Thursday 21 September 2017

Extraterrestrial Life

(The woman on this cover is extraterrestrial.)

Erulani soldiers:

man-like;
stout;
deep amber-yellow skin;
flat Mongoloid faces;
four-fingered hands;
large, pointed ears;
a single straight black eyebrow;
oblique felinoid eyes;
slit-purpled, smoky-red, unwinking irises;
long blue tunics;
legginged breeches;
beryllium-copper chain mail;
spiked helmets;
curved swords worn on the right.
(The Peregrine, Chapter IX, p. 76)

We are told that:

"The eyes were the least human feature..." (ibid.)

But the assumption is made that there are eyes, that there are two of them etc. All of this is very anthropomorphic.

"'...green vegetables from an E-planet would help morale until we get our own tanks producing again.'" (Chapter XIII, p. 119)

The universe would be a very hospitable place if it were such an easy matter for an FTL spaceship to find Earth-type planets growing edible green vegetables. Later Anderson future histories make the opposite assumption: STL explorers find very little life.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Commenting on your last sentence: I think you had the situation seen in GENESIS in mind? And, despite using STL means of reaching the stars in the HARVEST OF STARS books, terrestroid planets are still found in that series.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Mainly GENESIS.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm glad Anderson was trying out so many new ideas even in his final years, but I did wonder how plausible it was for the AIs of GENESIS spreading thru out the galaxy to have found so little life.

Sean