-back cover blub, Poul Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1966).
(I dislike the attached cover image because the elephantoid should not have tusks and should have fingers at the end of its trunk but it is the edition to which I refer.)
We know now that van Rijn is later than the twenty-first century but there was nothing in these stories to indicate that then. When I began to read prose sf in the 1960's, "the twenty-first century" meant, vaguely, the future when we expected regular interplanetary travel at least and interstellar exploration if FTL had been invented by then.
Space travel in the twenty-first century was to us what air travel in the twentieth had been to Wells. We have come a long way but nowhere near far enough.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
So many of Anderson's books were inflicted with horrible covers!
And I only wish a FTL drive a la Jerry Pournelle's Alderson drive had been invented early for real!
Ad astra! Sean
I would like the Alderson Drive without the rather dystopian aspects of the Co-dominium.
There is an Mount Alderson in Waterton Park Alberta, though unfortunately not an Alderson point at the top. ;^)
Too right about CoDominium.
Kaor, to Both!
I agree, the Co-Dominium was nasty in many ways.
A pity, no real world Alderson point! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Most SF authors have been saddled with terrible covers. Poul's Baen covers were particularly gross.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! Who the Tarnation picked those ghastly covers for the Flandry stories at Baen Books???
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment