Helliconia
Encyclopedia
The Helliconia Trilogy is a series of science fiction
books by Brian Aldiss
, set on the Earth
-like planet Helliconia. It is an epic chronicling the rise and fall of a civilization
over more than a thousand years as the planet progresses through its incredibly long seasons, which last for centuries.
The trilogy consists of the books Helliconia Spring (published in 1982), Helliconia Summer (1983) and Helliconia Winter (1985).
's Gaia Hypothesis
. The books describe realistic and credible details of the planet from the perspectives of a great variety of fields of study - astronomy, geology, climatology, geobiology, microbiology, religion, society, and many others - for which Aldiss gained the help of many Oxford
academics. Connections are drawn which show numerous ways in which these aspects of life affect each other.
The books are set some six thousand years in the future. A space station from Earth, the Avernus, is orbiting Helliconia and closely observing the planet, including the activities of its intelligent inhabitants. The temptation to interfere in Helliconian affairs is a recurring dilemma for the inhabitants of Avernus.
Helliconia has a very long year (called The Great Year), equivalent to some 2500 Earth years, and global temperatures vary greatly over the year. A major theme of the trilogy is the fragility of human civilization in the context of environmental changes, and the ability of humanity to preserve and recreate civilization. Phenomena related to the changing of the seasons of the Great Year provide a deus ex machina
plot device in the climax of each of the three books (the exploding trees at the end of Spring which allow the heroes to escape a phagor attack, the migrating fish at the end of Summer which allow the heroes to escape from an invading army, and the marauding phagors at the end of Winter which allow Luterin to escape from his captors).
Helliconia is populated by two intelligent races, humans and phagor
s. The humans are actually not the same species as Earth humans but a species that is remarkably similar.
. The one great success was the discovery of Helliconia. The Avernus was dispatched to monitor but not interfere with Helliconia, providing the Earth with scientific data and the entertainment of an epic reality show
.
Somewhat later, the human race destroyed itself and most other life on Earth with a nuclear war
. After a thousand years or so, the Earth's Gaian repair mechanisms
repopulated the world with new life, including a small number of humans, who now live a simple nomadic life and have no interest in technology.
Avernus is visible from the surface of Helliconia as a bright, fast-moving star. There are thousands of probes and other monitoring devices down on the planet, providing scientific readings, video pictures, etc., which Avernus collects and transmits on to Earth.
Six thousand people, the descendants of the original crew, live on the Avernus in a small but comfortable high-technology environment. After the nuclear war, transmissions from Earth suddenly stop for no reason apparent to the residents of Avernus. Avernus continues with its work for many centuries but eventually its isolated people descend into madness and sexual perversion (a common theme in Aldiss's works, which he treats with revulsion rather than salaciousness). At the end of the trilogy, Avernus is a lifeless, empty shell.
system, which consists of a yellow-orange dwarf similar to our sun
, Batalix (spectral class G4
), and a hotter and brighter white star, Freyr (Type A supergiant). Helliconia orbits Batalix, which in turn orbits Freyr. The Batalix-Freyr system is supposedly in the constellation of Ophiuchus, about a thousand light years
from Earth.
Helliconia orbit
s Batalix in 480 days. Each day comprises 25 hours each of 40 minutes which in turn are each 100 seconds long. This is called the "small year". Helliconia and Batalix's orbit around Freyr, the "great year", is highly elliptical
and takes approximately 1,825 small years which equates to some 2,592 Earth years. At periastron Batalix is 236 astronomical units from Freyr, whilst at apastron is 710 AU distant. A Helliconian week is eight days. There are six weeks in a tenner. There are 10 tenners in a Helliconian small year. While seasonal changes in the small year are slighter than those of Earth, the long seasons of the great year are much more marked. When distant from Freyr, Batalix's illumination is sufficient only to maintain ice age conditions. However, Freyr's output is many times greater than Batalix's, so as Helliconia approaches Freyr, the tropics
of Helliconia become hotter even than the tropics of Earth.
Previously Helliconia only orbited Batalix, but the Helliconia-Batalix system was captured by Freyr's gravitational pull
about eight million Earth-years ago (i.e., very recently by astronomical and evolutionary standards). The Freyr stellar system originally consisted of two stars, but during the encounter by Batalix, the sister-star of Freyr was thrown out of the system, along with one of Batalix's original planets and a moon of Helliconia, called T'Sehn-Hrr by the phagor race
of 35 degrees. This means that small year seasons are harsher but the planet still has huge polar ice cap
s, capable of surviving even the great summer, and the human-habitable
surface area is comparable to that of Earth.
There are three continents, a tropical continent (Campannlat), a northern continent (Sibornal) and a southern continent (Hespagorat). "Helliconia Spring" and "Helliconia Summer" mainly take place in Campannlat, with its rich vitality, and "Helliconia Winter" focuses on Sibornal, where the harsher environment encourages technological progress. The southern continent features only briefly in the books.
matches the great year, the Helliconia equivalent of a dragon
. In the summer the young worms fly in the air, and in the winter the now-wingless mature worms live in a great network of tunnels beneath the surface.
. They are intelligent, with their own languages and cultures, but their civilization has never advanced beyond a hunter-gatherer
level. Phagors are described as having a number of odd physical characteristics, their blood is golden rather than red and their guts sit above their lungs within their torsos. They are described as hardy, though not tolerant of warm conditions, and long lived. If allowed to reach great age they shrink and gradually become keratinised, so that they eventually resemble furred totems showing no overt biological life. Living phagors continue to be able to commune with the spirits of those ancestors in a keratinised state by assuming a mental state called "tether." When in tether they perceive their ancestors as small quadrupedal sprites. These sprites fulfil the same role as the human "gossies" and "fessups," as ancestral spirits able to be contacted.
Humans and phagors have, since the appearance of Freyr, been in conflict worldwide, with the phagors dominant in the great winter and the humans dominant in the great summer. The slow swings in fortune between the two races are dominated by the climate and biology, rendering military conflicts between the races essentially irrelevant.
In a reversal of their original relationship, phagors are described as sometimes being kept as slaves by humans, even during the "Great Winter." Phagors were also sometimes employed as soldiers by human societies.
At the end of great autumn, the humans have developed levels of civilization comparable at their most advanced to renaissance
Europe. However, each time the thousand-year great winter returns, human civilization inevitably regresses and has to be rebuilt again the next spring. (Similar if less regular patterns of advance and regression can be observed in Earth history.) The books hint that humans in some regions are becoming more competent at preserving knowledge and social structures through the winter, and that in the next few great years they may develop a scientific-industrial civilization capable of surviving throughout the great year and thus completely dominating Helliconia.
, an epidemic of which sweeps the world early in the great spring. Fat Death is a disease characterised by an extreme form of binge eating
, an epidemic of which sweeps the world late in the great autumn.
The two diseases are extremely unpleasant and have very high mortality rate
s. However, the survivors are left with bodies which are respectively much thinner or fatter and altered in other ways, and are much better adapted to the conditions of, respectively, summer or winter. The two diseases are caused by the same virus
which is carried by ticks and is triggered by seasonal changes in the environment. The humans therefore have a symbiotic relationship
with the virus and (unknowingly) with the phagors, who carry the ticks and hence the virus. Logically those human populations isolated from Phagors will be least likely to survive the change of season. Despite this, it is common knowledge that some rare people are immune to the virus and will survive in remote area, considered as ugly pariahs by survivors (horribly fat or thin by other humans’ standards).
The diseases, while being essential for human survival on Helliconia, are fatal in all seasons to the Earth humans on board the Avernus, who have no natural defence against it. Nonetheless, many of them choose to enter a "lottery", where they can win the chance to visit the surface and personally interact with the population, knowing that the deadly disease will kill them within a matter of days.
, the Earth-mother force, Helliconia is tended by a similar yet separate entity referred to as "The Original Beholder" (or in "Spring" The Original Boulder). The most notable difference between Earth humans and Helliconian humans (and phagors) is their ability to communicate with the spirits of the dead, as their life force is slowly returned to the Original Beholder. The humans and phagors both can enter into a sort of shamanistic trance
which allows this direct communication, which the humans call "pauk" and the phagors call "tether". Recently deceased human spirits are termed "gossies" those of more ancient demise are called "fessups."
A major plot point in the trilogies (first described in Helliconia Spring, and explained in detail in Helliconia Winter) is the changing character of the pauk experience for the Helliconian humans. The spirits of the dead are extremely emotional, and are naturally bitter and angry towards the visiting spirits of the living. After the Helliconian civilizations become of interest to the Earth humans, a planet-wide effort on Earth is made to psychically transmit empathic energy from Gaia to the Original Beholder, in an effort to lend their support to the humans on Helliconia. This effort has a positive effect on the spirits of the dead Helliconian humans, making them uniformly happy and nurturing to the spirits of the living.
city and emerges on the surface, where the climate is now mild enough for them to survive and found a settlement. Spring breaks and everybody gets Bone Fever. The settlement's head start with the superior culture that the original party brought enables it to grow rapidly in size and power as human civilization reappears on the surface.
of Helliconia). The Wheel is an extraordinary revolving monastery
/prison
in a ring-shaped
tunnel with a single exit. The Wheel rotates once in 10 years.
The book begins when Luterin has just recovered from a mysterious illness (not the Fat Death) that kept him immobile for about a year after the unexplained suicide of his elder brother Favin, whose name it is now forbidden to speak. His father and his neighbor arranged a long time ago that Luterin would one day marry the neighbor's daughter Insil Esikananzi, thereby forging a closer tie between their two prominent families. Luterin goes to visit Insil but she confuses him as she always does, and gives him the feeling that she disapproves of him.
His almost always absent father sends Luterin into the army, where he gains renown under Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka during a campaign to protect the town of Isturiacha on the southern border from an invasion by troops from what they call the Savage Continent (tropical Campannlat). Luterin kills Bandal Eith Lahl, commandant of the Borldorian battalion of the opposing army, and takes Bandal's widow Toress Lahl as his slave. Soon, the Fat Death shows itself in the Sibornalese army.
Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka sends Luterin Shokerandit north to the town of Koriantura with a battle report for onward transmission to the mysterious Oligarch, autocratic but never seen ruler of Sibornal, but one of the Oligarch's spies had taken the same route a bit earlier and reported the outbreak of the Fat Death. Soon, other Sibornalese troops show up in Koriantura with orders from the Oligarch to destroy the returning army of Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka, in an attempt to halt the spread of the Fat Death. One of these troops is Captain Harbin Fashnalgid, who gets billet
ed with Eedap Mun Odim, trader in porcelain.
The Oligarch proclaims ever more strict rules and regulations, ostensibly to curtail the Plague (Fat Death), but really intended to toughen people up for the impending harsh centuries-long winter, at whatever cost. Odim's forefathers came from distant Kuj-Juvec some generations before, and hence Odim and his family are still regarded as foreigners. The newest regulations from the Oligarch mean that Odim and his few dozen family members cannot remain in Koriantura any longer. Odim arranges to sell his business and his house and to use the proceeds to buy a ship to transport him and his family to his brother Odirin Nan Odim in far-away Shivenink.
Captain Fashnalgid secretly hates the Oligarch and the army, into which he was sold by his father. He sneaks out of Koriantura and intercepts and warns Luterin Shokerandit and Toress Lahl before they are seen by the Oligarch's army. Luterin doesn't fully trust the captain but heeds his warning and follows him to the coast, where Fashnalgid has a dinghy waiting. There Luterin falls ill with the Fat Death. Toress Lahl and Captain Fashnalgid sneak Luterin and themselves into the house of Odim in Koriantura, with the help of Odim's slave woman Besi.
Fashnalgid's superior officer Major Gardeterark noticed Fashnalgid's desertion (and didn't like him anyway) and comes to arrest him in Odim's house. Odim tricks and kills the major, and then he and his family and also Fashnalgid, Luterin, and Toress Lahl escape in Odim's ship, the New Season. The army in Koriantura does indeed annihilate Asperamanka's army returning from victory at Isturiacha. The Oligarch announces that a plague-ridden invasion army was successfully destroyed.
While the ship is at sea, the Fat Death spreads among the travellers. Sufferers lose their capability for rational thought and turn into cannibals. Through the foresight of Toress Lahl, who was trained as a medical doctor, Luterin and she survive. Odim and Fashnalgid also survive, as do enough of the crew to continue to sail the ship.
Meanwhile, Chubsalid, the popular leader of the Church, decides to oppose the Oligarch's latest edict, which is against the practice of communing with ancestors by going into Pauk. Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka has survived the massacre at Koriantura and joins Chubsalid in a visit to the Oligarch, who condemns them to be burnt at the stake for opposing the State (i.e., him). Asperamanka throws in his lot with the Oligarch and is spared, but Chubsalid is killed. This marks the separation (and opposition) of Church and State in Sibornal.
Eventually the ship reaches Shivenink, and Odim and the remainder of his family move in with his brother Odirim. The army comes to search the house. Fashnalgid assumes they've come for him and evades them by blowing up a biogas installation in Odirim's house, and escapes with Luterin and Toress to the town of Sharagatt on the way to Kharnabar. There Luterin hires an asokin sled (an asokin is a sort of super dog) with an Ondod (humanoid but not quite human) driver called Uuundaamp to take him, Fashnalgid, and Toress Lahl across the cold, high, snowy mountain roads to Kharnabar.
Fashnalgid mortally offends Uuundaamp by sleeping with Uuundaamp's wife Moub without Uuundaamp's permission. Uuundaamp warns Luterin, and when the sled moves through the long and dangerous Noonat Tunnel, Uuundaamp's phagor slave shoves Fashnalgid from the sled. Luterin tries to save Fashnalgid but falls from the sled, too. Luterin walks and runs for many miles through the polar cold until he reaches the village of Noonat, the last stop before Kharnabar. Fashnalgid fell behind and disappeared. In Noonat, Luterin finds and patches things up with Uuundaamp again, and they continue on to the Shokerandit estate near Kharnabar.
At home, Luterin announces that he wants to marry his slave Toress Lahl instead of his intended bride Insil Esikananzi, to the disapproval of both families. Luterin gives Toress the key to a centuries-old shrine to King Jandol Anganol from Toress's homeland, located in a secluded spot. Then he goes off hunting for a couple of days. When he returns, his father is at home. Luterin expresses his hatred for the Oligarch who ordered his own army to be destroyed at Koriantura, and realizes from his father's responses that his father is in fact the Oligarch. Luterin kills his father and escapes to the Wheel of Kharnabar. He enters the wheel, and is alone inside it for ten years, after which his cell lines up with the sole entrance/exit again.
When he emerges again, he finds that Ebstok Esikananzi, Insil's father, is now the Keeper of the Wheel, and that Luterin's erstwhile army commander Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka is now the Master of Kharnabar and resides in the old Shokerandit estate. The killing of the previous Oligarch is now seen as a positive thing, and Luterin's passage through the Wheel of Kharnabar has bestowed a certain measure of holiness upon him, so he is officially a free man again.
Insil has been married off to Asperamanka, and it has not been a happy marriage for her. One time she fled to the shrine of Jandol Anganol, where she found Toress Lahl who escaped there after the killing of the Oligarch and raised her and Luterin's son there. Toress and Insil became friends. Insil tells Toress that Luterin's older brother Favin was killed when he discovered to his dislike that his father was the Oligarch.
The Keeper of the Wheel and the Master of Kharnabar throw a party for Luterin, also to mark the occasion of the Day of Myrkwyr, when Freyr can be seen for the last time, at the beginning of a centuries-long polar night
(for Freyr but not Batalix). After the festivities, the Master of Kharnabar has Luterin surreptitiously detained, in order to throw him into the Wheel a second time, to be rid of him. For phagors, Myrkwyr marks the return of conditions favorable to their kind. A company of phagors attacks the hated Sons of Freyr (humans), and kills Asperamanka. Luterin escapes in the confusion. Insil Esikananzi leads him to Toress Lahl. The book ends as Toress and Luterin leave for the shrine to King Jandol Anganol, where he will meet his now ten-year-old son for the first time.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
books by Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
, set on the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
-like planet Helliconia. It is an epic chronicling the rise and fall of a civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
over more than a thousand years as the planet progresses through its incredibly long seasons, which last for centuries.
The trilogy consists of the books Helliconia Spring (published in 1982), Helliconia Summer (1983) and Helliconia Winter (1985).
Synopsis
The central character is not any person but the planet itself and its science, particularly in the light of James LovelockJames Lovelock
James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
's Gaia Hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
. The books describe realistic and credible details of the planet from the perspectives of a great variety of fields of study - astronomy, geology, climatology, geobiology, microbiology, religion, society, and many others - for which Aldiss gained the help of many Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
academics. Connections are drawn which show numerous ways in which these aspects of life affect each other.
The books are set some six thousand years in the future. A space station from Earth, the Avernus, is orbiting Helliconia and closely observing the planet, including the activities of its intelligent inhabitants. The temptation to interfere in Helliconian affairs is a recurring dilemma for the inhabitants of Avernus.
Helliconia has a very long year (called The Great Year), equivalent to some 2500 Earth years, and global temperatures vary greatly over the year. A major theme of the trilogy is the fragility of human civilization in the context of environmental changes, and the ability of humanity to preserve and recreate civilization. Phenomena related to the changing of the seasons of the Great Year provide a deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
plot device in the climax of each of the three books (the exploding trees at the end of Spring which allow the heroes to escape a phagor attack, the migrating fish at the end of Summer which allow the heroes to escape from an invading army, and the marauding phagors at the end of Winter which allow Luterin to escape from his captors).
Helliconia is populated by two intelligent races, humans and phagor
Phagor
A race of fictional creatures in Brian Aldiss' Helliconia trilogy. Also known as the ancipital race, due to their prominent double-edged horns, they are shaggy bipeds, remotely descended from bovine-type stock, and possess thought patterns, customs, and culture inimical and almost incomprehensible...
s. The humans are actually not the same species as Earth humans but a species that is remarkably similar.
Earth
Since the present day, the humans of Earth have been through an era of space exploration. This proved to be largely disappointing: faster than light travel was impossible, and few planets were found with life beyond the microbialMicroorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
. The one great success was the discovery of Helliconia. The Avernus was dispatched to monitor but not interfere with Helliconia, providing the Earth with scientific data and the entertainment of an epic reality show
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
.
Somewhat later, the human race destroyed itself and most other life on Earth with a nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
. After a thousand years or so, the Earth's Gaian repair mechanisms
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
repopulated the world with new life, including a small number of humans, who now live a simple nomadic life and have no interest in technology.
The Avernus
The massive space stationSpace station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
Avernus is visible from the surface of Helliconia as a bright, fast-moving star. There are thousands of probes and other monitoring devices down on the planet, providing scientific readings, video pictures, etc., which Avernus collects and transmits on to Earth.
Six thousand people, the descendants of the original crew, live on the Avernus in a small but comfortable high-technology environment. After the nuclear war, transmissions from Earth suddenly stop for no reason apparent to the residents of Avernus. Avernus continues with its work for many centuries but eventually its isolated people descend into madness and sexual perversion (a common theme in Aldiss's works, which he treats with revulsion rather than salaciousness). At the end of the trilogy, Avernus is a lifeless, empty shell.
Astronomy
Helliconia lies in a loose binary starBinary star
A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...
system, which consists of a yellow-orange dwarf similar to our sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
, Batalix (spectral class G4
), and a hotter and brighter white star, Freyr (Type A supergiant). Helliconia orbits Batalix, which in turn orbits Freyr. The Batalix-Freyr system is supposedly in the constellation of Ophiuchus, about a thousand light years
Light Years
Light Years is the seventh studio album by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue. It was released on 25 September 2000 by Parlophone and Mushroom Records. The album's style was indicative of her return to "mainstream pop dance tunes"....
from Earth.
Helliconia orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
s Batalix in 480 days. Each day comprises 25 hours each of 40 minutes which in turn are each 100 seconds long. This is called the "small year". Helliconia and Batalix's orbit around Freyr, the "great year", is highly elliptical
Ellipse
In geometry, an ellipse is a plane curve that results from the intersection of a cone by a plane in a way that produces a closed curve. Circles are special cases of ellipses, obtained when the cutting plane is orthogonal to the cone's axis...
and takes approximately 1,825 small years which equates to some 2,592 Earth years. At periastron Batalix is 236 astronomical units from Freyr, whilst at apastron is 710 AU distant. A Helliconian week is eight days. There are six weeks in a tenner. There are 10 tenners in a Helliconian small year. While seasonal changes in the small year are slighter than those of Earth, the long seasons of the great year are much more marked. When distant from Freyr, Batalix's illumination is sufficient only to maintain ice age conditions. However, Freyr's output is many times greater than Batalix's, so as Helliconia approaches Freyr, the tropics
Tropics
The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...
of Helliconia become hotter even than the tropics of Earth.
Previously Helliconia only orbited Batalix, but the Helliconia-Batalix system was captured by Freyr's gravitational pull
Gravitation
Gravitation, or gravity, is a natural phenomenon by which physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass. Gravitation is most familiar as the agent that gives weight to objects with mass and causes them to fall to the ground when dropped...
about eight million Earth-years ago (i.e., very recently by astronomical and evolutionary standards). The Freyr stellar system originally consisted of two stars, but during the encounter by Batalix, the sister-star of Freyr was thrown out of the system, along with one of Batalix's original planets and a moon of Helliconia, called T'Sehn-Hrr by the phagor race
Geography
Helliconia is 1.28 Earth masses in size, making it somewhat larger than Earth and with a bigger axial tiltAxial tilt
In astronomy, axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotational axis, and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane...
of 35 degrees. This means that small year seasons are harsher but the planet still has huge polar ice cap
Polar ice cap
A polar ice cap is a high latitude region of a planet or natural satellite that is covered in ice. There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land; only that it must be a body of...
s, capable of surviving even the great summer, and the human-habitable
Habitability
Habitability is the conformance of a residence or abode to the implied warranty of habitability. A residence that complies is said to be "habitable". It is an implied warranty or contract, meaning it does not have to be an express contract, covenant, or provision of a contract...
surface area is comparable to that of Earth.
There are three continents, a tropical continent (Campannlat), a northern continent (Sibornal) and a southern continent (Hespagorat). "Helliconia Spring" and "Helliconia Summer" mainly take place in Campannlat, with its rich vitality, and "Helliconia Winter" focuses on Sibornal, where the harsher environment encourages technological progress. The southern continent features only briefly in the books.
Biology
The trilogy describes a variety of imagined plants and animals, and how they cope with the extremes of the climate. The most memorable is the Wutra's Worm, an immense creature whose life spanLife expectancy
Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...
matches the great year, the Helliconia equivalent of a dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
. In the summer the young worms fly in the air, and in the winter the now-wingless mature worms live in a great network of tunnels beneath the surface.
The Phagors
Phagors, also called the "ancipitals," are white-furred humanoid beings, roughly the size of humans but with features resembling the mythical minotaurMinotaur
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur , as the Greeks imagined him, was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, "part man and part bull"...
. They are intelligent, with their own languages and cultures, but their civilization has never advanced beyond a hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
level. Phagors are described as having a number of odd physical characteristics, their blood is golden rather than red and their guts sit above their lungs within their torsos. They are described as hardy, though not tolerant of warm conditions, and long lived. If allowed to reach great age they shrink and gradually become keratinised, so that they eventually resemble furred totems showing no overt biological life. Living phagors continue to be able to commune with the spirits of those ancestors in a keratinised state by assuming a mental state called "tether." When in tether they perceive their ancestors as small quadrupedal sprites. These sprites fulfil the same role as the human "gossies" and "fessups," as ancestral spirits able to be contacted.
Humans and phagors have, since the appearance of Freyr, been in conflict worldwide, with the phagors dominant in the great winter and the humans dominant in the great summer. The slow swings in fortune between the two races are dominated by the climate and biology, rendering military conflicts between the races essentially irrelevant.
In a reversal of their original relationship, phagors are described as sometimes being kept as slaves by humans, even during the "Great Winter." Phagors were also sometimes employed as soldiers by human societies.
The Humans
Phagors were the dominant race on Helliconia before the Helliconia-Batalix system was captured by Freyr. The increased temperatures caused by the new stellar configuration, it is implied, kick-started the evolution of humans on Helliconia. Before Freyr the ancestors of humans had been ape-like creatures sometimes kept as pets by the phagors. Because the humans emerged after the capture by the sun Freyr, the phagors call them "Sons of Freyr". Remnants of the evolution of humans are found in the persistence of several races of semi-humans, such as the Nondads, who are in some cases still interfertile. The humans on Helliconia and those of Earth are therefore, despite an apparent near-identity, unrelated, a product of convergent evolution.At the end of great autumn, the humans have developed levels of civilization comparable at their most advanced to renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Europe. However, each time the thousand-year great winter returns, human civilization inevitably regresses and has to be rebuilt again the next spring. (Similar if less regular patterns of advance and regression can be observed in Earth history.) The books hint that humans in some regions are becoming more competent at preserving knowledge and social structures through the winter, and that in the next few great years they may develop a scientific-industrial civilization capable of surviving throughout the great year and thus completely dominating Helliconia.
Bone Fever and Fat Death
Bone Fever is a human disease characterised by an extreme form of anorexiaAnorexia (symptom)
Anorexia is the decreased sensation of appetite...
, an epidemic of which sweeps the world early in the great spring. Fat Death is a disease characterised by an extreme form of binge eating
Binge eating disorder
Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder in the United States affecting 3.5% of females and 2% of males and is prevalent in up to 30% of those seeking weight loss treatment...
, an epidemic of which sweeps the world late in the great autumn.
The two diseases are extremely unpleasant and have very high mortality rate
Mortality rate
Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...
s. However, the survivors are left with bodies which are respectively much thinner or fatter and altered in other ways, and are much better adapted to the conditions of, respectively, summer or winter. The two diseases are caused by the same virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
which is carried by ticks and is triggered by seasonal changes in the environment. The humans therefore have a symbiotic relationship
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
with the virus and (unknowingly) with the phagors, who carry the ticks and hence the virus. Logically those human populations isolated from Phagors will be least likely to survive the change of season. Despite this, it is common knowledge that some rare people are immune to the virus and will survive in remote area, considered as ugly pariahs by survivors (horribly fat or thin by other humans’ standards).
The diseases, while being essential for human survival on Helliconia, are fatal in all seasons to the Earth humans on board the Avernus, who have no natural defence against it. Nonetheless, many of them choose to enter a "lottery", where they can win the chance to visit the surface and personally interact with the population, knowing that the deadly disease will kill them within a matter of days.
The Original Beholder
Just as Earth in the novels is sustained by GaiaGaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
, the Earth-mother force, Helliconia is tended by a similar yet separate entity referred to as "The Original Beholder" (or in "Spring" The Original Boulder). The most notable difference between Earth humans and Helliconian humans (and phagors) is their ability to communicate with the spirits of the dead, as their life force is slowly returned to the Original Beholder. The humans and phagors both can enter into a sort of shamanistic trance
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
which allows this direct communication, which the humans call "pauk" and the phagors call "tether". Recently deceased human spirits are termed "gossies" those of more ancient demise are called "fessups."
A major plot point in the trilogies (first described in Helliconia Spring, and explained in detail in Helliconia Winter) is the changing character of the pauk experience for the Helliconian humans. The spirits of the dead are extremely emotional, and are naturally bitter and angry towards the visiting spirits of the living. After the Helliconian civilizations become of interest to the Earth humans, a planet-wide effort on Earth is made to psychically transmit empathic energy from Gaia to the Original Beholder, in an effort to lend their support to the humans on Helliconia. This effort has a positive effect on the spirits of the dead Helliconian humans, making them uniformly happy and nurturing to the spirits of the living.
Synopsis of Helliconia Spring
Late winter. Phagors are dominant. Humans live in primitive tribes and harshly governed cave cities. A small party escapes from a theocraticTheocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
city and emerges on the surface, where the climate is now mild enough for them to survive and found a settlement. Spring breaks and everybody gets Bone Fever. The settlement's head start with the superior culture that the original party brought enables it to grow rapidly in size and power as human civilization reappears on the surface.
Synopsis of Helliconia Summer
High summer. The settlement is now the capital city of a great empire. Meanwhile, the residents of Avernus are holding occasional lotteries to ameliorate their ennui, the winners being allowed to go down to the planet and experience real life. They soon contract Bone Fever/Fat Death and die, but it is a great adventure and there are many volunteers. One winner, Billy Xiao Pin, gets involved in high politics, with messy consequences.Synopsis of Helliconia Winter
Late autumn. The focus is on the politics of the northern continent Sibornal and on a globe-spanning chase, during which everybody gets Fat Death. The protagonist Luterin Shokerandit is the second son of the Keeper of the Wheel of Kharnabar (in Sibornal, above the Arctic CircleArctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
of Helliconia). The Wheel is an extraordinary revolving monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
/prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
in a ring-shaped
Annulus (mathematics)
In mathematics, an annulus is a ring-shaped geometric figure, or more generally, a term used to name a ring-shaped object. Or, it is the area between two concentric circles...
tunnel with a single exit. The Wheel rotates once in 10 years.
The book begins when Luterin has just recovered from a mysterious illness (not the Fat Death) that kept him immobile for about a year after the unexplained suicide of his elder brother Favin, whose name it is now forbidden to speak. His father and his neighbor arranged a long time ago that Luterin would one day marry the neighbor's daughter Insil Esikananzi, thereby forging a closer tie between their two prominent families. Luterin goes to visit Insil but she confuses him as she always does, and gives him the feeling that she disapproves of him.
His almost always absent father sends Luterin into the army, where he gains renown under Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka during a campaign to protect the town of Isturiacha on the southern border from an invasion by troops from what they call the Savage Continent (tropical Campannlat). Luterin kills Bandal Eith Lahl, commandant of the Borldorian battalion of the opposing army, and takes Bandal's widow Toress Lahl as his slave. Soon, the Fat Death shows itself in the Sibornalese army.
Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka sends Luterin Shokerandit north to the town of Koriantura with a battle report for onward transmission to the mysterious Oligarch, autocratic but never seen ruler of Sibornal, but one of the Oligarch's spies had taken the same route a bit earlier and reported the outbreak of the Fat Death. Soon, other Sibornalese troops show up in Koriantura with orders from the Oligarch to destroy the returning army of Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka, in an attempt to halt the spread of the Fat Death. One of these troops is Captain Harbin Fashnalgid, who gets billet
Billet
A billet is a term for living quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, it referred to a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier....
ed with Eedap Mun Odim, trader in porcelain.
The Oligarch proclaims ever more strict rules and regulations, ostensibly to curtail the Plague (Fat Death), but really intended to toughen people up for the impending harsh centuries-long winter, at whatever cost. Odim's forefathers came from distant Kuj-Juvec some generations before, and hence Odim and his family are still regarded as foreigners. The newest regulations from the Oligarch mean that Odim and his few dozen family members cannot remain in Koriantura any longer. Odim arranges to sell his business and his house and to use the proceeds to buy a ship to transport him and his family to his brother Odirin Nan Odim in far-away Shivenink.
Captain Fashnalgid secretly hates the Oligarch and the army, into which he was sold by his father. He sneaks out of Koriantura and intercepts and warns Luterin Shokerandit and Toress Lahl before they are seen by the Oligarch's army. Luterin doesn't fully trust the captain but heeds his warning and follows him to the coast, where Fashnalgid has a dinghy waiting. There Luterin falls ill with the Fat Death. Toress Lahl and Captain Fashnalgid sneak Luterin and themselves into the house of Odim in Koriantura, with the help of Odim's slave woman Besi.
Fashnalgid's superior officer Major Gardeterark noticed Fashnalgid's desertion (and didn't like him anyway) and comes to arrest him in Odim's house. Odim tricks and kills the major, and then he and his family and also Fashnalgid, Luterin, and Toress Lahl escape in Odim's ship, the New Season. The army in Koriantura does indeed annihilate Asperamanka's army returning from victory at Isturiacha. The Oligarch announces that a plague-ridden invasion army was successfully destroyed.
While the ship is at sea, the Fat Death spreads among the travellers. Sufferers lose their capability for rational thought and turn into cannibals. Through the foresight of Toress Lahl, who was trained as a medical doctor, Luterin and she survive. Odim and Fashnalgid also survive, as do enough of the crew to continue to sail the ship.
Meanwhile, Chubsalid, the popular leader of the Church, decides to oppose the Oligarch's latest edict, which is against the practice of communing with ancestors by going into Pauk. Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka has survived the massacre at Koriantura and joins Chubsalid in a visit to the Oligarch, who condemns them to be burnt at the stake for opposing the State (i.e., him). Asperamanka throws in his lot with the Oligarch and is spared, but Chubsalid is killed. This marks the separation (and opposition) of Church and State in Sibornal.
Eventually the ship reaches Shivenink, and Odim and the remainder of his family move in with his brother Odirim. The army comes to search the house. Fashnalgid assumes they've come for him and evades them by blowing up a biogas installation in Odirim's house, and escapes with Luterin and Toress to the town of Sharagatt on the way to Kharnabar. There Luterin hires an asokin sled (an asokin is a sort of super dog) with an Ondod (humanoid but not quite human) driver called Uuundaamp to take him, Fashnalgid, and Toress Lahl across the cold, high, snowy mountain roads to Kharnabar.
Fashnalgid mortally offends Uuundaamp by sleeping with Uuundaamp's wife Moub without Uuundaamp's permission. Uuundaamp warns Luterin, and when the sled moves through the long and dangerous Noonat Tunnel, Uuundaamp's phagor slave shoves Fashnalgid from the sled. Luterin tries to save Fashnalgid but falls from the sled, too. Luterin walks and runs for many miles through the polar cold until he reaches the village of Noonat, the last stop before Kharnabar. Fashnalgid fell behind and disappeared. In Noonat, Luterin finds and patches things up with Uuundaamp again, and they continue on to the Shokerandit estate near Kharnabar.
At home, Luterin announces that he wants to marry his slave Toress Lahl instead of his intended bride Insil Esikananzi, to the disapproval of both families. Luterin gives Toress the key to a centuries-old shrine to King Jandol Anganol from Toress's homeland, located in a secluded spot. Then he goes off hunting for a couple of days. When he returns, his father is at home. Luterin expresses his hatred for the Oligarch who ordered his own army to be destroyed at Koriantura, and realizes from his father's responses that his father is in fact the Oligarch. Luterin kills his father and escapes to the Wheel of Kharnabar. He enters the wheel, and is alone inside it for ten years, after which his cell lines up with the sole entrance/exit again.
When he emerges again, he finds that Ebstok Esikananzi, Insil's father, is now the Keeper of the Wheel, and that Luterin's erstwhile army commander Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka is now the Master of Kharnabar and resides in the old Shokerandit estate. The killing of the previous Oligarch is now seen as a positive thing, and Luterin's passage through the Wheel of Kharnabar has bestowed a certain measure of holiness upon him, so he is officially a free man again.
Insil has been married off to Asperamanka, and it has not been a happy marriage for her. One time she fled to the shrine of Jandol Anganol, where she found Toress Lahl who escaped there after the killing of the Oligarch and raised her and Luterin's son there. Toress and Insil became friends. Insil tells Toress that Luterin's older brother Favin was killed when he discovered to his dislike that his father was the Oligarch.
The Keeper of the Wheel and the Master of Kharnabar throw a party for Luterin, also to mark the occasion of the Day of Myrkwyr, when Freyr can be seen for the last time, at the beginning of a centuries-long polar night
Polar night
The polar night occurs when the night lasts for more than 24 hours. This occurs only inside the polar circles. The opposite phenomenon, the polar day, or midnight sun, occurs when the sun stays above the horizon for more than 24 hours.-Description:...
(for Freyr but not Batalix). After the festivities, the Master of Kharnabar has Luterin surreptitiously detained, in order to throw him into the Wheel a second time, to be rid of him. For phagors, Myrkwyr marks the return of conditions favorable to their kind. A company of phagors attacks the hated Sons of Freyr (humans), and kills Asperamanka. Luterin escapes in the confusion. Insil Esikananzi leads him to Toress Lahl. The book ends as Toress and Luterin leave for the shrine to King Jandol Anganol, where he will meet his now ten-year-old son for the first time.
External links
- Listen to Brian Aldiss discuss Helliconia Spring - a British Library recording.
- Contemporary review of Helliconia Spring UK magazine: Extro 3, July/August 1982
- Physics of Helliconia
- Helliconia How & Why By Brian Aldiss
- http://www.helliconia.com Video game based on the Helliconia World