| Queen of Air |
| 1 | POUL ANDERSON The Queen of Air and Darkness Poul ANDERSON was born November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, of Scandinavian parents. Part of his youth was spent in Denmark. He returned to the United States before World War II, and he sold his first story while a student at the University of Minnesota. When he graduated.with distinction, in 1948, he decided to try to support himself for a time with his writing before seeking employment in his area of specialization, physics. |
| 2 | That for a time is approaching twenty-five years with the end happily not in sight. In 1953 Anderson married Karen Kruse, herself an author of fiction and poetry. They have one daughter, Astrid. They make their home in Orinda, California. Anderson's dazzling versatility as a writer is reflected in James Blish's description of him as ". . . the scientist, the technician, the stylist, the bard, the humanist and the humorist-a non-exhaustive list." He ranks as one of the most prolific science fiction writers of all times (a recently compiled bibliography, published in the April 1971 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction, fills seven pages!). |
| 3 | From poetry to novels to short stories to nonfiction books and articles on a variety of subjects, he brilliantly combines the saga and song of his Scandinavian heritage with the searching mind and speculative science of the scholar. He also finds time for such varied activities as houseboat building, sailing, mountain climbing, gardening, chess, poker, Science Fiction Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and the Society for Creative Anachronism (where he is known as Bela of Eastmarch in its medieval tourneys)-another non-exhaustive list. |
| 4 | Under his own name and his two pseudonyms, Winston P. Sanders and Michael Karageorge, he is the author of some fifty books and perhaps two hundred shorter items. His stories "No Truce with Kings," "The Longest Voyage" and "The Sharing of Flesh" won Hugo Awards. His mystery novel Perish by the Sword won the Cock Robin Award. Well- known science fiction novels are Brain Wave, The High Crusade, Three Hearts and Three Lions, Earthman's Burden (with Gordon R. Dickson), The Broken Sword, Alter Doomsday and Tau Zero. |
| 5 | Recently anthologized stories are "Call Me Joe" (selected for inclusion in the SFWA Hall of Fame, Volume 2), "The Man Who Came Early," "Sam Hall," "Kings Who Die" and "Journeys End." His Time Patrol series was collected in Guardians of Time. Other series concern Nicholas van Rijn, the interstellar trader, Dominic Flandry and Trygve Yamamura. Anderson's novel The Byworlder was a finalist in the balloting for the 1971 Nebula Awards; and his novelette "The Queen of Air and Darkness" won a Nebula Award. |
| 6 | The last glow of the last sunset would linger almost until midwinter. But there would be no more day, and the northlands rejoiced. Blossoms opened, flamboyance on firethorn trees, steelflowers rising blue from the brok and rainplant that cloaked all hills, shy whiteness of kiss-me- never down in the dales. Flitteries darted among them in iridescent wings; a crownbuck shook his horns and bugled. Between horizons the sky deepened from purple to sable. |
| 7 | Both moons were aloft, nearly full, shining frosty on leaves and molten on waters. The shadows they made were blurred by an aurora, a great blowing curtain of light across half heaven. Behind it the earliest stars had come out. A boy and a girl sat on Wolund's Barrow just under the dolmen it upbore. Their hair, which streamed halfway down their backs, showed startlingly forth, bleached as it was by summer. |
| 8 | Their bodies, still dark from that season, merged with earth and bush and rock, for they wore only garlands. He played on a bone flute and she sang. They had lately become lovers. Their age was about \. sixteen, but they did not know this, considering themselves Out..lings and thus indifferent to time, remembering little or nothing of how they had once dwelt in the lands of men. His notes piped cold around her voice: "Cast a spell, weave it well of dust and dew and night and you." A brook by the grave mound, carrying moonlight down to a hillhidden river, answered with its rapids. |
| 9 | A flock of hellbats passed black beneath the aurora. A shape came bounding over Cloudmoor. It had two arms and' two legs, but the legs were long and claw-footed and feather covered it to the end of a tail and broad wings. The face was half, human, dominated by its eyes. Had Ayoch been able to standwholly erect, he would have reached to the boy's shoulder. The girl rose. "He carries a burden," she said. |
| 10 | Her vision was not.. meant for twilight like that of a northland creature born, but she had learned how to use every sign her senses gave her. Besides the,fact that ordinarily a pook would fly, there was a heaviness to his haste. "And he comes from the south." Excitement jumped in the boy, sudden as a green flame that went across the constellation Lyrth. He sped down the mound. "Ohoi, Ayoch!" he called. |
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