Discovery And World-Taking

Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978).

The Sky Book Of Stormgate, which we do not read, had covered:

the ancestors on Ythri;

the founders on Avalon;

the descendants until the time of the author, Rennhi.

The Earth Book, compiled by Rennhi's son, Hloch, comprises:

"...these annals, from the Discovery and on through the World-Taking." (p. 14)

- obviously these are major historical events:

the Discovery was the discovery of the planet Ythri by a human spaceship of the first Grand Survey;

the World-Taking was the two-stage joint colonization of the planet Avalon by human beings and Ythrians;

Hloch's annals include an account of the exploration of Avalon by Ythrians employing Aenean human beings;

they also cover the entire period of the Polesotechnic League.

The two pages of Hloch's introduction make clear that this volume covers an entire historical period and process.

His afterword concludes:

"Fair winds forever." (p. 390)

Our attention is drawn back from the history of the immortals in Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years to his History of Technic Civilization. Two evocative titles.