Sea And Space

I find literary parallels in unexpected places. There is definitely a resonance between the following two passages.

 

"'When the new ships replace these, when it's a few daycycles at one g to most destinations -'

"'And the automation is so advanced that a single person is enough - Yes,' he sighed. 'I too will often miss the long voyages. But maybe before this comes to pass, we will be retired to planetside duty and living off our memories.'

"'Memories indeed.'

"'Indeed.'"

-The Stars Are Also Fire, 14, pp. 177-178.

 

First Mate Canby: I don't know what you're doing here, lad. Ships like this aren't going anywhere. Ten years time the only tall ships'll be in museums. 

 

Jim: It's too big to fit in a museum.

 

Canby: Yeah. Funny.

 

Canby: Steam ships. That's the future. Who wants to be forced to ride the wind?

 

Jim: I do. I've been on a steam ship and I didn't like it one little bit.

 

Jim: They're rust-buckets, Mr. Canby, the lot of them. All that smoke. And what's the point of being a sailor, if you're living high above the ocean, instead of cool and comfortable below decks, cooled by the water, listening to the sea going by?

 

Canby: You're a romantic.

 

Jim: Why be a sailor, if you're not?

 

Caption: This was on the fifth day out from Bombay.

-Neil Gaiman, "Hob's Leviathan" IN Gaiman, The Sandman: Worlds' End (New York, 1994), pp. 67-90 AT p. 72, panel 8; p. 73, panels 1-3.