Tuesday, 13 November 2018

Morning Star On Demeter

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 56.

"Hugh Davis woke shortly before sunrise. Dew gemmed the glade between blue-black battlemented walls of forest. A few drowsy chirps tinkled through the hush. Orange-red clouds limned branches and crowns to the east. Above them shone white Aphrodite, inward planet, morning star." (p. 475)

We have encountered morning stars in myths, on Earth and elsewhere.

Ranger Hugh Davis, son of Kyra, is a successor to Anderson's juvenile heroes, especially Jack Birnam who treks across country on Avalon. Hugh, checking whether the forest is ready for the introduction of deer and wolves, is surprised to find high tech settlers and low tech woodsrunners. The presence of human beings means that the bigger game must be introduced differently but not that the human beings must be cleared out. "'Guthrie-Chief...'" (p. 480) has become a real libertarian god.

Download Kyra guides parts of the Demetrian ecology although not yet the forest in central Achaea. Meanwhile, Pilot Kyra is out in space, visiting Perun, exploring Phaeton or doing something else.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And, here, just for once, we see Anderson using "glade" in the ordinary sense of an open space within a wooded area. And not in the idiosyncratic and baffling way that word was used in other stories.

Sean