"Progress" is an unusual Poul Anderson story. As usual, there are colorful characters, interesting ideas, fight scenes, descriptive passages and ideological arguments. Unusually, the action ends abruptly and the remaining ten and a half pages recount a meeting, several years later, between two of the antagonists who again thrash out the rights or wrongs of the Maurai suppression of nuclear fusion. This future history series, more than other work by Anderson, consists of stories of ideas. In the opening story, the Maurai Federation embarks on a particular foreign policy. In this second story, they have been enforcing that policy for several centuries. The third story, "Windmill," almost has to be about the policy beginning to fall apart.
The transition to "Windmill" is another wrench. This story unaccountably begins the middle of a sentence:
"-and though it was night, when land would surely be colder than sea, we had not looked for such a wind as sought to thrust us away from Californi. Our craft shuddered and lurched."
-Poul Anderson, "Windmill" IN Anderson, Maurai And Kith (New York, 1982), pp. 139-168 AT p. 139.
The first person narration is also a departure in the series. The craft has wickerwork, a gondola and a gasbag and approaches Californi. These are indications that the story is set some time in the Maurai History.
I have no recollection from previous readings of "Windmill" so we will have to tackle its intricacies tomorrow.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would date "The Sky People" at least three centuries (or even longer) after the War of Judgment. Because we have to allow time for the rise and fall of a post Judgment empire called the Perio, which seems to have originated in Brazil, and expanded northwards at least to what is now northern Mexico. "Sky People" mentions how a waning Perio had withdrawn its last garrisons from Meyco 20 years before the story opens. Which exposed Meyco to the kind of raiding from the wild men of the Corado mountains we see in the story. So, maybe 400 years for the rise and fall of the Perio?
And I think we have to date "Progress" to at least two centuries after "The Sky People." And "Windmill" another two centuries later, when the Maurai Federation was still at the height of its power. So, a total of 800 years from the War of Judgment to "Windmill"?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The Perio is an important clue about time elapsed. A very unusual short series.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, what you said about the Maurai stories, despite the implausible lack of metals those stories stressed. When I was thinking about this blog piece of yours, I suddenly realized too little has been said the Perio, both in what it did and the hints about dating that it gives us. I think "The Sky People" alone tells us whatever we know about it.
Ad astra! Sean
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