XPost: alt.usage.english, rec.arts.books, rec.arts.sf.misc   
   From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 06:51:12 -0500, The True Melissa wrote:   
      
   > Verily, in article <10ndqrk$1pg48$2@dont-email.me>, did   
   > ldo@nz.invalid deliver unto us this message:   
   >>   
   >> The earlier half of the 20th century was full of depictions of the   
   >> other planets as being like exotic versions of far-flung parts of   
   >> Earth -- none of the need for this “space-suit” folderol. The   
   >> plants and animals might look like nothing on Earth, but they still   
   >> were basically plants and animals, of a sort. Basically an   
   >> extension of the “darkest Africa” and “exotic Asia” stories of the   
   >> earlier century.   
   >   
   > The interplanetary settings let writers get crazier, though. For   
   > instance, Barsoom no longer had a stable atmosphere, and a single   
   > air factory pumped out enough breathable air for the whole planet.   
   > The far- flung areas don't seem to be aware of this, and nobody ever   
   > got around to creating a backup system -- when the air-maker and his   
   > apprentice happened to die at once, the whole planet started   
   > smothering.   
   >   
   > You can't set *that* level of nonsense in darkest Africa or the   
   > exotic Orient.   
      
   (I haven’t read the Burroughs story in question -- “Warlord Of Mars”,   
   is it? -- but this description   
    is illuminating.)   
      
   That is certainly the kind of theme that is unique to SF -- the   
   current inhabitants of an exotic world have regressed from the   
   original civilization that long ago set up certain life-critical   
   systems, which have started failing, so it is up to our heroes to fix   
   them and save the entire world.   
      
   Was Burroughs the first to think up this plot? Larry Niven certainly   
   reused the idea in his second Ringworld novel, “The Ringworld   
   Engineers”.   
      
   (This was written after some smartarse students at MIT discovered that   
   his original Ringworld concept would need some sort of active   
   thrusters to maintain it in position in the plane of its orbit, since   
   it would not naturally stay in place around its Sun. So he added the   
   propulsion engines, and then made it a plot point that somebody had   
   been messing with them.)   
      
   But then, this just shows how Burroughs was a cut above a lot of his   
   contemporaries ...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)