Narrative Beginnings

A novel can begin with a lead-in passage, e.g.:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged..."

-see here

- or in media res. Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind begins in mid-conversation on the eve of war:

"'You can't leave now,' Daniel Holm told his son. 'Any day we may be at war. We may already be.'" (I, p. 437)

We understand that we are to learn who they are and why war is imminent.

The People Of The Wind is a comprehensive novel presenting many characters on both sides of a war and its chapters begin in different ways.

"Avalon rotates in 11 hours, 22 minutes, 12 seconds, on an axis tilted 21 degrees from the normal to the orbital plane." (II, p. 452)

"The car identified its destination and moved down." (III, p. 463)

This chapter presents over a page of information about Avalon's equatorial diameter, molten core, atmospheric pressure and Oronesian archipelago before the aircar lands and the characters converse.

 

"A campaign against Ythri would demand an enormous fleet, gathered from everywhere in the Empire." (IV, p. 477)

 

Beginning in such impersonal terms, this chapter soon adds three new characters to the eight already introduced. They are on the Terran side and of two species.

On Esperance, Lieutenant Philippe Rochefort:

"...knew enough girls that dates were a statistical certainty." (p. 479)

 

I wish that I had had Rochefort's confidence and assurance earlier in life but we each play the cards that we are dealt. Another difference between Rochefort and me is that he has stayed with the religion of his upbringing whereas I have thought and inquired my way to a different understanding. When he reflects that the Empire is reintroducing slavery whereas the Ythrians are phasing it out:

 

"He straightened in his chair. Man is my race." (IV, p. 487)

 

I would not find racial solidarity sufficient when contemplating such an issue.

This chapter ends with Rochefort dating Eve Davisson, a twelfth character although she appears just once.

Chapter V comprises a telephone conference between four Avalonian characters, two of them new to the reader.

Comprehensive indeed.