Sail On! Sail On!

"Sail On! Sail On!" is an alternate history short story by American writer Philip José Farmer, first published in Startling Stories 1952. In an alternative 1492, Christopher Columbus sets out to find a shortened route to China and South-East Asia across the Atlantic, financed by Ferdinand V and Isabella I of Spain. However, in this timeline, the Earth is flat, though scientists and philosophers have doubts about its geological provenance, and an Angelo Angelli is mentioned as proving Aristotle's axiom that objects of different weights drop with different velocities (which Galileo Galilei disproved in our world).

"Sail On! Sail On!"
Author	Philip José Farmer
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction
Published in	Startling Stories
Publication type	Science fiction magazine
Publisher	Standard Magazines
Media type	Pulp magazine
Publication date	1952

Radio technology exists in 1492, and the shipboard operator of a telegraph is a "Friar Sparks", although the principles are described in religious terms involving angels' winglength as a substitute for radio waves and the involvement of cherubim hurling themselves across the ether to send the signal (giving rise to kilo-cherubs as a measurement of frequency, denoted as k c., and continuous wingheight, denoted as c w, both radio terms in the real world). Psychology also exists, which means that Columbus's vessels do not turn back despite growing unease and ominous warning signs. It turns out that the Americas do not exist, and that this world is a disc, not a sphere; so, like other transatlantic travellers, Columbus and his colleagues sail over the edge of the world into Earth orbit, and never return from their mission.

Richard Garfinkle's alternate history novel Celestial Matters (1996) describes a more elaborated Aristotelian physics and geocentric cosmology, although its Earth is dominated by the "Middle Kingdom" of China and the Greek-centred Delian League and is capable of its own version of spaceflight according to its own laws of physics.

Influence

The song "Birds Without Legs," by Kevin Healey is inspired by "Sail On! Sail On!". The song also borrows images from Farmer's 1977 novel, The Dark Design, which contains a description of a mystical vision that parallels a passage in "Sail On! Sail On!".

Sources

Mary Brizzi: Readers Guide to Philip José Farmer: Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House: 1981: ISBN 0-916732-05-3

External links

Sail On! Sail On! title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Works by Philip José Farmer
Novels series	World of Tiers (1965-1993) Riverworld (1971-1983) Herald Childe (1968-1979) Traitor to the Living (1973) Secrets of the Nine (1969-1988) A Feast Unknown Lord of the Trees The Mad Goblin Tarzan (1974-1999) Khokarsa (1974-2012) Dayworld (1985-1990) Dungeon (1988-1990)
Other novels	The Green Odyssey (1957) Flesh (1960) A Woman a Day (1960) The Lovers (1961) Cache from Outer Space (1962) Fire and the Night (1962) Inside Outside (1964) Tongues of the Moon (1964) Dare (1965) The Gate of Time (1966) Night of Light (1966) Lord Tyger (1970) Love Song (1970) The Stone God Awakens (1970) The Wind Whales of Ishmael (1971) The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973) Venus on the Half-Shell (1975) Jesus on Mars (1979) Dark Is the Sun (1979) The Unreasoning Mask (1981) Stations of the Nightmare (1982) Greatheart Silver (1982) A Barnstormer in Oz (1982) Escape from Loki (1991) The Caterpillar's Question (1992) Nothing Burns in Hell (1998) Naked Came The Farmer (1998) Up From the Bottomless Pit (2005–2007) The City Beyond Play (2007) The Evil in Pemberley House (2009)
Story collections	Strange Relations (1960) The Alley God (1962) The Celestial Blueprint: And Other Stories (1962) Down in the Black Gang (1971) The Book of Philip José Farmer, or the Wares of Simple Simon’s Custard Pie and Space Man (1973) Riverworld and Other Stories (1979) Riverworld War: The Suppressed Fiction of Philip José Farmer (1980) The Cache (1981) Father to the Stars (1981) Stations of the Nightmare (1982) The Purple Book (1982) The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1952-1964 (1984) The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1964-1973 (1984) The Grand Adventure (1984) Riders of the Purple Wage (1992) Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe (2005) The Best of Philip José Farmer (2006) Strange Relations (2006) Pearls from Peoria (2006) Up from the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories (2007) Venus on the Half-Shell and Others (2008) The Other in the Mirror (2009) The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer: Protean Dimensions (2010) Up the Bright River (2010) The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2: Of Dust and Soul (2011) The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster (2012) Tales of the World Newton Universe (2013)
Stories	"O'Brien and Obrenov" (1946) "Duo Miaule" (anii 1950) "The Lovers" (1952) "Sail On! Sail On!" (1952) "The Biological Revolt" (1953) "Mother" (1953) "Moth and Rust" (1953) "Attitudes" (1953) "Strange Compulsion" (1953) "They Twinkled Like Jewels" (1954) "Daughter" (1954) "Queen of the Deep" (1954) "The God Business" (1954) "Rastignac the Devil" (1954) "The Celestial Blueprint" (1954) "The Wounded" (1954) "Totem and Taboo" (1954) "Father" (1955) "The Night of Light" (1957) "The Alley Man" (1959) "Heel" (1960) "My Sister's Brother" (1960) "A Few Miles" (1960) "Prometheus" (1961) "Tongues of the Moon" (1961) "Uproar in Acheron" (1962) "How Deep the Grooves" (1963) "Some Fabulous Yonder" (1963) "The Blasphemers" (1964) "The King of the Beasts" (1964) "Day of the Great Shout" (1965) "Riverworld" (1966) "The Suicide Express" (1966) "The Blind Rowers" (1967) "A Bowl Bigger than Earth" (1967) "The Felled Star" (1967) "The Shadow of Space" (1967) "Riders of the Purple Wage” (1967) "Don't Wash the Carats" (1968) "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod" (1968) "Down in the Black Gang" (1969) "The Oogenesis of Bird City" (1970) "The Voice of the Sonar in my Vermiform Appendix" (1971) "Brass and Gold" (1971) "The Fabulous Riverboat" (1971) "Only Who Can Make a Tree?" (1971) "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World” (1971) "Seventy Years of Decpop" (1972) "Skinburn" (1972) "The Sumerian Oath" (1972) "Father's in the Basement" (1972) "Toward the Beloved City" (1972) "Mother Earth Wants You" (1972) "Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind" (1973) "Monolog" (1973) "After King Kong Fell" (1973) "Opening the Door" (1973) "The Two-Edged Gift" (1974) "The Startouched" (1974) "The Evolution of Paul Eyre" (1974) "Passing On" (1975) "A Scarletin Study, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1975) "The Problem of the Sore Bridge - Among Others, as Harry Manders" (1975) "Greatheart Silver" (1975) "The Return of Greatheart Silver" (1975) "Osiris on Crutches, as Leo Queequeg Tincrowder" (1976) "The Volcano, as Paul Chapin" (1976) "The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1976) "Fundamental Issue" (1976) "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" (1977) "Greatheart Silver in the First Command" (1977) "Savage Shadow as Maxwell Grant" (1977) "The Impotency of Bad Karma as Cordwainer Bird" (1977) "It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal, as Rod Keen" (1978) "Freshman" (1979) "The Leaser of Two Evils" (1979) "J.C. on the Dude Ranch" (1979) "Spiders of the Purple Mage" (1980) "The Making of Revelation, Part I" (1980) "The Long Wet Dream of Rip Van Winkle" (1981) "The Adventure of the Three Madmen" (1984) "UFO vs IRS" (1985) "St. Francis Kisses His Ass Goodbye" (1989) "One Down, One to Go" (1990) "Evil, Be My Good" (1990) "Nobody's Perfect" (1991) "Wolf, Iron and Moth" (1991) "Crossing the Dark River" (1992) "A Hole in Hell" (1992) "Up the Bright River" (1993) "Coda" (1993) "The Good of the Land" (2002) "The Face that Launched a Thousand Eggs" (2005) "The Unnaturals" (2005) "Who Stole Stonehenge?" (2005) "That Great Spanish Author, Ernesto" (2006) "The Essence of the Poison" (2006) "The Doll Game" (2006) "Keep Your Mouth Shut" (2006) "The Frames" (2007) "A Spy in the U.S. of Gonococcia" (2007) "A Peoria Night" (2007) "The First Robot" (2008) "Getting Ready to Write" (2008) "My Summer Husband" (2010) "What I Thought I Heard" (2011) "Kwasin and the Bear God" (2011)

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