"...the breadth of the planet was something he could see...it was twice as far to look across chill waves to the world's rim as it had been on Earth."
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT II, pp. 344-345.
The Bridge gang on Jupiter V feel that they are falling onto Jupiter:
"There was no other way for a man - or a woman - on Jupiter V to look at the giant planet. It was simple experience, shared by all of them, that planets do not occupy four-fifths of the whole sky, unless the observer is himself up there in that planet's sky, falling toward it, falling faster and faster -"
-James Blish, They Shall Have Stars IN Blish, Earthman, Come Home (London, 1981), pp. 7-129 AT CHAPTER SIX, p. 78.
Perceptions and expectations that evolved on Earth will be taken into space.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That might have been what Blish thought, but Anderson might not have agreed. We don't see Dominic Flandry or Davis Bertram having similar sensations of "falling" despite Wayland and Atlantis being planet size moons of Jupiter style gas giants.
Ad astra! Sean
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