The last of the merfolk scour Earth for a new home to call their own
The underwater city of Liri has thrived off the coast of Denmark for generations. But now, as Europe’s medieval age comes to a close, the efforts of zealous priests and the destructive ringing of church bells are causing the city to crumble. An ageless people who thrived apart from the cruelty of human existence on land, the merfolk are poetic speakers, loving and loyal, nearly impervious to death but with one great deficiency: They lack souls.
Their numbers dwindling, the merpeople scatter. Some abandon their home for the coast of Dalmatia in the Adriatic Sea, while others—the half-human, half-seaborn children of the great merfolk king Vanimen—decide to scout alien territory on land for adventure, treasure, and clues to their lost human heritage.
“For sheer, imaginative sweep, this is surely one of Anderson’s most remarkable books.” —Kirkus Reviews
“One might guess the book to be either a fantasy or a ‘historical’ novel. Yet Poul Anderson, an old hand at science fiction, has produced a genuine hybrid.” —The New York Times Book Review
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.
