Friday 24 November 2023

Pelogard

"Starfog."

Pelogard is a city:

"...on an island off the Branzan mainland, above Serieve's arctic circle..." (p. 718)

- and an industrial centre with tall, crowded buildings. From an office high in one such building, off-planet visitor, Daven Laure, sees:

soaring metal, concrete, glass and plastic blocks;
interlinking traffic ways and freight cables;
the waterfront;
sea mineral extractor plants;
warehouses;
sky-docks;
automated cargo craft;
the grey ocean brightened by spring sunshine and rumpled by the wind;
immense flocks of steel-blue fliers, dipping and wheeling;
a wan sky...

We would like more such description but this much is quite satisfactory. Also on Serieve, see:





Tomorrow will be another day-trip to London so almost certainly no new posts on this blog. Have a good weekend.

12 comments:

DaveShoup2MD said...


Not sure if Anderson ever mentioned the derivation of the word Serieve, but one could read it as Serie VE (Spanish or French, Roman V, and a E); which sort of looks like a technology alphanumeric.

Model/type/mission, as in "Series V, E."

Of course, given how "far" into the future "Starfog" is supposed to take place, it could be a proper name.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

He doesn't.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Dave!

More simply put, we should expect accidental resemblances to some of our current words and proper names.

Ad astra! Sean

DaveShoup2MD said...


Paul - Thanks.

Sean - My thinking was more simply where Anderson as writer might have gotten it from, as well.

S.M. Stirling said...

Writers themselves don't always know where terms come from.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Dave!

That can be the case sometimes. But see what Stirling wrote above.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

James Blish named a planet "Rathe" in a story, then worked out where he had got that from in conversation with me. It was not, as I had thought, an anagram of "Earth."

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

That's way cool great, how you affected the writing of one of Blish's stories!

Alas, I've not mastered the art of anagrams.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I did slightly affect Blish's writing but not in this instance. What I meant was that, in conversation with me, he reflected and realized that he had got "Rathe" from Lewis Carrol.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Got it, I sit corrected. I think I slightly affected how Anderson wrote some of his stories. He started using "usurper" more often after I used that word in one of my letters to him. And I may have influenced him into using "tying up loose ends" in THE SHIELD OF TIME after I used that phrase in another letter.

And I think you did get Anderson into rethinking the premises of the Time Patrol stories. I recall you mentioning how PA thought your comments did that to him.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

He said that he would keep the letters for reference.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I remember, in case Anderson wrote any more Time Patrol stories after "Death and the Knight."

I hope those letters of yours still exist! Or made copies of your letters to keep with his replies, which is what I did.

Ad astra! Sean