In James Blish's
A Case Of Conscience, the four scientists who make up the Lithian Review Commission spend time as guests on the planet Lithia and must decide whether that planet would be a suitable port of call without harm either to Earthmen or to Lithians. We remember a ship of the Grand Survey making first contact with the planet Ythri and, later, Ythrians and human beings exploring another planet, Gray. James Blish and Poul Anderson wrote the same kind of sf. We read Blish's descriptions of the Gulf of Sfath and of the city, Xoredeshch Sfath, and wonder how they compare with Anderson's descriptions of natural scenes and cities on extrasolar planets. Anderson is always more detailed.
When a member of the Commission reflects on the Haertel description of space-time, this places Case within Blish's non-linear future historical scholium.
I am unemployed and this is Saturday. Nevertheless, I have duties which require me to walk into town and not to let breakfast blogging continue into lunchtime.
"Go with God," to quote Jorn the Apostle from Blish's The Triumph Of Time.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
The first Grand Survey also made a very significant first contact with Merseia.
Yes, Anderson was very good at making you feel you were "there" at the places he described.
Ad astra! Sean
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