Wednesday, 12 January 2022

Some Details On Avalon

No forward moves with rereading The People Of The Wind today, I think. I am writing this post in an interval between Hannibal Lecter dvds.

Viewing Poul Anderson's Technic History as a four-dimensional continuum, I want to pause on certain rich moments along its timeline, like:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" for its glimpse of domestic life in the Solar Commonwealth;

The People Of The Wind for its information about life on Avalon.

We have reviewed almost everything about Avalon before but details that we have not mentioned recently include:

the mixed Ythrian and Terran meal that Chris and Tabitha eat at the Phoenix House comprises piscoid and tomato chowder, beef and shua pie, clustergrain leaf salad, pears and witchroot-spiced coffee;

the New African beer served at the Nest is described as thick and strong.

These descriptions are detailed enough to make us feel that we have shared the meal with the characters.

The assault on the senses on Livewell Street includes smells of dirt, smoke, oil, sewage, flesh and an odor from the surrounding swamps - so we gather that Centauri, second of only two Avalonian cities, is not a big city. Maybe Centauri was invented because Anderson wanted to describe a Terran strike on an Avalonian city and also wanted to spare Gray?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But Anderson listed multiple practical reasons for why Centauri was founded by the human colonists on Avalon. And I suspect the city was rebuilt after its evacuation and destruction during the war between the Empire and Domain. Because those reasons would still exist.

Ad astra! Sean