Heat from the rising sun;
chirping crickets;
tawny grass soughing in a breeze;
a distant large herd;
trumpeting mastodons;
flying, clamoring flocks;
thirst;
Jerry's voice as he speaks aloud.
He reasons:
if there is that much life, then there is water;
he can shelter in a tree by a river at night.
The exercise in survival begins.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I hope * I * would have reasoned and reacted as intelligently as Jerry Parker did! But I'm not sure I would have. It helped, of course, that Jerry was a Boy Scout, with some prior training in how to survive in a wilderness.
Ad astra! Sean
Incidentally, the hominins in that story would date to well before 1.5 million years ago, if they're meant to be human ancestors, according to current knowledge.
H. Erectus evolved 2-1.8 million years ago and was apart from thicker bones almost identical to us below the neck, with the same range of sizes (roughly from 4ft9in to over 6ft).
They also had much-reduced differences between male and female body sizes compared to earlier hominins, and had a diet in which meat was quite important.
He's about right on fire use, though; the oldest (and uncertain) evidence for that is about 1.7 million years ago, and it becomes gradually more common through time.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And if Anderson had known that in 1973-74, I'm sure he would have written "The Little Monster" taking that into account. E.g., the time projector Jerry Parker's Spanish uncle worked on would have sent explorers 1.9 million years into the past.
It might have been more difficult to have hominins of that time making practical use of fire--if that was believed to have come a few hundred thousand years later.
Ad astra! Sean
Knowledge is a moving target. I'd have to do ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME differently now, since the genetic history of the British Isles is now known in much more detail, and is quite different from what was generally accepted 22 years ago.
Might be a neat idea to write a complete update of a book?
Paul: it’s been done, but alas usually not to good effect.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Perhaps, just as a "thot" (smiles), you might write a different story, not set in the timeline of the Event, using that recently discovered knowledge?
Ad astra! Sean
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