The Map Of Daedalus

Because my thought processes are entirely abstract and non-visual, I have disregarded the maps at the beginning of Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire on every previous reading whereas, in fact, heeding the maps greatly increases the pleasure of reading.

One map of Daedalus shows Aurea, Paz de la Frontera, Lulach and Ghundrung along the Highroad River. Diana travels from Aurea to Paz by cable car, then from there to Lulach by riverboat. Thus, we learn that Aurea is the capital city, Paz is a colony of retired military personnel from other colonies and Lulach is mainly an arboreal Cynthian town.

Next, if we have consulted the map first, we wonder what will be revealed about Ghundrung. When Diana tells Targovi that Axor and she intend to investigate reports of Ancient ruins in the jungle to the south of Ghundrung, Targovi responds by referring to Ghundrung as the Donarrian settlement. We know from previous installments of the Technic History that the Donarrians are intelligent quadrupeds active in the Terran Empire and we also know from a previous chapter of this novel that Diana saw a Donarrian in the market square of Olga's Landing on Imhotep, the other colonized planet in the Patrician System. However, we have only ever seen individual Donarrians, usually in combat, so what will a Donarrian community be like?

We do not find out because Targovi persuades Axor and Diana to accompany him immediately to the ocean island of Zacharia which also appears on the map. Thus, of five places indicated on the map, four are visited whereas one, Ghundrung, is not visited but is described very briefly. When I read through the novel without having consulted the map, the name "Ghundrung" meant nothing when it appeared just once in the text and I certainly did not remember afterwards that there was a Donarrian settlement on Daedalus.

Because the trio travel only from Paz to Lulach by river, then proceed to Zacharia by air, the adventurous potential offered by a long river journey on a strange planet is cut short but the theme of an adventurous river journey is developed more fully in the earlier novel, The Day Of Their Return.