-Poul Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), p. 106.
"The Taverners are as merciful as their charter, or whatever it was that was once granted them by some power unknown, allows them to be."
-Poul Anderson, "Losers' Night IN All One Universe, pp. 107-123 AT p. 108.
I think that the phrase, "...some power unknown...," definitely puts the Old Phoenix into the genre of fantasy.
"Then I saw [the Old Phoenix's] fancifully carved beam ends in silhouette against Sagittarius."
-ibid., p. 108.
Objects are often silhouetted against the Milky Way; here against one constellation.
"'You will go to the Sagittarian frontier of the Stellar Union,' the machine had said."
-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine (New York, 1979), CHAPTER IV, p. 23.
"'You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic History, Volume 3, pp. 195-215 AT p. 201.
Sagittarius is a constellation in the direction of the galactic center. In "The Chapter Ends,":
"'Civilization - the civilization of man and his non-human allies - has moved inward, toward the great star-clusters of Galactic center. This part of space means nothing to us any more; it's almost a desert. You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'"
-ibid.
See also:
Sagittarius
Curdled Silver II
Connections Between The Psychotechnic History And "The Chapter Ends"
Orichalc And The Ocean Of Stars
"Home"
Curdled Silver
Fifty Thousand Years
Making Connections
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Strictly speaking, the line about "The Taverners are as merciful as their charter, or whatever it was that was once granted them by some power unknown, allows them to be," does not exclude a hard SF interpretation. I think Anderson wanted readers of his Old Phoenix stories to be UNCERTAIN about the nature of that "power unknown," to speculate about that power being either fantasy or hard SF.
Sean
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