Sunday 21 January 2024

Avalonian Choths And Geography

Poul Anderson, "Rescue on Avalon" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 307-323.

"Choths differed as much in their ways as human nations did..." (p. 310)

In the early days, when only the Hesperian Islands had been colonized, the Weathermaker Choth comprised only an "...extended household..." ("Wingless," p. 297) Centuries later, choths on the northern polar continent of Corona each had thousands of members at least. By that time, it had become unusual that:

"In Oronesia, there were single households that bore the name..." (The People Of The Wind, III, p. 464)

- and, even more unusual that:

"...grown and married, the younger children were expected to found new, independent societies." (ibid.)

Gray, the larger of only two cities on Avalon, is on the west coast of Corona. Inland from Gray, are the Andromeda mountains called the Weathermother by Ythrians and occupied by the Stormgate Choth. Christopher Holm lives in Gray and is Arinnian of Stormgate. Two thousand kilometres west from Gray is the Oronesia archipelago stretching almost to the Antarctic Circle, much of it occupied, despite those unusual small choths, by the fisheries-controlling Highsky Choth. Tabitha Falkayn is Hrill of Highsky. In the northern hemisphere, Oronesia divides the eastern Hesperian Sea from the western Middle Ocean. This is meant to impart some information about where various characters live at different times. 

Small continents or large islands in the South Ocean are Equatoria, New Africa and New Gaiila. There are other smaller islands. 

We want to go there or even feel that we have been there.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Not surprising, as centuries passed, that small choths became more and more unusual. As population grew and settlements spread, small choths would become less and less workable.

Ad astra! Sean