(Another review which originally appeared only on FB.)

Anderson was not one of those authors I read much back when I was a teenager. Perhaps half a dozen of his best-known works. There were other science fiction authors whose books and stories I much preferred. But he was a popular and well-regarded author in his day and, to be honest, his Terran Empire / Ensign Flandry / Nicholas van Rijn novels always struck me as featuring the sort of world-building I sort of liked… And yet I never made any effort to explore it.

Anyway, The People of the Wind (1973, USA) was nominated for the Hugo in 1974 (but lost out to Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama (1973, Sri Lanka)). It’s set on a world called Avalon, shared by humans and Ythrians, who are winged bird-like humanoid aliens, and which is nominally part of the Ythrian Domain. The Terran Empire decides it wants a nice and less ragged border with the Domain, which makes no sense, and so decides to launch a full-scale attack on the Domain, which makes no sense, in order to take over those Ythrian worlds it feels will make the border look neat and tidy on a map, which makes no sense. Which makes no sense.

Anyway, Avalon is happy being a mixed human/Ythrian world, and has created a culture all its own. It has no intention of being subsumed into the Terran Empire. And it has a plan to defend itself. And when that works, but not enough, it has a last-ditch plan to defeat the forces of the Terran Empire. Which also works. Oops. Spoiler.

Anyway, reading The People of the Wind I think I understand why Anderson’s novels never appealed to me. The descriptive prose is actually not bad, and its presence not all that common in sf novels of the time, but Anderson’s decision to make use of archaic, and often completely made-up English, works against him – “blent”? “fleered”? WTF? Has either been used since Chaucer’s day? It also doesn’t help that Anderson drops lumps of exposition, which read like encyclopaedia passages, into his narrative. There are many ways to deal with exposition, assuming you even believe it’s necessary, but this is surely the most inelegant. No, wait– “As you know…” dialogue is definitely less elegant.

Anyway, I think even the most cynical would agree that exposition, in whatever form, should at least advance the story. Anderson’s doesn’t. It’s thinly-disguised gazetteer information, and might possibly be of relevance should they ever produce a RPG of the universe (which was not a consideration back in 1973).

Anyway, The People of the Wind. The usual bullshit “underdog defeats vastly superior enemy” narrative – which is, when you think about it, somewhat ironic coming from a US author – written in a combination of clumsy infodumps and pseudo-archaic English, and which presents absolutely nothing interesting in terms of insight… was apparently considered notable enough to be shortlisted for the genre’s premier award in the US in 1974.

Anyway, not a reason, I would think, to start reading Poul Anderson. But perhaps a good reason not to read him.