Showing posts with label "Kyrie" by Poul Anderson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Kyrie" by Poul Anderson. Show all posts

Monday, 18 May 2015

Interstellar Hazards

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Kenri Shaun lists the hazards of interstellar travel:

"'...dark dwarf nebulae, black holes, or rogue planets.'" (p. 196)

Rogue planets play major roles in Anderson's "A Sun Invisible," Satan's World and Ensign Flandry; black holes in his "Kyrie" and For Love And Glory, but what is a dark dwarf nebula? Googling discloses dark dwarfs and dark nebulae but not dark dwarf nebulae. Is such a nebula one composed entirely of dark dwarf stars? That would indeed be a navigational hazard.

After some awesome detours (see recent posts), I am again rereading Starfarers and finding several linguistic and technical points to discuss, maybe in the next post.