The Crucible of Time -- John Brunner

If you can find this book, it's a good one and should be read.

The author, you may know, wrote Stand on Zanzibar but don't hold that
against him. This book is science fiction with a core predicate that
is actually fascinating.

Earth's Ice Ages and other major climatic shifts could conceivably
be caused by the Solar System's passage through interstellar dust
clouds and nebula over the billions of years of Earth's history.

Brunner takes that concept and places it on a planet somewhere where
an intelligent species experiences climatic survival problems over
tens of thousands of years, being driven to mass extinction twice in
the book.

But what's also fascinating about the story is the _religious_ problems
that the species has to contend with to make any progress that will
result in survival. Science is very much at odds with the religious
superstitions held by the majority or the minority as superstition and
ignorance ebs and flows.

But it's not _deity_ superstitions that work to keep the species from
advancement. It's superstitions about _astrology_. There's a kind of
reverse deification of scientists who divulged truth over the years,
deification committed by the superstitious who refuse to accept the
fact that Stars don't reflect anything on the planet whatsoever --

Until, that is, cosmic ray bombardments altering the specie's genetics
is discovered along with radioactivity which is taken by many to be
a vindication of astrology.

Also fascinating is the utilization of plants and animals rather than
the designing and manufacturing of metal or plastic based machines.

Early on the species learns how to manipulate genetics in other
plants and animals to conform to needs of their own species however
it's not until very late in the story that the species learn that
they themselves are being subjected to sterialization effects due
to cosmic rays.

Ultimately -- and from the beginning of the book -- a Nova appears
in the planet's sky and it's discovered that the planet is heading
toward the ring of stellar material that was ejected, and that
their Solar System is traveling in a collission course with the
remnant of the Nova.

Along the way and over the centuries more and more debris from the
Nova are swept up by the planet, causing technological throwbacks
and loss of science as well as sociological backsliding into occult
superstition.

What eventually saves the species is the advent of the printing press.

---
http://www.ElmerFudd.US/ http://www.rightard.org/ http://www.thedarkwind.org/
One doesn't have to be a Republican to hate Canadians. - Rita Refugee