The People of the Wind
May. 2nd, 2004 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowThe basic plot of Poul Anderson's The People of the Wind is fairly straightforward. Centuries earlier, when their respective civilizations were entering a time of disorder, humans and the birdlike Ythrians established a joint colony on the planet Avalon. When the upheavals came to an end, the Avalonians joined the new Domain of Ythri. The human empire was, after all, a good deal further away. But it has been expanding, and has decided that the time has come to "rectify the border" with Ythri. One of those rectifications involves incorporating Avalon into the Empire. The novel discusses the war, the Empire's rapid defeat of the Ythrian armed forces, and the stratagem by which the Avalonians persuade the Empire to let them stay in the Domain.
Against this backdrop, we are shown something of the Ythrian cultures and their differences from anything terrestrial. We also see the ways in which human and Ythrian cultures have intermingled, mainly through the eyes of a young human who is enamored of Ythrian mores. Christopher Holm is the first of his family to be adopted into an Ythrian choth, and has trouble integrating the two traditions (with rather unpleasant results) until he gets help from Tabitha Falkayne, whose family crossed the line generations ago and has successfully melded human and Ythrian ways. (She is a descendant of David Falkayne, who figures prominently in others of Anderson's novels, and who was one of the founders of the Avalon colony.)
It's a rather slight book, in several ways. First, it is short. This is not necessarily a negative; The Dancer from Atlantis, for example, is only slightly longer. Second, it is largely confined to a single planet. Again, this is not always bad; Orion Shall Rise takes place entirely on and around Earth. Third, it lacks scope; it doesn't have the temporal depth of Dancer, or the cultural diversity of Orion. It's an enjoyable enough read - I've read it several times in the thirty years or so since I bought it - but it's far from being one of Anderson's masterpieces.
One of the main problems any science fiction writer is likely to face is that of bringing the reader up to speed on the special features of the world of the story. (Writers of fantasy and, to a lesser extent, historical fiction also face this problem, of course.) Anderson, at the time he wrote this book, still had difficulty with this. In The People of the Wind, he relies on various tactics. Phillipe Rochefort, who is not native to Avalon, views an instructional tape on the planet, and we are treated to a transcript of part of the tape; Daniel Holm, Christopher's father, falls into a reverie while talking to an Ythrian colleague in order to tell us (through his wandering thoughts) what Ythrians look like; Tabitha gives Phillipe a lecture or two on the peculiarities of Avalonian wildlife. None of these tactics are particularly successful; we wind up with undigested lumps of exposition.
In other works, Anderson showed himself capable of presenting sympathetic characters who held philosophical, religious, or political opinions other than his own. But he had a perennial problem with certain positions, and TPotW does not escape from this. As war approaches, Daniel Holm clashes with Matthew Vickery, a politician who does not see the need for a massive arms buildup. Vickery is a mere caricature; Anderson makes no attempt - or, at least, no successful attempt - to make his position at all reasonable. Many authors have trouble with this, of course, but Anderson handles a comparable problem so well and so intricately in Orion Shall Rise that his failure here is disappointing. (Anderson's writing still suffered from this even toward the end of his career; cf. "Neddy Moriarty" in The Boat of a Million Years.)
The book has other weaknesses as well. Though Anderson makes mention of cultural variation among the Ythrian and human natives of Avalon, he does little to develop this. The Ythrian culture is not very well developed, especially in comparison with the people of Ishtar in Fire Time, or the Didonians in "The Rebel Worlds". There is a subplot which takes place on one of the worlds of the Empire, presumably to give balance to the Avalon-centric rest of the book, but it doesn't seem (to me) well-integrated with the rest. Perhaps if that section had been expanded, it would have served better, but as it is, it seems extraneous.
This review has been mainly negative, I'm afraid. Later on, I'll discuss one of his better books; he deserves that much.
Against this backdrop, we are shown something of the Ythrian cultures and their differences from anything terrestrial. We also see the ways in which human and Ythrian cultures have intermingled, mainly through the eyes of a young human who is enamored of Ythrian mores. Christopher Holm is the first of his family to be adopted into an Ythrian choth, and has trouble integrating the two traditions (with rather unpleasant results) until he gets help from Tabitha Falkayne, whose family crossed the line generations ago and has successfully melded human and Ythrian ways. (She is a descendant of David Falkayne, who figures prominently in others of Anderson's novels, and who was one of the founders of the Avalon colony.)
It's a rather slight book, in several ways. First, it is short. This is not necessarily a negative; The Dancer from Atlantis, for example, is only slightly longer. Second, it is largely confined to a single planet. Again, this is not always bad; Orion Shall Rise takes place entirely on and around Earth. Third, it lacks scope; it doesn't have the temporal depth of Dancer, or the cultural diversity of Orion. It's an enjoyable enough read - I've read it several times in the thirty years or so since I bought it - but it's far from being one of Anderson's masterpieces.
One of the main problems any science fiction writer is likely to face is that of bringing the reader up to speed on the special features of the world of the story. (Writers of fantasy and, to a lesser extent, historical fiction also face this problem, of course.) Anderson, at the time he wrote this book, still had difficulty with this. In The People of the Wind, he relies on various tactics. Phillipe Rochefort, who is not native to Avalon, views an instructional tape on the planet, and we are treated to a transcript of part of the tape; Daniel Holm, Christopher's father, falls into a reverie while talking to an Ythrian colleague in order to tell us (through his wandering thoughts) what Ythrians look like; Tabitha gives Phillipe a lecture or two on the peculiarities of Avalonian wildlife. None of these tactics are particularly successful; we wind up with undigested lumps of exposition.
In other works, Anderson showed himself capable of presenting sympathetic characters who held philosophical, religious, or political opinions other than his own. But he had a perennial problem with certain positions, and TPotW does not escape from this. As war approaches, Daniel Holm clashes with Matthew Vickery, a politician who does not see the need for a massive arms buildup. Vickery is a mere caricature; Anderson makes no attempt - or, at least, no successful attempt - to make his position at all reasonable. Many authors have trouble with this, of course, but Anderson handles a comparable problem so well and so intricately in Orion Shall Rise that his failure here is disappointing. (Anderson's writing still suffered from this even toward the end of his career; cf. "Neddy Moriarty" in The Boat of a Million Years.)
The book has other weaknesses as well. Though Anderson makes mention of cultural variation among the Ythrian and human natives of Avalon, he does little to develop this. The Ythrian culture is not very well developed, especially in comparison with the people of Ishtar in Fire Time, or the Didonians in "The Rebel Worlds". There is a subplot which takes place on one of the worlds of the Empire, presumably to give balance to the Avalon-centric rest of the book, but it doesn't seem (to me) well-integrated with the rest. Perhaps if that section had been expanded, it would have served better, but as it is, it seems extraneous.
This review has been mainly negative, I'm afraid. Later on, I'll discuss one of his better books; he deserves that much.
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Date: 2004-05-02 11:46 pm (UTC)BIRD people??? Well, THAT caught my attention, for sure! But he doesn't develop their culture, mores, or other attributes? Developed enough for me to be intrigued, despite the other faults of the book?
One of my favorite books is what would otherwise be a somewhat melodramatic genetic engineering thriller, written by James Patterson. I'm not a fan of his, particularly, but my mother lent me _When the Wind Blows_. What absolutely fascinated me were the "bird children," human children who had been gengineered with attributes from various bird species, a developed double-muscled chest, strong enough to let them fly. They had hollow bones, of course, and at least one of them was oviparous; all with beautifully described wings. Some must have had more of a syrinx than a larynx, based on the descriptions of their speech and articulations. The young heroine, Maximus, a vet, and an FBI agent take on a conglomerate of EVIL corporations (bwa ha ha), governmental agencies, and extremely wealthy people who are backing the research (as I said, it's on the melodramatic side - the doctors rank even lower than lawyers in this book (g)). That part is pretty predictable, but I was totally enamored of the concept of the bird children. There was a follow up that was, IMHO, pretty bad. I wanted more FACTS (I suspended my disbelief so completely, that I felt as if it had already happened) about *how* they could be medically followed: vet or MD? Did they need a modified diet? Or just some of them, considering that the range of changes would be enormous, I'd think, uh, right, *if* it had happened (g). What about for the future? Could they interbreed with normal humans? If so, how? And - I really didn't like the author sending the children to their human parents tracked down at the end...didn't these people know that birds *flock*??? Heh. As you can see, I *really* got into the concept. Man, I'd love to have my own set of wings, or be able to warble...and fly with Max!
So - would I like your Anderson book?
no subject
Date: 2004-05-02 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 06:12 am (UTC)Anderson was pretty fond of birdlike aliens. He wrote several other stories about the Ythrians, which can be found in The Earth Book of Stormgate, and he does develop them rather more there. The Earth Book also contains the novella "The Man Who Counts", set on the planet Diomedes, home to another avian (and fairly well-developed) race. The Chereionites, one of whom appears in "A Circus of Hells", The Day of Their Return, and A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, are somewhat birdlike too. (Diomedes is discussed and Ythri mentioned in that last novel, which in my opinion is one of Anderson's best.)