Avalon

"The Snows of Ganymede."

A Ganymedean Outlaw assesses a Planetary Engineer's spacesuit:

"'Not Ganny make,' he said. 'Mebbe they be really from Earth.' He spoke as a man at home might have spoken of Avalon." (VIII, p. 198)

In 2024, we reread a story published in 1955. This generates two chronological perspectives. First, a story published in any given year obviously might refer to works published earlier than that year. Secondly, we now regard 1955 as a long way in the past and therefore can reflect, e.g., on what that same author wrote after that.

Avalon is part of our history whether we are in 1955 or in 2024. For an incursion of Arthurian myth into modern sf, read CS Lewis' The Hideous Strength, where Avalon becomes Abhalljin or Aphalljin in Perelandra, i.e., on Venus.

Secondly, everyone here knows that Avalon is the name of a major planet in Poul Anderson's second future history series, the Technic History. This "Avalon," written in 1973, exists not only in a later period but also in a different timeline than "The Snows of Ganymede." Rereading "The Snows...," we automatically think of the Technic History Avalon although obviously Anderson cannot possibly have intended that back then. Some connotations are retro-.