"It had the elongated shape necessary to any hyperdrive ship, where field generators must be mounted fore and aft. But it was no vessel of man's building. The cylinder was beveled into flat planes; the stern bulged, and the nose held a spear-shaped mast of some kind. Its metal was a coppery alloy, flaming ruddy in the harsh sunlight, and they could see that the hull was patched and pitted - old."
-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine (New York, 1979), Chapter XIV, p. 123.
Sf fans have been reading about hyperdrive spacecraft all our lives but did we know that any hyperdrive ship must be elongated with field generators at each end? No but Poul Anderson makes us believe this. We view the alien craft through the eyes of a Nomad crew and one Cordy.
I have already discussed hyperspace in the Psychotechnic History and another (humorous) kind of elongated spaceship here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
The idea of an OLD space ship reminded me of "Sargasso Of Lost Space Ships." If I'm recalling rightly, we see old, abandoned space ships in that story as well.
Sean
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