-"Un-Man," XII, p. 87.
Of course, this "Un-" just stands for U.N., United Nations. The Un-men are like the Men from UNCLE, where "U.N." stands for United Network." On the other hand, by giving the impression, or generating the mystique, of a single immortal antagonist, the Un-men do come across as unhuman to their enemies.
There are two contexts in which the phrase, "Un-Man" or "Un-man," does literally mean "not human." One is here. The other is in Perelandra by CS Lewis. First, Ransom deals with the man, Weston. Then he realizes that some other kind of life has begun to maneuver Weston's body and the text states not that Weston spoke but that Weston's mouth spoke. The third stage comes when a different phrase is used:
"...[Ransom] was chilled with an inarticulate, night-nursery horror of the thing he had to deal with - the managed corpse, the bogy, the Un-man."
-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT 9, p. 254.
Hideous, indeed. Lewis was able to express both the divine and the dreadful.
See also Un-Man: Three Meanings.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It might have been interesting if Anderson had directly referred to Lewis' PERELANDRA in this part of "UN-Man." Since the first two volumes of the SPACE TRILOGY was originally pub. before 1945, there would have been no contradiction here of the Psychotechnic timeline.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Different versions of Mars and Venus.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Not quite sure what you mean. I think could have written his stories set on his own versions of Mars and Venus in the Psychotechnic timeline. FROM OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET and PERELANDRA were first pub. in 1938 and 1943, after all. Not so sure THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH would have been pub. in the 1945 of the Psychotechnic series.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I mean that the Mars and Venus in Lewis' Ransom Trilogy are different from and incompatible with the Mars and Venus in Anderson's Psychotechnic History.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That I do understand, and I was trying to say Lewis could still have written those two books, using poetic license for his depictions of Mars and Venus. He was writing "soft," not "hard" science fiction.
Ad astra! Sean
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