LIfe In Three Universes

Life Abundant

"We are one more-or-less intelligent species in a universe that produces sophonts as casually as it produces snowflakes."

-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 7.

 

Life Rare

"Those mats, stalks, fluttering membranes, and spongy turrets were purple, ruddy, gold, in a thousand mingled shades. Now and then swarms of tiny creatures whirled aloft. Light shattered into sparks of color where it struck them.

"To Brannock the world was beauty and marvel. It did not threaten him. Nor did raw rock or empty space; but here was life. That it was primitive hardly mattered, in a universe where life of any kind was so rare as to seem well-nigh a miracle. That it was altogether alien to Earth's made it a wellspring of knowledge, from which Intelligence Prime, and through its communications, intelligences across the known galaxy had been drinking for these past seven hundred years. The farthest off among them had not yet received the news; photons fly too slowly."

-Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, 2001), PART ONE, VII, pp. 85-86.

 

Life Made Abundant

"'...once folks have taken root yonder, once they've built an industry in places that will last, why, they won't have to destroy any other life they may find, ever again. They won't need to start with oxygen in the air. They'll have the power, and the time, to begin from scratch, and make naked rocks blossom.'"

-Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars (London, 1994), 63, p. 529. 

Anderson addresses all angles and answers.