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- Mar 27, 2016
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I read this in paperback @1961-1963. It would have been one of the earlier SFs I read, and was found and taken out of the library all by myself. It's probably fairly poor as SF goes, and up to now I haven't felt any impulse at all to track it down, but I've got curious....,
What I remember...
He's probably the first human on Mars. (I'm pretty certain it's Mars). His spaceship is crashed or no longer functional, and there's no remote hope of rescue. This probably means it was the first human ship to reach Mars. If he had any fellow crew members, they're dead, so he's on his own. Everything on Mars is a complete unknown. The air must be breathable and he has a bicycle (!) that enables him to get about. Some time later he sees all these aliens coming towards him across the plain, a bit like dinosaurs, and he gets really worried, bicycling about and shooting one or two with some kind of home-made crossbow, but then he realises they're a herd of totally harmless herbivores. Later he encounters an intelligent species, again dinosaur-like, who farm the herbivores, and (I think) a male child adopts him as an unusual pet. He realises that this species communicate by flashing beams of light from their eyes, and fortunately he still has his torch with him so is able to learn to talk with them by flashing his torch. I have no idea how it ends, but life as a pet gets a bit lonely.
Any thoughts from anyone will be appreciated....
What I remember...
He's probably the first human on Mars. (I'm pretty certain it's Mars). His spaceship is crashed or no longer functional, and there's no remote hope of rescue. This probably means it was the first human ship to reach Mars. If he had any fellow crew members, they're dead, so he's on his own. Everything on Mars is a complete unknown. The air must be breathable and he has a bicycle (!) that enables him to get about. Some time later he sees all these aliens coming towards him across the plain, a bit like dinosaurs, and he gets really worried, bicycling about and shooting one or two with some kind of home-made crossbow, but then he realises they're a herd of totally harmless herbivores. Later he encounters an intelligent species, again dinosaur-like, who farm the herbivores, and (I think) a male child adopts him as an unusual pet. He realises that this species communicate by flashing beams of light from their eyes, and fortunately he still has his torch with him so is able to learn to talk with them by flashing his torch. I have no idea how it ends, but life as a pet gets a bit lonely.
Any thoughts from anyone will be appreciated....