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"We'd have most of what we predicted of the conquest of space, if we hadn't ignored parasite control."
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In this marvelous novel by Jack Vance, the Meks are brought to Earth to serve the needs of the last aristocrats - expatriots who had returned to the deserted Earth in the far future.
The syrup sac is an ingenious device, which supplied all of the nutritional needs of the Meks without the need to grow crops, catch food, and spend time eating. Despite these advantages, the gentlefolk of the last castle on Earth did not see fit to make use of syrup sacs themselves.
This illustration of a solitary Mek is from the original publication of the novel in Galaxy:
(Mek from 'The Last Castle' by Jack Vance) The name of these creatures is a play on the word mech, a simple robot, from Helen O'Loy (1938) by Lester del Rey. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Timeline
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