What could be darker or drearier? Two survivors of a crew of four with a limited food supply land on an airless planet of a dead star to mine for germanium in the hope that they will be able to repair their matter transmitter and return to civilization a hundred light-years away?
The "...iron plains..." (p. 114) of this sterile world contrast sharply with the beautiful environments of colonized planets like, in Anderson's Technic History, Hermes, Avalon and Dennitza although that future history series also presents the lethal surfaces of the rogue planet, Satan, the radioactive Mirkheim and the many barren rocks in the Cloud Universe. Most of the universe is uninhabitable, maybe all of it beyond the Terrestrial atmosphere. I am finding it increasingly difficult to continue rereading this depressing narrative while surrounded by more cheerful texts.
Currently, there is more activity on James Blish Appreciation although page view counts indicate that not everyone who comes here also goes there. Anderson fans might recognize that Blish's description, in The Quincunx Of Time, of the Three Ghosts system could have been written by Anderson. The system comprises:
a red giant star;
a dwarf companion;
a barely substellar gas giant (see the search result for "brown dwarf");
a colonized moon of the gas giant (see Connections With Fiction).
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I think the grim part in me would relish the descriptions given us of that dead star and planet on which the crew of the "Southern Cross" were stranded. Partly because I admire stories of men struggling to overcome adversity and danger. And partly because I don't think I myself would be anywhere as competent as Terangi Maclaren and his companions!
And I need to pay more attention to your James Blish blog!
Sean
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