Poul Anderson conveys the sense not only of a planetary environment but also of the position of that planet in space. Despite having an entire planetary surface to colonize, the Serievans have built high on an arctic island where they can extract minerals from "'...upswelling ocean currents...'" (p. 719) This is necessary because their sun and its planets have few heavy metals since they are near the northern edge of their spiral arm of the galaxy where the thin interstellar gas has not been enriched with elements fused in earlier stellar generations. Daven Laure, Ranger of the Commonalty, looks out from Ozer Vandange's high-storey office across the city of Pelogard while they discuss this and other cosmological matters. Similarly, we need to have a sense of Earth's position in the Solar System in its part of the galaxy.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And we know nothing of what Old Earth was like by AD 7000 of the Technic timeline. Was it an impoverished, ruined planet or did a vigorous new civilization arise there? One of many mysteries in the Technic series!
Ad astra! Sean
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