Arinnian Over Gray And Falkayn Bay

The People Of The Wind.

My favourite prose passage in this novel is the conclusion:

"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of joy.

"High is heaven and holy." (XIX, p. 662)

These two short paragraphs are comparable to the conclusions of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and "Star of the Sea," which I have also quoted.

My favourite scene in The People Of The Wind is in Chapter I when Arinnian, ascending from Gray on antigrav, enjoys the view. We have described this scene before and need not repeat every detail but they include:

the town of Gray sprawling among green trees and susin and colourful gardens on hills surrounding Falkayn Bay;

the Hesperian Sea, sun-flared silver, horizonward sapphire;

a cargo vessel from Brendan's Islands;

above, patrolling space warcraft (war is imminent);

on the inland horizon, the Andromedas/the Weathermother;

outside Gray, Ythrian ranches, human farms and native ecology.

We can see why the colonists settled the Hesperian Islands before tackling this Coronan continent. Beyond Hesperia and over the horizon is Oronesia. We will learn more about that archipelago and also about Brendan's and other islands later in this novel.

It is human beings that build cities, only two on Avalon: Gray and Centauri. But some Ythrians live in highrises in Gray. Thus have the two species come to intermingle. Christopher Holm/Arinnian has joined Highsky Choth which is based in the Weathermother but has agreed with his parents that he will remain in Gray to complete his mathematical studies. Choths have been accepting human members for the past century. Thus, Avalonian history has progressed a long way from "Rescue on Avalon."

The History Of A Name

A Man, A Planet And A City

Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979).

Hloch's father, Ferannian:

"...was an engineer who was often in Gray, Centauri and other towns, dealing with humans." (p.1)

"...because of its nearness to populous Gray, our choth receives more humans into membership than most." (p. 1)

"For us aboard the Olga, Captain Gray had decided that, whenever possible, sophonts should not be disturbed by preliminary sightings of our machines."
-"Wings of Victory," pp. 3-22 AT p. 4.

"It was Gray's idea to give women that last assignment." (p. 5)

- as gunners.

The Olga found both Ythri and Avalon, the former so named by its most advanced culture, the latter not named yet because prospective colonists would do that. A later explorer of Avalon says:

"'Offhand, the world - our group called it, unofficially Gray, after that old captain - looked brilliantly promising.'"
-"The Problem of Pain," pp. 23-48 AT p. 32.

"Humans had ample room on Avalon - about ten million of them; four million Ythrians - and even here in Gray, the planet's closest approximation to a real city, they built low and widespread."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT I, p. 441.

"...Avalon's second city - the only one besides Gray which rated the name... Centauri was predominantly a human town..."
-VI, p. 499.

Tracing a name back from a city to a planet, then to a man, feels like authentic history.

In Gray

Regular readers might remember that "Gray" is the name of the main city on Avalon. The city is named after Captain Gray of the Olga, the Grand Survey ship which, during a flight of several years - like that of the Enterprise -, discovered many planets, including Ythri and an uninhabited globe that was provisionally named "Gray" before David Falkayn's granddaughter renamed it "Avalon" when Falkayn led the colonization.

When the Founder's descendant, Tabitha Falkayn, visits Philippe Rochefort in hospital, the color of her hair and skin tell Rochefort that she has been under "...a stronger sun than shone over Gray." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 644)

Why is the comparison made with Gray? Because the hospital "...building had been hastily erected on the outskirts of Gray." (p. 646)

When Tabitha leaves the building, a double space between paragraphs marks the change of point of view from Rochefort to Tabitha. As ever, Poul Anderson makes the Avalonian setting seem real with many concrete details and with appeals to at least three of the senses:

"Where she stood, a hillside sloped downward, decked with smaragdine susin, starred with chasuble bush and Buddha's cup, to the strewn and begardened city, the huge curve of uprising shoreline, the glitter on Falkayn Bay. Small cottony clouds sauntered before the wind, which murmured and smelled of livewell.
"She inhaled that coolness. After Equatoria, it was intoxicating." (p. 647)

So she has been on Equatoria, where the Terrans were defeated. What better name for an equatorial continent? And imagine looking at scenery where a major feature bears your own surname. The mention of the wind is appropriate because Tabitha, as a member of a choth, is one of this novel's title characters, the "People of the Wind." In fact, she stops to don her gravbelt as she leaves the hospital. We have learned many details of Avalonian life and want to know more but unfortunately this novel is about to end.

Back In Gray

The People Of The Wind, XVIII.

When Tabitha visits Philippe in the hospital, we know that the window is:

"...open to the blue and blossoms of springtime." (p. 644)

- so we have got away from the winter that we saw in Gray and on St. Li but where are we now? He sees from her complexion that she has not been in Gray so is that where they are? Yes. When she leaves the building, we learn that it has:

"...been hastily erected on the outskirts of Gray." (p. 646)

- and then we read our last description of the city:

"Where she stood, a hillside sloped downward, decked with smaragdine susin, starred with chasuble bush and Buddha's cup, to the strewn and begardened city, the large curve of uprising shoreline, the glitter on Falkayn Bay. Small cottony clouds sauntered before the wind, which murmured and smelled of livewell.

"She inhaled that coolness. After Equatoria, it was intoxicating. Or it ought to be. She felt curiously empty." (p. 647)

We have seen Scorpeluna in Equatoria. Gray should certainly be refreshing after that. Gray, seen by Arinnian in flight, at least twice through Daniel Holm's office window and now by Tabitha, has been described often enough to generate a real sense of place. 

Wings Of Victory II

The Grand Survey spaceship Olga was on a three or more year mission to seek out strange new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no Terran had gone before. One of the Olga's discoveries was an uninhabited, potentially colonizable, terrestroid planet. Later, the explorers of this planet provisionally named it Gray after the captain of the Olga. Later again, its colonizers called it Avalon but its largest city came to be called Gray. Thus, the casual reader encounters a Captain Gray in the second story of Baen Books' Technic Civilization Saga Volume I and, seven centuries later, a city of Gray in the concluding novel of Volume III but might not notice the historical continuity represented by these names.

The Olga always sends a minimal team of three for first contact with a new race. On the inhabited terrestroid planet of Ythri, Gray sends:

Vaughn Webner, xenologist;
Aram Turekian, pilot;
Yukiko Sachansky, gunner.

Gray thinks that women make better gunners because they are better at watching and waiting. There will be conflict between Webner and Turekian and a relationship between Turekian and Sachansky. The narrative is quite complicated. The first person narrator is on the Olga but not on the contact team. She mentions, then quotes, Manuel Gonsalves, another crew member. Her name and profession, Maeve Downey, planetologist, are revealed not in the text of this story but in the Ythrian Hloch's introduction to the following story in The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Five Characters On Ythri

"Wings of Victory."

One of Nicholas van Rijn's trade pioneer crews comprises one Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League, one xenologist and one planetographer, of different species. Before the Commonwealth/League period, a ship of the Grand Survey had a larger, human-only crew. The Olga has a Captain, a xenologist, a planetographer, pilots and gunners for landing craft and no doubt many others.

Planetographer Maeve Downey, named not in the text of the story but later by Hloch, recounts her conversation with Xenologist Vaughn Webner before the landing party of Webner, Pilot Aram Turekian and Gunner Yukiko Sachansky descends to the surface of Ythri. Webner wonders how the Ythrians maintain a civilization with only local dirt roads and water transport. He does not yet know that the Ythrians fly and initially resists this idea by arguing that, in terrestroid conditions, any organism capable of flight has to have too low a body weight for intelligence.

Another planet discovered by the Olga is provisionally named after Captain Gray. Later, when the planet has been renamed Avalon, "Gray" becomes the name of an Avalonian city. Thus, Captain Gray, although he is merely referred to in this story, has an indirect impact on later history. None of these five characters, Downey, Weber, Turekian, Sachansky or Gray, appears again. Strong continuing characters emerge not immediately but gradually. By the end of Volume I, we have seen Adzel once, David Falkayn twice and Nicholas van Rijn four times and Falkayn has entered van Rijn's employment but has not yet met either Adzel or van Rijn.

Captain Gray prefers women as gunners because he thinks that they are better watchers and waiters and less likely to open fire. During the Northern Irish Troubles, a woman emerged from a toy shop holding a toy gun which she pointed at a patrolling British soldier. He pointed his real gun at her. She fainted and was carried away. The soldier acted correctly. Apparently under attack, he pointed his gun but did not open fire and immediately saw that this was unnecessary.

The Two Avalonian Cities

The People Of The Wind.

The two Avalonian cities, Gray on Falkayn Bay and Centauri on the Gulf of Centaurs, are very different from each other and are described in detail. Arinnian flies above then inland from Gray and spends time with Tabitha in Centauri where it is usually safer for him to be Christopher. We find that we have previously posted about both cities:

Gray

In Centauri

Livewell Street

In The Phoenix House

In The Phoenix House And The Nest

In The Nest

Gray and Centauri are more concretely realized than Stellamont on Nerthus in Poul Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic History. It is good to be able to compare them.

Introductory Details

What a slow, steady build-up of rich background details in a future history! In Volume I of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis -

on p. 30: There is a Jerusalem Catholic Church, which will not be mentioned again until the last installment in Vol III.

p. 81: Captain Gray commands a ship of the Grand Survey;

p. 83: There are trade-route cultures on the planet Cynthia.

p. 86: Human colonists farm on Hermes.

p. 93: On Woden, intelligent beings are quadrupeds.

p. 100: Communication is established with Ythrians.

p. 109: There is a University of Nova Roma on Aeneas.

p. 115: Ythrians and human beings explore a planet provisionally named after Gray.

p. 138: Captain Torres is a Lodgemaster in the Federated Brotherhood of Spacefarers; Nicholas van Rijn runs the Solar Spice & Liquors Company (SSL).

p. 177: James Ching has a friend called Adzel; the Brotherhood limits applications to the Academy.

p. 181: Adzel is from Woden.

p. 183: There are treetop highways on Cynthia; the inhabitants of Gorzun are four-armed.

p. 184: Inhabitants of Alfzar are blue; his Brotherhood badge identifies a spacehand.

p. 204: David Falkayn is from Hermes.

p. 276: Falkayn has become a factor for SSL.

p. 348: Lady Sandra Tamarin is from Hermes.

p. 523: SSL sells Suleimanite bluejack to Babur.

p. 542: The SSL factor on Suleiman is from Altai; a Cynthian spaceship regularly calls at Suleiman.

p. 557: Captain Bahadur Torrance is a Lodgemaster in the Brotherhood.

In subsequent volumes:

Gorzuni will enslave Terrestrials and work as mercenaries;
van Rijn will employ Falkayn, Adzel and a Cynthian as a trader team;
government legislation will give trade unions control of pension funds;
Lady Sandra will bear van Rijn's son and become Grand Duchess of Hermes;
Babur will invade Hermes;
Falkayn will lead joint human-Ythrian colonization of Gray, renamed Avalon;
the main city on Avalon will be called "Gray;"
Alfzar will be neutral between Terra and Merseia and a Covenant will be signed there;
Dominic Flandry will visit Altai;
Flandry will defeat a revolution centered on Aeneas;
a Wodenite will be ordained in the Jerusalem Catholic Church -

- and, of course, a great deal more than this will happen as well.

It was the very early references to Cynthia, Hermes, Woden and Aeneas that I found most impressive. The complexities of Technic civilization start to come into focus from the very beginning of the series.

The Exploration Of Gray

One Grand Survey crew from Earth discovered two terrestroid planets about eighty light years apart:

Ythri, inhabited;
Gray (later Avalon), potentially colonizable by human beings, Ythrians or conceivably both.

After first contact, Ythrians:

looked outwards;
attracted traders and teachers;
acquired capital;
sent students to the University of Nova Roma on the nearby human colony planet, Aeneas;
bought spaceships;
employed human beings for their technical expertise;
explored Gray scientifically and for its colonization prospects.

One spaceship left about a hundred explorers, Ythrian and human, who made base on the largest continent, later Corona, then dispersed across Gray. From a camp on the southern shore, a boat containing:

the Ythrian, Enherrian, and his wife, Whell;
their son, Rusa, and daughter, Arrach;
the Aenean, Peter Berg, and his wife, Olga -

- departed to explore immense floating islands of interwoven vegetation grazed by large marine animals. Olga named the vegetation "atlantis weed" and the animals were later called "krakens." Everything summarized so far builds up to a tragic experience for these four Ythrians and two human beings.

The Transitions II

An unnamed first person narrator, Peter Berg's colleague on the planet Lucifer, converses with Pete about the latter's earlier experience on the planet, Gray/Avalon. Pete says:

"'...the storm was more violent than would've been possible on Earth. We could only run before it and pray.
"At least, I prayed, and imagined that Enherrian did.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-134 AT p. 117.

Next, a double space between paragraphs indicates a change of point of view (pov). Now we are on Gray although with Pete's third person pov, not with his first person narration to the outer narrator. Nevertheless, we understand that this is the experience that Pete recounts to his colleague.

That violent storm is now described as if we were in it:

"Wind shrieked, hooted, yammered, hit flesh with fists and cold knives. Waves rumbled in that driven air, black and green and fang-white, fading from view as the sun sank behind the cloud-roil which hid it." (ibid.)

The description continues but our present focus is on how well Anderson handles the transition from a serious conversation on Lucifer to a life-threatening situation on Gray. (Quite well, so far.) Even more important than the storm is what Pete is about to go through personally. As part of this, he will learn that the Ythrians certainly do not pray...

The transition back from Gray to Lucifer:

"'Have I misunderstood?' asked Enherrian anxiously. 'Did you not wish her to give God a battle?'

"Even on Lucifer, the nights finally end. Dawn blazed on the tors when Pete finished his story."
-op. cit., p. 131.

What an experience! When an Ythrian of the New Faith faces death, he does not pray for more life but honors God by fighting Him to the death - even though God the Hunter stoops on all. Enherrian's question, just before the transition back to Lucifer, shows the Christian Peter Berg that the Ythrians' faith is not his.

Avalonian Choths And Geography

Poul Anderson, "Rescue on Avalon" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 307-323.

"Choths differed as much in their ways as human nations did..." (p. 310)

In the early days, when only the Hesperian Islands had been colonized, the Weathermaker Choth comprised only an "...extended household..." ("Wingless," p. 297) Centuries later, choths on the northern polar continent of Corona each had thousands of members at least. By that time, it had become unusual that:

"In Oronesia, there were single households that bore the name..." (The People Of The Wind, III, p. 464)

- and, even more unusual that:

"...grown and married, the younger children were expected to found new, independent societies." (ibid.)

Gray, the larger of only two cities on Avalon, is on the west coast of Corona. Inland from Gray, are the Andromeda mountains called the Weathermother by Ythrians and occupied by the Stormgate Choth. Christopher Holm lives in Gray and is Arinnian of Stormgate. Two thousand kilometres west from Gray is the Oronesia archipelago stretching almost to the Antarctic Circle, much of it occupied, despite those unusual small choths, by the fisheries-controlling Highsky Choth. Tabitha Falkayn is Hrill of Highsky. In the northern hemisphere, Oronesia divides the eastern Hesperian Sea from the western Middle Ocean. This is meant to impart some information about where various characters live at different times. 

Small continents or large islands in the South Ocean are Equatoria, New Africa and New Gaiila. There are other smaller islands. 

We want to go there or even feel that we have been there.

Early Contacts With Important Planets

Ythri, Gray/Avalon and Merseia are all discovered during the Grand Survey. We see:

Ythri discovered by a Survey spaceship;
Gray later explored by space faring Ythrians employing human beings;
Merseia helped by the Polesotechnic League.

All three planets later play major roles. Even before the discovery of Ythri, Cynthia and Woden had been discovered and explored and Hermes had been colonized. Before the exploration of Gray, Dido had been discovered and its sister planet Aeneas colonized. We know this because the human explorers of Gray include an Aenean who was employed because of contacts he made with Ythrians at the University of Nova Roma on Aeneas.

The first two short stories in The Earth Book Of Stormgate directly or indirectly introduce seven significant planets, those mentioned minus Merseia. We meet a Wodenite in the very next short story.

David Falkayn leaves three legacies to the Terran Empire and to later civilizations. He rescued Merseia, discovered Mirkheim and colonized Avalon.

The Technic History and Potential Histories

The Technic History

Writing about a series necessitates re-reading it. Re-reading reinforces appreciation of future historical interconnectedness. To summarise again:

“The Saturn Game.”	Early exploration.
“Wings of Victory.”	Human-Ythrian first contact on Ythri under Captain Gray during the Grand Survey. (References to the planets Cynthia, Woden and Hermes.)
“The Problem of Pain.”	Early human-Ythrian interaction on a second Grand Survey planet, provisionally named Gray.
“Margin of Profit.”	Nicholas van Rijn, Master Merchant, Polesotechnic League.
“How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson.”	The Wodenite Adzel studies on Earth.
“The Three-Cornered Wheel.”	The Hermetian David Falkayn is an apprentice on the planet Ivanhoe.
“A Sun Invisible.”	Falkayn is a journeyman in van Rijn’s company.
“The Season of Forgiveness.”	Later events on Ivanhoe.
The Man Who Counts.	Van Rijn and the Hermetian ducal heiress are shipwrecked on the planet Diomedes.
“Esau.”	Van Rijn; first contact with Babur.
Trader to the Stars (three stories).	Van Rijn.
“The Trouble Twisters.”	Van Rijn’s trader team of Falkayn, Adzel and the Cynthian Chee Lan.
“Day of Burning.”	The trader team helps the Merseians to survive radiation from a nearby supernova.
Satan’s World.	Van Rijn and the trader team.
“A Little Knowledge.”	Later events on two other planets discovered during the Grand Survey.
“Lodestar.”	Secret exploitation of super-metals on Mirkheim by races that cannot afford to buy knowledge or technology from League companies. Falkayn, the discoverer of Mirkheim, has broken his oath of fealty to van Rijn but marries van Rijn’s granddaughter.
Mirkheim.	A League cartel engineers the Baburite invasion of Mirkheim and Hermes. Conflict in the League. The later lives of the major characters.
“Wingless.”	Falkayn’s grandson interacts with Ythrians on the jointly colonized planet Avalon, formerly “Gray.”
“Rescue on Avalon.”	Later human-Ythrian interaction on Avalon.
“The Star Plunderer.”	During post-League “Troubles,” Manuel Argos leads a slave revolt and founds the Terran Empire.
“Sargasso of Lost Starships.”	The early Empire.
The People of the Wind.	The Terran War on Avalon: a descendant of Falkayn meets a forerunner and possible ancestor of Flandry; “Gray” is now the name of an Avalonian city.
The Flandry period.	Dominic Flandry, active on many planets, including some introduced earlier, defends the Empire against rebels, barbarians and Merseians.
The Game of Empire.	During Flandry’s old age, his daughter, the son of an old acquaintance and a new Wodenite character foil a Merseian plot. Potentially, a new series begins…
The Long Night period (three stories and one novel, if we include the disputed “Memory”).	The Empire has fallen. In one story, Roan Tom roves the stars. Potentially, a new series begins… Later, humanity evolves.
“Starfog.”	Descendants of rebels expelled by Falkayn contact a new civilization, the Commonalty. Daven Laure is a Ranger of the Commonalty. Potentially, a new series begins…

(“Memory” is set after the fall of a human interstellar Empire but Anderson denied that this was the Terran Empire of the Technic History.)

The Imperial and post-Imperial periods, like the Polesotechnic period, could be analyzed story by story but I here resort to summarizing the later “History of Technic Civilization” in a few sentences. Nevertheless, the reader of this summary should be able to appreciate the scope of the complete series, despite its obvious pulp sf origins. The Terran Empire, introduced as a colorful backdrop for “space opera,” sf action-adventure fiction, later became the setting for novels reflecting on the process of imperial decline. If van Rijn profited from capitalist expansion but Flandry, later, resisted imperial decline, then what went wrong, or at least what happened, between their periods? The two periods were originally presented in unrelated series until Anderson, writing Flandry, suddenly thought to make him refer back to van Rijn and a new future history was born.

Aliens

Hermes is a Terrestrial colony so Falkayn is human. Ythrians are winged carnivores with gills adapted as superchargers to lift bodies massive enough for intelligence. Diomedeans also fly but with bat-like, not feathered, wings. Wodenites are large reptilian quadrupeds descended from hexapods whose forelimbs came to be freed for manipulation. Adzel played the dragon in Chinese New Year and Wagnerian opera when he was a student on Earth.

Cynthians, arboreal hunters and traders, sound like intelligent squirrels. The Cynthian Chee Lan, small, female and aggressive, is clearly written to be an antithesis to the Wodenite Adzel who is large, male and placid, even converting to Buddhism. Ivanhoans, Merseians and some other species are humanoid with relatively minor variations. Baburites are hydrogen-breathing giant centipedes. Ymirites, encountered by Flandry, inhabiting Jovian planets and also breathing hydrogen, have many legs and tendrilled heads but cannot be seen clearly through a Jovian atmosphere. Flandry’s main opponent, a Chereionite, is of avian descent but humanoid.

Thus, instead of designing new organisms from their molecules up, Anderson usually adapts terrestrial forms. His humanoids may have differently coloured skins, different numbers of fingers, thumbs or eyes and no visible ears or nose but they remain recognizably humanoid. As a hard sf writer, Anderson can defend this procedure:

“On an essentially terrestroid planet, evolution basically parallels our own because it must.” (1)

And psychologically:

“Those we encounter on a regular basis are necessarily those whose bent is akin to ours…” (2)

If there are many races, then many of them will be incomprehensible to us but we will deal with those who are not. Anderson applies this principle in other works.

Three Novels

Any story set in the future is potentially an episode of a future history. A novel written in 2000 but set in 3000 assumes a history connecting the known events of 2000 with the fictitious events of 3000. The author of a single story could add any number of sequels and prequels to it. The Star Trek series moved in this direction, becoming more than a single series set in a single period.

Tau Zero, After Doomsday and World Without Stars by Poul Anderson remained independent works - except that one short story, “Pride,” is set in the same future as Tau Zero, with Stockholm as the world capital. The earlier, shorter version of Tau Zero had not shared this political background with “Pride” but the novel does, thus potentially launching yet another future history.

Each of these three novels takes a basic sf premise and presents a comprehensive conceptual development from that premise. Tau Zero avoids alien contact because it concentrates on the human crew of a relativistic spaceship which accelerates uncontrollably. Through time dilation, the ship and its crew survive into the next universe. The central character hopes that surviving humanity can become the Elder Race of that universe but we are not shown this happening.

The premises of After Doomsday are that:

the galaxy is full of intelligent races;
“superlight” travel is possible.

It follows that:

superlight is discovered somewhere some time, once or more than once;
explorers encounter many races, some of whom are willing and able to acquire superlight from them;
superlight travel spreads like dandelion seeds;
space traveling races deal with those with whom they can converse and ignore or bypass others;
they can deal regularly only with those in their immediate vicinity;
therefore, the galaxy is full of “civilization-clusters,” between which there is no regular contact;
within a cluster, space travellers learn a common language and one such language is used in several nearby clusters;
even within a cluster, every planet is economically self-sufficient so trade is in knowledge and luxury items;
the civilized galaxy is so vast that there cannot be a single Empire or Federation and no one knows the history or current macro-status of the entire galaxy;
militaristic imperialism between nearby worlds is possible and, this being a work by Anderson, it does occur in our cluster – marine warriors on one planet and nomadic conquerors on another maintain their societies by expanding into space, engage in conflict with each other and involve other races in the hostilities.

This scenario could have been the basis of an indefinite number of novels. This one novel has two specific additional premises:

first, human spaceships re-enter the Solar System at different times to find that some other race has destroyed all life on Earth so – who murdered Earth and what can be done about it?
secondly, the American spaceship crew is all male whereas the Europeans are all female so – how can they find each other to continue the human race?

Anderson wrote detective novels and this sf novel clearly has elements of detective fiction. Deducing who murdered Earth involves realizing that whoever did it used equipment which required them to translate from a numeral system based on the power of six to a system based on the power of twelve. A six fingered race tried to frame a twelve fingered race.

The European women aim to get rich in a capitalist cluster so that they will be able to pay for a fleet of ships to search the galaxy. The American men aim to win the local interstellar war, then to devise a ballad about their victory in a multi-cluster language. One of the women hears the ballad sung in a multi-species bar, Yotl’s Nest. By the end of the novel, Terrestrial men and women have met and have changed the balance of power in two civilization-clusters.

World Without Stars has two basic premises:

antithanatics prevent death by illness or old age so that people now die only by accident or violence;
by a series of instantaneous jumps, although with time-consuming intermediate journeys, a spaceship can reach not only other stars but even other galaxies.

It follows that:

population is not a problem;
life-styles and perspectives adjust to the long view (Earthside property left in the care of robots is unchanged centuries later; a spaceman has wives in several ports and may not see any one of them for several decades but each wife also has several space traveling husbands);
some individuals live for millennia, for example three thousand year old Hugh Valland who has lived through the entire period of interstellar and intergalactic travel and who is content, every few years or decades, to revisit a certain grave on Earth.

Again, these premises could have been the basis of an indefinite number of novels. This particular novel has the specific premise that its characters, crash-landing on a planet in a system between galaxies, need to work hard and to organize native labor in order to get back home and are led by Hugh Valland. Getting back off this ancient planet where there are no heavy metals takes them four decades. For Valland, Mary O’Meara waits on Earth.

1. Anderson, Poul, “Wings of Victory,” Analog Science Fiction, April 1972, reprinted in Anderson, Poul, The Earth Book of Stormgate 1978, New York, pp. 3-22 at p. 14.
2. Anderson, Poul, The Trouble Twisters, 1966, New York, p. 56.

Who Knows of Avalon?

In "The Problem of Pain"

"...intermediate in size between Earth and Ythri, surface gravity 0.8 terrestrial;
"slightly more irradiation, from a somewhat yellower sun, than Earth gets, which simply makes it a little warmer;
"axial tilt, therefore seasonal variations, a bit less than terrestrial;
"length of year about three quarters of ours, length of day a bit under half;
"one small, close in, bright moon;
"biochemistry similar to ours - we could eat most native things, though we'd require imported crops and livestock to supplement the diet.
"All in all, seemingly well-nigh perfect." (1)

South of the largest continent, a great gulf swarms with life. A strong eastward current is deflected north by an archipelago. Monstrous marine creatures graze on floating islands of densely interwoven "atlantis weed" probably also supporting lesser plants and animals. Higher solar energy input and rapid rotation make storms more violent than would be possible on Earth.

On an island in the gulf:

"A mat of mossy, intensely green plants squeezed out any possibility of forest." (2)

Surgeon trees' thin leaf-fringed bows, sharp enough to cut a wing from a swooping Ythrian, whip insanely in the wind which blows gorgeous blossoms torn from vines. Widespread low, russet-leaved, rankly odorous hell shrubs clutch at feet with raking twigs and emit vapours scarcely harming Ythrians but slowly poisoning human beings. Waterfowl fly through a rose, gold and silver-blue sunrise.

In "Wingless"

Ythrians and human beings settle different territories in the Hesperian Islands before jointly colonising the Coronan continent. Nat Falkayn, seventeen Avalonian (twelve Terran) years of age when visiting the Ythrian extended household of Weathermaker Choth:

"...stood on a balcony of that tall stone tower which housed the core families. Below were a paved courtyard and rambling wooden buildings. Meadows where meat animals grazed sloped downhill in Terrestrial grass and clover, Ythrian starbell and rye, Terrestrial oak and pine, Ythrian braidbark and copperwood, until cultivation gave way to the reddish mat of native susin, the scattered intense green of native chasuble bush and delicate blue of janie. The sun Laura stood big and golden-colored at morning, above a distantly glimpsed mercury line of ocean. Elsewhere wandered a few cottony clouds and the pale, sinking ghost of Morgana. A flock of Avalonian draculas passed across view, their leathery wings awkward beside the plumed splendor of Keshchyi's." (3)

Morgana is the moon, brighter and faster than Luna. Keshchyi is a young Ythrian.

Whirlpools around the dark coraloid reefs at a lagoon entrance hold "...thick brown nets of atlantis weed torn loose from a greater mass far out to sea..." (4)

In "Rescue on Avalon"

The highest Avalonian mountains are called the Andromeda Range by human beings and the Weathermother by Ythrians. (Hloch of the Stormgate Choth wrote The Earthbook of Stormgate on the peak of Mount Anrovil in the Weathermother.) Ironleaf trees draw metal from the soil and concentrate pure particles in shining purple leaves which attract pollinating bugs and also absorb radio waves. A hospital window opens on Avalonian king's-crown, Ythrian windnest and Earthly oak.

The Parliament of Man and the Great Khruath of the Ythrians divided continental territory between the species. Human beings need prairies for crops whereas Ythrian hunters occupy the Weathermother.

In The People of the Wind, Chapter One

The city of Gray on Falkayn Bay is surrounded by human-owned grain-fields, Ythrian-owned pastures for maukh and mayaw, forests of oak, pine, windnest or hammerbranch and treeless areas of native susin where some barysauroids survive. Even in Gray, humans, with ample room on Avalon, build low. Highrises are for ornithoids (Ythrians).

"Laura, a G5 star, has only 72 per cent the luminosity of Sol and less ultraviolet light in proportion; but Avalon, orbiting at a mean distance of 0.81 astronomical unit in a period of 0.724 Terran, gets 10 percent more total irradiation than man evolved under." (5)

Christopher Holm, thirty years Avalonian old, has joined Stormgate Choth as Arinninan. The Stormgate compound:

"...stood on a plateau of Mount Fairview. At the middle lifted the old stone tower which housed the senior members of the family and their children. Lower wooden structures, on whose sod roofs bloomed amberdragon and starbells, were for the unwed and retainers and their kin. Further down a slope lay sheds, barns, and mews. The whole could not be seen at once from the ground, because Ythrian trees grew among the buildings: braidbark, copperwood, gaunt lightningrod, jewelleaf which sheened beneath the moon and by day would shimmer iridescent. The flowerbeds held natives, more highly evolved than anything from offplanet - sweet small janie, pungent livewell, graceful trefoil and Buddha's cup, a harp vine which the breeze brought ever so faintly to singing. Otherwise the night was quiet and, at this, altitude, cold." (6)

Avalonian constellations include Wheel, Swords, Zirraukh, Ship and Maukh.

Chapter Two

"Avalon rotates in 11 hours, 22 minutes, 12 seconds, on an axis tilted 21 degrees from the normal to the orbital plane. Thus Gray, at about 43 degrees N., knows short nights always; in summer the darkness seems scarcely a blink." (7)

Human fluid balance and kinesthesia have had to readjust to a gravity field only 80 percent Terran. Ythrians shifting their breeding cycle to Avalonian conditions had low fertility in early generations.

Humans who join choths "go bird." Ythrians who leave choths to become atomic individuals within the global community become "Walkers." Mistwood Choth, like the home world Ythri, has successfully adapted Terran technology.

Chapter Three

Equatorial diameter: 11,308 kilometers. Highest Andromedan peak: 4500 meters. Corona, the north polar continent extending past the Tropic of Swords: eight million square kilometers, comparable to Australia. In the Southern hemisphere, Equatoria, New Africa and New Gaiila are small continents or large islands.

2000 kilometres west of Gray, the Oronesian archipelago crosses the Tropic of Spears, separating the Middle Ocean to the West from the Hesperian Sea in the northern hemisphere and the South Ocean beyond the equator. Oronesia supports a distinct ecology. Eccentrics flee there to settle islands and found choths of only a single household. However, the more numerous Highsky Choth occupies much of the archipelago and controls the fisheries around latitude 30 degrees North. Tabitha Falkayn, Hrill of Highsky, is a third generation human member of her choth and was brought up by Ythrians. Western Corona and northern Oronesia must defend the Hesperian Sea against Terrans.

Upper slopes have susin and a few shrubs. Lower, cultivated ground has red Ythrian clustergrain to feed shuas and Terrestrial fruit trees to feed Highsky humans. A herder and his uhoth control flapping shuas while an Ythrian sailor scouts for piscoids and native pteropleuron lumber around.

Chapter Four is about Terrans preparing to attack Avalon from Esperance.

Chapter Five

The main Ythrian language is Planha, the equivalent of Terran Anglic. Khruaths, gatherings open to all free adults in a given territory, have judicial and limited legislative authority. Wyvans, the presiding officers, explain the law and try suits but cannot compel. If non-compliance is deemed sufficiently serious, then the Wyvans cry Oherran, calling on everyone in the territory to attack the offenders. Rejection of the call would be a deathpride matter, with suicide the Wyvans' only option.

Addendum, Sun 23 Nov 2015: I was too brief about the Khruaths -

an ancient Khruath was a periodic gathering open to all free adults in a territory;
later, regional Khruaths elected delegates to Year-Khruaths covering larger territories;
Year-Khruaths send delegates to the High Khruath of the planet, meeting every six years or on extraordinary occasions;
Wyvans are chosen at each level;
however, any free adult can attend a Khruath at any level.

Chapter Six

The only other Avalonian city is Centauri at the mouth of the Sagittarius in the Gulf of Centaurs. In the Phoenix House, Tabitha/Hrill orders a catflower cocktail. She and Chris/Arinnian eat piscoid-and-tomato chowder, beef-and-shua pie, salad of clustergrain leaf and pears and drink coffee spiced with witchroot and a bottle of vintage dago. The Nest, a tavern for ornithoids, is the tallest building in Centauri with a gravshaft to its rooftop for humans who have not brought flying gear. It is unwalled, protected from rain by a vitryl canopy. Insectoids circle fluoroglobes and a service robot serves New African beer.

Most of Highsky keeps to the Old Faith, using drugs in sacred revels. Other planets in the Lauran System are Elysium, Camelot, Phaeacia and Utgard.

Chapters Seven and Eight describe a battle in space.

Chapter Nine

Morgana is smaller than Luna but, being close, raises twice the tides. The Avalonian vertebrate design is hexapodal. Winged creatures have four legs. The dense mat of low-growing vegetation prevents native forests and helps to explain why animals remain reptiloid, unable to compete with mammals or birds. Trees are low and thick or slim and supple to survive high winds caused by rapid rotation. Imported domestic animals had to be revamped genetically because local food lacks some vitamins.

In Chapter Ten, the Terran Admiral parleys with Avalonian leaders and a fallen Avalonian, the First Marchwarden, is laid to rest.

Chapter Eleven

High Wyvan Liaw of the Tarns addresses the Great Khruath of Avalon from outside David Falkayn's house on First Island in the Hesperian Sea. On a North Coronan prairie, a flapping youth leads a herd of quadrupedal burden-bearing zirraukhs. South-East from Oronesia are the Brendan's, Fiery and Shielding Islands. Atlantis weed patches are entire ecologies grazed by peaceful but huge kraken. David Falkayn's granddaughter named Avalon. Equatorian centaurs use tools of stone and bone.

Chapters Twelve and Thirteen are mainly about the consequences of the war in space.

Chapter Thirteen

In winter, snow falls in North Corona and in the mountains but not in Gray where "...the susin stayed green on its hills the year around." (8)

Chapter Fourteen

Zirraukhs are warm-blooded quadrupeds smaller than horses and unlike them but used for the same purpose.

Chapter Fifteen

An Ythrian swoops on a pteropleuron that had been hunting piscoids near the surface of the sea.

Chapter Sixteen

Grief causes premature ovulation in a bereaved Ythrian female. A male seeks her out. This is not against choth law and the female's human chothmate, Arinnian, has no cause to challenge so he insults the Ythrian male until the latter challenges him.

Chapter Seventeen

On the Scorpelunan plateau in Equatoria, hexapods graze under their parasol membranes. Packs of dog-sized hexapodal lycosauroids and throngs of twenty centimeter long cockroach-like kakkelaks attack Terran invaders who are being slowly poisoned by hell shrubs. Furious tropical storms caused by high irradiation and fast spin delay evacuation.

Chapter Eighteen

Smaragdine susin, chasuble bush and Buddha's cup grow on a hill above Falkayn Bay. 

Chapter Nineteen

Trefoil and sword-of-sorrow grow in the grass. Harp vines ring. Jewelleafs twinkle. Morgana is less bright because scarred by Terran bombardment.

Why Am I Doing This?

I have summarized an alternative reading. We read an Anderson novel to follow the story. We appreciate that there are rich background details but do not usually pause to savor the details. I have noted as many details as I can of the planet Avalon.

(1) Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Earth Book of Stormgate, New York, 1978, pp. 26-48, AT p. 33.
(2) ibid., p. 40.
(3) Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN The Earth Book of Stormgate, pp. 411-420, AT pp. 413-414.
(4) ibid., p. 417.
(5) Poul Anderson, The People of the Wind, London, 1977, p. 7.
(6) ibid., p. 10.
(7) ibid., p. 18.
(8) ibid., p. 127.

The Nifty Details

The Wanderer and Ulrica withdraw to confer privately. To advance the plot, Poul Anderson need only tell us what they say. But first he presents the following details:

"Dusk was closing in, blue-gray in the open windows, murky in the room. Coolness bore smells of leaf and soil, trill of nightingale,..." (Time Patrol, p. 429)

- appealing to four senses. Only taste is lacking. Carl Farness is gray-haired and blue-cloaked so maybe, as the Wanderer, he merges into the blue-gray dusk?

Carl is the first person narrator of the passages set in other centuries but is described in the third person in the episodic fourth century narrative. These latter sections usually have a collective Gothic point of view, e.g.:

"Folk had flocked to the hall..." (p. 428)

However, the private conversation has to be recounted from the point of view of one of its two participants. Thus, the introductory details continue:

"...but those seemed distant, not quite real, to Ulrica." (p. 429)

Later, Swanhild and Randwar confer. Again, we are treated to more than just their dialogue:

"She and he walked together down a lane where blackberries grew, trees soughed and caught sunlight, birds sang. Her hair flowed golden, her eyes were big and heaven-blue in the fine-boned face, she moved like a deer." (p. 431)

Two senses - and the beauty of Swanhild.

Later, when she is murdered:

"Sibicho...yelped: 'She calls on her witchy ancestor? Suffer her not to live!'" (p. 445)

- thus echoing a Biblical commandment that Sibicho could have heard from Gothic Christians.

On Falkayn Bay

The People Of The Wind.

The view of Gray and Falkayn Bay:

A View On Avalon
In Gray

The image on "A View Of Avalon" is of a book called Terra gegen Avalon, which looks as if it might mean "A Planet Called Avalon."

The Hesperian Sea is mentioned. We know from "Wingless" that the colonists of both species settled on the Hesperian Islands before moving to the Coronan continent.

We have just seen Ansa defeated by the Empire which now threatens the Lauran System.

Fortunately, having read an account of Arinnian's aerial view of Gray, we go on to read a later account of Tabitha's ground-based view and, unfortunately, the novel ends soon after that.

The second Avalonian city, Centauri, is described in More On Livewell Street.

The Naming Of Avalon

"The same expedition which made the Discovery of Ythri had chanced upon Avalon. Though rich prey for colonists, at the time it lay too far from Sol and remained nameless. The season came at last for taking real knowledge of it."
-Poul Anderson, Introduction to "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-105 AT p. 105.

Ythrians, with some human employees, explore the as yet unnamed planet which is in a system about eighty light years from their sun, Quetlan:

"'The original Survey crew had discovered a terrestroid planet there. They didn't bother to name it. Prospective colonists would choose their own name anyway. Those could be human or Ythrian, conceivably both - if the environment proved out.
"'Offhand, the world - our group called it, unofficially, Gray, after that old captain - the world looked brilliantly promising.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 107-134 AT p. 115.

Philippe Rochefort, Terran prisoner of war, asks:

"'What incurable romantic named this planet?'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT p. 570.

Tabitha Falkayn, brought up by Ythrians, replies:

"'David Falkayn's granddaughter, when he'd decided this was the place to go...'"
-ibid.

We know of David Falkayn's daughter, Juanita, and his son, Nicholas, and of Nicholas' son, Nat. Tabitha informs us that David also had at least one granddaughter but we are told neither her name nor her parentage. David Falkayn has come a long way from a teenage apprentice on Ivanhoe to the legendary Founder of Avalon. This is future biography within future history.

There are three stages in the naming of the planet:

first, it has been discovered but not yet named;
secondly, an exploratory group unofficially calls it Gray;
thirdly, Falkayn's granddaughter names it "Avalon" and "Gray" becomes the name of the more populous of its two cities.

Characters And Their Contributions

In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, as in real history, many minor characters make major contributions:

Colin Scobie must have the courage to kill two fantasy characters;

Aram Turekian realizes how an intelligent species is able to fly on Ythri;

the planetologist of the Grand Survey spaceship, the Olga, writes an autobiography that contributes a chapter to The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

James Ching's notebooks preserved by his descendants also contribute to the Earth Book;

Emil Dalmady has a daughter who moves to Avalon with Falkayn and writes stories for the magazine Morgana, three becoming chapters in the Earth Book;

thus, an incident in the life of Falkayn's grandson is recorded;

Christopher Holm, a major character in one novel, The People Of The Wind, makes several additional contributions, three chapters of the Earth Book and translations from Planha to Anglic;

Captain Gray of the Olga has an enlightened attitude to women gunners;

when one of the planets discovered by the Olga is explored, the exploratory group unofficially calls it "Gray";

when the planet is jointly colonized by human beings and Ythrians and renamed "Avalon," its main city is called "Gray."

This post lists nine characters apart from the major figure Falkayn and summarizes a lot of details.

Tabitha Falkayn On Falkayn Bay

The People Of The Wind, XVIII.

I am revisiting one of my favourite scenes in Poul Anderson's Technic History and finding that I have already quoted it three times:

Livewell On The Wind

In Gray

Back In Gray

We know Gray and Falkayn Bay and the mixed vegetation of Avalon. Poul Anderson conveys a sense of place as some mainstream writers have been able to do for London, Paris, Dublin etc and as Poul and Karen Anderson did for Ys.

The time for walking across town to the Chinese New Year concert approaches.

Laterz.

What The Previous Post Left Out

See The Best Future History Collection.

No post is ever comprehensive enough to do full justice to its subject matter. In the Earth Book, as discussed in the previous post (see the above link), the four Ythrian short stories and the new introductions between them cover:

the exploration of the planet Ythri and a discovery about Ythrian physiology;

the exploration of the planet Gray/Avalon, the nature of the Ythrian New Faith with some information about the Old Faith and a first mention of the planet Aeneas;

human and Ythrian colonization of the Hesperian Islands on Avalon;

joint colonization of the Coronan continent on Avalon;

the aftermath of the Terran War on Avalon that is described in The People Of The Wind.

In that novel, Ekrem Saracoglu, Imperial Governor of Sector Pacis, summarizes the relevant history:

500 years ago, the same Grand Survey ship discovered Ythri and Gray;

Gray, not renamed Avalon until much later, was colonizeable, but too far from Terra;

Ythri, forty light-years further away, began to trade with Technic civilization;

350 years ago, 50 years before the collapse of the Polesotechnic League, a human company led by an old trade pioneer proposed colonization of Avalon under Ythrian protection;

Ythrians agreed and some joined the colony;

the Troubles led to the formation of the Terran Empire and the Domain of Ythri;

the Avalonians, as they now were, became united in adversity.

Although Saracoglu does not know it yet, the Avalonians are determined to remain in the Domain despite his attempt to "rectify" the border.