Tuesday, 5 November 2024

Another Planet

Poul Anderson, "Virgin Planet" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3 (Riverdale, NY, July 2018), pp. 43-112.

With Virgin Planet, the novel, boxed for a house move, I have to reread "Virgin Planet," the shorter version.

This planet has grass and two suns, Ay and Bee. Other heavenly bodies are Minos, a moon called Ariadne and other moons not visible in the opening scene. What is Minos?

The pressing question is whether a spaceship that has just landed has brought the Men or some other intelligent species, Monsters. Either is possible. 

And that is a good place to close for this evening, just in time for some TV news about the US election...

We read future history and live history.


11 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

VIRGIN PLANET is my favorite of all the Psychotechnic series.

And I hope Trump wins. I'm so fed up with the Democrats!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Some of us are so fed up with Trump but this is hardly worth saying!

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And the Democrats lost because of their arrogance, woke fanaticism, corruption, stupidity, and incompetence.

Ad astra! Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And it's almost certainly going to be knives out as genuinely centrist Democrats and woke leftists fight each other for control of that party.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

One side is arrogant and the other is not? You are expressing one-sided hatred.

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Is Trump going to use the police and the military against Democrat voters? Is he going to pardon rioters? Is he going to deport millions? Is he going to make it unnecessary for his supporters ever to vote again? Will he end the Ukraine war in 24 hours?

I think that Republicans need to slow down and think this through.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Does he still deny climate change?

A BBC reporter who interviewed a lot of Americans found that they were voting for Trump not because of but in spite of his mad violent rhetoric. That is reassuring.

A firing squad for a political opponent. His critics and opponents are deranged and despicable. Prosecutions in which he was found guilty are the greatest witch-hunt in history. Democrats trying to win an election are identical with Democrats trying to steal the election.

Trump is incredible and, fortunately, unique.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

In Britain, the PM and the Leader of the Opposition ritually congratulated Trump but the the Leader of the minority Liberal Democrat Party quoted Trump as calling Putin a genius for invading Ukraine and as telling Putin that he could do what the hell he liked with NATO countries.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Many of the people who rioted and stormed the Capitol, causing several deaths, will feel vindicated by this election result, especially if they are pardoned. They are not vindicated. What they did remains wrong. And Trump should still be prosecuted for instigating the riot. Justice delayed is justice denied. Some legal expert has been quoted as saying that the case against Trump is not clear. Many other people think that it is very clear. But legal procedures are precisely a matter of clashing interpretations. That is not an argument against bringing a prosecution in the first place. Anyway, it is the responsibility of the US political and legal systems to sort out this considerable mess.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You can think as you like and I will do the same! I detest the leftists who dominate the Democrats for many reasons going back half a century.

I don't really care much about President re-elected Trump's rhetoric. Americans have a long and ancient tradition of being fond of exaggerated and inflamed language. Foreigners will have to deal with that. What matters is that, during his first term, Trump governed, in practical terms, as a fairly standard conservative.

A big problem has been how fanatical leftists were totally unwilling to accept the legitimacy of Trump's first victory in 2016. It caused them to do their worse to destroy him, cooking up lies about Russian collusion, and almost openly calling for his assassination. Their stupidity played into and inflamed Trump's worse instincts.

Ever since Al Gore challenged George Bush's victory in 2000, the Democrats have become more and more unwilling to accept electoral defeats. It did not start with Trump in 2020!

The Biden-Harris Administration has been a disaster. The US and the world is now in a far more dangerous position because of "Josip's" bungling. Trump will have to grapple with Biden's inflation, chaos at the abandoned borders, and aggressive nations like Russia, China, Iran, N Korea, all of whom took advantage of the weakness and stupidity of the Democrats.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I think not as I like but what I think is right.

Trump did not just mount legal challenges to election results. He tried to overturn the results and instigated a riot. That did not start with the Democrats. Is Trump going to pardon rioters? Are all his threat against internal enemies empty rhetoric, thus more lies? He said that immigrants eat cats and dogs. Should we accept that such statements not only are not true but also do not matter? We all, not just Americans, have a turbulent time ahead of us.

Paul.