Monday 1 November 2021

At Beta Hydri

In the concluding chapter of Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy, Volume I, Harvest Of Stars, we are informed that the human beings who have colonized the Alpha Centaurian system will next colonize three other systems, including that of Beta Hydri. In the opening chapter of Volume IV, we see a colony on Beta Hydri IV but then the narrative moves back to Alpha Centauri and Sol whereas we would like it to keep moving outward.

When Demeter Daughter visits a son and his family on the Northland continent, her husband, Guthrie is:

"...too engaged with his latest project, a shipyard, to go along."
-Poul Anderson, The Fleet Of Stars (New York, 1998), 1, p. 3.

Thus, Guthrie who, over a thousand years and several incarnations previously, had founded Fireball Enterprises on Earth now supervises the construction of a shipyard on Amaterasu. Of course, it is not physically the same Guthrie but there is a continuity of personality.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And we need people like D.D. Harriman, Nicholas van Rijn, and Anson Guthrie! And real world examples like Elon Musk also comes to mind.

Ad astra! Sean