Skip And Tom Swift

Poul Anderson, The Byworlder (London, 1974), I, p. 5 (the opening page of the text).

An extrasolar spaceship has been in Earth orbit for three years.

Real life has Theosophists and Scientologists. Poul Anderson gives us "Theontologists," living in an adobe community called "We" in New Mexico.

Our viewpoint character, Skip, is in We. However, we get the impression that he is not a Theontologist but is there because of a woman called Urania.

The community believes in the simple life but, to Skip's relief, uses fluoros, not candles. He has sarcastically thought of We as "Tom Swift and his electric Tibet."

Skip and Urania's two young sons sleep in a room with a large God's Eye on the whitewashed wall.