"'Some planets have been given luminous skies...'" (p. 206)
To cite the reference for the following comparison, I would have to sort through boxes of comics in our cellar and am quite sure that the reference would mean little to blog readers but please advise me if otherwise. Suffice it to say that the superhero, Micky Moran/Marvelman (re-entitled Miracleman) (see here) was re-created by Alan Moore, then written by Neil Gaiman. MM and other "extraordinary beings" take over Earth. Winter Moran, returning from an interstellar journey, notices that her father has redecorated the planet and comments that he decided to leave the sky that color. That resonates with the luminous skies in Poul Anderson's Galactic civilization and raises a bigger question about the relationship between intelligence and the cosmos.
Each of Anderson's Galactics controls the cosmic energies and has become a superhero, able to fly across interstellar distances without needing a spaceship. Organisms adapted to their environments. Then one species, homo sapiens, acted on and changed its environment. So can intelligence redesign planetary and, beyond that, cosmic environments?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And there is Daedalus, the world without a horizon, which we see in THE GAME OF EMPIRE. An apparently endlessly receding sunset at night would have been something to see. And one character mentioned how it could have happened to Terra itself, if Manhome had been either a little smaller or bigger.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The difference is that the sky of Daedalus is natural, not artificial.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot about that distinction. A better analogy from Anderson's works would be "Strange Bedfellows," where we see the MOON being terraformed!
Ad astra! Sean
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