Is an intersolar civilization easy to swallow?

by Dylan
(Illinois, Wisconsin)

When I read about the tales of Captain Future, I am sometimes stuck by the strangeness of Venusians, Martians, Terrans, Saturnians and others mingling like ordinary Earthmen. I feel that it takes some of the mystery out of the aliens if they go about behaving like Earthers and sharing our interests in colonizing space. But then, I have not read Captain Future,so I cannot say for sure if it comes off that way in the stories.

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Feb 03, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		The Immeasurable Horror
by: Zendexor

Perhaps I was just thinking of tales portraying intelligent beings. The Venusian Horror in CAS' magnificent tale is not intelligent - at least, one hopes not. I agree however that the story should be included in the list of CAS OSS greats. That brings the total to four...
Feb 03, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		You missed one out
by: Robert

Zendexor, on your Venus page you give a very favourable verdict on Clark Ashton Smith's "The Immeasurable Horror". Should you not have included this as a fourth in your list of great CAS OSS tales?
Feb 02, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		Candidate authors
by: Zendexor

Clark Ashton Smith's three great OSS tales, "The Immortals of Mercury", "Vulthoom" and "Master of the Asteroid" are so powerful that they lead me to imagine a host of other stories to support them; but nevertheless, they are only three. As such, though, they do present an OSS with utterly individualistic worlds such as you would wish.
Heinlein's Martians in "Red Planet" and Venerians in "Space Cadet" also combine to give that stereoscopic impression of a vibrant, ethnically various OSS.
But perhaps the OSS still awaits its master of unity-in-complexity; its Tolkien, if you like. Until that writer arrives on the scene, we have to seek what we want in a multitude of authors, rather than in one.
Feb 01, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		Has it been done?
by: Dylan

Has anyone ever created such a universe without sacrificing the individuality of the disparate planetary natives?
Feb 01, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		Captain Future's OSS - drawbacks
by: Zendexor

Yes, when I first read those stories I was disappointed in the aliens. The adventures are good, full of action and colour, but they could do with more local atmosphere and planetary identity. On the other hand, Hamilton writes with a cheerful verve that disarms criticism.

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