Return to Rocheworld
Encyclopedia
Return to Rocheworld is a 1993 science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward and Julie Forward Fuller. It is the sequel to Forward's Rocheworld
(a.k.a. The Flight of the Dragonfly), a novel about the first manned interstellar mission to a unique double planet
.
Having discovered that the Roche lobe of the planet is subject to periodic flooding, the explorers return there to find that Roche also harbors not only life, but intelligence as well. They find a species which they come to call the Gummies, after their resemblance to the texture of gummi candy. These beings are related to the Flouwen of the water-covered Eau lobe, but have evolved in a completely different direction. Built to survive harsh conditions, extremes of temperature, long droughts, and competing for scarce food supplies, these elephant-sized multi-tentacled creatures are far more physical and aggressive than their aquatic ancestors. However, by the end of the novel, they have begun to develop the beginnings of a crude stone age
technology.
Rocheworld
Rocheworld is a science fiction novel by Robert Forward in which he uses a light sail propulsion system to set the crew on an interstellar mission. The spaceship and crew of 20 have to travel 5.9 light-years Rocheworld (first published in serial form in 1982; first book publication, under the...
(a.k.a. The Flight of the Dragonfly), a novel about the first manned interstellar mission to a unique double planet
Double planet
In astronomy, double planet and binary planet are informal terms used to describe a binary system of two astronomical objects that each satisfy the definition of planet and that are near enough to each other to have a significant gravitational effect on each other compared with the effect of the...
.
Having discovered that the Roche lobe of the planet is subject to periodic flooding, the explorers return there to find that Roche also harbors not only life, but intelligence as well. They find a species which they come to call the Gummies, after their resemblance to the texture of gummi candy. These beings are related to the Flouwen of the water-covered Eau lobe, but have evolved in a completely different direction. Built to survive harsh conditions, extremes of temperature, long droughts, and competing for scarce food supplies, these elephant-sized multi-tentacled creatures are far more physical and aggressive than their aquatic ancestors. However, by the end of the novel, they have begun to develop the beginnings of a crude stone age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
technology.