East from Ulonai
wild tribes
the Shining Fields
South
the desert of Zhir
unpeopled desolation
the uninhabitable Burning Lands
West
a few islands
empty ocean
maybe land too far away to reach
North
wild waters
driftwood of unknown trees
storm-borne flyers of unknown breed
legends of the High North
glimpses of mountains from ships blown off course
"...stories about uncanny sights..." (Genesis, p. 116)
"...old tales of monstrous things glimpsed from afar..." (p. 115);
wild huukini in open sea
but no craft or wreckage
less heat and more rain
mild climate, timber and plowable land with neither natives nor creeping desert?
Poul Anderson's Genesis, Part Two, is set so far in our future that it is meaningless to ask how this geography corresponds to ours. Without seeming to do so, Anderson deploys an increasingly detailed picture of Earth in Kalava's period. Equatorial heat isolates the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Needless to say, as a self-respecting and entrepreneurial character in a Poul Anderson novel, Kalava has every intention of leading an exploratory voyage to the North.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It might be possible, using the science of tectonics, to guestimate what shapes the land masses of Earth could take in a billion years or more. My view is the second part of GENESIS takes place at least that long in the future.
Sean
"Equatorial heat isolates the Northern and Southern Hemispheres."
My understanding is that was believed to be the case by at least some ancient Greeks.
I can see that looking at the Sahara from the south coast of the Mediterranean Sea would lead to that idea.
I have seen some speculative maps of what future plate tectonics might do but IIRC they 'only' go about 200 million years into the future.
I have seen estimates of how long before the brightening sun makes the earth uninhabitable. One billion years is about the high end.
Kaor, Jim!
What interests me is how Anderson also mentioned how there might be technological means of deflecting away from Earth enough of the heat from that increasingly hot Sun to prolong the habitability of the planet.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes. The simplest means of prolonging the habitability of the earth would be a flock of solar sails formation flying between the sun & the earth. I mentioned the idea as part of what would be needed to terraform Venus.
For a more spectacular & speculative method see Starlifting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzuHxL5FD5U&t=1s
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