Facts About Avalon II

(i) By "the Discovery," Ythrians mean First Contact with Terrans, not the discovery of Avalon.

(ii) To explain "nation" and "government," Hloch says:

"It is as if a single group could permanently cry Oherran against the entire rest of society..." (Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate, New York, 1979, p. 24)

(iii) Most Avalonian human beings "...maintain a modified form of government...It is merely their way." (p. 24)

(iv) The Parliament of Man and the Great Khruath of the Ythrians divide the Coronan continent between the species.

(v) Neither the text of "The Problem of Pain" nor Hloch's introduction to this account of joint human-Ythrian exploration of Avalon confirms that this exploration occurred after the founding of the Polesotechnic League, as indicated in the Chronology of Technic Civilization.

(vi) Children of Emil Dalmady from Altai, hero of "Esau," moved to Avalon with Falkayn. His daughter Judith Dalmady/Lundgren wrote "Esau" for a magazine named after the Avalonian moon, Morgana.

(vii) She also wrote "The Season of Forgiveness" and "Wingless" for Morgana.

(viii) Paradox and Trillia, the planets in "A Little Knowledge," are close to Avalon. The xenologist, Fluoch of Mistwood Choth brought the story to Avalon and Arinnian of Stormgate/Christopher Holm, who has translated works from Planha into Anglic, translated this story into Planha for the Earth Book.

(ix) Before and in anticipation of the Troubles, van Rijn and Falkayn had transferred records from Earth to the care of the Hermetian Grand Ducal house. Later, Rennhi transferred the molecular patterns to Avalon and deciphered the code, thus enabling Hloch and Arinninan to write accounts of Falkan's activities on Merseia and Mirkheim.

(x) AA Craig, author of Tales Of The Great Frontier, visited Avalon during the Troubles, heard of an incident from the person who had experienced it and wrote a fictionalized account as "Rescue on Avalon."

Avalon

Our sources of information about the planet Avalon are:

"The Problem of Pain," human beings and Ythrians explore Gray/Avalon;

"Wingless," both races colonize the Avalonian islands;

"Rescue on Avalon," both races colonize the Avalonian continent;

The People Of The Wind, both races resist the Terran Empire to remain in the Domain of Ythri;

The Earth Book Of Stormgate, an Avalonian Ythrian, Hloch, collects and comments on accounts of human beings.

How much additional information about Avalon does Hloch disclose? I was about to start summarizing the information to be gleaned from Hloch's notes between the stories but instead will retire and return to the topic tomorrow or shortly.

Also, if you have read the van Rijn story, "The Master Key," how much do you remember about it? Some people bring a problem about an alien race to van Rijn in his penthouse and he solves it for them? Maybe also something about the nature of the problem? There are several rich background details that are probably forgotten. One function of this blog is to celebrate such details by reminding us of them and first I must remind myself by careful rereading.

The Technic History in 10 Volumes

I now think that the series could be collected as follows: The Polesotechnic LeagueBeginnings (7 stories) Star Trader (van Rijn) Trader Team (Falkayn's crew), ending with "Lodestar" Latter Days (the remaining 5 works) Empire and AfterBeginnings (3 pre-Flandry works) Young Flandry Outposts of Empire Flandry and Empire Children of Empire After the Empire The League volumes would be an extended Earth Book of Stormgate. The Polesotechnic League: Beginnings would have to begin with the prequel/prologue story "The Saturn Game" but would then contain the first four Earth Book stories and the two that introduce Falkayn before van Rijn had appointed him to lead a team. Latter Days would end with the last two Earth Book stories, the first about Falkayn's grandson, the second set even later but both, according to the Chronology, occurring before the dissolution of the League. Latter Days would be a pivotal volume containing: two further League stories; the novel in which van Rijn reassembles the team to address a crisis that turns out to be the beginning of the end of the League; two stories set later on Falkayn's colony planet, Avalon. The strongest link between the League and Empire periods is that the Avalonian novel, The People of the Wind, here to be collected in Empire: Beginnings, provides the background for the Earth Book. The stories and novels in the History are like beads on a string. Moving them together or apart illuminates their contents and interconnections.

Fair Winds Forever

Poul Anderson was able to invent new characters for specific purposes, then invest them with substance. An omnibus collection contains twelve works (eleven stories and one novel) set before, during and after the period of the Polesotechnic League. Another novel, The People of the Wind, is set after this period. From this further novel, Anderson generated a title and interstitial passages for the collection. The People of the Wind is set on the planet Avalon where some humans and Ythrians are organised as the Stormgate Choth so the collection became The Earth Book of Stormgate. The rationale for the title is that the works in the collection present human perspectives on events preceding the founding of the Stormgate Choth on Avalon.

Five of the works feature Ythrians. Of these, four focus explicitly on human-Ythrian relations, three are set on Avalon, two are set after the joint colonisation of Avalon and one is about Falkayn, the founder of the Avalonian colony, and his employer, van Rijn. Of the seven non-Ythrian works, one is about Falkayn, one about his future travelling companion, one about a planet previously visited by Falkayn and three about van Rijn. The one remaining story mentions van Rijn. Thus, all twelve works are connected to each other but not all in ways that link them directly to Avalon. Anderson makes this further connection in the specially written Earth Book introductions to the works.

In "Esau," Emil Dalmady reports to van Rijn. The Earth Book introduction informs us that Dalmady's children joined the Avalonian colony where one of them wrote "Esau." The introductions to two other stories inform us that she also wrote them. Earth Book introductions mention three Stormgate members from The People of the Wind: Lythran, Blawsa and Christopher Holm/Arinnian. They also introduce new characters: the historian Rennhi, who wrote The Sky Book of Stormgate about Ythrian perspectives but who died before she could start the companion volume, the Earth Book, and her son Hloch who wrote the Earth Book. Arinnian wrote one Earth Book story and collaborated with Hloch on two others which were based on Rennhi's decipherment of records left by van Rijn and Falkayn on Falkayn's home planet, Hermes.

Hloch's other sources are:

Far Adventure by Maeve Downey, the autobiography of a planetologist;

a private correspondence recorded on Terra and kept in the archives of the University of Fleurville on the planet Esperance;

the reminiscences of James Ching, a spaceman who settled on Catawrayannis;

Tales of the Great Frontier by A. A. Craig;

stories by Judith Dalmady in the Avalonian periodical Morgana;

a historical novel about van Rijn originally published on either Terra or Hermes;

a tale brought to Ythri by the xenologist Fluoch of Mistwood and translated into Anglic by Arinnian;

the private journal of the spaceship captain Hiraharouk of Wryfields Choth on Ythri.

Hloch writes of Rennhi that her Sky Book, which we do not read, describes the history of the choth, the Ythrian ancestors, the Avalonian founders and their descendants to her own day.

"...of how past and present and future have forever been intermingled and, in living minds, ever begetting each other - of this does her work pursue the truth, and will as long as thought flies over our world." (1)

Thus, Anderson adds significantly to the works gathered in the Earth Book. Hloch signs off with:

"Now The Earth Book of Stormgate is ended. From my tower I see the great white sweep of the snows upon Mount Anrovil. I feel the air blow in and caress my feathers. Yonder sky is calling. I will go.
"Fair winds forever." (2)

(1) Poul Anderson, The Earth Book of Stormgate, New York, 1978, p. 2.
(2) op. cit., p. 434.

The Earth Book of Stormgate

"Wings of Victory" and "The Problem of Pain" describe early human-Ythrian contact. "Wingless," "Rescue on Avalon" and The People of the Wind are set on the joint human-Ythrian colony planet, Avalon. The Earth Book of Stormgate is a collection beginning with "Wings of Victory" and "The Problem of Pain" and ending with "Wingless" and "Rescue on Avalon." Between these end points, the collection contains seven stories and one novel set during the Polesotechnic League period of Anderson's History of Technic Civilisation. The People of the Wind is set in the early Imperial period.

  In The Earth Book, an Avalonian Ythrian, Hloch of the Stormgate Choth, fictitiously writes a general introduction, introductions to particular works and a general conclusion. He writes in the aftermath of the Terran War on Avalon as described in The People of the Wind. Hloch's contributions enhance the fictitious history which is already rich in the individual stories. For example, the hero of "Esau," Emil Dalmady, comes from the colony planet Altai later visited by Dominic Flandry during the later Imperial period. Dalmady reports to Nicholas van Rijn, a Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League. He meets an alien race, the Baburites, who will later invade Hermes (home planet of David Falkayn, protege of van Rijn and Founder of the Avalonian colony) and Mirkheim (an important planet discovered by Falkayn). Hloch adds that Dalmady's children moved to Avalon where works written by his daughter were included in The Earth Book. These include the story about her father entitled "Esau" and another about Falkayn's grandson on Avalon.

Hloch also tells us that, when the League was breaking up, van Rijn and Falkayn moved records from Earth to Hermes. Later acquired and deciphered by Hloch's mother, these records revealed previously unknown information about Falkayn on the planet Merseia (Flandry's later enemy) and about van Rijn's belated arrival at Mirkheim. Hloch and Arinnian, the latter a character from The People of the Wind, work this information into narrative form which we read as stories in The Earth Book. By telling us how the stories originated, Hloch adds to the history behind the stories.

The first Ythrian story is pre-League. Avalonian stories are post-. Thus, The Earth Book spans the League period. But there are other works set in the same period:

a three story van Rijn collection;
a three story Falkayn collection;
two novels featuring both characters.

There is also one story, "The Saturn Game," set long before "Wings of Victory" and there are two stories of the early Empire set before The People of the Wind. I suggest that all these works from "The Saturn Game" up to and including The People of the Wind can be seen as an expanded Earth Book. Imagine that Hloch's successor as an Avalonian historian finds these works and includes them in chronological order in a later edition of The Earth Book although without adding introductions as Hloch had done. Hloch's commentaries would remain although with "The Saturn Game" now preceding even his general introduction. The work would comprise several volumes but with a changed reading order. For example, the first two Falkayn stories belong in an early introductory section or volume, not in the later Trader Team section.

The proposed expanded Earth Book would differ in two ways from the first three volumes of the current Baen editions of the Technic History. First, where there are introductions or afterwords by the human author Anderson, I suggest that these should be preserved and published but in an Appendix at the end of the series so that they do not interrupt the flow of the Avalonian narration. Secondly, I disagree with the way the volumes are divided up. For example, I argue that the van Rijn/Falkayn novel, Mirkheim, should conclude a Trader Team volume, not introduce a Rise of the Terran Empire volume. A better title for The Rise of the Terran Empire, minus Mirkheim, would be Avalon and Empire. The Empire is not founded until "The Star Plunderer" which comes after "Rescue on Avalon." (Anderson's future history is richer and better written than Asimov's series containing Foundation and Empire.) I think it makes sense to read the van Rijn works en bloc, then the Trader Team series, starring Falkayn, en bloc.

However, Baen and their editor, Hank Davis, are doing something I could not do: letting everyone read Anderson's series from beginning to end for the very first time.

Anderson, Poul. The Earth Book of Stormgate, New York, 1978.