Thursday 23 October 2014

Two Unusual Planets Early In The Van Rijn Series

"Diomedes' poles are in the ecliptic plane. Each spends half the year in winter and night. Intelligent Diomedeans are winged migrators."
-copied from "Unusual Heavenly Bodies" (see here). 

For more information on Diomedes, see here and here

In the second installment of the Nicholas van Rijn series (see attached image), Old Nick is stranded on Diomedes. The third installment, "Hiding Place," briefly mentions yet another unusual planet:

"'They're under three Gs...Even so, their planet has oxygen and nitrogen rather than hydrogen, under a dozen Earth-atmosphere's pressure. The temperature is rather high, fifty degrees. I imagine their world, though of nearly Jovian mass, is so close to its sun that the hydrogen was boiled off, leaving a clear field for evolution similar to Earth's.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 596.

Large planets made habitable by cosmic accidents are among those listed in "Unusual Heavenly Bodies." Although they begin to sound familiar, each is a unique creation of Anderson's scientifically informed imagination. I may be posting more about events on Diomedes. 

(It has been a struggle to publish this post with the old, borrowed laptop. Normal service might slow down or cease for an indefinite period.)

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