be kittenish or comic. Shiva, the Destroyer and Renewer, is often shown as dancing. It was his dance (in the aspect of Durvaras) that caused the decline of Indra’s power and led to the Churning of the Ocean —that tremendous mythological event so suggestive of the transition from Age to Age. As the gods and demons agitated the Sea of Milk new forms and identities arose, among them the moon. And Shiva danced in the depths, and the moon was his portion.