A Maze

See the combox for the previous post. Of course I had forgotten about SM Stirling's shape-changers, having read that series once a while back. Works of imagination by different authors are like a four- or five-dimensional maze. Reflecting on future histories, I remembered what I call the Wellsian template (see also here). That led to "interplanetary invasion," thus to Poul Anderson's The War Of Two Worlds and then finally to shape-changing.

Wells, Stapledon and Anderson all have (very different) Martians invading Earth. Stapledon also has Terrestrials invading Venus. In CS Lewis' Perelandra, Terrestrial evil invades Venus as Lewis replies to both Wells and Stapledon. Anderson has an Earthman exterminating Venerians. ERB has Moonmen invading Earth, forgetting that they should not be able to cope with Terrestrial gravity. Anderson's Martian invaders cope with Terrestrial atmosphere and gravity although with some discomfort. 

We can go backward, forward, up, down and sideways in the imaginarium maze and do not know where we will arrive at next. I will get back to Anderson's culminating Frankensteinian future history, Genesis, when I have retrieved my paperback copy.