Conversation
Fahim Farook
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When I was young I loved reading accounts of travel in far off, oft forgotten places. Things like Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Travels with a Donkey”.
I loved learning about now gone places, the feel of the dust on the road, the texture of the food they ate, or just how a tuft of grass felt between your fingers. Anything that gave me a feel for a place that I’d never been to …
Later, when I was still young, I read “Destiny’s Road” by Larry Niven, which to me personally is one of the greatest #ScienceFiction novels ever because of the imagery and the feelings it evoked. It was like reading one of those travel novels, but for an alien planet. Niven gave me details about the flora and fauna of the planet that still paints vivid pictures in my mind 25+ years later …
So why am I talking about this now?
Well, today I heard about hedge apples from @at and @Fawn and that took me down a rabbit hole of reading to discover more about hedge apples. For some reason, reading the Wikipedia entry about hedge apples reminded me of “Destiny’s Raod” and led me down a twisted lane of memory pathways 🙂
A long, long time ago, I read this book by Yakov Perelman called “Fun with Mathematics” (I think?) The USSR put out a lot of books back then (mostly Progress Publishers) and there were a lot of interesting science and maths books from them. This book (or possibly something similar, the details are hazy in my mind since this was 40 years or so ago) talked about a greatest tall tale competition.
One guy comes in and tells a tale of Baron Manchausen (or maybe it was the baron himself) about some feat where he does something which sounds patently impossible. Then another guy comes in an tells a rather prosaic sounding story about an ordinary day where some perfectly ordinary sounding things happen with regards to fruit on a bush, birds singing etc.
The judges say that what the Baron talked about (possibly a journey to the moon) was possible but what the other guy talked about was impossible because that particular fruit did not grow in that season and those birds were not found in that area etc. They were trying to make you realize that perfectly ordinary things could be impossible and that things that sounded impossible could actually be fact.
So why am I dragging that hazy memory out, kicking and screming?
Because reading about the hedge apple made me wonder if you could perhaps combine all of these things, perfectly normal bits of information from our ordinary world, into a science fiction tale of travel in a far off planet with just a few changes in detail. Create a story like “Destiny’s Road” where strange plants and wondrous creatures are revealed and they are all based on things that we find right here on earth but don’t really know about, or do know about, but don’t really think are that strange to others from another part of the world?
This has got the gears in my brain turning extra hard … 😛
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny%27s_Road
#Writing #Stories #Memories #Books
I loved learning about now gone places, the feel of the dust on the road, the texture of the food they ate, or just how a tuft of grass felt between your fingers. Anything that gave me a feel for a place that I’d never been to …
Later, when I was still young, I read “Destiny’s Road” by Larry Niven, which to me personally is one of the greatest #ScienceFiction novels ever because of the imagery and the feelings it evoked. It was like reading one of those travel novels, but for an alien planet. Niven gave me details about the flora and fauna of the planet that still paints vivid pictures in my mind 25+ years later …
So why am I talking about this now?
Well, today I heard about hedge apples from @at and @Fawn and that took me down a rabbit hole of reading to discover more about hedge apples. For some reason, reading the Wikipedia entry about hedge apples reminded me of “Destiny’s Raod” and led me down a twisted lane of memory pathways 🙂
A long, long time ago, I read this book by Yakov Perelman called “Fun with Mathematics” (I think?) The USSR put out a lot of books back then (mostly Progress Publishers) and there were a lot of interesting science and maths books from them. This book (or possibly something similar, the details are hazy in my mind since this was 40 years or so ago) talked about a greatest tall tale competition.
One guy comes in and tells a tale of Baron Manchausen (or maybe it was the baron himself) about some feat where he does something which sounds patently impossible. Then another guy comes in an tells a rather prosaic sounding story about an ordinary day where some perfectly ordinary sounding things happen with regards to fruit on a bush, birds singing etc.
The judges say that what the Baron talked about (possibly a journey to the moon) was possible but what the other guy talked about was impossible because that particular fruit did not grow in that season and those birds were not found in that area etc. They were trying to make you realize that perfectly ordinary things could be impossible and that things that sounded impossible could actually be fact.
So why am I dragging that hazy memory out, kicking and screming?
Because reading about the hedge apple made me wonder if you could perhaps combine all of these things, perfectly normal bits of information from our ordinary world, into a science fiction tale of travel in a far off planet with just a few changes in detail. Create a story like “Destiny’s Road” where strange plants and wondrous creatures are revealed and they are all based on things that we find right here on earth but don’t really know about, or do know about, but don’t really think are that strange to others from another part of the world?
This has got the gears in my brain turning extra hard … 😛
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny%27s_Road
#Writing #Stories #Memories #Books
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Shannon Clark
Rycaut@mastodon.social@f @at @Fawn one of Douglas Adams last books was a travelogue Last Chance to See (it was also a BBC radio show and a tv series) where he and his co-author went around the world looking for some endangered creatures.
Highly recommended (and there is a sequel series with Stephen Fey which is also excellent)
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