Talk:West of Eden

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Technological level[edit]

At what level, technologically, would the Yilane be at? It is a hard comparison, but not unattainable. Early mid 1600s?

-G

In a way, they're less advanced than we are, but considering that everything about their civilization is bioengineered, I'd say they're far, far ahead of us. Willbyr (talk | contribs) 22:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Yilane in the books can't be directly compared to modern humans, but in some ways they're considerably more advanced, and in other ways less. Their weapons in some ways are better, they have what are functionally perfect organic robots, their cities are entirely self-sustaining with minimum maintenance, they have extremely functional submarines, etc. They even have what are essentially computers. Of course, some of their ground transport is less efficient, they can't really fly, and they don't have nukes. Lartrak 09:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think part of the idea of the novels is to challenge the convention that technology starts with the wheel and fire. The Yilané have a hi-tech society without either. Apepper (talk) 11:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Harrison WestOfEden.jpg[edit]

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

how many murders[edit]

"whose title is itself a play on the concept of the Cain's flight East of Eden after he commits the first murder of his brother Abel." This implies that Cain murdered Abel more than once! Thryduulf (talk) 03:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speculation[edit]

The following speculation was removed from the article. I know of no material in which Harrison's possible "error" is discussed. Source? WBardwin (talk) 07:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The selection of the mosasaur by the author may be an error, as mosasaurs are not dinosaurs but reptiles.

The novel is fairly old. While I do not have any sources and this itself is speculation, Mosasaurus may have been considered a dinosaur during the early 1980's when this book was first published. Throughout the book the much older, popular, and consequently incorrect perspective of dinosaurs as large, lumbering, and dumb beasts is prevalent. It is implied that dinosaurs are also exothermic, in fact this is indirectly hinted at with the mention of cooler weather driving the dinosaurs south. We know have evidence that dinosaurs flourished in polar environments and the commonly accepted theory is that dinosaurs were in fact endothermic and agile. Thus either the general scientific consensus on the nature of dinosaurs was very different at the time of this writing or Harrison chose to use the more popular and incorrect concept knowingly.

--Gweedotk (talk) 04:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know this discussion is old now but the error here was that dinosaurs are not reptiles--of course they were. I don't recall reading anywhere in the novel anything suggesting the Yilane were specifically identified as a type of "dinosaur", unless by implication from the species identified, i.e., the word itself "mososaur" implies it--but mososaur lived 65 million years ago, it's a bit like saying birds descended of "dinosaurs" are still dinosaurs in any meaningful way; it is very clear they are reptiles--as were the dinosaurs, as are lizards, as are crocodilians, etc. The humanoids make no distinction between "dinosaur" and any other kind of reptile, they are all "murgu", just as to the Yilane all mammals are the same. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 18:35, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Proposal[edit]

I'm not sure it's doing the casual reader of Wikipedia much good having three articles for all three novels, as the articles stand now. I'm thinking we could have one article with a title like West of Eden (trilogy) or West of Eden (novel and series). It may take a while to get many votes on this. I'm in no particular rush. If those opposed are motivated to do more work on the other two articles, so much the better. What would help would be references to things like book reviews, sales figures, analysis by literary critics (by now there ought to be some). ZarhanFastfire (talk) 18:56, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]