Imhotep

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.

Maps

On pp. 193-194 of Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), there are six maps of different parts of the Patrician System:

(i) five inner planets with asteroids between the fourth, Imhotep, and the fifth, Archimedes;
(ii) four outer planets;
(iii) Imhotep;
(iv) the third planet, Daedalus;
(v)-(vi) some details on Daedalus.

The central action of the novel occurs on the colonized planets, Imhotep and Daedalus, or briefly in a spaceship between them. Near the end of the novel, one character, Targovi, is said to have gone mining for metals in the asteroids.

The uncolonized planets:

Liang Lin-tsan;
Channing;
Archimedes;
Vitruvius;
Leonardo;
Katsuragi no Kami;
Sennacherib -

- are shown on (i) or (ii) but not named in the text.

The map of Imhotep shows, in the northern hemisphere, Olga's Landing, Toborkozan and the Starboard and Larboard Islands. Olga's Landing has the Imperial offices, the Institute and the old, disarmed, fortress tower of St Barbara. Some Starkadian land dwellers were relocated to Toborkozan. The Islands have Ancient remains. The map also shows, in the southern hemisphere, a continent with two large inlets, the Seas of Yang and Yin, where Starkadian sea dwellers were relocated.

The map of Daedalus shows the Phosphoric Ocean between two continents. On one continent is the capital, Aurea. The first detail map shows the island Zacharia opposite the mouth of the Highroad River. Along the river are:

a Donarrian settlement, Ghundrung;
the mainly Cynthian town, Lulach;
the human settlement, Paz de la Frontera, at the head of navigation;
just north of Paz, Aurea.

The second detail map shows the northern part of Zacharia.

Targovi and his passengers from Imhotep landed at Aurea. Diana traveled by cable car to Paz although Axor, a large quadruped, would not have fitted into a car and probably walked. From Paz, they traveled upriver to Lulach. Diana and Axor planned to visit possible Ancient ruins in the jungle south of Ghundrung but instead Targovi persuaded them to accept an invitation to fly to Zacharia, where Axor would be able to consult records.

Thus, every detail on maps (v) and (vi) is relevant to the narrative, even the unvisited Ghundrung.

The Planet Without A Horizon

In Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012) -

- the planet Daedalus in the system of the star Patricius is Earth-like except that:

its plants and animals are humanly inedible;
it rotates in fifteen and a half hours;
pressure and temperature gradients refract light around the globe, as they would on Earth if its radius were thirteen kilometers less;
traveling by riverboat, Diana sees the river and its valley dwindle and merge into a still visible "...shining thread between burnished green darknesses..." (p. 297);
on her left, openings in the wood reveal prairie blurring into haziness;
on her right, "...toylike snowpeaks..." (ibid.);
the setting sun gleams on the ocean around the curve of the planet;
the golden-red sun disc softens and spreads into a step pyramid stretching around what would normally be a horizon, safe to look at;
night is "...a glimmering dusk..." (pp. 297-298);
sunlight becomes a ring, broad and bright, orange and white, in the direction of Patricius, narrower and redder in other directions;
above the ring, the sky ascends through blue and purple to violet;
below is the dark mass of the planet;
Diana stands rapt for hours although regular passengers, used to the sight, go below.

On The Highroad River III

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 1 July 2013.

On the planet Daedalus, the capital city, Aurea, and the colony, Paz, are two very different human institutions. The next stop down the Highroad River, Lulach, is mainly a Cynthian town so is different again.

Cynthians are essentially large - although not human-sized - intelligent squirrels. I think that they are implausible aliens and indeed Poul Anderson went on to write speculative fiction in which there are no such beings on other planets. Harvest Of Stars and Genesis are entire alternative future histories.

In Lulach, houses are under or even in the trees. Branches can support and conceal them because imported Cynthian vegetation often grows enormous. Plants grow on roofs and flowering vines on walls. Dwellers usually travel between branches rather than on the narrow, twisting, turf streets. Whereas northern farms are mechanized, Lulachans use horses and changtus as beasts of burden.

The Lulachan police station is run by Lieutenant Commander Miguel Gomez supported by Lieutenant Rihu An, a Cynthian. Large buildings on the waterfront include "...a rambling timber inn..." called the Inn of Tranquil Slumber (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, pp. 326, 345), yet another Andersonian hostelry. Near the waterfront is the Zacharian dealership. The factor, Pele Zachary speaks accented Anglic because Zacharians, on their island in the Phosphoric Ocean, regularly speak several other languages. In addition to presenting plausible Tigeries, Cynthians, Wodenites, Merseians etc, any screen adaptation of the Technic Civilization History would have to use human actors speaking, if not Anglic with English subtitles, then at least English pronounced with the various different colonial and planetary accents.

On The Highroad River II

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 1 July 2013.

In Aurea, the capital city of the planet Daedalus, the Cynthian, Shan U of Lulach, captain of the riverboat Waterblossom, offers to transport the human Diana Crowfeather and the Wodenite, Francis Xavier Axor, down the Highroad River from the nearby head of navigation, Paz de la Frontera, to the mainly Cynthian town of Lulach, which, according to the map (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 194) is about half way between Aurea and the Phosphoric Ocean.

"The Highroad River has always been a main artery of travel..." (p. 288)

- because roads, where they even exist, are poor.

To check out Waterblossom, Diana travels with Shan U by cable car down to Central Station in Paz de la Frontera, which is a colony for veterans who are helped to establish farms. Clusters of habitation with diverse architectures - facades hiding courtyards; domes and spires; framed vitryl; a wooden stockade guarded by brassarded militiamen armed with knives and staves; etc - are separated by open spaces because veterans who had originated on different colony planets are mutually hostile - and non-humans have learned not to live there. Passing through a lawless area, they are attacked but Diana, who grew up among Tigeries and was trained by Targovi, knows how to handle herself.

Waterblossom is made of Terran and Cynthian woods which are immune to Daedalan organisms. Terra is Earth, we know of Cynthia from previous installments of the Technic Civilization History and Daedalus has been introduced in the current novel. Thus, Anderson shows three planets interacting not just by communication between intelligent beings but also on molecular and organic levels.

On The Highroad River I

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 1 July 2013.

A long boat journey down a river offers comfort, in the boat's saloon or a cabin, and adventure as the travelers encounter each new place along the river. Poul Anderson describes two such journeys, the first in The Day Of Their Return, the second in The Game Of Empire. The place names on the maps at the beginning of The Game Of Empire become invested with meaning as the characters travel to and through them.

The relevant map of one part of the surface of the planet Daedalus shows the capital Aurea as just upriver from Paz de la Frontera, which is the head of navigation on the Highroad River. Targovi arrives on Daedalus by landing his ship, Moonjumper, at the spaceport in Aurea. The original town, which had been small because "...colonization was far-flung, enclaves in wilderness..." (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, new York, 2012, p. 221) has been mostly demolished or engulfed by sector defense command, civil bureaucracy, private enterprises, towers and industrial plants linked by streets, elways and air-space with round the clock traffic.

Aurea is on a plateau above a steep slope retaining a small part of the old town. Descending from the plateau, Targovi walks along a lane down the side of a cliff with, on his left, time-worn walls and, on his right, beyond the railing, a view of:

ice fields beyond northern mountains;
the headwaters and the river valley;
native growth;
farms and plantations;
southern plains receding to invisibility.

Ju Shao, a Cynthian, runs an inn perched on the cliff.

Hospitable inns are a major feature of Anderson's fictional worlds. There is one between the universes and there are several in the city of Ys as well as others scattered among many times and places. In the Patrician System, Hassan runs the Sign of the Golden Cockbeetle in the old part of Olga's Landing on the planet Imhotep and Ju Shao runs her place in old Aurea on Daedalus.

The Colonization Of Daedalus

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 29 June 2013.

Fully inhabitable terrestroid planets are rare and artificial worlds have obvious limitations so some planets have to be terraformed, for example, Daedalus, discovered by David Jones, which, in its natural state, grows no food edible to human beings or Tigeries. Native soil has to be sterilized to bedrock, then a terrestroid ecology, when introduced, has to be nurtured and protected from the native life which tries to return. Islands are easiest to defend and some baronies were rich enough to buy a non-interference pledge from the Empire.

Light is refracted around the curve of Daedalus so that, instead of a horizon, an endlessly receding landscape is seen with the setting sun perceived as a ring. The Highroad River links the capital Aurea to the Phosphoric Ocean where an autonomous cloned community (but see here) inhabits the island, Zacharia.

The single moon of Daedalus is, appropriately, called Icarus. 

Admiral Olaf Magnusson, based on Daedalus, is from the harsh planet Kraken which we have not seen (I don't think) whereas his wife, Vida, is from the oceanic world, Nyanza, where Flandry counteracted Merseian subversion. We know from the next installment of the Technic Civilization series that Kraken will be a center of interstellar activity during the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire.

Toborkazan

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, June 2013.

Where the Crystal River enters Dawnside Bay on Imhotep, the Tigeries who had lived in Kursoviki on Starkad have built their new town, Toborkozan:

the gray stone Castle of the Sisterhood - guarded with traditional halberds and firearms - including the Gaarnokh Tower, named after an extinct horned Starkadian species;
most goods manufactured on Imhotep because they had been able to transport very little from Starkad;
Terran mission headquarters;
timber houses with carven totems on the roofs;
cobbled streets;
archaic windjammers, many with auxiliary engines;
modern hovercraft;
a landing field for aircars, gliders and propeller-driven wingboats;
flying snakes above the sea;
out to sea, the Starboard and Larboard Islands that may hold Foredweller ruins.

We do not see anything of the Seafolk on Imhotep because the action moves to Daedalus.

The Patrician System

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation on 28 June 2013.

When I was commenting on the fifth paragraph in Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire (IN Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012), I skipped over an exotic place name because I had already quoted it in a much earlier post but it is worth repeating here. The aquatic vaz-Siravo from the doomed planet Starkad had been settled on Imhotep in "...the Seas of Yang and Yin..." (p. 197). This Chinese reference adds an Oriental touch to the British Raj ambiance that has already been established by the title and the opening sentence.

I should also mention five visual aids on pp. 193-194:

(i) a diagram of the Patrician System, showing the six inner planets, including the two scenes of the action, Imhotep and Daedalus, the asteroid belt and the four outer planets;

(ii) a map of Imhotep, showing Olga's Landing on a northern continent and the Seas of Yang and Yin, which are two inlets on a southern continent;

(iii) a map of Daedalus;

(iv) and (v) maps of two parts of Daedalus where events occur in the novel.

I have skipped past the diagrams and maps on previous readings but this time will refer to them as appropriate. Anderson's Introduction explains that the Patrician planets are named after "...great engineers of legend and history...although just two of them got into the story." (p. 192) We recognize Archimedes and Leonardo if not any of the others.