Posted by Terry Doyle on April 30, 1997 at 09:35:34:
In Reply to: Pnumes and Houyhnhnms posted by Bob Scott Glasgow Scotland on April 25, 1997 at 02:15:16:
: Reading the previous postings about the Pnume I'm reminded of the similarities I've recognised between the 'Planet of Adventure' series and 'Gulliver's Travels'.
: The satirising of human frailties through their attempted emulation of alien cultures is one resonance, and as I recall,the episode where Reith encounters a Pnume at close quarters he desribes it as having a horse like skull and its back legs having knees the reverse of human beings.
: Houyhnhnms were the intelligent gentle horse creatures that Gulliver encountered contrasted by the crass human beings or Yahoos.
: There seems to be a vague resemblance here -or amI stretching things too far?
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Not at all too far a stretch. While Swift's primary purpose in Gulliver was political satire and not fantasy, Vance's purpose, one supposes, was to entertain and sell books of escapist satire and humor.
More Swiftian for my tastes in _The Eyes of the Overworld_, Ch. V part 4, "The Silver Desert and the Songan Sea" we find Cugel and the single remaining Gilfigite, Gartstang confronting two villages of people. First those who "prostrate themselves before the fish-god Yob, who seems as efficacious as any."
"Black hair in spikes surrounded the clay colored faces, coarse black bristles grew off the burly shoulders. Fangs protruded from their mouths...". Veritable Houyhnhnms, indeed.
Of course Cugel and Garstang race to steal a villager's boat, but are treated instead to a gift of the boat, fully provisioned and an unforgettable night of feasting in the village. While on the other side of the Songan Sea, Cugel and Garstang find a village of "graceful, golden haired people, who spoke to each other like music." These worship "that inexorable god Dangott" for whom strangers are automatically heretics and are to be "fed to the sacred apes". Yahoos, for sure.
Garstang is pierced by a spear fleeing and perishes, leaving Cugel to return to Almery and his destiny alone.
Clearly satire as two religions are effectively rapiered here in the Swiftian tradition.