Saturday, 25 July 2026

In Olga's Landing II

Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), CHAPTER ONE.

See In Olga's Landing.

We try to convey the feel of Anderson's descriptive passages and have come close in the above linked post although we omitted some details:

the sky is not just blue but "...clear, deep blue..." (p. 195);

the breeze is cool although -

"It would have been deadly cold before [Diana's] people came to Imhotep" (ibid.);

Mount Horn is twelve kilometers above sea level;

the city holds not only the Pyramid but also the Institute, industries, shops, hotels and apartments;

Diana is in the old quarter whose description we have quoted several times before (search the blog for "old quarter" although at least one other such quarter will come up!);

pioneers built in brick and low because of Imhotepan gravity;

in the market, videos show Terran sleaze and a vaz-Siravo dance from the Seas of Yang and Yin;

a gun dealer sells rifles, stunners and illegal Merseian blasters.

Every scene in Anderson's works reads as if the place exists and has not just been created at the stroke of a pen - or on a typewriter or a computer screen. We want to read more but can gain immensely just by rereading.

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