"Another pause came, a stillness so absolute that he heard the hiss of cosmic radio interference in his earplugs."
-Poul Anderson, Three Worlds To Conquer (London, 1966), Chapter 7, p. 55.
"All he heard was the seething between galaxies." (ibid.)
This is the universal background of all hard sf. In this novel, there is only interplanetary space travel and the viewpoint character is on Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter in the outer Solar System, not further out between stars or galaxies. However, from space, the universe is visible and even audible. Poul Anderson rightly reminds us of this cosmic background.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Hmmmm, but I don't recall other SF writers making such a POINT of this "cosmic radio interference" as does Poul Anderson in his works. Not even, I THINK, Hal Clement, whom Anderson admired greatly for his hard SF.
Sean
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