Wednesday, 22 April 2020

Growing Up In The Future

Max Jones runs away from home to Earthport where:

"He saw his first extra-terrestrial, an eight-foot native of Epsilon Gemini V, striding out of a shop with a package under his left arms..."
-Robert Heinlein, Starman Jones (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1966), 3, p. 35.

I first read that passage between the ages of seven and eleven and would have had to guess the meaning of "extra-terrestrial" from context.

James Blish's Chris deFord watches Scranton go Okie and is shanghaied.

Comparable Poul Anderson characters include:

Pete in "The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb";
Eric Wace in The Man Who Counts;
Nat Falkayn in "Wingless";
Tabitha Falkayn in The People Of The Wind;
Diana Crowfeather in The Game Of Empire.

We are told something about their upbringings even if we first see them as adults. 
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3 comments:

  1. Sean M. Brooks22 April 2020 at 20:55

    Kaor, Paul!

    And what caught my eye was the idea of a non-human from another planet causally leaving a store on Earth carrying a package! And we see a bit of that kind of thing in MIRKHEIM with Chee Lan taking a train and reading the London TIMES.

    Ad astra! Sean

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  2. paulshackley2017@gmail.com22 April 2020 at 20:58

    And notice his left arms.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sean M. Brooks22 April 2020 at 21:03

    Kaor, Paul!

    I did, shades of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell's Moties in THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE and THE GRIPPING HAND.

    ReplyDelete