Quote:
Originally Posted by haertig
Another example where science doesn't seem all that important is "Alien Earth" by Edmond Hamilton. It's a short story about time perception in a rain forest. The effected human moves extraordinary slow from the viewpoint of other humans. But from the slow humans viewpoint, trees and other plants are moving quickly - reaching for things with their vines and roots, slapping at things with their branches. The growth of plants over time is sentient, although too slow for a normal human to perceive. The only science in this that I can remember is that the human must take a drug to reach this ultra slow motion state (called "hunati" in the story). I guess drugs are the scientific part that makes it science fiction. Although it's not a lab developed drug, it's an ancient native drug IIRC. I always though the plot was such a neat concept. I remember it from my youth (which was a long time ago!)
This short story appears in Isaac Asimov's "The Golden Years of Science Fiction, Sixth Series" and also in a few other collections.
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To me it seems science is important to the story. From your description, the point of the story (one of them anyway) is to show how different things perceive time.