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EMERALD_LAND

                                             October 17, 2008


In E.E. Smith's "The Skylark of Space",
our heroes end up on the planet Osnome,         SKYLARK
under the green light of it's many suns,
in the warm, mild climate the natives
all go nearly naked, save for little
strappy outfits decorated with jewels.

 The author is a little coy about this: The
 remark "the strangers wore no clothing" comes
 as an afterthought -- as though that wouldn't
 be one of the first things that would be
 noticed by the American viewpoint characters.

       "They were a superbly molded race, the men fully
       as large as Seaton and DuQuesne; the women, while
       smaller than the men, were noticeably taller than
       the two women in the car. The men wore broad
       collars of metal, numerous metallic ornaments, and
       heavily-jeweled leather belts and shoulder-straps
       which were hung with weapons of peculiar
       patterns. The women carried no weapons, but were
       even more highly decorated than were the men--each
       slender, perfectly-formed body scintillated with
       the brilliance of hundreds of strange gems,
       flashing points of fire. Jeweled bands of metal
       and leather restrained their carefully-groomed
       hair; jeweled collars encircled their throats;
       jeweled belts, jeweled bracelets, jeweled anklets,
       each added its quota of brilliance to the
       glittering whole. The strangers wore no clothing,        But wasn't he
       and their smooth skins shone a dark, livid,              just describing
       utterly indescribable color in the peculiar,             their clothes?
       unearthly, yellowish-bluish-green glare of the
       light. Green their skins undoubtedly were, but not       It doesn't
       any shade of green visible in the Earthly                count if it
       spectrum. The 'whites' of their eyes were a light        doesn't cover
       yellowish-green. The heavy hair of the women and         the naughty
       the close-cropped locks of the men were green as         bits.
       well--a green so dark as to be almost black, as
       were also their eyes."

                        Chapter XIII,  "Nalboon of Mardonale",
                        E.E. Smith's "The Skylark of Space"


This planet is called "Osnome": The
joke is that this is a reference to the         And Dick Seaton's
Oz stories about the Emerald City.              fiance is named
                                                "Dorothy".
This version of Oz seems less utopian
than (I expect) the Baum version was.

There's some mildly disturbing stuff
about the virtues of social
darwinism...  I suppose it could be
that this *is* an ideal land in
Smith's mind, in some respects.

      Seaton speaking about the beliefs of Osnome:

      "Well, as nearly as I can explain it, it's a
      funny kind of a mixture--partly theology, partly
      Darwinism, or at least, making a fetish of
      evolution, and partly pure economic
      determinism. They believe in a Supreme Being,
      whom they call the First Cause--that is the
      nearest English equivalent--and they recognize
      the existence of an immortal and unknowable
      life-principle, or soul. They believe that the
      First Cause has decreed the survival of the
      fittest as the fundamental law, which belief
      accounts for their perfect physiques...."

                      Chapter XVI, "An Osnomian Marriage"
                      E.E. Smith's "The Skylark of Space",







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