An unflattering description of the first Man that Barbara has seen:
broad shoulders, not unpleasing, but ugly narrow hips;
yellow hair cropped short;
lean face;
too much nose, chin and bone;
too little flesh;
inhumanly deep voice.
"She remembered from the old stories that Monsters had many shapes, but some of them looked like deformed humans." (p. 45)
Deformed!
That this Man or Monster belongs in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History is confirmed by the first thing that he says:
"'Holy Cosmos, what's going on here?'" (ibid.)
Barbara then lassoes him and drags him behind her.
The story begins as it will continue. Landing on a planet of women is not necessarily what a man might think.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course a planet with only men or women for centuries would have no real idea of what the other sex would be like. VIRGIN PLANET has to be one of the earliest SF stories I know of examining that idea.
Ad astra! Sean
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