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Afterword to The People of the Wind
by Sandra Miesel
"Where do science fiction writers get their ideas?" There are as many answers as writers: studying beach sand for Frank Herbert's Dune (1965), picturing a satyr with an umbrella for C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, hearing a new astrophysical theory for Larry Niven's "Neutron Star." Anything can kindle a creative imagination, even an obscure historical fact like the past shape of a national boundary between France and Germany.
Following the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the French border veered abruptly into German-held Alsace in order to encompass the city of Belfort. The frontier was drawn that way for a specific reason. During the war Belfort successfully withstood a terrible siege by the Germans. Commanded by a bold and energetic governor, it held out after the fall of Napoleon III, after the defeat of all France's armies, even after the proclamation of an armistice. Subsequent peace terms awarded Lorraine and the rest of Alsace to Germany, but Belfort stayed French and has remained so ever since despite three turnovers of Alsace-Lorraine in the past century. Nevertheless, Belfort's patriotic French citizens have always been predominantly German in language and culture.
Learning Belfort's story during a visit there inspired Poul Anderson to write The People of the Wind, a Hugo Award nominee as Best Novel of 1973 and one of his most ambitious books. He recognized Belfort's history as a model for dramatizing a phenomenon that had long fascinated him: a society in which humans and non-humans truly blend. The People of the Wind is the prime expression of a theme Anderson explored throughout his 50-year career in science fiction: the creative impact of difference versus the deadliness of uniformity. In this story, as in so many others, he reminds us that sparks only fly between oppositely charged points. The People of the Wind replays the Franco-Prussian War on an interstellar scale as a backdrop for clashes between species, societies, cultures, and persons. Settlement of the war leads to significant—although imperfect—resolutions of all these conflicts.
Anderson's version of Belfort is Avalon, a choice planet of the star Laura, jointly colonized by men and winged, carnivorous Ythrians 350 years before the novel opens. It is thriving as part of the Domain of Ythri. When the larger Terran Empire attacks the Domain, Avalon resists annexation so fiercely it is able to remain under Ythrian rule although the domain loses the war and forfeits other territories. (Read Alsace and Lorraine for Hru and Khrau.)
The Ythrian War is only one incident in the millennia-long history of Technic Civilization. Anderson sketched out this galactic panorama for more than thirty years in well over 40 published works. Technic Civilization develops out of our contemporary Western culture. Men explore and colonize the stars, discovering Ythri and Avalon among myriads of other worlds on the first Grand Survey ("Wings of Victory," 1972). The Polesotechnic League arises to exploit the profits of interstellar trade (stories featuring Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn, including "Lodestar," 1973, in which Ythrians appear). But it collapses into chaos through greed. Just before the Time of troubles, Falkayn marries van Rijn's granddaughter and later leads colonists to Avalon. ("Wingless on Avalon" and "Rescue on Avalon," both published in 1973, occur in the early years there.) The Terran Empire is founded to restore peace and brings reasonably just government to thousands of systems. The Empire is in its third century when it moves against the Domain in its first aggressive campaign against a civilized foe. Subsequently, it collides with the younger imperium of Merseia. (Dominic Flandry flourishes at the height of this conflict 200 years later.) The rivals wear each other out and the Long Night falls. An entirely new cycle of civilization begins afterwards ("Starfog," 1967).
This future history is a singular achievement within the science fiction field not only for its length and complexity, but also for its emphasis on historical rather than political, technical, or philosophical factors. In the series, the pendulum of time swings between expansion and retrenchment, anarchy and order, mobility and regimentation, enthusiasm and apathy, centralization and diffusion, conformity and differentiation.
The author's command of events in the real past equipped him to make ingenious extrapolations and adaptations of it for his fictional futures. For example, the Polesotechnic League has elements of the Hanseatic League; Terra and Merseia resemble in part the Eastern Roman and Persian Empires; the false Messiah in The Day of Their Return (1973) is akin to both Jesus Christ and Sabbatai Zvi.
Anderson studs this series liberally with ironies and cross-references. The plant that causes personal tragedy in "The Problem of Pain" (1973) helps save Avalon in The People of the Wind. The Merseians exist to menace Terra because Falkayn and his team helped them survive a nearby supernova ("Day of Burning," 1967). In The People of the Wind, that exploding star gives its name to the supernova-class flagship of the invading Terran armada whose commander may be descended from one of Falkayn's coworkers. The People of the Wind plays temporal la ronde: Tabitha Falkayn and Eve Davisson, a descendant of van Rijn's companion in "Territory," share the favors of Philippe Rochefort, ancestor of Flandry who is to be the nemesis of Merseia. About two centuries later, in Flandry's day, a dangerous Merseian plot against Terra is foiled by an Ythrian from Avalon. This would have been impossible had Avalon been conquered earlier. Carrying data, issues, characters, and proper names from story to story helps weave the fictional web tighter and probably amused the author as well.
This future history is a fine instrument for charting the growth potential of human nature. Space travel in itself opens paths to new ways of knowing, doing, and feeling that stimulate wonder ("Wings of Victory"). It brings humans into exciting contact with other kinds of beings (the League stories) and allows for the formation of experimental societies (Aeneas in The Day of Their Return, a global mosaic of unusual local cultures) or preservation of ancient cultures doomed on Terra (various Empire stories). Although some of the variants may become lethal (The Night Face, 1963, 1978), unique groups sharing with each other is the future's best hope. It is a trend that will outlive dynasties and empires.
The effects of extraterrestrial living should be spectacular enough but Anderson has multiplied possibilities by placing two intelligent races on the same planet. These can be unaware of each other (A Circus of Hells, 1970) or hostile (Ensign Flandry, 1966). Divergent human cultures can be incompatible ("Outpost of Empire," 1967) but humans can learn from alien superiors ("Outpost of Empire" again) or inferiors (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, 1975). Best of all is the fruitful cooperation between equal partners. This is the special glory of Avalon, home of winged and wingless alike.
The People of the Wind traces the author's theme upon the bodies of living creatures, within their spirits, and across the surface of their world. Surely the Ythrians are the most splendid aliens Anderson created, finest in a long array of logically conceived, strikingly rendered beings. His earlier attempts at intelligent winged species (Diomedians in The Man Who Counts, 1958, 1978, and Staurni in The Star Fox, 1965) are overshadowed by the sheer magnificence of these windlords. Friend and foe alike testify to their sublimity. As Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said of the falcon, "beauty and valor and act, oh, air pride, plume, here buckle!"
The visual poetry of Ythrians on the wing is believable only because the design of those wings is scientifically sound. Anderson employed his gift for making the marvelous rational and the rational marvelous to its fullest in this novel. His original impulse to put winged colonists on Avalon was stimulated by discussing the possibility of constructing a post-mammalian being with Analog editor John W. Campbell Jr. Campbell suggested a gill-like supercharger respiration system would be a great physiological improvement over lungs. Anderson seized upon this idea as the means to get the Ythrians airborne under earthlike conditions yet allow them to grow large enough to be intelligent. He designed the Ythrian body from its skeleton on out, solved the problem of its hands and feet (in different ways than for the Diomedians and Staurni cited above) and set about developing corollaries from biology.
Ythrians are fundamentally territorial. They are highly individualistic carnivores who require large tracts of land to support themselves even when using domesticated food animals. (Both their Old and New Faiths reflect the characteristics of raptors.) Their sexuality is cyclic rather than continuous as in man. However, off-season ovulation can be triggered by grief (on Diomedes the special stimulus is hard exertion). Sharing parental responsibilities rather than frequent conjugal relations reinforces pair bonding. Ythrians are more aggressive and less compassionate than humans, more loyal but less cooperative.
These factors mold Ythrian society. Its basic unit is the "choth," a self-regulating group that voluntarily acknowledges a common identity, shares customs, beliefs, territory, and engages in some communal enterprises. It is somewhat like an ethnic culture or an extended family within a larger pluralistic society. Humans who find this system appealing can join choths if they are willing to observe choth law. Christopher Holm, the novel's young protagonist, is among the many human Avalonians "going bird" at the time of The People of the Wind. Other humans fear that their cultural values may be overwhelmed by Ythrian. At the same time, some Ythrians are upset about their brethren who withdraw from choths to "turn Walker."
This problem of maintaining human uniqueness despite fellowship with Ythrians and allegiance to their Domain also has political ramifications. An Avalonian human complains: "'The fact won't go away that we're a not terribly significant minority in a whole clutch of minorities'" (p. 331). Terra mistakenly expects the human Avalonians to embrace the human-dominated Empire as soon as war is declared. She is sincerely puzzled by their decision to remain distinctive among aliens rather than be assimilated by kinsmen.
Tension between the benefits of sharing and the perils of absorption—and the right of persons to decide which is which—makes The People of the Wind a story rather than an ingenious xenological tract. Anderson stages his drama on many levels, from the public question, "Who shall rule Avalon?" to the private one, "Who is Christopher Holm?" He uses more viewpoint characters than is usual for him and spins a larger number of subplots out of the choices each character makes about the issues.
At first glance, the wisest policy seems simple enough: each imperium, race, and individual will make exchanges to mutual benefit. Indeed, the results of long-term sharing have been generally favorable so far. Humans brought spaceflight to Ythri; the Domain gave human colonists protection. Trade makes interstellar society feasible. A joint society is "like an alloy or a two-phase material, many times stronger than either part that went into it'" (p. 469). Goods, ideas, and even tourists move regularly between Avalon and the Empire. (The Terran governor Saracoglu, instigator of the war, has an Ythrian cinnamon bush in his garden.) Humans and Ythrian Avalonians have exchanged technologies, languages, amusements, literatures, arts, beliefs, and foods. Only Avalonian Ythrians giggle. Avalonian humans speak of "lifting" burdens rather than carrying them. They get a "toegrip," not a fingerhold. Their plans "moult" instead of spoil during "walking weather" or bad times. On Avalon, Ythrians have grown gentler, no longer killing their cripples, while humans have become sterner, backing their deeds with deathpride. Ythrians have learned to give parties; humans adopt Ythrian religions. Marchwarden Ferune reads human literary classics; Christopher Holm translates Ythrian songs.
But equilibrium is harder to maintain in practice than in theory. The Domain's frontier arouses Terran hostility because it includes such desirable properties, especially Avalon. (As Governor Saracoglu observes: "'As an old, old saying goes, two tough smart races want the same real estate'" [p. 342.) Ythrians enthrall humans to the point of imbalance because they are truly glorious beings. The hazard of the temptation is proportional to its attractiveness and vice versa. Furthermore, the phenomenon is sincere, not a giddy fad like the imitation of enemy aliens in The Star Fox. Nor is it a would-be conqueror's ploy as in "No Truce with Kings" (1963), "The Queen of Air and Darkness" (1971), and The Star Ways (1956).
"To fly like that!" sobs one explorer in "Wings of Victory," overcome by first contact with Ythrians. "O God, to have real wings!" wishes Chris Holm (p. 318). Vain longings have not been stilled in 500 years. Ythrian wings still rebuke human winglessness. Other skills have not really compensated, as argued in "Wingless on Avalon." Wistful envy gives rise to frustration, then to feelings of racial inferiority, and finally to futile attempts at mimicry. Subconscious identifications within the minds of each race aggravate the situation. Humans see the grandeur of Terran eagles in Ythrians, but earthbound, constantly aroused humans remind Ythrians of their own wing-clipped slaves and perverts. Thus a higher percentage of humans is attracted to Ythrian ways than the reverse. "Birds" can idealize their chothmates to an absurd degree. For instance Chris objects to Ythrians' new habit of drinking in bars as unbecoming.
Sexuality best exemplifies the difficulties of Ythrian-human fusion. Therefore the sexual entanglements in The People of the Wind warrant close investigation. This aspect of the novel grew out of a chance remark by Clifford Simak on the xenosexual overtones of birdwatching. Even though physiologies are too disparate for actual copulation, long and intense association has influenced erotic attitudes in subtle ways.
Chris's foolish—and prudish—notions about his Ythrian friend Eyath have warped his own social development. He is beguiled by her feathered beauty and considers her incomparably superior to human women because she only feels desire annually under hormonal compulsion. Indeed, he would prefer she never experience it at all. "And you shouldn't feel that way, either. Never, Estrus or no. Lonely, maybe; dreamy, yes; but not like some sweating trull in the bed of some cheap hotel room. Not you, Eyath" (p. 323). Her frankness about personal tensions embarrasses him. He treats women as erotic conveniences and assumes, without any evidence, that Tabitha is promiscuous. He is disappointed to find she prefers learning new poetry to casual sex. Daniel Holm, Chris's father, worries that he will not be able to enter a normal marriage.
Chris is irrationally upset at the prospect of Eyath's marriage; she is puzzled by her vague jealousy of "bird girl" Tabitha Falkayn. When Eyath and her intended mate Vodan argue about the advantages of human sexuality, she finds it romantic; he distasteful.
Vodan, however, tries a drab approximation of human sex by engaging the services of a "nightflyer" prior to departure for battle. (Ythrian prostitutes are abnormal females who can ovulate at will; making a profession of this trait shows that racial influences work in both directions.) Chris is deeply scandalized by the incident: "Only . . . if he couldn't stay with Eyath till the last minute, at least I'd've supposed he'd've been in flight-under-moon, meditating—or, anyhow, at carouse among friends" (p. 363). Tabitha dismisses Vodan's escapade as trivial but pities the whore.
The mental state of Tabitha's nihilistic business partner Draun is far worse than Vodan's. He disparages human behavior while at the same time envying it. He pretends that his attack on Eyath was a biochemical accident but it was actually a deliberate human-style rape. For once, Chris reacts like a human rather than Ythrian male. He threatens the smirking rapist and rejects the "soiled" victim. According the mores of her own people, Eyath ought not to have felt ashamed, but her closeness to Chris distorts her reactions. Tabitha helps Eyath regain her self-respect and makes Chris face the consequences of his priggishness. Tabitha succeeds because she is the only truly mature one among them. Her sexual and racial identity is secure.
Chris finally comes to terms with his humanness under Tabitha's guidance and adopts her wise attitude. "'I recognize I'm a member [of a choth] who happens to be human'" (p. 361). When they marry, their dispositions are authentically human although the wedding also incorporates choth ideals. This healthy balance struck after so much pain coincides with and mirrors the settlement of the war. Avalon will not be annexed by Terra; humans will not be assimilated by Ythrians. Preserving distinctions while seeking appropriate degrees of unity is the destiny of Avalon and, eventually, of the galaxy.
These dramatic issues aside, The People of the Wind also displays Anderson's formidable worldsmithing skill at its best. He relishes the challenge—amply provided by the Technic Civilization series—of constructing alien environments from scratch. (His methods are expounded upon in his essay "The Creation of Imaginary Worlds: The World-Builder's Handbook and Pocket Companion" for Reginald Bretnor's Science Fiction, Today and Tomorrow, 1974.)
Everything emerges mathematically from astrophysical assumptions and is developed in accordance with up-to-date scientific theories. Ythri and Avalon are unique creations, not copies of Terra or of each other. Neither are the life-forms that dwell upon them terrestrial ones in simple disguise. "I do try to do more than just put 'rabbitoids' in the landscape,"1 says the author. Since Avalon is a joint colony, its ecology mixes terrestrial, Ythrian, and native elements. These had to be designed separately and deployed in concert, complete with appropriate tastes, scents, textures, and so forth. Anderson always gives his creations a sensuous as well as an intellectual existence.
Proper names in The People of the Wind ring with poetry: Zirraukh (constellation); Laura, Pax (stars); Esperance, Elysium, Camelot, Phaeacia, Utgard (planets); Hesperian Sea, Gulf of Centaurs, Scorpeluna Plateau, Andromeda Range, Tropic of Spears (geographical features); maukh, mayaw, lycosauroid, spathodont (animals); hammerbranch, braidbark, jewelleaf, witch root, Buddha's cup, chasuble bush, pumpernickel plant, clustergrain (plants). These names are more than decorative. Note the legendary associations shared by the Lauran planets' names. Observe that scientific, Greek-derived terminology is used for exotic Avalonian animals, although familiar plants have common English designations. Thus, names bespeak features of the minds that bestowed them and help evoke alien marvels.
This artful use of environmental detail gives Avalon its sense of place and makes it the one place its people belong. As Daniel Holm explains: "'So you grow into your world, generation by generation. It's not walls and machinery, it's a live nature . . . . Your poets have sung it, your artists have drawn it, your history has happened on it, your forebears returned their bones to its earth and you will too, you will too. It is you and you are it. You can no more give it away, freely, than you could cut the heart out of your breast'" (p. 420).
Moreover, sensory delights keep the novel from drowning in a Niagara of expository prose. The author would have been the first to admit his habit of lecturing at readers. The huge amount of information to be conveyed within a book of commercially feasible length seems to have accentuated this failing in The People of the Wind. Blocks of pure explanation are mortared into the text between asterisks. Not only do all the characters enlighten each other with tireless zeal; some watch instructional tapes while on stage. Luisa Cajal and Eve Davisson exist primarily to ask meaningful questions and receive informative answers. There are a few heavy-handed interruptions in dramatic scenes to insert data (for example, a two-page discourse on Ythrian social controls in the midst of a crucial political conference in Chapter 5 or a brief seminar on the Avalonian atmosphere between two soldiers who have just escaped death in Chapter 9).
But The People of the Wind's flaws must be seen in the context of its many virtues. No apologies are needed for a work containing scenes like Ferune's funeral (p. 400) and language like this triumphant description of Eyath in flight:
She slanted herself to catch it, a throb of wings and then the long wild glide, peaks leaping nearer, glimpse through trees of a pool ashine where a feral stallion drank, song and rush and caress of cloven air, till she checked herself and flew back upward, breasting a torrent, every muscle at full aliveness—traced a thermal by the tiny trembling of a mountain seen through it, won there, spread her wings and let heaven carry her hovering while she laughed. (p. 339)
Eyath's exultation on the wing also helps establish what it is like to be her and not just any Ythrian. Recording characters' sense impressions is a useful characterization device as well as a means of conveying information. Does Anderson construct people by the same methods as his planets, calculating sizes, orbits, masses, and so forth according to the requirements of the story? Be that as it may, the characters in The People of the Wind are familiar Andersonian types rotating in predictable patterns.
Daniel Holm, a stubborn middle-aged military chief struggling to act wisely under pressure, resembles MacKenzie in "No Truce with Kings." His son Chris, a naive stripling like the hero of The Day of Their Return, is torn between the charms of a big, bold female and a small sensitive one. The non-humanness of one lady is simply another variation on a pattern found in Tau Zero (1970), There Will be Time (1972), and many other works. Rakish, gallant Phillippe is a more decent variation of Flandry, perhaps because he lives in a happier era. Admiral Cajal is as withered by the rigors of virtue as Joshua Coffin in Orbit Unlimited (1961). The purely 16th-century Spanish mannerisms of all Nuevo Mexicans in this series must reflect truly drastic cultural atavism.) Smarmy bureaucrats like Vickery and fanatics like Draun are repeatedly castigated in Anderson's work.
Although the characters are categorical types, their dramatic interactions are unique to this novel. Daniel and his Ythrian colleague Ferune are emotional and cultural counterparts as well as friends. They are just as brave, tenacious, and responsible as their opponents Saracoglu and Cajal but the righteous Avalonian cause triumphs because its leaders exercise a blend of pragmatism and principle while the Imperials operate at extremes.
Each pair of older men counterbalances a younger one. Daniel and Ferune treat racial interaction in a more practical way than Chris does. Cajal's austere orthodox Catholicism contrasts with Philippe's gentler schismatic brand. (Differences between human and Ythrian religions are not at issue here as in "The Problem of Pain," but funeral prayers offered by Philippe and Ferune's family demonstrate them.) Saracoglu is symbolically Flandry's opposite even as Philippe is his equivalent. (Perhaps both are among his ancestors?) But what the governor and the lieutenant unquestionably have in common is ill-luck in love and war. Military and romantic reverses are intertwined for each of them.
Philippe, whose dark skin color means no more to anyone than variations in the shade of Ythrian feathers, is an obvious product of Terran racial assimilation. Yet he is a cultural separatist, even a human supremacist where xenosophonts are concerned. He disapproves of Avalon's mixed society on principle. These opinions would have complicated marrying Tabitha even if other factors had not intervened to prevent it.
Tabitha recovers from her personal tragedy quicker than Eyath does because she is more in control of her own life. She does not let anyone else's attitudes determine her self-worth. Tabitha's appearance, tastes, habits, work, and hobbies reinforce her image as a fully independent woman. Nevertheless, feminist critics refuse to give Anderson the slightest credit for creating this or other strong heroines. (Also notice that Ferune's wife served in the Navy with him as a gunnery officer and even tradition-bound Luisa prefers knowledge to flirtation.)
Besides their schematic functions, The People of the Wind's characters are all moral agents. Their most significant choices pertain to the war. Anderson summarizes the ethical issue this way: "To what extent is it right to use violence on an opponent who is not really evil?" Each side thinks its cause is just. Terra, a generally benign overlord, seeks to preclude possible future aggression by Ythri. "'The duty of an empire is to provide for the great-grandchildren'" (p. 341). Ythri is trying to keep its present territory and Avalon wants to preserve its uniqueness. "'If communities didn't resist encroachments, they'd soon be swallowed the biggest and greediest. . . . In the end dead sameness. No challenges, no inspirations from somebody else's way'" (p. 472).
The rivals clash, regretting it all the while. Societies and individuals such as Philippe and Tabitha are caught in the prime Andersonian tragic dilemma. In James Blish's words, they have "to do the wrong thing for the right reason—and then . . . live with the consequences."2 The war is honorably fought with a high degree of professional skill. (Here the author departs from his historical model: the real Franco-Prussian War was a cynically motivated, wretchedly executed enterprise.) Both sides try to limit casualties. No Imperial invader shows animosity towards their enemies, but Chris and Draun do. Avalon dares to resist solely because Terra is a humane foe. Not only is extermination contrary to her official policy, but Admiral Cajal would refuse to annihilate a planet even if so ordered. (The rebels of Freehold will similarly exploit Terran moral restraint in "Outpost of Empire" two centuries later.)
The author treats ethical aspects of the conflict with sensitivity. His space battles are militarily plausible and vividly described. To what purpose? To show war as a tragic consequence of the innate flaws in thinking beings but, more importantly, to present one vision of a future worth fighting for: "'the winged and wingless together'" (p. 473).
Anderson was able to conceive this wonderful vision and deliver it entertainingly because his talent has been nourished by so many sources. His formal education was scientific (a B.S. with honors in physics from the University of Minnesota, 1948), but he was also well acquainted with the arts and humanities. He wrote and translated poetry skillfully. The multicultural awareness so important in this novel reflects his bilingual upbringing, knowledge of other languages besides English and Danish, extensive foreign travel, and ties of blood and friendship abroad. A long-time resident of California, he was thoroughly at home outdoors (camping, sailing, and mountain climbing) and campaigned to preserve the wilderness he loved. (Could his Ythrians fly so gloriously if he had never watched real eagles soar?)
Intense appreciative perceptions of terrestrial reality undergird Avalon and all his other fictional locales. As the author himself once said:
If through these imaginary settings, I can convey to you a little of my own feelings upon first seeing the Grand Canyon, climbing Lassen cinder cone, riding out a gale at sea, lying becalmed while a pod of killer whales passed by on one utterly blue dawn—or, for that matter, passing through that old junk shop Westminster Abbey and suddenly finding Newton's grave, or first coming up on the Acropolis, or being guided through the big accelerator at Berkeley . . . why, then I've succeeded.
Ideas come from anyplace. The minds of artists like Poul Anderson decide where they go.
Sandra MieselIndianapolis
REFERENCES

This and following unattributed remarks by the author are from personal
communication between Miesel and Anderson.
"Poul Anderson, The Enduring Explosion" in The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction (April, 1971), p. 54.

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