Elvenveil And Emperor

Poul Anderson, Orbit Unlimited, part four, 5.

I want to share an appreciation of Poul Anderson's descriptive passages but also to avoid lengthy quotations. Blog readers are encouraged to read Anderson's texts. However, sometimes, a longer quotation is unavoidable. The following passage is notable both for its exotic colors and for its evocative place names. Svoboda and Coffin climb down the side of the colonized plateau called High America:

"At the bottom of vision were the clouds.
"He had ignored them when he first gazed over the Cleft. They were nothing but a whiteness far below his feet. But now they lay ahead. The first semicircle of e Eridani was visible, blinding in the east above a billowing snow-like plain. Blue shadows crawled toward him, kilometers in length. Mist began to pour up the canyon, filling it from side to side, a gray wall whose top faded to gold smoke. Svoboda caught his breath. He hadn't watched sunrise over the Cleft for years. It brought back to him how much else was beautiful here, the summer forests, Elvenveil Falls, Lake Royal turquoise in the morning and amethyst in the evening, a double moonglade shivering on the Emperor River...in spite of everything, he was glad he had come to Rustum." (p. 121)

This gives us two lists:

snow-like clouds
blue shadows
gray wall
gold smoke
morning turquoise
evening amethyst
shivering moonlight

Elvenveil Falls
Lake Royal
Emperor River

Although the colonists belong neither to a kingdom nor to an empire, they use the words, "Royal" and "Emperor." "Elvenveil" recalls Elven Gardens in Ys.