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Mon 28 Dec, 2009 08:27 pm
Does anybody know the author and/or title of a science fiction piece, possibly a short story, in which the aliens have faster than light starships, but they are still in the bronze age? Their starships are lit with torches, they have not learned to make steel or aluminum, and they have no electronics. It's got to be 20 or more years old.
@wnmathewsjr,
Sounds interesting. But I don't think I've ever heard of it before. Sorry.
@wnmathewsjr,
I remember a short story called "the road less traveled" or somesuch. Premise was that most cultures discovered FTL much sooner than Earthlings.
The aliens had muskets, as I recall.
@wnmathewsjr,
I've read several stories in what I assume to be the same series. Can't recall who wrote it, though. Maybe it'll come to me.
I think it was Poul Anderson who wrote a book, probably in the 60s, which took sort of the opposite tack--about an advanced space-faring civilization which came to earth some time during the Middle Ages. Their ship was swarmed by knights in armor on horseback, skilled naturally in hand-to-hand combat, who did a version of Shock and Awe on the sitting duck aliens, as they sliced and diced them with sword and arrow and took over the ship and ultimately the alien civilization and established a feudal empire in the galaxy. I think they came back to earth a few hundred years later (like in the near future), and everyone was flabbergasted to find that humans in armor ruled the galaxy (and there were also knights and lords with four arms and six eyes by that time). I think it was called "The High Crusade".
Weird. I just googled "The High Crusade" and apparently it was made into a movie in 1997 and is out on DVD. Same storyline, must be it.
@DrewDad,
Sounds right to me, particularly the part about muskets. I will search some more. If you think of anything further, please let me know.
@wnmathewsjr,
Did you check out the Wikipedia link?
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