On Lucifer

Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), pp. 35-54.

On the hellish planet, Lucifer:

"We came back to base as day's fury was dying in the usual twilight gale; we washed, ate something, went to sleep with the hiss of storm-blown dust for a lullaby." (p. 36)

Rereading, we find yet another contextually appropriate wind. How many sf writers present this amount of detail when describing extraterrestrial environments? Many hours later, it is still night with:

cold, crystalline stars;

thin air;

flaming auroras;

hoar landscape;

glittering ice sheathing twisted "trees."

Work outside cannot resume until dawn so two men eat, drink and talk.

We are rereading "The Problem of Pain" in order to discern how much information this story imparts about Ythrians and, in particular, about their form of social organization called the "choth." But there are no Ythrians on Lucifer, a planet that we are shown only in this single story although it will be mentioned once later.

Two men talk and one of them, Peter Berg, describes his earlier experience with Ythrians on the terrestroid planet provisionally named "Gray" although later, when colonized, it will be renamed "Avalon." The scene on Lucifer is introductory. Every scene contributes to one long rich series.