posted September 08, 2005 08:14 PM         

Background and Plot

A terrified woman clutches her baby to her naked breast; she is running for her life. As she begins to ascend a hill, a giant blue hand—as large as she is tall—reaches down and flicks her with a finger, sending her sprawling down the hill. She curls up instinctively to protect the baby as she falls. In an instant she is up and running again. Again the giant hand strikes her down. Soon everywhere she runs is blocked. The hand picks up giant, plant-like boulders and uses them to pen her in. Finally, she is picked up and dropped from a height. She lies unmoving. The baby crawls to her inert form and tries to get her to respond, but it is too late—the woman is dead.

This is FANTASTIC PLANET (or translated literally from the French—THE SAVAGE PLANET). It is the home to two races: the Oms (a homonym for the French word for Man—"Homme"), who appear to be like us in every respect, and the Traags, blue-skinned giants, who keep Oms as pets and consider them no more than clever animals. FANTASTIC PLANET is the story of one Om, a boy named Terr, who enters the story as a baby when his mother is accidentally killed by a group of young Traags engaged in a bit of rough play. He is adopted as a pet by Tiwa, another young Traag who treats him as kindly as she knows how. Terr grows quickly relative to his "owner"—each of his years are like a week for the Traags—and begins to learn about the world he lives in. When he is old enough, Terr escapes into the outside world where he joins a clan of wild Oms, who face dangers of all kinds—not the least of which is a periodic attempt by the Traags to exterminatate the rapidly reproducing wild Oms. Ultimately, Terr and his fellow Oms find themselves in a fight against total annihilation.

posted September 08, 2005 08:27 PM         

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Gemini sun, Cancer rising, mercury in Gemini, moon in Taurus *29, venus in Taurus, mars in Libra

"You must live in the infinite blackness that exists when I close my eyes. I see you when I fall asleep, I see you when I dream."