Sunday 28 January 2018

Approaching The Twilight Zone

Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 156.

What will a landscape on an extra-solar planet look like? Grass? No: "...mosslike growth..." Forests of trees? No: "... forests of plumed stalks swayed in the wind." Picture it.

David Falkayn and his Ershoka abductors approach the Ikranankan Twilight Zone. The rest of the scene could be Terrestrial. Apparently, the moss and stalks are green and:

"Once clouds massed in the north, colored hot gold. The mountains rose sheer to east, aglow in the level red light. Falkayn saw snow peaks and glaciers. Above them the sky was a royal purple deepening toward black, where fifty stars and a planet glimmered. They were at the edge of the Twilight Zone."

The author appeals to two senses because "...brooks rilled..." and there are a lot of colors: green, gold, red, white, purple and black.

1 comment:

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Paul!

I think it's likely some alien planets will have true trees of their own. They simply won't be TERRESTRIAL trees. Think of the Great Trees of Ranau, on Unan Besar. Or the strange Ice Trees of Altai.

Sean