Here is a bird of prey that I do not think that we have noticed before:
"High overhead wheeled an eagle, the young light like gold on its wings." (p. 38)
Whatever their means of travel into the past - and Poul Anderson's time corridors are unique -, any time traveller must have a moment when it suddenly hits him that he is indeed here and now. When Storm tells Lockridge that a remote but thunderous "...bass bellow..." (ibid.) is not a bull but an aurochs:
"The fact that he was really here, now, personally, stabbed into him." (ibid.)
This should remind Anderson's readers of the corresponding moment for Manse Everard of the Time Patrol, quoted in full at least three times before on this blog:
And we also find that we have compared Lockridge's and Everard's moments before:
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson also invents similar flying hunting animals on many extraterrestrial planets.
Ad astra! Sean
One thing you'd notice in most settings more than a couple of centuries back is the tremendous swarming of birds.
See this for a discussion of great swarmings of many kinds of animals, their ecological effects, and what can be done to bring back large numbers of non-human non-domesticated animals.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/131-joe-roman
Kaor, Jim!
I certainly have no objection to that. More whimsically, it would be cool if woolly mammoths could be brought back from extinction.
Ad astra! Sean
There are nearly 8 billion human beings. That takes up a lot of land for farming, and lots of wild animals (or birds) are not compatible with that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
When put like that I have to agree. Human needs have to come first.
Ad astra! Sean
Mind you, there will probably never be many more than 8 billion human beings, and by the end of this century the total will be well below that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
What concerns me is how you have commented in the past that too many countries don't have enough children for the needs of future generations. And some, like China, pursued "one child only" policies which backfired disastrously on them.
We really need to get colonies founded off Earth which won't have such anti-child prejudices. Or, on Earth, convinced Christians in Western nations tend to be far more open to having children.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Politics comes into it too. In the US, people who describe themselves as conservative have a TFR of about 2.6-2.7 children per woman. Self-defined progressives are at about 1.2
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I am not in the least surprised! Other commentators have made similar observations. And my personal observation has been that convinced religious believers, Catholic or evangelical Protestants, are far more open to having children than many "progressives."
Ad astra! Sean
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