Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 7 Feb '15.
Diana Crowfeather is "...everybody's friend..." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 196) just as Kim is "'...The Friend of all the World...'" (Kim, p. 6).
The
city of Olga's Landing on the planet Imhotep in the Patrician System
began as an exploration base. Guns in the tower of St Barbara provided
defense against stampeding ice bull herds and later against human beings
during the Troubles but now the disarmed tower, sunseeker vine
clambering up its crumbling yellow stone, stands in the middle of a
market square in the old quarter.
From the tower,
Diana sees the new sector with industries, hotels, apartments, the
Institute and the Pyramid housing Imperial offices but she prefers the
old quarter with its:
"...brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and out on the tides of space." (ibid.)
Imhotep seems as real as Kipling's India.