Bob Shaw's Ragged Astronaut series by Zicsoft

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

Bob Shaw's Ragged Astronaut series

POSTED BY: ZICSOFT
UPDATED: Sunday, July 28, 2002 09:58
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Sunday, July 28, 2002 9:58 AM

I'm posting here because "Other SF series" is close enough to "Other SF".

Shuggie suggested that I look at Bob Shaw's The Ragged Astronauts. So I got a copy from alibris.com (the Web is the salvation of people who want to read out-of-print books!). Pretty good. About a bunch of people who life on a planet called Land, which is very close to a second planet called Overland. So close, in fact, that the atmospheres merge. Which turns out to be pretty handy, because the inhabitants are forced to migrate to Overland. No industry --- no metal even -- so their "spaceships" consist of hot air balloons, with little auxilary rockets for getting through the zero-gee node between the two planets.

Sounds like the Water/Fire episodes on Lexx, doesn't it? But Shaw's version is more carefully thought out.

The story stands on its own, but just mentions in passing that on this world, Pi is equal to 3. Not an irrational number, not even 3 1/7, but 3. Which makes life so much easier for Land scientists. That and the fact that their number system is base 12 -- 'cause they all have twelve fingers!

So now I gotta dig up the sequels, and find out who's been messing with the fundamentals of the universe. Anybody else besides Shuggie read this series?

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