More On Planets

The previous post lists twelve planets visited in four novels. Also, Therayn is mentioned but not visited in A Circus Of Hells.

Lists of planets might become a feature of these blogs. See:

Planets Of The Long Night
Fully Realized Planets
Fully Realized Planets II

Point of view makes a difference to how any planet is perceived:

in Ensign Flandry, Terra is perceived not by the title character but by Lord Markus Hauksberg when he attends the Emperor's birthday celebration at the Coral Palace;

however, in The Rebel Worlds, young Flandry visits Admiralty Center in the Rocky Mountains;

in Ensign Flandry, Brechdan Ironrede, Hand of the Vach Ynvory, surveys his ancestral domain on Merseia (see Merseian Customs) but that planet is also, very differently, perceived by the young Flandry who has become aide to Commander Abrams of Intelligence. See Merseian Scenery.

There is much scope here for rereading and the studying of details. I had completely forgotten Ysabeau and the unnamed planet in A Circus Of Hells.

Planets In The Young Flandry Trilogy

Ensign Flandry
Terra
Starkad
Merseia

A Circus Of Hells
Irumclaw
Wayland
Talwin
an unnamed planet
Ysabeau

The Rebel Worlds
Terra
Shalmu
Llynathawr
Aeneas
Dido 

A Hostile Environment

Poul Anderson, "Territory" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-76.

(The contents page classifies "Territory" as a "novella": longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.)

There are many terrestroid planets in sf but Anderson also shows us some that are different, e.g.: t'Kela:

temperature 60 below;
enough nitrogen to induce narcosis;
enough ammonia to burn lungs;
no water vapor;
enough oxygen to sustain life for several minutes.

Human beings have several kinds of business on t'Kela but must be permanenetly protected from its environment. Would you want to spend any time there? And why is van Rijn without a helmet in that cover illustration?

Cosmic Environments In Tau Zero

Poul Anderson's Tau Zero opens in the Millesgarden.

The characters visit Stockholm Old Town.

They see stars from space, venture into interstellar space and go EVA.

There is a garden in the ship.

The universe looks strange at high speeds.

The ship passes through the galactic center, leaves the Milky Way, traverses intergalactic space and passes through other galaxies and clusters.

The next passage is through inter-clan space, here, here and here.

The universe ages and the ship enters the outermost abysses.


A new monobloc forms and the ship explores a new universe here, here and here before finding a new planet.

Sibylla

Poul Anderson, "The Alien Enemy" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories (London, 1977), pp. 69-85.

Sibylla is a humanly colonized planet:

33.25 light years from Sol;
50% more diameter than Earth;
a third more gravity;
pressure gradient steeper;
lowlands too hot;
highlands lacking air;
metal-poor;
low density;
slow rotation;
very low magnetic field;
strong radiation background.

These are not just facts. They are adding up to something. And we have not been told who the alien enemy is yet.

Roland

Poul Anderson, New America, "The Queen of Air and Darkness."

Roland has a million inhabitants, all on one continent and half in one city, Christmas Landing, on the shore of the Boreal Ocean. 5000 live in Portolondon on the Gulf of Polaris in Arctica, past the Arctic Circle. The planet was colonized a century or more ago. Eric Sherrinford immigrated from Boewulf twelve years ago.

Surface gravity is 0.42 x 980 cm/sec (squared). I don't know what that means. Does it just mean that the gravity is 0.42 (less than half) of Terrestrial?

The sun, Charlemagne, is 40% brighter than Sol, even brighter in the ultraviolet, and emits more charged particles. Roland's orbit is eccentric so that insolation varies from more than double to slightly less than Terrestrial.

Yet another concretely realized fictional planet.

Another Planet

Poul Anderson, New America, "The Queen Of Air And Darkness."

In New America, "To Promote The General Welfare" and "The Queen of Air and Darkness" are separated by a Publisher's Note which begins:

"Here ends the story of High America." (p. 158)

Without this note, how quickly would we have realized that "The Queen..." is set on another planet? Immediately, I think. Its opening section describes a different environment. Although a sunset glow lingers, there is no day during the northern winter but nevertheless local species thrive:

flamboyant firethorn trees;
blue steelflowers;
hill-covering rainplant;
dale-growing white kiss-me-never;
iridescent winged flitteries;
a bugling, horned crownbuck;
hellbats.

Above are two moons, which do not sound like the Rustumite two, an aurora covering half the sky and the first stars. A long-haired teenage boy and girl, wearing only garlands, sit on a barrow. He plays a flute while she sings. Named Mistherd and Shadow-of-a-Dream, respectively, they are "Outlings" (p. 162), no longer part of human society, and are shortly joined by a short, claw-footed, feathered, winged, tailed "pook" called Ayoch who carries a stolen human child.

OK. We are not in Kansas. Or on Rustum.