Poul Anderson Appreciation: Cities In Anderson And Gaiman

Tuesday 5 July 2016

Cities In Anderson And Gaiman

Because I had just returned from London, I posted links to earlier blog references to appearances of London in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series and then added a link to posts on other cities in Anderson's works. Since doing this, I have extended the "Great Cities" list. There were several omissions. In Anderson's Technic History alone, great cities are to be found on the planets:

Earth
Merseia
Freehold
Avalon
Aeneas
Hermes
Serieve
Llynathawr

- and probably also on several others.

Back in Lancaster and watching office workers eating sandwiches in the square in front of the Town Hall, I was reminded of Neil Gaiman's Sandman story, "A Tale Of Two Cities" (see here), so I reread this story looking out for any Anderson parallels but temporarily forgetting that this is a "Cities" story and that I had just posted about cities in Anderson's works!

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...: Kaor, Paul!

I'm doubtful that the cities of Freehold, which we see in "Outpost of Empire" can be called GREAT. Yes, they were expanding cities, but nothing like Archopolis or Ardaig, never mind prominent colonial cities such as Llynathawr.

Sean; 5 July 2016 at 19:20
Paul Shackley said...: Sean,
I think you are right.
Paul.; 5 July 2016 at 20:01
Sean M. Brooks said...: Kaor, Paul!

Thanks! And, we need to recall how the cities of Freehold were destroyed by the Outbackers because their continued growth was becoming a threat to the Outbacker culture. Soon, the cities (and the culture it fostered) would have become too strong for the Outbacker culture to resist being affected or even subverted.

Sean; 6 July 2016 at 07:43