Poul Anderson, New America, "The Queen of Air and Darkness."
Sherrinford suggests that the Rolandic natives:
"'...could have had a bad experience with interstellar visitors earlier in their history." (p. 192)
and adds:
"Ours is scarcely the sole race that has spaceships." (ibid.)
Does he mean that it is unlikely that no other race has spaceships or that it is known that some other races have spaceships? It is at least known that some other planets are inhabited. (p. 182)
The background of the story is deceptively simple but really merits careful analysis.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
The native intelligent race of Roland could have had the bad luck to meet the interstellar equivalent of treacherous and greedy Venetians!
And I think the simplest explanation for Sherrinford saying "Our is scarcely the sole race that has spaceships" is that there were non human races who were also star traveling.
Sean
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