"(Oh, treetop highways under the golden-red sun of Cynthia! Four-armed drummers who sound the mating call of Gorzun's twin moons! Wild wings above Ythri!)"
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy lesson" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-197 AT p. 183.
Ythri was introduced and Cynthia referenced in the second story and Ythrians reappeared in the third whereas Cynthians and Gorzuni remain off-stage until Volume II. The Cynthian Chee Lan is a member of the trader team. The Gorzuni are:
"...great gray-furred four-armed tailed bipeds..."
-Satan's World, IX, p. 418.
-wearing traditional mail but armed with modern blasters. Since:
"Their yellow eyes set beneath bony prominences that looked like horns, glowered back out of the coarse faces..." (ibid.)
- and since van Rijn offers them "'...weregild...'" (p. 422)
- it is evident that Anderson has imported troll-like beings into an sf setting, just as the Lunarians in his Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy resemble Elves. The Nordic parallel is reinforced when van Rijn tells Adzel:
"'Like they used to say in Old Norse and such places, "Bare is brotherless back."'" (X, p. 431)
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Dang! I've completely forgotten those mentions of the Gorzuni in SATAN'S WORLD. They might look like cliches to some readers, but shows them enough in other stories to flesh them out. We see them in THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND, A CIRCUS OF HELLS, THE REBEL WORLDS, and esp. THE GAME OF EMPIRE. And, of course in "The Star Plunderer," during their failed bit at setting up an empire.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Where are the Gorzuni in THE REBEL WORLDS?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Here's one example, from Chapter IV of THE REBEL WORLDS, in Aaron Snelund's office: "Four mercenaries were on guard, not human but giant shaggy Gorzunians, they stirred scarcely more than their helmets, breastplates, or weapons."
Many of the more restless Gorzunians had a tendency to hire out as mercenaries or bodyguards. Even the disreputable Leon Ammon had one, in A CIRCUS OF HELLS.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Thanks.
Paul.
This is a common pattern in history -- you hire outsiders because they aren't involved in local feuds and loyalties, and you hire ones from cultures where bonds of personal loyalty and oath are very important.
That's why Roman emperors had German bodyguards.
+ Varangians.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree. A point I should have thought of. The Swiss Guards of the Pope might be a last remnant, in our time, of that pattern.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: not a last remnant.
Gurkhas are popular as bodyguards and "security consultants" throughout SE Asia, for example≥
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I sit corrected, then! I did know the UK used to have Gurkha mercenary regiments, but I thought the last of them were disbanded a few years ago. But I can see many of these Gurkhas hiring out of as bodyguards or "security consultants" a la the Gorzuni we see in Anderson's Technic stories.
And that monstrous horror, Adrienne Breze, had Gurkha troops in your Shadowspawn books.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: no, Gurkhas still serve in the British Army.
Looked it up: as of April, 2021, there were about 4,000 Gurkhas in the British forces.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I could have SWORN the last Gurkha units were disbanded a few years ago. I sit corrected!
Ad astra! Sean
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