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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Woden

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation on 29 June 2013.

Although Wodenites are prominent in the Technic Civilization History, we do not see any action on the surface of the planet Woden. We are told that, although its gravity is two and a half times that of Earth, Woden's sun is so energetic that animals can grow to gigantic size.

Father Francis Xavier Axor, the Wodenite who has converted to Jerusalem Catholicism and has been ordained in the Galilean Order, gives us some details. His haizark, still comparatively primitive, are nomads in the Morning Land, across the Sea of Truth from the Glimmering Realm where the Terrans are based. In the Ascetic Hills, erosion has revealed Foredweller ruins. Such remains are eventually destroyed by micrometeoroids on airless planets or by weather and geology in atmospheres but, on Woden, they were fossilized by petrifying ash or mud.

Axor gained a merit scholarship from the University of the Galilean Order at Port Campbell in the Glimmering Realm where Fr Jaspers suggested that Foredweller ruins might provide evidence for the Universal Incarnation. Hence, Axor's search through space, eventually arriving on Imhotep in the Patrician System. Later, Dominic Flandry obtains funding for Axor's research. I would agree that the Foredwellers should be researched whether or not for Axor's reason.

The Game Of Empire: Some Loose Ends

One more divine name: Tangaroa Zachary. Gatto and Tangaroa converse by eidophone.

Half a millennium after the events of "Day of Burning," Merseia still requires forcefield protection from the radiation of the supernova, Valenderay: a permanent reminder to the Merseians of their former vulnerability and dependency.

The moons of Imhotep are Zoser, Kanofer and Rahotep. In autumn, dead leaves are underfoot in Olga's Landing. In Old Town, Tigery trading caravans arrive from the lowlands. There are crowds, music and savory odors from foodstalls and Winged Smoke houses.

Through the transparent wall of a high Terra-conditioned floor of the Pyramid, Dominic Flandry, Diana Crowfeather, Targovi and Axor see:

scarlet, russet and amber woods;

outside the heated area, boulders, crags, native plants, frozen rivulets, sunlit snow-covered mountains and green glaciers.