Avalanche

 

A Stone In Heaven, I.

A single massive avalanche of ice and snow kills Yewwl's husband, sons and daughter and destroys their tribal Shrine which Miriam Abrams says is the equivalent of destroying Jerusalem. Thus, one enormous catastrophe happens casually in this opening chapter:

"The snowcliff stirred..." (p. 10)

The narrative soon contextualizes this catastrophe within Poul Anderson's Technic History. Miriam, nicknamed "Banner," is from the warm, dry, snowless, colony planet, Dayan, which explains the comparison that she makes with Jerusalem. She is Max Abram's daughter. Commander Abrams recited the Kaddish for Ensign Flandry when the latter was missing in action on Starkad a lifetime ago.

Banner complains about the Grand Duke of Hermes and says that she will appeal to Admiral Flandry. Despite its newly created Ramnuan environment, this new narrative is embedded in the Technic History.

Ramnuan Plants And Animals

 

A Stone In Heaven, I.

Grass equivalent: nullfire, tall on the veldt, a thick turf elsewhere.

Kinds of trees: brightcrown; saw-frond.

Other plants: fragrant nightwort; rattling spearcane.

Small twilight creatures: darters; scuttlers; light-flashers.

A hovering flyer: something strange from beyond the Guardian Range.

Ramnuans spread vanes and ride onsars. Yewwl carries an infant in her pouch.

Poul Anderson creates distinctive organisms for each new planet. We become familiar with Ythrian hammerbranch etc. However, imaginative new names of trees must be invented for Ramnu: brightcrown etc.

History

Note that Poul Anderson's A Stone In Heaven is a very late volume in a very long future history series and that its opening passage recounts ancient history on an extra-solar planet, newly introduced. Anderson's works are steeped in history, both fictional and real. His historical novels include The Golden Slave about barbarian invaders of Italy who were defeated by the Roman general, Marius. His Psychotechnic History opens with a story called "Marius" in which a future military leader is compared to the Roman general. Earlier in the Technic History, David Falkayn learns lessons from Jericho, Thermopylae, Hiroshima and Vladivostok. See Battles. Technic civilization follows the same cyclical rise and fall as earlier Terrestrial civilizations. Possibly that cycle has been broken in the concluding instalment, "Starfog."

Anderson's Time Patrol preserves a history that leads eventually to science and freedom. Everything is historical.

History On Ramnu

A Stone In Heaven, I, pp. 3-4.

The Ice withdrew beyond the Guardian Mountains.

The Forebear led her family from the Ringdales to the lands south of Lake Roah and east of the Kiiong River. 

Traders from West-Oversea brought ironworking and writing.

Many of the Forebear's descendants joined the Seekers of Wisdom when that College arose.

When Mount Gungnor erupted and spread the Golden Tide, the clans established the Lords of the Volcano.

The clans welcomed and dealt with the strangers from the stars.

The Ice began to return.

The Kulembarach clan still ranges the lands but, like its neighbours, is in an ill plight.

Yewwl leads her family on a long hunt as their ranchlands decline.

From Time Beyond Knowing...

(A Psychotechnic History character worthy of mini-bio treatment is Etienne Fourre but we have already done this. See here.)

An author, starting with a blank sheet of paper or a blank computer screen, can create anew something old:

"Long, long ago..."

"From time beyond knowing, the Kulembarach clan had ranged those lands which reach south of Lake Roah and east of the Kiiong River."

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT I, p. 3.

This is all new even though it is from time beyond knowing. It includes fictional geography. This newly created planet of Ramnu will soon be inserted into Poul Anderson's Technic History. We will see familiar scenes and characters while also learning about a planet that has not been mentioned until now. As we have said before, each new instalment of a future history series builds on previous instalments while also contributing new information. Anderson continues this process right up until the end of the Technic History which is not yet.

A Stone In Heaven

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, further candidates for mini-bio treatment are:

the usurper, Hans Molitor;

the pretender, Edwin Cairncross, Grand Duke of Hermes;

the pretender, Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson;

Magnusson's father, Erik.

We will perhaps reread A Stone In Heaven which features Cairncross. A Stone... is dedicated to John K. Hord whose theory of history Anderson applies in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and in A Stone...

In the opening chapter of A Stone..., the Ramnuan, Yewwl, has an oath-sister, "Banner," based in Wainwright Station. The name of the station suggests that it is staffed by human beings but we do not at first suspect, although we will soon be informed, that "Banner" is Miriam Abrams. Nor has the text yet confirmed that Ramnu exists in the Technic History universe.

Other reading: I think that there is a structural problem in Robert Harris' Conclave relating to the seal of Confession.

Nineteen Characters In The Technic History

The mini-bios have taken on a life of their own. The characters covered, in the approximate order of their appearance in the Technic History, are:

League Period

Nicholas van Rijn

James Ching

Adzel

David Falkayn

Chee Lan

Emil Dalmady

Coya Conyon

Empire Period

Manuel Argos

Christopher Holm

Tabitha Falkayn

Hloch

Dominic Flandry

John Ridenour

Miriam Abrams

Hugh McCormac

Chunderban Desai

Diana Crowfeather

Post-Imperial

Roan Tom

Daven Laure

A comprehensive list. Apparently insignificant characters play their roles. James Ching's narrative role is primarily to introduce Adzel but he makes his own contribution, nevertheless. Manuel Argos' role is to get the Terran Empire founded although it was not known, when Argos's story was written, that that Empire would become such a major feature of a future history series. Emil Dalmady has a daughter who makes later contributions to the History.

A Stone In Heaven makes several major contributions:

the later careers of Flandry and Chives;

Miriam Abrams as an adult;

Flandry's addition to Desai's theory of history;

a late mention of the biracial culture on Avalon;

the later history of the Grand Duchy of Hermes;

an heir of Hans Molitor;

a new inhabited planet, Ramnu.

What's not to like?

Two More Mini-Bios

Tabitha Falkayn

Oronesian

Hrill of Highsky Choth

brought up by Ythrians

business partner of Draun, an Ythrian, in a commercial fishery

liaises with west Corona to organize defense of the Hesperian Sea

hosts the Terran prisoner of war, Philippe Rochefort

later marries Christopher Holm/Arinnian of Stormgate

Miriam Abrams

daughter of Dominic Flandry's mentor, Max Abrams

xenologist on Ramnu

maintains multisensory rapport with one Ramnuan

friend of Sten Runeberg on Hermes

opponent of the current Grand Duke of Hermes

marries Flandry

These two women make a lot of connections. We want to know more about Avalon in the Domain of Ythri and about the climate modification project on Ramnu.

Careers Continued IV

Coya Conyon

daughter of Malcolm Conyon and Beatrix Yeo

Nicholas van Rijn's favourite granddaughter

toured the Solar System with van Rijn as a child

astrophysicist at Luna Astrocenter

travelled to Mirkheim with van Rijn

married David Falkayn

joined the trade pioneer crew

stopped pioneering to raise a family

free-lance computer programmer

co-founder of the Avalon colony

A character who impacts others. Information about Coya is only in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim. Mini-bios summarize major events of Poul Anderson's Technic History and remind us of minute details, e.g: names of Coya's parents; what she did after trade pioneering.

This is the sixteenth Technic History mini-bio. 

Careers Continued III

Hloch

son of Ferannian and Rennhi of Spearhead Lake on Avalon

member of Stormgate Choth

Rennhi's research assistant

naval service during Terran War

merchant ship crew member after the War

compiler of The Earth Book Of Stormgate

co-author with Arinnian of two chapters in the Earth Book

Chritopher Holm

son of Marchwarden Daniel Holm

student of mathematics

Arinnian of Stomgate Choth

hid in the Shielding Islands for a year

chief of the West Coronan home-guard

translator of Planha works into Anglic

author of parts of the Earth Book

marries Tabitha Falkayn

These mini-biographies again display historical interconnections.