The People of the Wind

"People of the Wind" is an interesting story about the Planet Avalon, which has been jointly and amicably settled by Earthmen and Ythrians. Ythrians are an avian race, quite capable of flight. One of Poul Anderson's strengths as a writer was his ability to create imaginative non-human races and extrapolate and attribute a non-human psychology to them. The Ythrians are an unusually imaginative example of this, and the interaction... Read Full Review

All of us go through a phase of doubting whether we should adhere to the genre. This provided one of my most compelling reasons to continue. Forthwith is the "blurb" from the 1982 Signet back cover. "THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND Wherever the borders of the Terran Empire and the Ythrian Domain touch, there is the possibility of war. Caught in the middle of this galactic power struggle is the Ythrian colony planet Avalon, a world... Read Full Review

This may be Anderson's best work. The interplay between two races, the flying carnivorous Ythri and the human Terrans, in the midst of a powerful space attack, makes for an interesting study. The book is also important because it is the bridge between two, originally separate, future histories. A descendant from the chronologically earlier history plays an important part in the later one.