Something that I did not mention before: there is only one "moon." We are used to more on extra-solar planets!
Something that I have learned by rereading further: the narrator and his species sit on their tails like the same author's Merseians and Mithrans.
I am having a strange experience as a reader. I know that I have previously read every item in Poul Anderson's All One Universe. We are currently rereading the first story in this collection, "Strangers," because, like a couple of others that we have reread recently, it is about human beings colonizing an already inhabited planet. However, I have no memory of the content of the story and might as well be reading it for the first time.
Although the narrator, Ak'hai'i, and his people are physically very unlike human beings, their predicament is all too familiar from other works by Anderson. The climate is changing, populations are on the move and the Wold People are attacked by militarily superior Charioteers with iron weapons.
When Ak'hai'i goes to the Night Folk for help, he describes the individual whom he approaches and we recognize one of us, a human being. And that is as far as I have reread over breakfast this morning.
Today: a talk in Lancaster Museum by a hereditary member of the House of Lords.
This evening: Zen group for me and choir for Sheila.
In the gaps: rereading "Strangers" and Stieg Larsson and reading about the Spanish Civil War.
No comments:
Post a Comment