Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth

https://www.tor.com/2022/06/03/five-works-featuring-truly-alien-versions-of-earth/

Earth is earthlike only for a small part of its history. Some SF has played
with that.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 3:07:17 PM UTC+1, James Nicoll wrote:
> Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/06/03/five-works-featuring-truly-alien-versions-of-earth/
>
> Earth is earthlike only for a small part of its history. Some SF has played
> with that.
> --
> My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
> My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
> My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
> My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

To me, some of the most alien earths are those in which magic works. In my memory, magic arises in Vance's Dying Earth as Earth, like an old man, becomes eccentric in its ways - but I cannot find this in my copy and it is possible that the connection was actually made by Moorcock.

There are a number of future histories in which earth is unknown, legendary, or irrelevant - Karres has a book called "Tales of Old Yarthe" and the Foundation has forgotten on which planet Homo Sapiens was born. In Weber's Honorverse and Drake's RCN stories, earth is out of the picture because it was devastated by war.

Blish's "Seedling Stars" is about colonisation of planets by genetic engineering colonists instead of geo-engineering planets. In one of those stories the twist is that the target planet is earth - natural changes have made it inhospitable to standard Homo Sapiens.

By the way - as I write this I have the TV on showing a parliamentary committee held on the 25th May - on fusion. The future is creeping up on us! Nothing really new and the estimates are some time after 2050. The ITER chap giving evidence had an interesting take on the use of Fusion. He reckons that wind and solar etc. could be scaled up to satisfy our current energy needs (subject to worries about irregular supply). His position is that fusion is still necessary because he expects the demand for energy to continue to grow.

In article <t7d4ih$cfu$1@reader1.panix.com>,
jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

> Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/06/03/five-works-featuring-truly-alien-versions-of-ea
> rth/
>
> Earth is earthlike only for a small part of its history. Some SF has played
> with that.

I have this vague recollection that you once wrote a description of a
far future Earth. Perhaps it was somebody else.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

In article <5497259c-f060-4631-b343-861955f7dacan@googlegroups.com>,
Andrew McDowell <mcdowell_ag@sky.com> wrote:

>To me, some of the most alien earths are those in which magic works. In
>my memory, magic arises in Vance's Dying Earth as Earth, like an old
>man, becomes eccentric in its ways - but I cannot find this in my copy
>and it is possible that the connection was actually made by Moorcock.

The earth of Saunders' Commonweal is interesting like that: someone
somehow *brought magic into the world* about a quarter of a million
years "ago", presumably around the time of the French revolution, and
the humans that survive "today" have to deal with the consequences of
a thousand generations of sorcerer-kings trying to kill or enslave
each other. Hence Weeds, and it being really hard to farm, and the
population being just on the cusp of insufficient to supply its own
requirements. (Of course, in order to make this work, Saunders has to
introduce a magical limitation on the practicality of heat engines.)

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

On 6/3/2022 9:21 AM, Andrew McDowell wrote:
> On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 3:07:17 PM UTC+1, James Nicoll wrote:
>> Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth
>>
>> https://www.tor.com/2022/06/03/five-works-featuring-truly-alien-versions-of-earth/
>>
>> Earth is earthlike only for a small part of its history. Some SF has played
>> with that.
>> --
>> My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
>> My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
>> My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
>> My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
>
> To me, some of the most alien earths are those in which magic works. In my memory, magic arises in Vance's Dying Earth as Earth, like an old man, becomes eccentric in its ways - but I cannot find this in my copy and it is possible that the connection was actually made by Moorcock.
>
> There are a number of future histories in which earth is unknown, legendary, or irrelevant - Karres has a book called "Tales of Old Yarthe" and the Foundation > has forgotten on which planet Homo Sapiens was born. In Weber's Honorverse

SAY WHAT?! Earth is THE biggest power in the Honorverse and every other
star nation tiptoes around it. (Until the end where, well, read those
yourself to find out....)

> and Drake's RCN stories, earth is out of the picture because it was devastated by war.
>
> Blish's "Seedling Stars" is about colonisation of planets by genetic engineering colonists instead of geo-engineering planets. In one of those stories the twist > is that the target planet is earth - natural changes have made it inhospitable to standard Homo Sapiens.
>
> By the way - as I write this I have the TV on showing a parliamentary committee held on the 25th May - on fusion. The future is creeping up on us! Nothing really new and the estimates are some time after 2050. The ITER chap giving evidence had an interesting take on the use of Fusion. He reckons that wind and solar etc. could be scaled up to satisfy our current energy needs (subject to worries about irregular supply). His position is that fusion is still necessary because he expects the demand for energy to continue to grow.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Fri, 03 Jun 2022 10:06:23 -0700, Robert Woodward
<robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:

>In article <t7d4ih$cfu$1@reader1.panix.com>,
> jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth
>>
>> https://www.tor.com/2022/06/03/five-works-featuring-truly-alien-versions-of-ea
>> rth/
>>
>> Earth is earthlike only for a small part of its history. Some SF has played
>> with that.
>
>I have this vague recollection that you once wrote a description of a
>far future Earth. Perhaps it was somebody else.

Or the past - Julian May's the Many Colored Land series features 6
million BC before the Meditteranean Sea was created.

In article <btqk9hhbk4bfb8mrjafogsavdt3irl57p4@4ax.com>,
The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:

>Or the past - Julian May's the Many Colored Land series features 6
>million BC before the Meditteranean Sea was created.

*in one of the numerous periods in geological time when the
Mediterranean was endorheic. She discusses this in the appendix[1] to
THE GOLDEN TORC.

-GAWollman

[1] The title of which is a Catholic in-joke.
--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

James Nicoll wrote:

>Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth

When I saw the subject, two came immediately to mind. One is the Niven
that you included. The other was mentioned in comments, Nitrogen Fix by
Hal Clement.

Brian

On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 8:54:43 PM UTC+1, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 6/3/2022 9:21 AM, Andrew McDowell wrote:
> > On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 3:07:17 PM UTC+1, James Nicoll wrote:
> >> Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth
> >>
> >> https://www.tor.com/2022/06/03/five-works-featuring-truly-alien-versions-of-earth/
> >>
> >> Earth is earthlike only for a small part of its history. Some SF has played
> >> with that.
> >> --
> >> My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
> >> My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
> >> My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
> >> My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
> >
> > To me, some of the most alien earths are those in which magic works. In my memory, magic arises in Vance's Dying Earth as Earth, like an old man, becomes eccentric in its ways - but I cannot find this in my copy and it is possible that the connection was actually made by Moorcock.
> >
> > There are a number of future histories in which earth is unknown, legendary, or irrelevant - Karres has a book called "Tales of Old Yarthe" and the Foundation > has forgotten on which planet Homo Sapiens was born. In Weber's Honorverse
> SAY WHAT?! Earth is THE biggest power in the Honorverse and every other
> star nation tiptoes around it. (Until the end where, well, read those
> yourself to find out....)
> > and Drake's RCN stories, earth is out of the picture because it was devastated by war.
> > (trimmed)
OK - this was stupid, since even in the early books while earth /The Solarian League is off-screen, they are a source of military technology - but I was remembering out of context events mentioned in various books summarised in https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Earth as

Late in the first millenium of the Diaspora, Earth was devastated by genetically engineered "super soldiers" as well as weaponized diseases and nanotech, in what history would come to call Earth's Final War. It took centuries and the help of a massive rescue operation by the colonies to stabilize and repopulate the planet.

(end quote)
Also, Earth is referred to as "Old Earth".

(BSE is mentioned in another thread, and this leads in rare instances to Variant CJD. I ate a lot of cheap meat pies stuffed with mechanically recovered meat in the years leading up to BSE. Let us hope that this is an isolated piece of stupidity).

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 09:21:31 -0700 (PDT), Andrew McDowell
<mcdowell_ag@sky.com> wrote:

>On Friday, June 3, 2022 at 3:07:17 PM UTC+1, James Nicoll wrote:
>> Five Works Featuring Truly Alien Versions of Earth
>>
>> https://www.tor.com/2022/06/03/five-works-featuring-truly-alien-versions-of-earth/
>>
>> Earth is earthlike only for a small part of its history. Some SF has played
>> with that.
>> --
>> My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
>> My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
>> My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
>> My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
>
>To me, some of the most alien earths are those in which magic works. In my memory, magic arises in Vance's Dying Earth as Earth, like an old man, becomes eccentric in its ways - but I cannot find this in my copy and it is possible that the connection was actually made by Moorcock.
>
>There are a number of future histories in which earth is unknown, legendary, or irrelevant - Karres has a book called "Tales of Old Yarthe" and the Foundation has forgotten on which planet Homo Sapiens was born. In Weber's Honorverse and Drake's RCN stories, earth is out of the picture because it was devastated by war.

??? For most of the Honorverse stories Earth and its empire are the
big dog--so powerful that avoiding pissing off the Sollies has a
significant role in decisionmaking. They're off stage because
Manticore and Haven are outside of its normal operating area, not
because it doesn't exist.

>Blish's "Seedling Stars" is about colonisation of planets by genetic engineering colonists instead of geo-engineering planets. In one of those stories the twist is that the target planet is earth - natural changes have made it inhospitable to standard Homo Sapiens.
>
>By the way - as I write this I have the TV on showing a parliamentary committee held on the 25th May - on fusion. The future is creeping up on us! Nothing really new and the estimates are some time after 2050. The ITER chap giving evidence had an interesting take on the use of Fusion. He reckons that wind and solar etc. could be scaled up to satisfy our current energy needs (subject to worries about irregular supply). His position is that fusion is still necessary because he expects the demand for energy to continue to grow.

Demand will certainly continue to grow as long as population continues
to grow. Then there's the issue of the Third World wanting a First
World standard of living.