(urth) vanished people=Hieros

[Lee Berman]

>Jeff Wilson: Larry Niven is not a particularly hard SF writer, and his planetary 

>and biological sciences are a fairly weak area. He does have at least two 
>marginally habitable planets with no oceans, and at least one habitable 
>planet whose ocean is covered in green algae.

 

Thanks Jeff. I appreciate the feedback and accept any hard science SF author as a

substitute for Niven in my comparison. I guess I was trying to think of a story

where the scientific details of creating a planet are more important than the plot

and Ringworld came to mind.


>quote Wolfe chose is drawn from the first edition of 1859, but the same 
>translator had in his fifth edition of 1889,


>Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
>The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
>Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
>The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

 

Good work, Jeff. I issue a challenge to those who still interpret "the Stone" as

Venus to find a published interpretation of Kayaam which matches. I looked and didn't 

find any but perhaps there are some to be found.

 

>Of course, Apollo is a hunter and was god of the sun along with arts and 
>lyres and pythons, and probably more prominent in the mind of a 
>classically educated Englishman than a muslim Afganistani.

 

This is off the mark. I did an Apollo+hunter search, just to check, and found mostly 

statements to the contrary, "Apollo is not a hunter". That is mostly to make contrast

with his twin sister, Artemis/Diana the huntress and moon goddess. If "The Huntress"

had been used I think there would be a consensus that the moon was being referenced.

(FWIW, Orion was the chaste hunting companion of Artemis and was killed via the jealous

treachery of a bisexual Apollo).

 

Anyway, as you suggest, Jeff, Apollo was a god of the arts and learning and refinement

in contrast to his rough, woodsy sister. The urbane/rustic, sun/moon, light/dark, 

male/female, patrifocal/matrifocal, Christian/pagan dichotomy persists to this day.