What Happened Afterwards

After Poul Anderson's "Iron" and "Inconstant Star":

the Saxtorphs stayed on Wunderland;

they went into partnership with Peter Nordbo who brought needed capital and business expertise;

the main office of Saxtorph and Nordbo is high in a building with views of both Munchen and countryside;

they have agreed that Rover will avoid contact with kzinti;

the Interworld Space Commission commissions them to carry cargoes to the puppeteer tradepoint and distribute exchange goods to four human planets;

meanwhile, their ship, Freuchen, carries a Navally protected scientific expedition to Pele, where there will be kzinti contact;

Nordbo's daughter, Tyra, a professional writer, accompanies the expedition.

Because this is the Man-Kzin Wars series but not the wider Known Space series, we see Tyra encountering a kzin, not Saxtorph dealing with puppeteers.

More From "Pele"

A kzin says, "'Glory to the race!'" (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 61)

Sounds familiar.

"Henrietta departed in the prograde direction...
"Caroline...was going retrograde..." (p. 64)

"...a hurtling hyperbolic trajectory." (p. 64)

"...monstrous plasmas..." (p. 66)

"...magnetic lines twisted around each other..." (p. 66)

"...main-sequence evolution..." (p. 66)

The explorers realize that a new planetary system must contain many metastable agglomerates easily volatilized by "'...solar input, impact energy, perhaps cumulative cosmic ray effects...'" (p. 54), thus all disrupted "'...long before intelligence evolves...'" (p. 54) They are surprised when an asteroid explodes in front of them but quickly deduce the cause. The captain wisely decides not to risk any more live crews in such unpredictable conditions.

Tyra starts a relationship with a guy who sets the readers teeth on edge - a bit like Wanda Tamberly's Time Patrol colleague in Beringia.

This post is occasioned by insomnia. It might be the last for a while.

Astronomical Terminology

"'The planet's practically at the Roche limit. It's due to start breaking up.'"
(Man-Kzin Wars IX, p. 38.)

"'The planet's self-gravity will hold it together as it fills its Roche lobe.'" (p. 50)

"'...turbulence within may well eject great gouts of material, forming a spiral that streams into the star...the planet will take a teardrop shape, filling its Roche lobe, and pouring its substance down that spiral until it becomes an accretion disk.'" (p. 50)

"[Two moons] were close enough that tidal flexion...kept them warm enough that life was perhaps, barely, germinating..." (p. 44)

"'Apparently chondritic...'" (p. 53)

"'The chondrules surrounded a mixture of ices...The agglomerate was metastable...volatilization...'" (p. 54)

Kumukahi

Poul Anderson, "Pele" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars IX (New York, 2002), pp. 3-95.

(Not a novel by my 100+ pages rule of thumb, especially since there are blank spaces at the ends of chapters.)

Kumukahi:

the inmost planet of the star, Pele;
ten Jovian masses;
spiraling inward;
temperatures soaring;
atmosphere distended into a 280,000 kilometer ovoid;
storms larger than terrestroid planets;
now orbiting only a million kilometers above the stellar photosphere;
revolving in less than half an Earth day and accelerating;
rotating in fifteen hours, slowed by tidal bulges;
night side flickering with lightnings reflected from planet-sized clouds, flashing with explosions or other atmospheric events;
day side burning, emitting incandescent gasses - some breaking free;
storms pouring along the inner tidal bulge;
a core of metallic hydrogen;
very few heavy elements.

Unusual Heavenly Bodies In The Man-Kzin Wars Series

Poul Anderson imagined unusual heavenly bodies and added three more in his Man-Kzin Wars trilogy. Each of these three works describes an expedition to an unusual astronomical object.

In "Iron," a rogue red dwarf star and its planetary system, almost as old as the universe, have gathered nebular and intergalactic matter that forms a single multiplex molecule on one planetary surface.

In "Inconstant Star," an artifact surrounding a radiating mini black is used as a weapon.

In "Pele," a star not yet fully formed has six eccentrically orbiting planets, including one inwardly spiraling super-Jovian, its atmosphere distended into a long ovoid, that will soon break up and collide with its primary.

Thus, endless cosmic imagination. Of course, man-kzin conflict happens at all three because that is the series we are in but Anderson's imagination transcends petty matters like interstellar empires!

Kzin

I say periodically and again now that tomorrow must be preparation for a Latin class the following day, therefore less time for blogging. Other activities, like today a six mile walk by the canal and the Bay, also interrupt reading and blogging.

The opening page of Poul Anderson's "Pele," in Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars IX (New York, 2002), informs us that:

on Kzin, kdatlyno slaves hand cultivate golden hsakh in the ancient way;

the fiber will be handwoven into cloaks to be worn at Midwinter Bloodfeast, then burnt.

We now learn that this is an established kzinti custom. Most probably, Poul Anderson created the custom for this one story and it will not be encountered again. Nevertheless, it now becomes potential background material for any future Man-Kzin Wars stories. We learn other facts about Kzin:

the kzinti call their sun the Father Sun whereas human beings call it 61 Ursae Majoris;
kzinti hunt slashtooths with spears but must avoid a pride and find one alone;
they make doors of flamewood;
hookbeaks hover so might be bird equivalents;
kzinti spaceships are named Swordbeak and Snapping Sherrek;
the Hero's Tongue has no words for "government" or "purely scientific";
we expect to meet High Admiral Ress-Chiu again but, of course, he died fighting beasts in the Patriarchal Arena after issuing disastrous orders in "Inconstant Star";
"'It was good sport.'" (p. 5)

Would it really be possible to run a high tech civilization on such a basis? It helps when we learn that kzinti savages were enslaved by a space-traveling race and stole all their technology from them.