Stormclouds

We Claim These Stars, CHAPTER XI.

A party of Ardazirho whirring down a Garth street on their unicycles:

"...left a wake of frightened silence behind them." (p. 70)

Poul Anderson describes not only the invaders but also their effect on the subdued Vixenites. There follows another sentence that also serves two purposes:

"The winter sun burned low to northwest, big and dazzling white in a pale sky, among hurried stormclouds." (ibid.)

First, a description of the Vixenite environment. The white sun is another welcome difference. Secondly, pathetic fallacy. Hurrying stormclouds match whirring invaders. Readers recognize the appropriateness of the stormclouds even if they do not analyse Poul Anderson's literary techniques.

Pathetic fallacy continues as Flandry keeps his assignation with Kit under "...the gloomy winter sky..." (p. 76) at the Rocket Fountain (scroll down) in Explorers' Plaza.

An Evening And A Morning On Vixen (And A Day In The Lake District)

Today we took the bus to Windermere and ate a vegetarian all-day breakfast in Brambles. While waiting at Kendal Bus Station, I reread:

Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 149-301 AT XI, pp. 238-239.

A late supper:
cold game bird;
wine;
Judith's hair glowing red by candlelight.

Before noon:
Explorers' Plaza;

surrounding gardens;

harp trees in the wind;

a metal fountain, shaped like an ancient space rocket, jetting colored fire;

before the occupation, a good place to drink coffee and watch life;

now, "...the gloomy winter sky..." (p. 239) matches the gloom of the defeated human population (another of Poul Anderson's many Pathetic Fallacies).

Dominic Flandry's career, like James Bond's, alternates between pleasure and danger. Flandry spends the night with Judith, then sits in Explorers' Plaza, waiting to be arrested by the alien occupation force. He plans to be captured and interrogated but also to gather intelligence, then escape - surely an implausible and reckless enterprise?

Every book has to be read or reread somewhere. See Where And When and the linked posts. In the current post, I have tried to present Flandry's evening and morning on Vixen verbally and our visit to Windermere visually.

In Garth

"Hunters of the Sky Cave," X.

Garth is a human city on a terrestroid planet so most of it should be recognizable to us.

The city has:

alleys;

streets;

pavements;

high-peaked roofs;

storm drains;

half-timbered houses with shutters;

a transmitter tower for a robotic weather-monitor station;

stretches of open paving;

gardens;

a hurricane cellar in every house;

a tunnel dug between houses by the resistance;

public thoroughfares;

pedestrians;

groundcars;

Ardazhiro on foot or unicycle;

aurora in the night sky;

harp trees and a metal space-rocket-shaped fountain in Explorers' Plaza;

a quarter million human population;

a garrison of a few hundred Ardazhiro with heavy weapons, robotanks and repeating cannon.

Tasks of the Garrison

To staff nearby observation stations and anti-spacecraft defences.

To collect firearms.

To direct factory production for the Ardazhiro army.

To detect and suppress resistance.

Towns, like Marsburg, where uprisings succeed are missiled.