Planets in science fiction and it is extremely hostile to life. Various planets of the Solar System were used as settings for science fiction stories in the first half of the 20th century; but dissatisfaction with the limits imposed by science led many writers early on to forsake the Solar System for fictional planets around distant stars. As increasing knowledge of the Solar System made the prospects of life in the vicinity of Earth marginal at best, the extrasolar planet has become almost the only venue for contemporary science fiction. In many works of science fiction, planets are only described casually, as points of
Gustav Holst compositions. In the "Two Songs without Words" of 1906, Holst showed that he could create his own original music using the folk idiom. An orchestral folksong fantasy "Songs of the West", also written in 1906, was withdrawn by the composer and never published, although it emerged in the 1980s in the form of an arrangement for wind band by James Curnow. In the years before the First World War, Holst composed in a variety of genres. Matthews considers the evocation of a North African town in the "Beni Mora" suite of 1908 the composer's most individual work to that date;