Wednesday 24 April 2019

Comparisons: Anderson, Clarke, Dexter, Stapledon

Aliens That Resemble Demons
The Overlords in Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.

The "bat-men" in William Dexter's Children Of The Void.

The envoy from 70 Ophiuchi B 1 in Poul Anderson's "Horse Trader."

The Staurnians in Anderson's The Star Fox?

Winged Aliens Unwieldy On The Ground But Glorious In Flight
Dexter's "bat-men."
Anderson's Ythrians.

Descriptions Of Radio Static
Dexter: "...the distant chatter of static..." -Children Of The Void (New York, 1966), XVIII, p. 113.
Anderson: see here.

Numbered Human Races
Dexter's Eighth Men communicate with the earlier Third Men.
Stapledon's Last Men mentally time travel to earlier periods, including the entire history of the First Men.

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

One thing about the Staurnians of Anderson's THE STAR FOX, if my memory is correct, which has stuck with me was that they don't even have LEGS. But their planet is such that they don't need legs, anyway.

Sean

Anonymous said...

There may substantial numbers of exoplanets like Staurn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Neptune

-kh

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Keith!

That interests me! I will be looking up "mini Neptunes."

Sean

Anonymous said...

PA was very good in many instances. at anticipating our current planetary discoveries.

Cheers,

-kh

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Keith!

And I esp. admire Anderson's skill in speculating about how actual non-human rational beings might actually LOOK and HOW they might think in ways different from humans. Far better than the laughable dreck I see in most TV and movie "science fiction."

Sean

Anonymous said...

Indeed. Here some folks who put serious thought into what xenos look like:
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4b700fe54fb1f


-kh

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Keith!

Thanks! I will look up this website. Speculations about non-humans who are more plausible than the Klingons or Chewbacca, I hope!

Sean