Wednesday 12 November 2014

Falkayns And Holms

The Falkayns are Hermetian aristocrats whose next Duke will be an illegitimate son of Nicholas van Rijn;

Poul Anderson's Mirkheim presents three successive generations of Falkayns: Athena, David and Nicholas (other family members are mentioned but the focus of this post is on one from each generation);

the following work, "Wingless," adds a fourth generation: Nathaniel;

the later work, The People Of The Wind, introduces a descendant, Tabitha;

David marries a granddaughter of Nicholas van Rijn;

Tabitha marries Christopher Holm, son of Marchwarden Daniel Holm;

the Holms came to Avalon with David Falkayn;

they are represented in the intermediate short story, "Rescue on Avalon," by one Ivar Holm.

And that is our only information about the generations of van Rijns, Falkayns and Holms. After The People Of The Wind, the narrative follows neither Hermes nor Avalon but Dominic Flandry and his contemporaries and their children. After the Flandry period, the four remaining works are too widely spaced to have any personal or familial connections although the very last work does introduce remote descendants of rebels expelled by Flandry.

History is about people; Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization demonstrates this very effectively.

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