God Rising

We stated, accurately, in Beginnings Of Novels, that Poul Anderson's World Without Stars, Chapter I, is set on a planet between galaxies. However, this chapter alone does not tell us that. What it does tell us is that "God" rises above a horizon. The Pack, who worship Him, had:

"...howled when the fingers of God's foremost arm glimmered into view. But he would take long to mount so high that His entire self was revealed." (p. 5)

And will that entire self display not only fingers and arms but also head, torso, legs and feet? (No, but we do not know that yet.)

The Pack have enemies called downdevils who come out of the sea and who might:

"...send a war fleet of the Herd..." (ibid.)

So there is conflict between Pack and Herd. (In Anderson's The Man Who Counts - on another planet in another timeline - there is conflict between Flock and Fleet.)

So far, then, the Pack worships the rising God (in the sky) while its enemies, the Herd, are sent by downdevils (in the sea)... 

But something else:

"...had lately arrived in fire and thunder..." (ibid.)

Sf readers are immediately alerted. That sounds like the arrival of an extra-planetary spacecraft. Will it bear human beings? Indeed, we shortly read that there are:

"...legends...about creatures that had long ago come from the sky and returned..." (p. 6)

When the sunset has ended and when God has risen further, only He, the angels and three planets are in the sky. I do not know what the "angels" are and am noticing them now only because I am analyzing this chapter in more detail than before.

There is one other aspect to the dualism of God and downdevils. Apparently, God is associated with night and his antagonists with day. The Herd rarely attack by night because they worship the downdevils who fear God whereas ya-Kela, the One of the Pack and their leader in worship, addresses God as:

"'...Thou Who casteth out of the sun...'" (ibid.)

- a God Who casts out not darkness but its opposite.

But what is God? We have been told nothing about extragalactic planets as yet but we have been told that God has a "...foremost arm..." and the following chapter reminds us on the following page that galaxies have spiral arms.