Outlaws sacrifice a prisoner to Jupiter:
"They could see a man struggling in the grip of four others. A tiny puff of freezing vapor came from him, he went limp, and was hurtled up on the altar and across the open ice. One of the Outstone. Davenant retched." (p. 195)
Puzzled by the penultimate sentence, I checked my other edition of "The Snows...," where we find:
"They could see a man struggling in the grip of four others. A tiny puff of freezing vapor came from him, he went limp, and was hurled up on the altar stone. Davenant retched."
-Poul Anderson, The Snows of Ganymede (New York, 1958), CHAPTER 8, p. 73.
So where did "...and across the open ice. Out of the Outstone..." creep in from? This is one occasion when it is convenient to have two editions although my copy of the Ace Double has fallen apart. When a book is out of print and only available second hand, how long before its last copy is recycled or disintegrates and it is no longer available anywhere?
Perhaps Anderson's Ganymedean Godwin Mountains (p. 194) are named after the Terrestrial Mount Godwin-Austen?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
It seems to me that the Ace Books edition of THE SNOWS OF GANYMEDE more accurately printed the text Anderson wrote and desired. Which makes me argue for using the Ace Books text for resolving such textual puzzles. And, for using that text in any hypothetical COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON.
And special pains will need to be taken for preserving the most editions of texts like this!
And that was truly strange, human sacrifice practiced by people worshiping the planet JUPITER! Yes, in both their bad and good ways and forms, Anderson took religion far more seriously than many SF writers did.
Ad astra! Sean
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