The Seedling Stars by James Blish

[vodkafan]

The Seedling Stars by James Blish

 

Another classic Sci Fi from SF Gateway. This one is a re-read for me, I read it years ago. It is a collection of 4 short stories linked by a theme, which is that instead of men having to live under domes and carrying their atmosphere with them to explore space and having to wear space suits (an expensive process), men would be adapted genetically to fit and live on different planets, so that their offspring would be able to make best use of the environment . And eventually, there would be not just one type of human but lots of different types, ever changing as mankind spreads from planet to planet.

For me, the best story of the lot (and the only one I remembered) is Surface Tension where a seedling ship crash lands on a planet and the only chance to seed it is to make the adapted men miroscopic size so they can live in the freshwater ponds on the surface.

 

 

 

There they have to fight the vicious rotifers and other water pond life to survive and eventually they build a tiny wooden "space ship" to travel out onto the land for a few feet to the next pond.

 

 

The rest of the stories sadly are not up to the same standard, the last one being especially boring. It was worth it just to read Surface Tension again though.

Edited October 30, 2011 by vodkafan