The Ancient Merseian Capital

There is much about Ardaig, the Merseian co-capital city on this blog. Here, I want to focus on some of its unusual differences from Terrestrial cities:

apparently no radio, television or cinema;

turf streets with luminous pavements;

not words but heraldic emblems on street signs;

ground vehicles on only a few streets;

pedestrians and gwydh riders on most (not our idea of a planetary capital);

small shops run by the same families in the same houses for generations;

but also some large mercantile centers (I should think so);

quiet at night.

Modern antipodal Tridaig is noisier. And Admiralty House, in Ardaig, does work overnight.

Poul Anderson contrasts Ardaig with human cities both in physical details and in social dynamics. We expect mercantile centers to out-compete small family businesses and to regularly reinvent themselves in response to technological innovations and to economic successes or failures. Merseians have somehow combined stability with progress.

Sighing Breeze And Darkened Walls

The Stars Are Also Fire, 23, got a bit ho-hum. Two guys fight. Poul Anderson novels have their action scenes. As the fight begins:

"Bruno sprang backward and took stance, a monster blot on the pavement luminance. A breeze had arisen, sighting between darkened walls. Lightning had begun to flicker above roofs to the west." (p. 309)

There are luminous pavements on Merseia.

A breeze sighs, walls are darkened, lightning begins to flicker: plenty of Pathetic Fallacy. I will read on, confident that the good guy wins the fight. (The "monster blot" is the bad guy.)

Other reading: James Blish's A Case Of Conscience contains commentary on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Apparently, Joyce's Ulysses discusses the Shakespeare Authorship question. I have found Ulysses on-line. How much of my "other reading" will comprise another attempt at Ulysses remains to be seen.

Ardaig

"Ardaig was sizeable, must hold two or three million souls. This quarter was ancient, with buildings of gray stone fantastically turreted and battlemented."
- Poul Anderson, "Day of Burning" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (New York, 2010), pp. 208-272 AT p. 223.

Ardaig is a city on the planet Merseia. Anderson must make it different from a Terrestrial city but not very different because Merseia is terrestroid and Merseians are oxygen-breathing bipeds. When Merseia is unified, Ardaig becomes the planetary capital. Later, it is joined in this role by modern antipodal Tridaig, where most of the government's business is conducted, although Ardaig remains the cultural and artistic center, the location both of the Roidhun's primary residence and of his Grand Council's annual meetings, and also becomes the location of the new Space Navy offices.

Ardaig and Tridaig embody tradition and technology, respectively. Ardaig differs from a Terrestrial city because:

it is neither bright nor busy at night;

 
ground vehicles are confined to tubeways or a few avenues;

streets are for pedestrians or gwydh riders;

recreation is at home or in ancient theaters and sports fields;

shops are small and have been run by the same family in the same house for generations - although there are also mercantile centers with communicator and delivery systems;

pavements are luminous;

street signs are not words but colorful heraldic emblems.

Those last details in particular are different and imaginative.