Friday 6 April 2018

Icarus And The Sun-Ring

"[Targovi] went out the door. A breeze lulled cool, smelling of leaves and sea, ruffling his fur; he wore nothing but his breechcloth, belt and knife. Lawns dreamed empty beneath a sky where clouds drifted, tinged argent by Icarus and bronze by the sun-ring."
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER NINETEEN, p. 405.

Coolness, contrasting smells and colors. Targovi's fur and near nakedness remind us that he is not human. Although it is night, the sun-ring and the moon, Icarus:

"...gave ample light for humans to see by."
-op. cit., pp. 405-406.

We must always remember that Daedalus is another planet and that its environment is fundamentally different from Earth's.

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Again, I'm trying to picture what a night on Daedalus must be like. Should I imagine it looking like sunrise or sunset on Terra when just a bit of the Sun is still showing?

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
But with the sun spreading all around the sky and the land or sea not sinking below a horizon but fading continuously into the distance.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'll try to imagine that, difficult as it is!

Sean

S.M. Stirling said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
S.M. Stirling said...

It's a little like visualizing the inside of a hollow sphere -- like Pellucidar, or a Dyson sphere.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Or ERB's Moon, which was hollow and inhabited inside.

The planet must appear to curve upwards, then disappear in sheer distance with the sun-ring not as a boundary but as a luminous infinity.

Or something.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Gentlemen,

Many thanks for these efforts to elucidate what it must look like to be on a planet without a horizon. Given the fascination with which Diana Crowfeather contemplated it, I'm sure it's a wonder to see, despite the difficulties I'm having trying to visualize it!

Sean