Avalon And Diomedes

Look at this book cover. You might be thinking that those flying beings do not look like Ythrians and that this picture does not look like any scene on either Ythri or Avalon. You would be right.

The Earth Book Of Stormgate collects eleven stories and one novel. Therefore, its contents could be redivided between:

a collection, say five stories;
the novel in a single volume;
another collection of the remaining stories.

This was done. Volume II comprised the single novel, The Man Who Counts, set entirely on the planet Diomedes where the flying natives do indeed have bat-like, not feathered, wings and fight at sea. Thus, this cover image makes sense.

It seems appropriate that, among all the disparate volumes carrying parts of Poul Anderson's Technic History, one book has "Stormgate" in its title and Diomedes on its cover.

In his introduction to the novel, the Avalonian Ythrian historian, Hloch of Stormgate Choth, writes:

"...winged sophonts have a special interest for us, rare as they are. In addition, Diomedes, freak among planets, helps remind of the awesome unforeseeability of the universe, a fact before which starfaring races must humble their very deathpride."
-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), p. 146.