Monday 27 November 2017

An Andersonian Exercise

See Hexapodality and Some Quadrupeds.

The Jovians in Poul Anderson's Three Worlds To Conquer are quadrupeds as also is the artificial Jovian organism, Joe, in Anderson's "Call Me Joe." At least, I thought that Joe was quadrupedal. See the attached image.

So here is an exercise for Andersonians: compare and contrast the descriptions of the Jovians and of Joe. I will get around to it eventually but meanwhile I am very slowly rereading Three Worlds... between reading SM Stirling and rereading Stieg Larsson so this is going to take a while. We have, if not all the time in the world, then at least all the remaining time that the Norns have allotted to the current blogger.

Meanwhile, if anyone out there wants to tackle the Joe-Jovians comparison, then please either post it in the combox or email it as an article to be published on the blog provided that my technical assistant can handle the transfer from email to blog, not always easy apparently.

I am finding that appropriate subject-matter for the blog is quite literally endless.

2 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

I think Joe is more or less centauroid.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor to all interested readers!

"Call Me Joe" was first pub. in the April 1957 issue of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, which places it in what I consider the early phase of Anderson's writing career. It has to be one of the earliest SF stories touching on such themes as using computers to make mental contact with other life forms. And using such technology to download a human personality into the artificially created Jovian life forms.

Sean