Thursday 20 June 2013

Starfall

"Still below the horizon, Maia, sun of Hermes, made the tops of steeples and towers in Starfall shine as if gilded." (Poul Anderson, Mirkheim, London, 1978, p. 35)

And Starfall is also the name of a provincial community on the planet Dayan (Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 43).

When Anderson wrote A Stone In Heaven (collected in Flandry's Legacy), did he forget that he had already placed a "Starfall" on Hermes? (Addendum, 2 Sept 2017: No, because the Hermetian Starfall is also named in A Stone In Heaven.) In any case, it is a place name that is likely to be used more than once.

Both of these passages merit rereading, and quoting, at greater length - but a series of posts on Anderson's works cannot comprise endless quotations. I can only refer page viewers to the works themselves. Maia, rising from Daybreak Bay, shines westward over the Palomino River and down Olympic Avenue to Pilgrim Hill. From her balcony, the Duchess looks down to the bay and the Auroral Ocean while a colorful, singing nidiflex flies past.

And Miriam Abrams, remembering the Starfall of Dayan, views the towers of Archopolis, knowing that they are just one part of a single city stretching around Terra...

8 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Some names in the Technic History are used more than once? Heck, that happens in real life too! The older states of the US have cities and towns slavishly named over and over for cities in England. I can immediately think of examples in MA alone: such as Boston, Andover, Methuen, etc.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Right. Yet again, the Technic History rings true. It is authentic fictitious history. I am busy today but soon I want to delve into the early part of the History and the Council of Hiawatha.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I hope you take another look at my essay critquing Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization. I think we both agree she made some serious mistakes in the Chronology. For instance, MIRKHEIM mentions the story proper of that book beginning a CENTURY after the Council of Hiawatha, but Miesel dates that conference in her Chronology only 56 years after the League Council. In addition, van Rijn is 80 years old in MIRKHEIM, and so could not have been alive when it met, but Miesel dates his birth to 2376 and the Council of Hiawatha to 2400. A glaring contradiction!

In my revision of Miesel's Chronology, I accepted AD 2400 as the year the Council met and dated van Rijn's birth to 2424 (and adjusted the dates of events and stories accordingly). I now accept that either 2020 or 2022 would have been more accurate. I remembered that I originally chose 2424 to avoid implausibly having too many dates in "00" numbers. But 2422 would have addressed that issue without being too much past the "century" mentioned in MIRKHEIM.

I'm more satisfied with the dates I proposed for the Imperial era and feel little need to readjust them.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
I agree some of Sandra Miesel's dates have to be wrong. Maybe you could email me your revised Chronology to be published here?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I would be very glad to revise my proposed revision of Miesel's Chronology. But I have to go to work very soon. Could I send it to you in a day or two when I have more time?

Thanks! Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
Please do! We should have done this before.
Paul.

Jim Baerg said...

Just in southern Ontario there is:
London on a Thames river with a Medway creek flowing into it.
A Stratford beside an Avon river (with a Shakespeare festival)
A Perth beside a Tay river.
A Paris
& there was a Berlin before WWI, name changed during the war.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

Many of the Europeans (British, French, Germans, etc.) who settled in the seem to have been a bit homesick, else why this rather unimaginative copying of the old names? (Smiles)

Ad astra! Sean