The First Generation Of Avalonians

Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 293-306.

For story purposes, Anderson needed David and Coya Falkayn's grandson, Nathaniel, to be the only human boy of his own age among a host of young Ythrians for many cycles of Morgana. No problem. But was the whole history of the early colonization of Avalon specially written just to bring about this result? We are aware of imbalances in the Technic History, e.g., sixteen instalments, including three novels, about the Polesotechnic League but only one short story about this crucial period of Avalonian history or two if we include "Rescue on Avalon" but that is about the second stage of colonization.

In the first stage, the colonists settle on the Hesperian Islands before they are ready to tackle the Coronan continent. Furthermore, human beings and Ythrians settle on different islands to begin with. This is not segregation, just taking it a step at a time before moving toward fuller integration. The first challenge that both species have to cope with is their new environment which is smaller than Earth but larger than Ythri, an ideal setting for joint colonization as the earliest explorers had realized. But there are hazards to guard against and adjustments to be made.

The Falkayns live in Chartertown whereas the main location for the Ythrians is Trauvay/Wingland. When Ythrians visit Nat's grandfather or his father, the conversation is usually in Planha which Nat learns at school. Eventually, Nicholas Falkayn, an engineer, travels to Trauvay and stays there for many lunar cycles as part of a research and development team for continental colonization. Since Nicholas is accompanied by his family, the narrative at last reaches the point that Anderson had been aiming it at.

The story has two authors: Poul Anderson on Earth Real and Judith Lundgren on Avalon. Willingly suspending disbelief, we accept that it is the latter who adds the fictional dialogue:

"'Hyaa-aah!' In a whirl and thunder, Keshchyi left the balcony floor and swung aloft. Sunlight blazed off his feathers." (p. 296)

For the first time, we are reading about the daily life of Ythrians just as we had read about the daily life of Terrestrials in the Solar Commonwealth in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" and, to a lesser extent, in "Lodestar."

Although Lundgren presumably imagines the dialogue, she is not creating a fiction but fictionalizing history. This experience of Nat Falkayn did happen in her recent past. But any further discussion of it here will have to be postponed into my near future.

Fair winds forever.

High is heaven and holy.