"They were excellent stock on Nyanza, their ancestors as ruthlessly selected by a hostile nature as his had been, although the oceanic planet had prospered afterward more than cold and heavy Kraken ever could."
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER FOUR, p. 251.
Here, the phrase, "oceanic planet," clearly refers to Nyanza by contrast with Kraken.
In "The Sharing of Flesh," collected later in Flandry's Legacy, Evalyth Sairn is from Kraken. Her part of the planet is half barbaric and her country is described as gaunt and grim. She thinks of her planet as dear and stern but I cannot find anything to confirm my original impression that Kraken was somewhere described as oceanic. But why that name?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
While Nyanza had its difficulties and problems for some humans, I don't think the planet was that hard and harsh for humans to settle on. Esp. if they had dark complexions, suitable for better enduring the hot sun than fair complexioned people like Flandry.
Maybe we should imagine Kraken as being largely cold, mountainous, and with a gravity higher than that of Terra's? Reminiscent, perhaps, of Norway?
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul and Sean!
And in, if I recall correctly, “A Tragedy of Errors,” Roan Tom operates from Kraken, his senior wife Dagny’s home planet; she remembers her ancestral home Skerrygarth, which seems to on a small island. So there are seas and islands, and there could also be continents, and with names like Olaf and Dagny, the place does seem reminiscent of Norway in several ways, although presumably not all parts of it have the same climate landscapes.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Kaor, Nicholas!
I agree, I remember those points now. Dagny was of an old aristocratic family which had fallen on hard times. Her marriage to Roan Tom was part of a pragmatic arrangement in which it was hoped that allying with an ambitious outsider would help restore their fortunes.
And Scandinavian names like Olaf and Dagny does makes it seem likely Kraken was settled by people from Norway and Denmark. And the gravity does not seem to have been that much higher than Terra's, because it does not seem to have affected the average height of Krakeners.
Regards! Sean
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