stoutfellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stoutfellow) wrote2004-05-16 05:04 pm
stoutfellow) wrote2004-05-16 05:04 pm
"Orion Shall Rise"
Orion Shall Rise is one of my favorites among Poul Anderson's novels. It is a tale of cataclysm. Indeed, it is, at least in part, a retelling of the story of Ragnarok; I can identify analogs to Odin, Thor, Balder, Heimdall, Loki, Jormungand, and either Fenrir and Vidar or Gram and Tyr. In the novel's timeline, Western civilization went down in the 1990s, in the Judgment War. From the wreckage a number of new civilizations have arisen; the novel focuses on four of them. In Western Europe, a handful of scientists and engineers were able to use surviving technology to carve out a secure haven in a sea of barbarism; the Domain, ruling France and parts of the neighboring countries, has become an ossified aristocracy, beginning to buckle under the pressure of foreign ideologies, among others the religion/philosophy of Gaianity. In what was the American Midwest, the Mong - invaders who poured across the refrozen Bering Straits immediately after the war - maintain a number of militarized slave states; their educated classes are quite refined, though, and it is from this center that Gaianity has spread. The South Pacific was relatively undamaged by the war, and the Maurai Federation has spread outward from New Zealand to become the dominant power on Earth, enforcing an ideology of sustainable technology worldwide. In the Pacific Northwest, the long struggle with the Mong has produced the loose-knit Northwest Union, the most technophilic of the major powers. They have clashed with the Maurai twice in the past generation, losing both times, and are itching for a third confrontation.
All four civilizations are described sympathetically by Anderson; their good features are made clear, but their flaws are not glossed over. Readers of others of his works might expect his sympathies to lie with the Northwest Union, and the ray of hope at the end of the novel does indeed stem from developments there, but if there are identifiable villains in the story they are Norries, most notably the Loki-figure Mikli Karst. The Maurai have done more to lead the world back out of savagery than any other people, but their pride and caution have crippled any possibility of further advance. The Mong, though their society is based on military might and serfdom, have produced a humane and generous faith in Gaianity; but we also see the dark side of that faith, in the person of the debauched missionary Mattas Olvera. In the Domain, though the tradition of noblesse oblige still survives among some of the aristocracy, too many - including the military leader who seizes power there - have lost sight of it. These flaws contribute to the final catastrophe, at the end of which all four civilizations lie prostrate. There is a possibility, though, of a new dawn (as there is after Ragnarok, in the original legend).
What attracts me most to this novel is the fairness with which Anderson treats each of his imagined cultures. They are richly imagined, and we meet representatives of all four who are nothing less than heroic. Terai Lohannaso and Wairoa Haakonu of the Maurai; Talence Iern Ferlay of the Domain; Vanna Uangovna Kim of the Mong; Ronica Birken of the Northwest Union - all of these are admirable, each in a different way, though their differing interests lead them into conflict, and the efforts of all are required to salvage even a little from the wreckage of war.
The novel is not without its flaws. It drags at times, and Anderson finds it necessary to insert intermittent slabs of exposition - not, in this case, by putting them in the mouths of characters, but rather after the manner of an engaging history book; this works, I find, rather better than his more usual tactics, but it still weighs down the narrative. A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows is more tautly constructed and emotionally involving, and The Boat of a Million Years has greater scope, but Orion Shall Rise falls somewhere between, partaking somewhat of the virtues of both. It is a lengthy read, and getting past some of the slower-moving segments, especially in the beginning, takes an effort, but the payoff is well worth it.
All four civilizations are described sympathetically by Anderson; their good features are made clear, but their flaws are not glossed over. Readers of others of his works might expect his sympathies to lie with the Northwest Union, and the ray of hope at the end of the novel does indeed stem from developments there, but if there are identifiable villains in the story they are Norries, most notably the Loki-figure Mikli Karst. The Maurai have done more to lead the world back out of savagery than any other people, but their pride and caution have crippled any possibility of further advance. The Mong, though their society is based on military might and serfdom, have produced a humane and generous faith in Gaianity; but we also see the dark side of that faith, in the person of the debauched missionary Mattas Olvera. In the Domain, though the tradition of noblesse oblige still survives among some of the aristocracy, too many - including the military leader who seizes power there - have lost sight of it. These flaws contribute to the final catastrophe, at the end of which all four civilizations lie prostrate. There is a possibility, though, of a new dawn (as there is after Ragnarok, in the original legend).
What attracts me most to this novel is the fairness with which Anderson treats each of his imagined cultures. They are richly imagined, and we meet representatives of all four who are nothing less than heroic. Terai Lohannaso and Wairoa Haakonu of the Maurai; Talence Iern Ferlay of the Domain; Vanna Uangovna Kim of the Mong; Ronica Birken of the Northwest Union - all of these are admirable, each in a different way, though their differing interests lead them into conflict, and the efforts of all are required to salvage even a little from the wreckage of war.
The novel is not without its flaws. It drags at times, and Anderson finds it necessary to insert intermittent slabs of exposition - not, in this case, by putting them in the mouths of characters, but rather after the manner of an engaging history book; this works, I find, rather better than his more usual tactics, but it still weighs down the narrative. A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows is more tautly constructed and emotionally involving, and The Boat of a Million Years has greater scope, but Orion Shall Rise falls somewhere between, partaking somewhat of the virtues of both. It is a lengthy read, and getting past some of the slower-moving segments, especially in the beginning, takes an effort, but the payoff is well worth it.