Double Planets and life on Neutron stars!

Imagination has no limit. So is the number of weird and fantastic worlds hard science fiction writers can build up.

Had been on casual fiction hunting (which is my hobby, nowadays ), when I found this site: The Multiverse Database . The site has listed around 500 different planets found in science fiction. Each has been given a brief description and cites the Author, book, etc ( Related links can also be found there; Site is designed for IE, what a pity. )

Another writeup at wiki, also provides a good list of planets. Anyway, one of the planets caught my eye.

Rocheworld; found in a book by the same name by Robert L Forward; is worth mentioning because, it is a double planet. It consists of two orbs, both egg shaped, one larger than the other. The smaller one of them is covered by oceans and the other one is a desert. Intelligent life exists on this system and they are called flouwen. They have the form of thin membranes over the water surface and can change shapes at will. The reviews I read also point out that this is one of those rare books where humans and aliens work together in friendship and fight the enemy (nature).

Robert was a contemporary of authors like Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. He was a scientist himself and his bio page rather frightened me. His best known work is Dragon's egg which speaks of formation of life on a neutron star. Well, uggh!

The point is the beauty of hard science fiction. Outrageous ideas are made to look completely plausible. Hats off!!