This MIGHT be the last post this month although I have said that before, then written more. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will make the round trip to Muncaster Castle, which will be a long day.
My purposes in the present post are to show a book cover (see image), to summarize the relevant passage from within the book, then to ask blog readers to spot the differences. On p. 581, one of the organisms within the zoo ship is described:
a quadruped;
elephant-sized;
slenderer than an elephant, implying lower gravity;
green;
faintly scaled;
some hair on its back;
alert, enigmatic eyes;
an elephant-like trunk ending in psuedodactyls (?) which look as strong and sensitive as human fingers.
Which two details are incorrect in the book cover image?
(Details to be discovered and discussed within an Anderson text seem to be endless. I have been through this story before but now it seems like a different story.)
5 comments:
Paul:
Given that "dactyl" means "finger," pseudodactyls are finger-like but not truly fingers.
The only thing I can certainly say is wrong about the green "elephant" in the cover picture is that there's no mention in your list of tusks — particularly not extravagant tusks like that. The picture's resolution isn't good enough for me to judge if it's "faintly scaled" and with "some hair" as you quoted.
David,
Exactly. The artist added tusks merely because the animal is elephant-sized and has an elephant-like trunk. I think you should be able to see that the trunk does not end with any finger-like appendages.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
David beat me to it! As ANDERSON described it, the "elephant" had not tusks or pseudodactyls.
Btw, Larry Niven and Jerry Pourenelle, in FOOTFALL, do have elephant like beings whose trunks end in pseudodactyls. This trunk with pseudodactyls takes the place of arms with hands.
Sean
These are mammoth tusks.
Perhaps it's more like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Snuffleupagus
-kh
Kaor, Keith!
But I don't think "elephant life" intelligent beings will have or need tusks. And certainly not the gigantic ones in the cover illustration Paul chose.
Sean
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