In Poul Anderson's After Doomsday, one Earthman is able to invent several new practical applications of galactic technology because most intelligent species do not think along identical lines. In Julian May's The Many-Colored Land, one Earthman constructs a time travel device that had:
"'...eluded the best minds of the Galactic Milieu...until now.'"
-Julian May, The Many-Coloured Land (London, 2013), PROLOGUE, CHAPTER THREE, pp. 15-16.
An alien interprets this as confirming:
"'...the unique abilities of the Children of Earth.'" (p. 16)
Both May's Saga of the Exiles and Anderson's "Gibraltar Falls" discuss the transition from the Miocene to the Pliocene, including the inflow of water from the Atlantic into what becomes the Mediterranean.
In May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy, humanity will succeed the Lylmik as leaders of the Milieu. In After Doomsday, humanity will succeed the Monwaingi as leaders in the local civilization-cluster.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yet again I'm reminded of how it's high time I reread May's SAGA OF PLIOCENE EXILE and its successor volumes.
And I certainly do recall the different uses made of the "Gibraltar dam" by May and Anderson. The former being one of the dramatic high spots of the SAGA books.
And how might history have turned out if the Atlantic had NOT broken into the Mediterranean basin? It would certainly have been different!
Sean
"if the Atlantic had NOT broken into the Mediterranean basin?"
Harry Turtledove wrote a short story set in such an alternate Earth.
"In the Bottomlands"
Kaor, Jim!
That's one of Turtledove's stories I would like to read!
Ad astra! Sean
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