Monday 2 February 2015

A Strange Universe

Planet Stories printed "Strange Adventures On Other Worlds."

Poul Anderson's "Witch of the Demon Seas" and "The Virgin of Valkarion" suggest a very strange universe indeed:

there are habitable planets in orbit around different stars - the planet in "Witch..." has a large red sun whereas the planet in "The Virgin..." has two moons;

these planets are inhabited by human beings and possibly also by other intelligent species, e.g., the amphibians in "Witch...";

on each of these planets, there is a kind of animal that has the same name as a mythical being on Earth - erinyes in "Witch..." and garms in "The Virgin...";

these planets seem never to have an industrial revolution - Valkarion is a city on a dying planet where there was an Empire hundreds of thousands of years ago;

everyone fights with swords;

this strange universe is quite different from those in which human and other beings invent technology that enables them to traverse space faster than light and thus to build interstellar empires.

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