Tuesday 16 January 2024

On Ythri

"Wings of Victory."

Poul Anderson, through the planetologist Maeve Downey, describes in meticulous detail how Ythri differs from Earth:

three quarters gravity, requiring kinaesthetic adjustment, more sensory than muscular;

air as at two kilometres altitude causing "Crystalline vision..." (p. 86) and cool breezes;

smokey and pungent odours;

golden sunlight enriching colours and deepening shadows;

sun nearly half again as big;

thin clouds in a deep blue sky;

red ground cover.

This might have been a preparation for further narratives set on Ythri. However, apart from a brief reappearance of Ythri in The People Of The Wind, the remaining human-Ythrian interactions occur on Avalon where organisms from both home planets, including that red Ythrian ground cover, are imported.

2 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

A fair bit of that sounds like living in Santa Fe at 7,500 feet... 8-).

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And I strongly suspect I would need to acclimatize myself to living in a highland area like that.

Ad astra! Sean