(ii) A space traveler visits an older Earth-like planet.
(iii) A space traveler returns to the far future Earth.
In each of these similar scenarios, a modern or near future viewpoint character can witness the long time decline or devolution of human, or humanoid, beings. In the previous post, I compared Poul Anderson's "The High Ones" (scenario (ii)) with HG Wells' The Time Machine (scenario (i)). "The High Ones" turns out to have been an ironic title.
Anderson's "The Horn of Time the Hunter" (original title, "Homo Aquaticus"), which I am about to reread, is a variation on scenario (iii). Space travelers to the galactic core, returning to Earth in the far future, stop at a humanly colonized planet where human beings have become aquatic and lost their humanity.
Anderson has merpeople in his fantasies. There is, or was, an "aquatic ape" theory according to which early human beings lost their body hair by standing up to their necks in the sea for long periods to evade predators. Imagine if some of them had swum out further, becoming human equivalents of dolphins or even developing gills, real merpeople but sf, not fantasy.
4 comments:
Hi, Paul!
But I don't believe the aquatic beings we see in "The Horn of Time the Hunter" have either degenerated or even lost their humanity. The inhabitants of the colonized planet simply genetically adapted to a mostly oceanic planet over thousands of years. True, it meant they have since lost the high tech society which originally settled the planet, but the adapted inhabitants seem to be beginning to make a comeback.
Sean
Sean,
I think you are right. I was posting from memory in advance of rereading, always a bad move.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
And "The Horn of Time the Hunter" is an interesting example of how Poul Anderson thought colonists on some worlds might adapt and change.
Sean
Sean,
I have reread the story but might not think of anything extra to say about it. The sound of the horn at the beginning and end of the story is fascinating.
Paul.
Post a Comment