Funny enough, I think that the Return of the Jedi novelization was just about the only thing that steadfastly refused to use metric when it came to the Star Wars universe. The subsequent revival of Star Wars in the Timothy Zahn books (Heir to the Empire, etc.) and in the Star Wars Roleplaying Game went right back to the metric origins. Any SW reference materials, and even descriptions on the SW toy packaging are all metric. I know that George Lucas tends to be a micro-manager, so I wonder if he had his hand in this.
Remek
On 11/5/06, Mike Millet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
That's sad that the book does that. One of the nicest things about reading Star Wars or other novels like it is that it's fullly metric. I remember the first time I read a scifi novel I was confused by the mention of klicks or meters but after I had it explained it became nice and clear. I've noticed a lot of regular novels from the UK use meters for short distances and miles for long ones.
Fantasy novels are still mostly in miles though, at least the ones I've read. Or even worse, leagues. Still, the huge popularity of the scifi genre should help increas famliarity with metric measures.
Mike--On 11/4/06, Remek Kocz < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Larry Niven is the author of the famous sci-fi book, Ringworld. It's a modification of the Dyson sphere concept, where instead of a sphere, a gigantic ring surrounds the sun. Ringworld was written in 1970, so the profuse use of USC to convey practically all of the technical specs of the massive ring can be forgiven. However, the following quote points to an incredible naivete of the author in his portrayal of the future:
"The Ringworld is nearly a million UN miles across."
The UN is assumed to be the governing body of all humanity in Ringworld.
Thankfully, sci-fi authors decided to go metric sometime in the late 1970's, so nowadays such narrow-minded thinking as world governments standardizing around Imperial measurements doesn't appear anymore. I haven't read anything else by Mr. Niven, but I hope he went metric at some point as well.
Remek
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
