Sci-fi-roman: jätte horisontell staty av naken kvinna på främmande planet

Läs en sci-fi-roman för några år sedan,

Är du säker på att det var en roman? Det låter mycket som "Goddess in Granite" , en novelette av Robert F. Young (först publicerad i Tidningen Fantasy och Science Fiction , september 1957 , tillgänglig på Internetarkiv ).

sätt på en främmande planet

Marten found himself thinking of her sculptors, and for the thousandth time he speculated as to why they had sculptured her. In many ways, the problem resembled such Earth enigmas as the Egyptian pyramids, the Sacsahuaman Fortress, and the Baalbek Temple of the Sun. For one thing, it was just as irresolvable, and probably always would be, for the ancient race that had once inhabited Alpha Virginis IX had either died out centuries ago, or had migrated to the stars. In either case, they had left no written records behind them.

(Alpha Virginis = Spica är inte riktigt en sannolik plats för en jordliknande planet.)

som presenterade en jätte staty av en naken mänsklig kvinna som ligger på marken.

She lay upon her back, her blue lakes of eyes gazing eternally upward. From his vantage point on her forearm, Marten had a good view of the mountains of her breasts. He looked at them contemplatively. They towered perhaps 8,000 feet above the chest-plateau, but, since the plateau itself was a good 10,000 feet above sea level, their true height exceeded 18,000 feet. However, Marten wasn't discouraged. It wasn't the mountains that he wanted.

Om jag minns var statyn hundratals om inte tusentals kilometer lång.

I den här historien är det inte det stort:

The southern reaches of the shoulder-slope were less eroded than the central and northern reaches, and Marten edged closer and closer to the south rim. He had a splendid view of the Virgin's left side, and he stared, fascinated, at the magnificent, purple-shadowed escarpment stretching away to the horizon. Five miles from its juncture with the shoulder-slope, it dwindled abruptly to form her waist; three miles farther on, it burgeoned out to form her left hip; then, just before it faded into the lavender distances, it blended into the gigantic curve of her thigh.

Kanske var hennes navel en sjö.

Inget omnämnande av hennes navel, men ögonen är sjöar:

She had begun as a natural phenomenon—an enormous geological upheaval—and actually all her sculptors had done, herculean though their labor had undoubtedly been, was to add the finishing touches and install the automatic subterranean pumping system that, for centuries, had supplied her artificial lakes of eyes with water from the sea.

Se till att komma ihåg historien som startade med huvudpersonen vandring på statyn.

Yep. Öppningsfel:

When he reached the upper ridge of the forearm, Marten stopped to rest. The climb had not winded him but the chin was still miles away, and he wanted to conserve as much of his strength as possible for the final ascent to the face.

Bara andra saker jag kan komma ihåg är huvudpersonen hade 11 fingrar.

FEL. Inget sådant i historien.

Gene Wolfe - Peritonit .

Det är en kortfattad historia, inte en roman. Annars, en nära passform.

Once (so said Greylock, my father's mother heard him) the Men of the Neck ruled all the World and were all the world, and there was nothing between Heel and Finger-tip that was not theirs. In those times a virgin might dine at the Calf and drink at the Eyes and sleep where she would and none would harm her.

....

Others said that the World itself was God; and these, a fierce and a terrible people, climbed to the Face. Then did we name ourselves Men of the Neck, but beyond our boasting we feared--for though the Men of the Loins might drink there of impure waters, we must needs reach the Eyes when we could eat no more without drinking, and we feared that those above us would prevent us.

....

With others of her age and a guard of men, of whom Deepdelver, then called by another, lesser, name, was one, she journeyed to the Eyes to bathe. Now at that time men no longer went into the haunted Hair to reach the lakes from the north. But not yet were they so bold as to come too near the corners of the Mouth--no, the accepted path, then deemed safe, was to skirt the southernmost spinney of the Hair, near the Ear, and thence to climb to the Eyes by an oblique ascent.