Twenty Years In The Traveler

"Gypsy."

Even faster than light spaceships take time to move between stars so sf writers need to be clear about how much time and whether there are different rates of FTL. In Known Space, Larry Niven has Quantum I and Quantum II hyperdrives. The latter takes Beowulf Shaeffer to somewhere near the galactic core and back. In Cities In Flight, James Blish simply forgot what the Okies' top speed was meant to be and described a fleet of cities moving at impossible speeds across the galaxy. Blish acknowledged that this was an error. Then a dirigible planet went all the way to the Metagalactic Centre. Greater mass is meant to enable greater speed but the Metagalactic Centre, if such exists, is a long way.

In just two decades plus, Poul Anderson's Traveler visits:

a blue hell of a planet;

pirates on a red sea;

tournaments on Drangor;

immense cities on Alkan;

a cephalopod philosopher;

a planet with beautiful but hostile natives;

barbarians;

ancient laboratories and libraries;

a methane storm;

paradisal Luanha;

centauroids attacking an aerial city;

Hralfar;

Atlang;

Thyvari;

New Jupiter -

- and the crew quickly learned how to communicate and converse on each inhabited planet.

Too much.