Today I read the short story “Here There Be Tygers,” by Ray Bradbury. Set many years in the future, the story describes a group of astronauts who arrive at a planet that behaves like a sentient human, a woman who wants to be admired for her beauty and what she can give the astronauts who go to the planet — but not for her wealth. She provides the astronauts who believe that she is beautiful and love her for who she is with rare white wine, the ability to fly, and anything else they want — when one of them is thirsty, she splashes rain on his lips. However, Chatterton, who only wants to drill for metals and other riches in her core, is killed by tigers. When the astronauts leave the planet, however, she is angry, and her surface is filled with tigers, cyclones, and other dangers, but the captain remarks that Driscoll, who stayed, was probably being treated well and given all he wanted, the tigers and cyclones only seen by those who left. I really enjoyed reading this story, which depicted a thinking planet behaving much like a woman, and showed how thinking, sentient life could be found in many forms. I would recommend this story to anyone who wants to read a short story about a thinking planet and rate it 9.8/10.
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