The Boat of a Million Years

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The Boat of a Million Years
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Poul Anderson
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Tor Books
Publication date	November 1989
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	470 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-312-93199-9

The Boat of a Million Years is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson first published in 1989 and nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel that same year. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Prometheus Award in 1990.

[edit] Plot introduction

The novel follows a group of immortals from ancient times to the semi-distant future. Throughout their entire life the immortals have no idea what caused them to become like this. They aged to about their mid-20s and then stopped. Their teeth grew back every few decades. Most of the novel follows the various 10 immortals throughout their life trying to find others like themselves, avoiding being killed, and remaining quiet about their gift. Slowly other immortals begin to meet across the world. One of the main problems the immortals face is the continued death of their family members. One of their main hopes is to find other immortals so they can all settle down. The novel indicates a love for the past and anticipation for the wonders of the future. However, the sections concerning the nineteenth and twentieth century make strong, generally libertarian-based criticism of the world situation.

[edit] Timeline

The novel begins with the oldest immortal, Hanno, a Phoenician sailor born about 1000 B.C.

310 B.C. Hanno hears that a philosopher named Pytheas is looking for a sailor to lead an expedition. Hanno meets with him and agrees to head the expedition from Greece to the north seas. The expedition is to locate a possible sea-route to the far North due to the dangers from the Gauls.
sometime before 27 B.C. Patulcius, an immortal, is born to a family of equestrian class in Rome. He takes a job in the Roman empires bureaucracy. Works his career and tells his friends that he plans to retire somewhere far away. He heads to another Roman city and starts his career anew with a new identity. When he retires again he moves back to Rome.
sometime before 79 B.C. Tu Shan, an immortal, is born in the Three Great Rocks district
1 A.D. Hanno lives as a trader in Britannia
19 A.D. Tu Shan an immortal is wondering from village to village in China preaching taoist philosophy. He is approached by the emperor of china's men who want him to serve in the emperors court. He refuses and begins to travel eastward. Eventually leading him to Tibet
279 A.D. Hanno and Rufus' estimation of the time of Rufus' birth
330 A.D. Patulcius moves to Byzantium with Constantine I to become a civil servant again.
359 A.D. Hanno has moved to Burdigala (Bordeaux) and become a successful merchant. During the decline in the Roman Empire he befriends another immortal that he discovers named Rufus. Rufus and Hanno flee Bordeaux and start to travel around Europe looking for others like themselves.
641 A.D. Aliyat a grandmother immortal is forced to leave her people out of fear that they will kill her for never aging.
998 A.D. An immortal called Nornagest tracks down another immortal, a viking warlord by the name of Starkadh. He attempts to get Starkadh to follow him, but Starkadh is more interested in plunder. Later on it is revealed that Starkadh dies in battle, and Nornagest chooses to die by consciously stopping his heart.
1068 A.D. Patulcius is in Anatolia when it is conquered by the Great Seljuq Empire
1170 A.D. Asagoa is born in Japan
1072 A.D. Hanno under the name Cadoc tracks down Aliyat who is living as a high-class prostitute under the name Athenais in Constantinople.
sometime after 1453 When the Ottoman Turks captured the city Oktay Saygun returns now a Muslim to work in the civil service again.
1540 A.D. Hanno leaves a box containing a physical description of himself in a church, with instructions not to be opened for a hundred years, to give prove of his immortality.
1570 A.D. Tu Shan and Asagoa meet in Tibet become married and have a child who dies shortly after being born
1572 A.D. Tu Shan and Asagoa leave the Tibetian village and journey out into the world
1640 A.D. Hanno under the name Jacques Lacy of Ireland meets with Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu to discuss the possibility of revealing their existence.
1710 A.D. John Wanderer leaves his tribe.
1872 A.D. Hanno going under the name of Tarrant pursues a Native American named Peregrino (who later takes the name John Wanderer). He believes that Wanderer is an immortal like himself. In the pursuit Rufus is killed trying to save a family from a native American attack
1908 A.D. Some years ago Patulcius had taken a job as a low-level bureaucrat in Turkey.
1925 A.D. John Wanderer locates and identifies the immortals: Tu Shan and Asagoa. He meets with them in the tibet and speaks to them through an interpreter. At the time he is only able to hint to them his true identity (as an immortal) and his belief about their identity. He proposes to return in fifty years.
1938 A.D. Hanno under the assumed name Kyrie McCready meets with an immortal named Patulcius under the assumed name: Oktay Saygun, who still has his post. To the active wonder of his friends he has not seemed to age at all in the last 30 something years. It is this fact that Hanno uses to determine his true identity. He found him by placing an advertisement written by John Wanderer. The advertisement read "Those who have lived so long that our forefathers are like brothers and comrades to them". Most respondents were crazy or scam artists. They meet in Ankara where Patulcius is low-level civil servant. He confesses to Hanno that he is an immortal agrees to keep in touch but makes it clear that he likes his life and doesn't want to join up with Hanno.
1975 A.D. John Wanderer makes good on his promise and returns to Tu Shan and Asagoa. Tu Shan and Asagoa revel that that their children are all mortal despite the fact that they have two immortal parents. He convinces them to join him and Hanno in America. At the same time Hanno has been placing ads hinting at other immortals to join him. Hanno has also founded a research team to find out how to grant immortality to everyone.
? The immortals have found themselves in a world where now everyone is immortal. They have long ago reveled themselves and have gotten disenfranchised with the new post-singularity world. Patulcius has found that there is no civil service anymore so he is effectively out of a job. Tu Shan has tried to return to a primitive life but was unable to do so. He cant find any market for his handmade craft, being in which nanobots can make already make them. They, mostly Hanno, convince the government to build them a ship to explore the universe with.