A dust storm makes the sunset:
"...the color of clotted blood." (p. 634)
- a very appropriate pathetic fallacy. Back to the literal effects of the environment: in Scorpeluna, days are horribly hot, nights gnawingly cold. Avalon's high irradiation and rapid spin make tropical storms so unpredictable and also so violent that one such storm delays the Terran evacuation for a day and a night. The rain would have killed patients as they were carried from shacks to ships. Flash floods threaten the base. After the storm, by interdicting the escape route but offering medical help, the Avalonians gain a second Terran withdrawal and ceasefire.
The People Of The Wind and The Earth Book Of Stormgate are companion volumes. The characters, Lythran, Blawsa and Arinnian, introduced in The People Of The Wind, are referenced in the background information in Hloch's Earth Book introductions. The lethal aspects of the Avalonian environment, crucial to The People Of The Wind, are introduced in "The Problem of Pain" in the Earth Book. Ythri, seen briefly in The People Of The Wind, is explored in "Wings of Victory" in the Earth Book. Hloch's first introduction refers to the devastation caused by the Terran War which is the subject-matter of The People Of The Wind. It makes sense to read the Earth Book immediately after The People Of The Wind.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson was partly inspired by the siege of the French city of Belfort during the Franco/Prussian war of 1870-71. The Prussians overran France but Belfort held out despite a long siege, leading Bismarck to agreeing on not insisting that city being included with the territory ceded by France to the new German Empire.
Ad astra! Seam
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