Orbitsville Thoughts

I’m almost finished with Bob Shaw’s Orbitsville, so a full review will be forthcoming shortly. However, two short bits in the book have stuck with me for no obvious reason, so I will pass them along to you:

1) I quote:

“ … The revulsion that most people get when they see spiders – arachnids – is so strong and widespread it has led to the theory that arachnids are not native to Earth. We have a sense of kinship, no matter how slight, with all creatures that originated on our own world, which makes them acceptable to us even when they’re ugly as sin. But if the arachnid reaction is what some people think it is – loathing for something instinctively identified as of extraterrestrial origin – then we might be in trouble when we make our first contact with an alien race.”

(Orbitsville, page 109, Baen Paperback edition)

Interesting thought, no? As a fellow arachnophobe, I actually like this theory a lot. It probably will pop up in my writings, both here and my fictions, from time to time. I wonder if the thought is unique to Shaw, or if others have expressed it earlier than 1975, the date the book was published. Neat-o.

2) I quote again:

“ … There’s an old saying about the pointlessness of owning a dog and doing your own barking.”

(ibid., page 148)

All right, the game is to say this once a day for the next week and try to sound as close to Tommy Lee Jones as possible. Extra points if you’re a woman.