DoctorWho_TheComingoftheTerraphiles

MICHAEL MOORCOCK BOOKS For all the Chabons WHOEVER NAMED THE PLANET Venice named her well. Her golden surface was crossed by a million regular waterways so that from space she resembled a papal orb. Clouds followed the canals in season and emphasised rather than obscured her geometric character. Venice was a rich and lively world. More space travellers deserted to her than to any other of her nine or so rivals in the star system of Calypso V, whose ranks included Ur XVII and the extraordinarily beautiful New Venus where colonists risked every danger to enjoy her yearningly lovely landscapes. Like all inhabited worlds, Venice was forbidden to the great rockets of the IGP and the larger interstellar mercantile vessels of the Terran service, whose routes were frequently challenged by privateers in their subtler, sometimes faster ships, some of which still used the increasingly erratic solar winds for power. The twelfth intergalactic war, which had destroyed whole star systems, left by common consent the planetary prizes unspoiled, and surface conflicts were confined to the legally conventional weapons of the region. In Venice's case, ......