BETWEEN PLANETS

Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind partly reminds me of Robert Heinlein's Between Planets although I read the latter perhaps once decades ago and do not now possess a copy. Human colonists on a warm but terrestroid Venus interact with native Venerians and declare a Republic that will make them independent from Earth if they can make it stick.

Between Planets is one of Heinlein's twelve Scribner Juvenile novels although not one of the five such Juveniles that constitute a Juvenile Future History consistent with Heinlein's (adult) Future History, Volume II, The Green Hills Of Earth. Thus, the Venerians in the Green Hills story, "Logic of Empire," and in the Scribner Juvenile, Space Cadet, are frog-like swamp dwellers whereas the Venerians in Between Planets are large and dragon-like.

However, Between Planets remains one of Heinlein's works that display some parallels with his Future History, such as, in this case, Venus becoming independent just as Anderson's Avalon asserts its right to remain in the Domain of Ythri and not to be annexed by the Terran Empire.

The People Of The Wind is all the better for being an integral instalment of a much longer future history series.