Wednesday, 6 May 2020

Humor

Virgin Planet, CHAPTER IX.

OK. I get the humor, which was mentioned in the combox a few posts back:

"Elinor sighed and snuggled up to him.
"'Just think,' she whispered. 'The first Man in three hundred years!'
"'High time, isn't it?' Davis gathered her in. She closed her eyes, breathing hard.
"Something roared behind him." (p. 70)

Davis, the only man in a world of women, is always interrupted.

In this, Psychotechnic, future history, cloning was in use way back in the second story, "Un-Man," so it is a logical development of that when the all-women crew of a stranded spaceship is able to perpetuate itself in this way.

The Doctors who administer the parthenogenesis are always veiled which, when he hears of it, gives Davis "...a ghastly suspicion..." (p. 68) but they do turn out to be female human beings. The Doctors probably maintain their neutrality and enhance their "Mystery" by concealing their faces which would reveal their genotypes.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I wonder if we will live to see practical human cloning!

And I have some sympathy for how Davis Bertram keeps being disappointed! (Smiles)

Ad astra! Sean