Saturday 5 November 2016

Arinnian And Eyath

Has anyone else noticed this?

In The People Of The Wind, Eyath's parents are Lythran and Blawsa. (Rise of The Terran Empire, p. 443) When Poul Anderson collected the remaining Polesotechnic League stories as The Earth Book Of Stormgate, he created a framing device based on The People Of The Wind. Thus, The People... is set on the planet Avalon; The Earth Book... is compiled and introduced by Hloch of Stormgate Choth on Avalon shortly after the events of The People...

Hloch, referring to himself in the third person, explains that:

"His Wyvan, Tariat son of Lythran and Blawsa, has asked this." (The Van Rijn Method, p. 75)

Arinnian is the son of Marchwarden Daniel Holm while his childhood friend, Eyath, is the sister of the Wyvan of their choth, Stormgate. This does not make them a prince and princess but that is what they would be if Avalon were ruled by royalty.

For the benefit of any blog readers who have not read Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization or who have not read previous posts, Arinnian and Eyath cannot be more than friends because they are of different species.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And as we soon find out, Christopher/Arinnian pitifully wished he WAS Ythrian. And that impossible desire was to cause him a good deal of pain.

Sean

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Paul!

Even if Avalon were ruled by royalty, Arinnian and Eyath would hardly qualify. She might be the Hon. Eyath, daughter of a baron, and he would be prominent as the son of an admiral/defense minister, but no more; he's not the son of President Vickery.

Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen

Paul Shackley said...

Nicholas,
You are right. I was exaggerating their status.
Paul.