Friday 5 February 2021

Realizing The Merseians

The title, "Honorable Enemies," refers to Flandry of Terra and Aycharaych of Chereion but not to the Merseians whom Aycharaych serves. Introduced in that story as cliched, green, space opera villains, the Merseians incredibly became well-rounded, many-sided inhabitants of a concretely realized universe as Poul Anderson's Technic History grew into a substantial future history series:

Bryadan Arrowsmith's "...home was on an arctic shore of the Wilwidh Ocean..." (see "An Arctic Shore And Lafdiguan Ancestry," here);

great green hunters give Kossara their gruff welcome here.

CHAPTER ELEVEN of The Game Of Empire is welcome because it presents only Merseian points of view: Gadrol; Bryadan; Uroch - although it ends with a Gorrazanian female rocking her dead child, killed in the Merseian raid.

CHAPTER TEN ends with Diana, Axor and Targovi traveling in Waterblossom down the Highroad River on Daedalus. CHAPTER ELEVEN describes the Merseian raid on Gorrazan. CHAPTER TWELVE is about the Flandrys in Archopolis on Terra. In CHAPTER THIRTEEN, Diana and co have arrived at the Cynthian town of Lulach and the principle narrative resumes.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I didn't think the Merseians in either version of "Honorable Enemies" to be that badly cliched, but I see what you and other critics mean.

I remember that Merseian chapter and the raid on Gorrazan, which was meant to distract and confuse the Empire. And the pathetic bit about the Gorrazanian mother and her dead child.

I think Gorrazan is the same as Gorzun. Many members of that either hire out as mercenaries, body guards (Leon Ammon had one!), or enlist in the Imperial Navy.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
It is.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

It can be confusing! is "Gorrazan" the name of the planet and "Gorzun" the name for the race? Or vice versa?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

No. The name changed over time.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Gotcha. It would probably have been better if Anderson had kept the name he used for that race in "The Star Plunderer."

Ad astra! Sean