From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com   
      
   On 12/16/25 11:36, Christian Weisgerber wrote:   
   > On 2025-12-16, James Nicoll  wrote:   
   >   
   >> Hard Landing by Algis Budrys   
   >> Starmen marooned in barbaric America!   
   >>   
   >> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/castaway   
   >   
   > | There are oxygen-breathing and methane-breathing interstellar   
   > | civilizations;   
   >   
   > BTW, where did this trope start?  It appears early in _Perry Rhodan_,   
   > where genocidal wars between the two are part of the historical   
   > background, but nothing is ever original in _PR_.   
      
   	Methane breathers in the Lensman stories by Doc E.E. Smith.   
   >   
   > | I am not sure what the marsupial analog of a camel is.   
   >   
   > Something extinct. Possibly South American. ... A quick trawl of   
   > Wikipedia doesn't net anything.  Maybe a confusion with some South   
   > American native ungulates?  Those convergently evolved to resemble   
   > extant ungulates--but they were placentals, not marsupials.   
   >   
   > | It’s not especially plausible but the story falls apart if the   
   > | crew is purple, be-tentacled Things.   
   >   
   > But it would make the "life of debauchery and unsafe sex" so much   
   > more intriguing!   
   >   
      
   	But complicated.   
      
   	bliss   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)