Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 2 Sept 2013.
In
Poul Anderson's "The Big Rain," people from Earth have colonized and
hope to terraform the uninhabited desert planet Venus whereas, in the
same author's alternative Venus story, "Sister Planet" (Anderson, Dialogue With Darkness, New York, 1985):
"The first explorers had expected desert but instead they had found water." (p. 96)
This is because, in the upper atmosphere:
"...water
vapor was frozen out. Thus absorption spectra had not revealed to
Earthbound astronomers that this planet was one vast ocean." (ibid.)
As
I have said more than once, Anderson gives the impression of
systematically examining every possible alternative version of any
science fictional idea.
The "Sister Planet" Venus is a
landless ocean with floating islands and a humanly poisonous atmosphere
whereas CS Lewis' Venus/Perelandra is mostly ocean with floating islands
but some Fixed Land and a humanly breathable atmosphere. Burroughs'
Venus/Amtor has people living in giant trees and enough seas for his
first volume to be called Pirates Of Venus.
The "Sister Planet" "Venusians" are friendly, trading cetoids;
Lewis' Venerians/Perelandrians are green-skinned unFallen dwellers on floating islands;
Burroughs'
Amtorians are human enough for the Earthman hero to marry a princess - a
necessary prerequisite for any ERBian planet;
Stapledon's Venerians are uncommunicative, hostile, dolphin-like sea-dwellers, exterminated by invading Terrestrials;
Heinlein's Venerians, appearing both in "Logic of Empire" and in his Scribner Juvenile Space Cadet, are cooperative, frog-like swamp-dwellers.
For
some reason, Terrestrial sf writers wrongly expected a lot of water on
Venus - "Venus rising from the sea foam"? (Lewis alone suggests a
connection between Classical mythology and conditions on other Solar
planets.)
No comments:
Post a Comment