The 3000th Post

This is the 3000th post on this blog.

The first third of Poul Anderson's The Star Fox was originally published as a discrete story called "Marque and Reprisal" so it is interesting to re-encounter it in that earlier format in the second NESFA collection of Anderson's shorter works. Gunnar Heim is restored to the status of a series character rather than the hero of a single novel.

In section 1, he interviews the man who has evidence of a governmental conspiracy of silence;

in section 2, he converses with his teenage daughter and with a politician who refuses to help him;

in section 3, he interviews one of the enemy alien Aleriona who cantillates.

Heim and Cynbe must use English although Heim knows a few words of the High Speech. While on Earth, the Aleriona need an artificial environment with a thin, dry atmosphere beneath simulated red dwarf star sunlight, surrounded by leaves, vines and writhing flowers. Its location must be kept secret because of the strength of feeling on Earth.

Readers familiar with Anderson's Technic History recognize that here is a different interstellar scenario full of rich details clearly differentiating the Aleriona from the Ythrians or Merseians.