By Marpetoakcal on Monday, November 02, 2009 - 08:52 am:

I picked up Drowning World at the library last week and am enjoying it greatly. However, I noticed a little mention that didn't jive well. Mainly that humans have such a hard time on Fluva, because of all the rain. That's... a pinch Western-biased. It looks like Seasonal-Affect Disorder is what's being described there (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder ). Most likely it'd be because the rain clouds and jungle would be blocking much of the sunlight that helps prevent that mood disorder. However, it's worth noting that disorder is generally limited to people who are transplanted from tropical climates to temperate ones, and vice versa. There's a place called Sohra in India, where, when the British were busy trying to own the place, placed a garrison of soldiers. However, the rain depressed them silly; Sohra gets an average of 905 inches/75 feet of rain each year. But, the locals weren't bothered by that rain at all. I'm not pointing out anything *wrong* in this whole thing, but it's slightly amusing to be able to tell where the human population of Fluva originates from, because there sure don't appear to have been any people from India or the Amazon there. Even if it was unintentional, that little nugget was fun to notice.

By adf on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 07:19 am:

Marpe; Quite true, of course. However throughout history civil services and often companies as well usually have assigned personnel according to rank, technical specialties, personal contacts, etc. Climactic adaptation only occasionally figured into the mix. Availability also factors in. When building the Panama Canal, it was impossible to find enough workers from Florida. So low-level workers came mostly from the Carribbean...and "acclimated" or not they still were depressed and died like flies from malaria and yellow fever. But the upper echelon came from Boston and NY and so forth. And Fluva would be infinitely harder for someone used to an urban temperate zone to handle.

By Marpetoakcal on Wednesday, November 04, 2009 - 05:11 pm:

Being depressed because of the weather and dying from insect-borne disease aren't quite the same thing, but point taken, Fluva has plenty of both. Worth nothing though, the malaria parasite makes it's victims tired, painfully so, so that could possibly look like a depressive funk as well as actually causing one by sympathy. (I'm a bit more unfamiliar with the symptoms of yellow fever, aside from the jaundice and the similar mosquito vector.) I would have thought that the Commonwealth directors, after what the prior administrator Charlie Sandravoe did and the general morale of the Fluvan human population, would have taken climactic adaptation into consideration. But, again, point taken. Thanks for the reply!

By adf on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 06:49 am:

Yes, they would have taken climactic adaptation into account, but the problem would remain of finding enough qualified people in enough specialties to fill the open posts. Then there are other variables (as with Panama, again). Qualified personnel turning down appointments to a place like Fluva would require filling positions with those willing to be depressed in return for the money, that sort of thing. Scandinavians, as I recall, and especially the Finns, have astonishingly high suicide rates. They are as adapted to their conditions as possible, but severe depression (due to lack of sunlight half the year) still depresses them. But they haven't abandoned Scandinavia (anyway, Spain is full up with Britons and Italy with Germans).