Wednesday 19 April 2017

Who Lives On The Moon?

We have it on the very best of authority that the Moon is or will be inhabited by:

Selenites (HG Wells);
Moon Men (ERB);
"'...an accursed people, full of pride and lust...'" (CS Lewis' Ransom);
"'A great race, further advanced than we...'" (CSL's Filostrato);
Lunarians (adapted human beings) (Poul Anderson);
"...an ancient lunarian..." (John C. Wright, p. 43, see here).

Since Wright's novel is set in the distant future, we deduce that his lunarians are adapted human beings like Anderson's Lunarians, not lunar natives like the Selenites, Moon Men or accursed people/great race.

Sometimes, Poul Anderson alone covers every possibility. At other times, he and his colleagues do it together.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I too wondered if Wright's "lunarians" were human beings genetically adapted for living on the Moon. Analogous to Anderson's Lunarians.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
And, of course, I omitted unmodified Terrestrials in domes in the Future History and the Technic History.
Michael Moorcock's DANCERS AT THE END OF TIME also counts as CUTTING EDGE. When a Dancer visits the 19th century and returns home, he tells his contemporaries, "I really think that no one in that era was acting! If someone looked old, the he was old..."
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would add as well that the gravity control mastered by Technic Civilization enabled unmodified humans to live on the Moon.

I've never read Moorcock's DANCERS AT THE END OF TIME. Even given "immortality," or simply a very long life, I have wondered if it might be possible to tell if such a person was not TRULY young. Perhaps something about his body language or eyes would give that away?

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Deffo. Check out what Captain Argens says of the civil monitor in Chapter XVII of WORLD WITHOUT STARS.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Found it! The relevant text from Chapter XVII of WORLD WITHOUT STARS is: "There was something about him-- After a minute I recognized it. He looked as youthful as I did, but he had the manner of beings I have met who cannot be immortalized and have grown gray."

And I remembered it being mentioned in WORLD WITHOUT STARS that some intelligent races could not be "immortalized."

Sean