We established that human beings would be terrified by a horizon twice as far away as they and their ancestors have always been used to. Here are two similar phenomena. Rodonis has always heard waves, timber and cordage but now hears only silence. Her wings tense. She wants to fly and scream. A James Blish character making an interstellar crossing, looks back, cannot see the Sun, realizes that he is expatriate like no man before, panics and has a breakdown.
An sf writer imagines an alien environment, then presents psychological reactions to it.
Here is a merely physical detail: Diomedeans, like Merseians, can squat on their tails. (X, p. 409) (For full reference, see here.)
Addendum: Rereading the relevant passage in Blish's "Darkside Crossing," I have had to edit this post. There will be at least one more post about the contents of this issue of Galaxy (December, 1970), some of it Anderson-related.
Digressions are amazing things.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
IF I was ever fortunate enough to travel away from Earth like this James Blish character I hope I would not panic and break down when I could no longer see our Sun.
Sean
Sean,
But imagine if you expected to see the Sun, could not see it and suddenly realized your total expatriation.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
A good point! But I hope I would be looking FORWARD to finding out what is OUT there in the Galaxy.
Sean
There are many things that are only really notable when they're gone.
Eg., right now I'm on the island of Nantucket, and it's still mostly closed down -- the population grows enormously over the summer, but even then it's not a large town.
Late last night we took a long walk into the interior, and several times stopped to listen to... nothing. There's no background hum of motion, of vehicles and machines. It's -quite-, so that any sound is discrete and solitary. The difference from one's general experience is quite striking.
But it would be routine for someone who lived in an isolated house and spent a lot of time in the woods.
Mr Stirling,
Avoid lights in the sky and time warps.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I'm very interested to know you are currently in MA, even tho it's on Nantucket, quite a long way from Essex county.
I think I have a good idea of the kind of "silence" you mentioned. I have very bad hearing and I need to use a hearing aid. So, when I'm not using it the silence I live with is profound and deep.
Even if I survived the Change in your Emberverse series, I would be, for all practical purposes deaf. Because hearing aids need electricity to work. NO electricity in the Emberverse!
Sean
Re: silence
Sometimes I have been skiing in woods with fairly fresh snow and no wind.
Also a fair distance from any road.
The snow absorbs any sound there might otherwise be.
Then I will stop to listen to real silence
Kaor, Jim!
That too is silence, but not, I believe, as deeply "dark" a silence as what those who are mostly or totally deaf live with.
Ad astra! Sean
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