zaphod beeblebrox
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2011
- Messages
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Any help in solving this mystery will be much appreciated.
I am trying to find the title, author and possibly the actual book. My dad borrowed a yellow hard back from our library in Blackburn in the very late 70's. It was a collection of short stories all under one title, The People Planet, I think!
One of the stories, which fascinated me as a teenager, and the very story I want to re-read, was about a spaceship's crew who land on a planet, I seem to remember to carry out repairs or just explore, not sure. Initially, the crew are fascinated at the perfect beauty of the planet, the trees each bear a variety of fruit or flowers, not just one variety per tree, the air is totally free of bacteria, the indigenous animals, seem friendly and a little curious, randomly burst into song, and laugh a lot, don't seem to mind the science officers of the crew in carrying out examinations on them ( where they find, strange internal workings unlike any other living creature; biological or what?!), the local river flows seemingly naturally but there is a strange relationship between the flow-rate and gravity of the planet. In other words, inertia seems out of scale.
As the crew become more involved and explore further, they find a tall metal structure in the distance, the top of which, has side-projections like huge solid metal wings, and is vaguely visually lost in the clouds.
While the crew deliberate over what it could be over the forthcoming days, they notice that the animals are becoming sluggish, don't sing any longer, the light is fading on the planet then:-
An accident occurs in the river but not a life-threatening one, can't remember, where a crew member is swimming and the river simply stops flowing, I think encasing the crew member in static "water" or whatever the river liquid is.
The crew's captain then understands what is going on and round up the crew and leave immediately as the metal structure is turning in the ground and long shadows loom from the west.......
Obviously, there's a lot more detail, and the story is written far more professionally than my synopsis!
Any ideas anyone?
I am trying to find the title, author and possibly the actual book. My dad borrowed a yellow hard back from our library in Blackburn in the very late 70's. It was a collection of short stories all under one title, The People Planet, I think!
One of the stories, which fascinated me as a teenager, and the very story I want to re-read, was about a spaceship's crew who land on a planet, I seem to remember to carry out repairs or just explore, not sure. Initially, the crew are fascinated at the perfect beauty of the planet, the trees each bear a variety of fruit or flowers, not just one variety per tree, the air is totally free of bacteria, the indigenous animals, seem friendly and a little curious, randomly burst into song, and laugh a lot, don't seem to mind the science officers of the crew in carrying out examinations on them ( where they find, strange internal workings unlike any other living creature; biological or what?!), the local river flows seemingly naturally but there is a strange relationship between the flow-rate and gravity of the planet. In other words, inertia seems out of scale.
As the crew become more involved and explore further, they find a tall metal structure in the distance, the top of which, has side-projections like huge solid metal wings, and is vaguely visually lost in the clouds.
While the crew deliberate over what it could be over the forthcoming days, they notice that the animals are becoming sluggish, don't sing any longer, the light is fading on the planet then:-
An accident occurs in the river but not a life-threatening one, can't remember, where a crew member is swimming and the river simply stops flowing, I think encasing the crew member in static "water" or whatever the river liquid is.
The crew's captain then understands what is going on and round up the crew and leave immediately as the metal structure is turning in the ground and long shadows loom from the west.......
Obviously, there's a lot more detail, and the story is written far more professionally than my synopsis!
Any ideas anyone?
