Posted on 10/04/2018 5:37:07 PM PDT by vannrox
Here is the full text of the masterpiece. I will let the reader read it and enjoy it.
Here There Be Tygers by Ray Bradbury
"You have to beat a planet at its own game," said Chatterton." Get in and rip it up, kill its snakes, poison its animals, dam its rivers, sow its fields, depollinate its air, mine it, nail it down, hack away at it, and get the blazes out from under when you have what you want. Otherwise, a planet will fix you good. You can't trust planets. They're bound to be different, bound to be bad, bound to be out to get you, especially this far out, a billion miles from nowhere, so you get them first. Tear their skin off, I say. Drag out the minerals and run away before the nightmare world explodes in your face. That's the way to treat them."
The rocket ship sank down toward planet 7 of star system 84. They had traveled millions upon millions of miles; Earth was far away, her system and her sun forgotten, her system settled and investigated and profited on, and other systems rummaged through and milked and tidied tip, and now the rockets of these tiny men from an impossibly remote planet were probing out to far universes. In a few months, a few years, they could travel anywhere, for the speed of their rocket was the speed of a god, and now for the ten-thousandth time one of the rockets of the far-circling hunt was feathering down toward an alien world.
"No," said Captain Forester."I have too much respect for other worlds to treat them the way you want to, Chatterton. It's not my business to rape or ruin anyway, thank God. I'm glad I'm just a rocket man. You're the anthropologist-mineralogist
(Excerpt) Read more at metallicman.com ...
Bradbury ping.
Another good Bradbury short story is “Pillar of Fire.”
“This story was copyrighted in 1951 by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law.”
Collusion!
I am reminded of the days when I always read the best of SciFi short stories every year.
A couple of my favorites:
‘The Word For the World is Forest’
‘Time as A Helix of Precious Stones’
And one I cannot remember. The plot surrounded a woman whose eyes could look into your soul and see your essence, and future.
An incredibly wealthy woman whose body is maintained by mechanical legs and other bionics, buys her eyes and goes mad once she sees herself in a mirror.
If anyone remembers the title, I’ve always wanted to read it again. My vague recollection seems to illustrate - she that will not be named.
I like science fiction and some of Bradbury’s stuff.
I don’t recall ever reading this one though.
Some of the short stories go on to be full movies. Enemy Mine and Arrival are two I remember reading when they were just short sci fi’s. I never did completely understand Arrival.
The Tygers of Pan Tang was a kick ads metal band.
This is gonna sound odd, but my subscription to Omni magazine truly molded me as a young man and into today.
It had a true heyday of awesomeness.
I think I still have a few stashed away in a bin in the garage.
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