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Shoot through space, little light beams, and bounce off all the right satellites to reach the woman I love! But how can these words, translated into blinks of binary code, travel so impossibly far? I won’t quite believe it until I get a reply from you. If I can be granted that one small miracle, all the others will follow, I’m sure.
How long will it take for message to arrive?
He lifted his hand, pushed his palm forward into space, testing for resistance. There was none, and yet the air swirled around his wrist and up his forearm, tickling him. He didn’t know whether he liked it, or found it creepy. Atmosphere, in his experience, had always been an absence. The air here was a presence, a presence so palpable that he was tempted to believe he could let himself fall and the air would simply catch him like a pillow. It wouldn’t, of course. But as it nuzzled against his skin, it almost promised that it would.
So wait the atmosphere is denser than on Earth? but gravity less strong? Odd?
“Dozens. I bring them their drug supply.” “You’re kidding.” “I’m a pharmacist.”
This seems unlikely. Will there be more explanation coming?
The event had occurred too suddenly, he felt; it lacked the drama appropriate to his first sighting of an Oasan native. It ought to have happened with ceremonial slowness, in an amphitheater, or at the summit of a long staircase. Instead, the encounter was already under way, and Peter had missed its beginning.
Peter isn't this egocentric, God-complex-y, is he?
The Oasan appeared to give this a great deal of thought.
Let me guess: telepathing with entire community in order to answer
APPROVED, TRANSMITTED.
Ah, they're censoring? Is sinister coming? Seems like it must.
It had never occurred to him before that dark-skinned people didn’t have the option of jotting numbers on their skin.
Palms?
“It’s extraordinary the way you can be driven through a landscape for hours and yet not notice the most striking thing about it,” reflected Peter. “All that rain, and none of it collected in lakes or reservoirs … I wonder how the Oasans cope.” “No problem,” said Roussos. “It rains every day. They get what they need when they need it. It’s like, on tap.” He held up his plastic mug to an imagined sky.
How does water get into the atmosphere in order to rain?
like a closed-circuit camera without film in it,
cc cameras don't have film, right? They're on a closed circuit and recorders are centralized?
Why can’t I send pictures as well?
or video
and found his sandals.
It was important to USIC that he be willing to wear sandals. Because of comfort or for him to play Jesus?
small posset of vomit that one of the infant Oasans had disgorged during Peter’s opening speech.
Hope we get some explanation of why Oasans are so human-like, other than lack of imagination on author's part. At least Star Trek tried to explain this.
“Row of needle. Row of … knife.”
picket fence?
“We alSo love thoSe who have no love for JeSuS. However, they will die.”
hung up on "eternal life"?
“Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life,” said Peter.
Wouldn't he think of the risk of misinterpretation here? Especially in light of Jesus' "technique"?
fish. He wondered whether this would cause comprehension problems when it came to certain crucial fish-related Bible stories. There were so many of those: Jonah and the whale, the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, the Galilean disciples being fishermen, the whole “fishers of men” analogy … The bit in Matthew 13 about the kingdom of Heaven being like a net cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind …
Are they vegetarians?
whaPever he wiSheS,
Tsk. Unlikely that 'sh' would sound like 'S' then 'h.' They'd probably create a very different sound to approximate 'sh'.
SIC will come
Are they saying "yoo-sick" or spelling out the letters in this book? If spelling letters as I'd expect (esp for a brand) the C would be sibilant and should have an 'S' in it, no?
She was small for an adult.
May be why he attributes femininity to her?
SPrange New ThingS. In the beginning, we underSPand nothing. Then, with help
Wait, how is "th" pronounced?
“And Tart … Frank. Where is he now?”
Or what is the sound of 'f' in Frank for that matter?
praiSe JeSuS.”
They make same sound ('S') for S and Z. Hm.
The Oasans, whose concentration on appointed tasks was unswervingly intense, whose vision was short-sighted, and whose hearing was difficult to gauge, failed to notice it. He
Is that consistent with other instances? Seemed they were very observant actually.
Without any English to bind it together, it sounded like a field of brittle reeds and rain-sodden lettuces being cleared by a machete.
Aren't these closer to sibilants than the vowels they can pronounce?
“obuSTa, Zof pnfan.”
Wait now there are T and Z sounds?
“Also, cortisone creams, the ones you like, in the blue and white tubes,” Grainger went on. “And a bunch of antibiotics. Gentamicin. Neomycin. Flucloxacillin. A broad range of uses, as I’ve explained to you before. Depends on the individual. If you ever … uh … if you’re ever ready to give me some feedback on your experience with a particular antibiotic, I may be able to advise you better.” “AnPibioPic welcome,” said Jesus Lover One. “But painkiller welcome more. You have other aSpirin and paraSePamol, in other color and name?”
Kind of crazy to expect analgesics and even antibiotics to work across the galaxy...
Grainger finished her coffee and screwed the cup back onto the thermos. “I guess I didn’t want it to go to waste,” she said. “The insulin wasn’t meant for them; it was our own supply. But we don’t need it anymore.” She paused for a couple of beats. “Severin died.” “Severin? The guy I traveled with?” “Yup.” “He’s a diabetic?” “Was.”
They wouldn't hire a diabetic, would they? Too expensive to send insulin as cargo, no? But to think of it, they didn't scrutinize Peter's belongings much. As if they weren't very concerned with weight.
No, it was better to restrain his eagerness and wait until he had privacy.
He knows it's being read, right? Potentially by Grainger herself?
the whole shebang.
Is Bea American?
but the media gets
Again, American (otherwise would've treated media as plural)?
so energized by this sort of thing.
American. Brits say "exercised," right?
You are so far away, so incredibly far away, further away than any man has ever been from his woman,
Why do they keep saying this when it's not true? Or have all before him been single?
spilling my guts
Brits say this? @Suzanne, can I get a call on this, please?
A fortnight ago, he had missed her sexually and craved confirmation that she felt the same.
Why such focus on sex? For evangelicals especially.
whiteflour mash and gravy.
You mean whiteflower?
it was first put to work in a giant boiler, where fearsome volumes of trapped steam set turbines spinning.
Where did energy for that come from?
“If you look at the guys and gals working here, you’ll find that pretty much all of us are … ah … free agents. No wives or husbands back home.
Ok maybe it's policy. But would Peter and Bea know this for sure?
Tuska laughed. “Ah, we’re pussycats,” he schmoozed. “Fine and upstanding citizens one and all.”
Misuse of schmooze? It would be new usage to me. Assume Yiddish, and thought you needed at least two people to schmooze, like 'chit-chat', rather than 'mused.'
to start the vehicle. “Are
See, he didn't know that he and Bea were farthest separated couple ever.
Lover One led him around the back of the building, to the patch of ground where clothing was washed and hung, and where children often played with b`d`, the Oasan equivalent of boules, soft dark balls made of compacted moss.
...more
Kind of intrigued by what the audio version of this book would sound like. Audible?
“Word can make no Lange
Being consistent about 'ch' sound?
even while its feet were still slippery with placental goo.
They have placentas? More explanation needed!
familiarizing himself with the eighty-seven stars,
only 87 stars?
Whiteflower was not the only crop the Oasans cultivated. There was also a cotton-like substance called sbt, which erupted from the soil in sticky white froth that quickly hardened into a fibrous weed. It was from this weed that the Oasans’ nets, shoes and clothing were derived. Then there was bysb, a kind of moss which grew at an amazing rate, completing its metamorphosis from specks of mold to verdant fluff in a single afternoon. What was it for? He had no idea, but he learned how to harvest it. As for whiteflower, there was, he learned, a catch to its wondrous versatility: each plant had to
...more
sbt: 't' sound? and sbt/bysb: 's' sound (not 'S')?
Whiteflower was not the only crop the Oasans cultivated. There was also a cotton-like substance called sbt, which erupted from the soil in sticky white froth that quickly hardened into a fibrous weed. It was from this weed that the Oasans’ nets, shoes and clothing were derived. Then there was bysb, a kind of moss which grew at an amazing rate, completing its metamorphosis from specks of mold to verdant fluff in a single afternoon. What was it for? He had no idea, but he learned how to harvest it. As for whiteflower, there was, he learned, a catch to its wondrous versatility: each plant had to
...more
Is part of USIC's plan to have him learn to cultivate and make humans self-sufficient and not dependent on Oasans?
Specks of pollen fell from him as he walked. Emerging from the outskirts of the settlement,
The plants use pollen to reproduce? Why all of these similarities to terrestrial life? Do exobiologists think these are all universal?
The medical center was surprisingly big for the number of personnel it served. It was built on two levels and had many rooms, some of which were only half-furnished and waiting to be kitted out with equipment. Two of the three operating tables in the surgical theater were shrouded in plastic wrapping. One particularly large space that Peter peeked into as he passed was painted a cheerful yellow and almost blindingly inundated with daylight from bay windows. It was empty apart from some stacked boxes neatly labeled NEO-NATAL.
As expected: signs that no babies born in Oasis (aside from no children an no relationships)
“What ails them,” said Austin. “What they’re dying of.”
Oh they're dying off? As a result of human arrival?
“Can’t I call you Alex? Or Alexandra,
Why does he want to call her that?
She froze as if he had just put his hand between her legs. “How did you … ?”
Ever present inappropriate sexual undertone. what gives?
