Anderson's text clearly demarcates "human" from "mutant" children (see 1, p. 42) but surely they are all "human"? In Golden Age sf, (I think that) mutants and aliens were almost interchangeable. After all, both were different. Either could be a hominid with an oddly shaped head and/or mental powers. The mutant Mule was like a single alien in Asimov's humans-only Galaxy. No wonder he was alienated. Some authors might have had to decide whether a particular science fictional character should be extraterrestrial, thus alien, or terrestrial but mutant in origin.
"Alien" is "other" whereas "mutant" is "changed," thus has become "other." Brian Aldiss has a story in one of his collections where the narrator, directly addressing the reader, states that, in this story, there are aliens among us, then adds that extraterrestrial "aliens" are outmoded/old hat/some such expression and that these aliens were born here! So they are mutants but Aldiss is playing with language and confounding expectations.
Either mutation or alienness can explain strange powers:
the X-Men and Anderson's Alaric Wayne are mutants;
Superman and Anderson's Joel Weatherfield are aliens.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I've gotten temporarily sidetracked from rereading THE WINTER OF THE WORLD by another book: LIGHT OF THE STARS: ALIEN WORLDS AND THE FATE OF THE EARTH, by Adam Frank. I've only just started that book, but your comments here reminded me of Frank's argument that the discovery of thousands of other planets around other stars has been forcing people to take more seriously the possibility of alien, non-human civilizations existing.
I was annoyed to find no mention of Poul Anderson and his own book IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS? in the index of Frank's book. After all, PA was one one of the pioneers in discussing such ideas!
Sean
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