Atlantis Weed

"The Problem of Pain."

We are rereading the story that introduces Avalon, looking for information about the planetary environment. The Ythrian couple, their two children and the human couple are not the only explorers in the base on the southern Coronan coast but it is they that go out in a boat to explore the life that swarms in the gulf. Marine monsters graze immense floating islands of densely interwoven vegetation which probably also support many smaller plant and animal species. Olga Berg calls the interwoven vegetation "atlantis weed," a name that will stick. I think that the monsters are later called "kraken" but might be confusing them with sea beasts on Nyanza or even on Kraken. A storm blows the explorers onto an island which I think must be part of the Oronesian archipelago. There, like some much later Terran invaders, they will encounter lethal aspects of the Avalonian environment. The Ythrian and Avalonian narratives are fully coherent, having been written in quick succession.