The narrator samples a Cainite herb:
"...a bluish-green powder of leaves... I tasted. There was a sweet-sour flavor with wild overtones, and the odor went to the oldest, deepest part of my brain and roused memories I had not known were lost." (p. 279)
Three senses: color; taste; odor.
Until recently, I would have said that it was highly improbable that a herb from an extra-solar planet would interact favorably with a Terrestrial organism: two completely unrelated evolutions. Now, however, so many extra-solar planets have been detected that I suppose that anything is possible.
But we still lack that other requirement of interstellar trade in much sf: faster than light travel. If FTL remains impossible, then a lot of sf will have to be written off as fantasy even though Anderson, Blish and others tried to present scientific rationales for hyperdrives or equivalents. As we know, Anderson presented several different rationales for FTL. Blish imagined the "spindizzy," derived from the Blackett-Dirac equations, and the Haertel overdrive invented by his character, Adolph Haertel. However, in a later work, he used the term, the Imaginary Drive, an auctorial comment. Bob Shaw's phrase, "Arthurian physics," suggests that FTL is magical, not scientific.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anything might be possible because so many extra-Solar planets has been discovered? Correct! I don't think it's totally out of the question to think PARALLEL and ANALOGOUS evolution some worlds will end in plants and animals compatible with the human biochemistry. And thus capable of being eaten by us.
And I certainly hope FTL is possible and will be invented by human scientists! We can and should make a start in that direction by getting off this rock! Such as by Elon Musk founding his hoped for Mars colony.
Ad astra! Sean
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