"The bay glittered and chuckled between golden-green hills."
Sight, sound, sight again.
"No wings rode the wind that rumpled his hair."
Bodily sensation.
"Insects, or their equivalent, swarmed on delicate membranes that often threw back the sunlight in rainbows. Silvery forms leaped from the water."
Rainbows and silver: more sight.
"The wind smelled of salt, iodine, and life."
Scent and maybe a hint of taste.
"Overhead wandered some clouds, blue-shadowed in a dazzling blue heaven."
Sight with even more color.
"But the day was sunny, cool, and peaceful."
More sight and physical sensation.
Poul Anderson overwhelms his character's and readers' senses but this natural beauty contrasts with the death by radioactivity of the planetary population.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And stylistically, "The Pirate" is a vast improvement on the earliest written Pyschotechnic stories.
And that plot premise, of an intelligent race getting wiped by the radioactivity from a nearby supernova, reminded me of "Day of Burning," albeit the Polesotechnic League saved the Merseians from probable extinction, with FATEFUL consequences for the future.
Ad astra! Sean
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