The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories

by Poul Anderson

science fiction

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories, Novella, Mystery, Science Fiction Fantasy

149 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1971

About the author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.


Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. The title story is without a doubt one of grandmaster Poul Anderson's best shorter works, having won Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards in 1971/2. This is a beautifully written story of a furtive, indigenous people on an alien planet recently colonized by humans. The humans are seemingly unaware of the aliens, who are being slowly pushed to extinction as the human presence expands. Told from the POV of a detective on the trail of a missing child, Anderson weaves together elements of both science fiction and fantasy, deeply incorporating the power of myth and superstition to shape human culture.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Hugo-winning novella is self-consciously and self-referentially archetypal, making a thoroughly SF story include an alien species waging war through our fears of the Fae. Of course the aliens fight against the humans for the sake of their homeworld. Humans are damn interlopers.

Hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed, the aliens tried to understand our fears and superstitions to play upon them and defeat us.

What can I say? That I think the premise is awesome, and that I really enjoyed the Sherlock riff butting pure logic and observation against the deepest of humanity's fears? That the worldbuilding was pretty damn good for such a short novella? Of course.

But what I really wanted after finishing it was a continuation. I wanted Poul Anderson to put that big brain of his to the task of developing the same world and situation beyond a simple resolved kidnapping case and turn it into a fully realized conflict on these archetypal terms, not just a drawing out of this tale, but one that picks up exactly where this leaves off.

I feel a bit cheated, or perhaps I'm a bit spoiled by today's grand SF and Fantasy. Maybe I ought to be thankful that such trailblazers such as Poul Anderson were able to seed our minds with such wonderful beginnings, even if the flame is taken up more firmly in other hands later.

I can still be very impressed.

I love it when Sci-Fi explains Fantasy's deep mythos. I love it even more when its done as well as this. Full props for what it does and when it was done!

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good, if a little short, collection of six short fictions from Anderson that were originally published 1961 - '71. There's one from Damon Knight's Orbit original anthology series (the initial volume, in fact), one from Boy's Life magazine, two from John W. Campbell's Analog (both of which were published under the pseudonym Michael Karageorge for some reason), and the other two from The Magazine of F & SF. The title story is the best by far, though the other five are not bad. The Queen of Air and Darkness appeared in the April 1971 issue of F & SF, which was a special Poul Anderson issue, with a terrific portrait of Anderson and some of his most-loved characters painted by Kelly Freas on the cover. It won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best of the year, though somehow it improbably won the Hugo for best novella and the Nebula for best novelette, surely the only time that's ever happened. It's a very good contrast of, and conflict between, fantasy and science fiction, and is one of his best.

[Mitticus · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating is just for Queen of Air and Darkness.

We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?

In a distant planet, very much like Earth and called Roland, a toddler disappear, the local police is not helping and a distressed mother hire a P.I. Meanwhile people whisper stories about the Old Folk...



Though Sherrinford resembles Sherlock - pipe et al. And has his own theories.
Besides he comes from planet Beowulf (not too subtle here)

Myth, old fairy tales ... or crafty aliens? The menace of assimilation or extermination in the encounter of old dwellers and the new ones.

Half of time I think one, and later, other. But the end was some kind of predictable I shudder along with Sherrinford when she talks about a 'reservation'

--------------------------

Cuando escuchaba hablar de la Reina, mágica, espléndida y reverenciada, pensaba invariablemente en Bradbury (Crónicas) y todos esos seres desolados y perdidos en medio de un destino lejano. Es siempre intrigante la idea de que nuestros tradiciones, ese yo colectivo, continuen siendo parte de nosotros aun cuando nos encontremos al otro lado de la galaxia. Resulta fascinante que los aliens extraigan precisamente esas ideas (que indican que los primeros colonos fueron de antecedentes celtas), para utilizar precisamente esas imágenes para manipularnos. Se me hace que la magia resulta necesaria en medio de la soledad y el aislamiento, del desplazamiento de nuestras mismas raices.

"Homo can truly be called Sapiens when he practices his specialty of being unspecialized. His repeated attempts to freeze himself into an all-answering pattern or culture or ideology or whatever he has named it, have repeatedly brought ruin.

[Quinell Hajari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a slender volume comprising of 6 enjoyable SF tales. All the stories seem to have the theme of colonization of alien worlds yet each one has its own distinct flavour.

The titular story the Queen Of Air and Darkness is about the abduction of a settler's (Barbro Cullen) young child. This is the longest story taking up roughly a third of the book. Barbro has her child spirited away by the "Outlings" which are denizens of the Planet Roland's more sparsely populated areas. The Outlings are attributed with having both the powers and semblance of the Elfin kind on old Earth. As such, Barbro's pleas for assistance fall on unsympathetic ears and she has to seek the assistance of Eric Sherrinwood, a private investigator with a very Sherlockian approach. This is an engaging story in which eventually the true nature and motive of the Outlings is revealed as well as that of their equally mysterious Queen.

Two other stories in this collection that I really enjoyed were The Alien Enemy and Time Lag.

In The Alien Enemy, settlers on a planet with an extremely harsh environment are attacked by a mysterious foe. Investigators arrive to offer assistance and make a shocking discovery as to who the real villains are.

Time Lag begins with the peaceful inhabitants of the planet Vaynamo being viciously attacked by a fleet from an overpopulated, polluted and highly industrialized Planet (Chertkoi) seeking to plunder Vaynamo for its natural resources. As Vaynamo is light years way from Chertkoi and the planned subjugation will be done in three successive waves, it will be 60 years before Chertkoi drives the final nails into the Vaynamo coffin. Will the Vaynamans find a way to defeat their enemies in the Time left to them? More importantly is it even within their peaceful nature to develop weapons capable of such destruction? The story is revealed to us through Elva, a Vaynaman noblewoman taken prisoner during the initial attack and who plays a pivotal role in how things ultimately unfold.

On the whole a very quick and enjoyable read!

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reluctant to read the more sci-fi ish books by Poul Anderson, for some reason. This is me dipping a toe in, as it were -- though the first story, The Queen of Air and Darkness, does touch on mythology and its uses. I enjoyed all the stories: perhaps the first and last the most. Poul Anderson had a way with words, and definitely not just when he was imitating the Scandanavian sagas.

The irritating dialect thing he does wasn't much in evidence here, either, thankfully.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3154214.html

This is a planetary romance, where a distraught mother whose son has been kidnapped by the natives hires the human colony's only private eye to retrieve him. It's a rather uncomfortable mingling of several tropes. The PI hero is part Philip Marlowe, part Sherlock Holmes (his name is Eric Sherrinford) and part Science Genius. It's quite difficult to do noir and aliens together, and Anderson doesn't really succeed. Although the child's captors seem to have magical powers, our hero proves that he can Defeat Them With Science (which however I note is itself sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic). There is a lot of Jungian banter, and very little characterisation. Today's reader will wonder how the Earth people feel that they have the right to take ownership of the planet from its original inhabitants; this question is not asked in the story (or rather the answer is presupposed).

[Felix Zilich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Погонщик Туманов. Борс Голиев. Крейсер «Шариат». В фантастике «золотого века» иногда можно встретить имена настолько густой поэтической силы, что потом неделями нельзя вытравить эти слова из головы. Скромная доза хрестоматийного Пола Андерсона, на которого я сейчас, похоже, жалуюсь, была употреблена совершенно случайно. Решил освежить в памяти «Царицу воздуха и тьмы», за которую старик Пол получил ровно 45 лет назад «Хьюго», «Небулу» и еще что-то из платинового ряда, но потом обнаружил существование одноименного сборника - и Остапа унесло.

В наше время есть опасная иллюзия, что популярные авторы уровня Пола Андерсона переведена на все сто процентов. Если даже не переведены, достать любую книгу в оригинале - вопрос времени и примерно десяти баксов. Увы, не все так круто. «Царица воздуха и тьмы» - небольшой сборник из шести новелл различной длины, изданный в 1973 году вскоре после получения вышеназванных наград. Чтобы заработать лишний доллар, а заодно собрать под одной обложкой несколько историй из «колонизаторской» линейки.

Из этой шестёрки «Царицу» переиздавали неоднократно, еще три рассказа - «Time Lag (1961), «Home (1966), «В мире тени (1967) - были включены в культовый сборник «Фата-Моргана 7» с картиной Вальехо на обложке. Две короткие зарисовки - «The Alien Enemy» (1968) и «The Faun» (1973) - переводить наши издатели явно не стали из-за их вероятной беспонтовости. Они, вроде бы, по две-три страницы, но найти и проверить их вероятную беспонтовость мне не удалось.

Сквозная тема сборника: люди, покинувшие Землю, ей больше ничего не должны. За несколько столетий они расползутся по космосу, превратятся в фермеров и фригольдеров, адаптируют под себя иноземцев, а потом перестанут различать науку от магии. Аминь. Пойду поставлю свечку.

[Sylvie Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually only read the story, Queen of Air and Darkness, and I liked it so well I wanted to share that enjoyment. When I mentioned it to my husband, to my surprise, he had read it several times and loved it. It isn't often he and I agree so strongly on one book or story, though we both read lots of science fiction (I, more fantasy).

The story is about colonists on Roland and specifically on the continent Artica, which exists in a state of half-night much of the year and is lush and beautiful. Outside the cities live the toughest settlers called Outlayers, and among them has sprung the rebirth of a very old myth of the Old Folk, which are rumored to be faerie-like people and steal human children without a sign once in a while.

Even the practical scientific people cannot guess where the missing children went, assuming they must have wandered out of the safety of the encampment and died. The story focuses on a former detective who takes on a private case from a bereft mother who is desperate to find her missing three-year-old boy before it's too late. He happens to be the kind of fearless, pragmatic guy who believes there may be some truth to the tale - and what they find out on the wilderness changes their view of the planet forever.

This story has lots of elements that I love - a strong, sensible lead character who is not easily tricked, magic, futuristic science, and we get to see the queen.

[Elessar · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5

La reina del aire y la oscuridad es una novela corta de Poul Anderson (1926 - 2001) ganadora de los más prestigiosos premios de ciencia ficción: el Hugo, el Locus y el Nebula. En ella, se nos presenta un mundo, Roland, en el que sus colonos viven con preocupación debido a la desaparición de niños pequeños a manos de la población aborigen. La historia sigue el caso de la científica Barbro Cullen, cuyo hijo ha sido raptado por este pueblo en torno al que giran numerosas leyendas. Contratará a un detective privado, bastante pintoresco, para ayudarla a recuperar a su hijo. Se describe, a continuación, la entrada en contacto con la Antigua Gente, resolviéndose muchos de los misterios.

Esta novela corta tiene muchos elementos originales; su autor logra combinar la ciencia ficción, la fantasía y la mitología de una forma bastante interesante. Algunos diálogos flojean un poco, pero en general me ha parecido una novela bastante notable. Un buen comienzo con este escritor.

[De Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[John Burt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to this story after hearing the song "The Queen of Air and Darkness" at an SF convention in the 1970s -- and looked around at its conclusion to see that Anderson himself had slipped into the room: https://youtu.be/sOQc2dmrKrg

The song is beautiful, an excellent version of the familiar tropes of human encounters with the fey. The real impact of it, though, doesn't come until you have read the story, and have learned what is really going on there on the colony planet called Roland, and what is really happening to those children "carried away by the fairies".

[Xabi1990 · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10 en 2006. Media de los 14 libros leídos del autor: 6/10.

Otro autor clásico bastante prolífico y cuyas novelas, en general, entretienen. Hugo, Nébula y Locus arropan a esta novela corta sobre un planeta con habitantes que son como los mitos de las leyendas nórdicas. NO me gustó mucho a pesar de sus premios.

Si tuviera que recomendar una de sus novelas me quedaba con "Tiempo de fuego", con 8/10.

[George McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Man is not at heart rational. He could stop believing the stories of science if those no longer felt right."

Worthy winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Anderson does a wonderful job of imagining how an alien species could fulfill our earthly stories of the fey. At the same time, he is exploring and exposing our lousy history with indigenous cultures. Brilliantly done.

[Cécile · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection that you had better read whole and in order, as it gets better after you have been able to make a bit more sense of the whole after a couple of stories.

The theme of the whole is colonisation under various aspects (relationships with aliens/with a hostile planet/between several planets...). On the whole the stories in themselves are interesting if not absolutely remarkable. There is no very original thinking here. Although the issue of colonisation and the various types of tensions it implies was finally addressed with a bit more sensitivity than I feared after readin the title story, still most of the collection remained stuck in very basic images and binary oppositions: civilisation vs nature, the Good Savage vs destructive invaders, courageous and lonely astronauts/cowboys, gentle women that remain utterly passive until, of course, it comes to defending their brood... Nevertheless, since different stories give a different point of view on various aspects of the question, the collection offers a subtler impression than each separate stories. It is also very short and can be read in one day. I would recommend it as very decent SF.

[Robin Hobb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title story in this book is the one that made me a Poul Anderson fan for life. If one story taught me about the power of myth, it's this one. Because like the young protagonists in the story, I was totally swept away and longed for that world.

[Charles Sternberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this not knowing anything about it or having heard of the author. Overall, a lot of fun, interesting sci-fi ideas. Coming off Philip K. Dick, Anderson's style is way more ornate and detailed. Anderson has some beautiful language and great sentences, but sometimes the details feel overwhelming. There are too many made up words for my taste.

The title story was strong with interesting ideas about superstition and how it persists even thousands of years in the future. The last story also stands out because it has a villain that is very fun to hate. Some of the stuff in the middle didn't really leave much of an impression on me.

[Nigel Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often dip my toes into an Anderson book. I find them in charity shops and car boots regularly. I generally know what I am getting. An easy read filled with great imagination. This was one of his better collections. There was a great deal of political undercurrent to each story here and in this post brexit world they seemed to resonate and be more relevant than hitherto. Thoroughly enjoyable, well written and haunting - especially in the title story.

[Ryan Dash · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. This review is only for the title story. Fantasy and science fiction mashups are rare, and for good reason – they’re hard to pull off. The juxtaposition of the genres was jarring for most of the story, though it nearly worked at the climax. I found the SF portions much more interesting; the fantasy could have been largely cut – or better yet, replaced with SF altogether. That said, I enjoyed the detective aspect, though it was heavy on mythological theorizing.

[Piojo · Rating 2 out of 5]

No, no me ha gustado. Más parecen unos apuntes sobre una historia que una historia en sí misma. Personajes desdibujados y poco trabajados, y una trama que flojea. Y de ciencia ficción muy poco, fantasía y no muy conseguida. Esperaba bastante más de una novela (aunque sea corta) de Poul Anderson, y además una tan premiada.. Otra vez será.

[Gr1972 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 out of 5

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six stories, most having to do with interstellar colonization, all very interesting and very well written.

[Erick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Está interesante la ambientacion y esta union entre misterio, fantasia y ciencia ficcion. No me encantó del todo pero es una lectura entretenida

[Sarahtar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read any Paol Anderson. The Queen of Air and Darkness was interesting enough that I decided to go on to read the others. They were kind of a mixed bag.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This small book contains six short stories by Poul Anderson. Thought-provoking science fiction. This is an example of the serious science fiction that explores themes from the larger human landscape using the future as a frame for the discussion.

I was most impressed w/ the stories "Home" and "The Alien Enemy." "Home" challenges the notion that we always want to return to where we came from, the notion of diaspora. A small colony of humans have been living on Mithras, using it as a base, as the Mithrans are peaceful and accept their presence. However, Earth is getting poor and weak, and those on Earth are pulling out of expensive endeavors like this base - on top of the growing concerns about the impacts a stronger culture (human) will have on the natives in the long run. A crew comes w/ a ship to take everyone home, and this assumption of willingness to return is challenged w/ drastic results. Both sides are both right and wrong; the conflict is compared to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Common Themes:
--the idea that space exploration is connected to human freedom and development, to learning - that to restrict it was to be the end of humanity; that without it, we'd continue to repeat history
--stories with no clear antagonist - the two sides doing what they think is best still at odds

*spoiler alert*
In "The Alien Enemy" Earth was over-populated and damaged - there were only vistas and clean air for the rich. For those willing, opportunities were made available to colonize planets, some more hospitable than others. The planet Sibylla was one of the most inhospitable planets due to multiple environmental factors - the colonists had been living there for ~200 years with very little gain or infrastructure. Even more alarming was the alien enemy attack several generations ago that appeared to have set them back even more, reducing their cities and populations. These alien invaders were a new problem and a very large concern to Earth. Investigations uncovered a shocking secret - the depths a community was willing to go to return home.

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This slim paperback of 144 pages contains 6 short works. In his introduction Anderson says the stories "are not related in the sense of projecting a single history of the future." They could be though--they read as fairly consistent with each other, projecting space-faring humans and colonies--but within relativistic limits. No faster-than-life-travel here, and more than one story refers to an Earth "Directorate" ordering global affairs. The first, the title story "The Queen of Air and Darkness" is the longest and arguably Anderson's most famous short work, and my favorite in the anthology. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1972, and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1971. It reworks the old Celtic legends of faery into a science fiction story, and quite cleverly. It's protagonist investigator is obviously modeled on Sherlock Holmes. "Home" is a moving short story that asks some interesting questions about forces of history and definitions of home. Another short story, "The Alien Enemy," like several stories here suffers from infodump--too much exposition given too artificially--but it has a neat twist. I thought the novelette "In the Shadow" also suffered from infodump, but did appreciate the hard science premises you find in classic science fiction. I didn't care for the short story, "The Faun" which I thought the weakest work in the collection. I did very much like the novelettte "Time Lag"--every bit as much as the more celebrated opening story. Anderson uses the time lag of relativistic space travel to good effect there. All in all, an enjoyable book that begins and ends strongly even if it sags a bit in the middle.

[Vladimir Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Редкий случай, когда автор составляет сборник своих рассказов не по принципу «свалю в кучу все что написал за последние годы», а тематически.

Под этой обложкой Андерсон собрал шесть историй о планетарной колонизации в условиях честной эйнштейновской вселенной, без гиперприводов, порталов и прочей магии. Любое межзвездное путешествие занимает десятки, если не сотни лет, поэтому каждая колония вынуждена существовать практически в полной изоляции от Земли, и когда поселенцы сталкиваются с проблемами, им не на кого надеяться, кроме как на собственные силы и знания.

А проблемы в сборнике представлены на любой вкус — от невыносимых природных условий до вторжения инопланетных завоевателей.

В целом подборка вышла достаточно ровная, без взлетов и провалов. Если бы не великолепная «Царица ветров и тьмы», поставил бы семь баллов, но этот маленький бриллиант просто вынуждает повысить оценку.

[Fantasy Literature · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story anthologies tend to be difficult to review, mostly because it’s hard to come up with a cohesive theme to discuss when the stories can be so diverse in quality and in tone. Fortunately for me, Poul Anderson seems to have gone out of his way in this little collection to ensure that any reviewer had no such problems here. The stories are actually remarkably similar in setting, tone, and theme. They also share much the same flaws. So while I will deal with the stories individually, I can also discuss them in general.

Each story in the collection is planetary romance of some description. Anderson apparently doesn’t buy into warp drives or wormholes, so voyages across the stars are always slow and expensive. In each story, humans establish colonies on some ... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

[Raj · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a small collection of short stories from the prolific Mr Anderson. There is no real unifying theme to them other than the idea that the universe is stranger than our science yet knows. All the stories are set in relativistic universes, so FTL is a no-no, and in at least one story (Time Lag) this is used to good effect.

The title story is eerily moody, evoking ancient myths on another world in the far future while most of the rest deal with colonisation in a universe where the speed of light is the absolute speed limit and how different worlds might react and change the people that went out to colonise the stars.

A very enjoyable read.

[Sara Balthazor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised - I generally detest science fiction and fantasy because of the poor writing, but this was just charming. It's been a while since I read it, but I remember liking the twisted take on old ideas.