Saturday 30 January 2021

Cold Wind From The Wastes

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

In Dukeston on Ramnu, Cairncross employs native labor to manufacture war materials, thus avoiding a traceable investment in automated factories. Hostile nature comments on hidden militarism:

"There a frozen river gleamed. Across a bridge, Dukeston reared and roared and glared. Westward lay only night, wild valleys, tors, canyons, cliffs, tarns. A cold wind crept out of the wastes and ruffled her pelt. The few stars she could see were as chill, and very small. Banner said they were suns, but how remote, then, how ghastly remote...." (p. 185)

From Yewwl's present perspective, other suns are few, chill, small and ghastly remote. And this would not be a Poul Anderson description without a cold wind creeping out of the wastes.

This is a single scene in a single novel. As regards the packaging of the entire Technic History, I now think that two ...Of The Polesotechnic League titles (Rise... and Decline...) could be followed by three ...The Terran Empire titles (Rise Of..., Outposts Of... and After...) interpolated, so to say, with three ...Flandry titles (Young..., Captain... and Admiralty). That way, readers would see at a glance what they were getting.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But can a wind CREEP? But of course what Anderson meant just then was that it was a very slow, gentle wind Yewwl felt. Which he preferred to describe using "crept."

Ad astra! Sean