Wednesday, 2 May 2018

Commuters

In a Dan Dare comic strip, London commuters included a green-skinned Treen. See Greens. In Poul Anderson's "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," San Francisco Integrate commuters include a blue-skinned Alfzarian and a Polesotechnic League journeyman merchant, skin weathered by other suns, whose "...go-to-hell independence..." makes James Ching sick with envy. He sounds like a Heinlein character:

"If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he's a spaceman."
-Robert Heinlein, Double Star (New York, 1957), 1, p. 5.

Double Star is not in the Future History but it continues the daily life of the future.
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3 comments:

  1. Sean M. Brooks2 May 2018 at 16:51

    Kaor, Paul!

    There's an amusing scene in MIRKHEIM where we see the Cynthian Chee Lan as a commuter on Earth. And reading the LONDON TIMES!

    Yes, Heinlein's DOUBLE STAR is one of his best science fiction stories. And I like SIXTH COLUMN as well.

    Sean

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  2. S.M. Stirling3 May 2018 at 06:09

    Ah, yes, that's the one where a child tries to pet Chee Lan, and she tells the girl's mother: "Why doesn't your species eat its young?"

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  3. Sean M. Brooks3 May 2018 at 08:26

    Dear Mr. Stirling,

    Ha, ha, ha!!! Exactly! I can see how their irascibility can make Cynthians unpopular with other intelligent races.

    Sean

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