The Flying Sorcerers
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The Flying Sorcerers was a humorous 1971 science fiction novel by Larry Niven and David Gerrold
The plot concerns the efforts of an astronaut and anthropologist, Purple (his translating device calls him "As a color, shade of purple gray"--he eventually realizes that it is a corruption of "As a mauve") to get away from a primitive world where he is stranded, and return to his people. The events are seen from the perspective of Lant, one of the natives, who becomes, in the course of the novel, Speaker, or chieftain, of his people.
Purple lands in an egg-shaped shuttle. He casually disrupts the lives of Lant's people, and thoughtlessly demeans Shoogar, the village magician. Shoogar gets revenge by destroying Purple's shuttle in what turns out to be an atomic explosion. Many of the villagers are dead or injured, the rest, including Lant and Shoogar, are forced to flee. Purple is presumed dead.
The villagers eventually wind up on a peninsula near the ocean, which, as the summer approaches, is rapidly becoming an island (thanks to the influence of the two suns, the shorelines on this world are somewhat variable). To the annoyance of the existing inhabitants of the area, the villagers contrive to be trapped in the fertile area by the rising seas. The newcomers are less happy when they learn that Purple is here, having succeeded the previous village magician, Dorthi, by killing him by landing on him in a fall from the sky in an impact suit.
Lant's people wish to flee, but have nowhere to go. Lant and the local Speaker persuade the two magicians to swear to a peace treaty.
Purple can call his mother ship to get him, but must return to the now-radioactive area of the old village to do so. Everyone is stranded on the island for a considerable length of time. Purple conceives the idea of fabricating a flying machine to return him to the area. He persuades his villagers (who are actually anxious to get rid of him) and Lant's, to join in the scheme.
The ship will have balloons, sails, and be steered by bicycles. A good part of the book deals with the tribulations of Purple in trying to create this work, beyond the technology of the local people. He creates 'aircloth', a rubber-equivalent, and splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. He is successful in building the ship.
But in so doing, he has changed the lives of the villagers forever. Not only do they have these new technologies, but he has created problems with crime, intoxication, the ecology, and has altered the relationship between the sexes. In addition, he has introduced money into the culture.
Purple, Shoogar, Lant, and Lant's adult twin sons (bicycle makers named Orbur and Wilville, who now have helped create a flying machine) take off for the old village. They get there, and Purple is able to summon the mother ship and depart. There is a brief epilogue--after the return home, Lant notes that a new flying machine, much larger than the first, is to be built. The old one, the Cathawk (as in Kitty Hawk) will be displayed in a clearing owned by a smith's son.
[edit] Notes
Most of the names in the book are jokes dealing with the Science Fiction universe. Purple ("as a mauve") is intended to be "Asimov", or at least a descendant thereof. The two suns are named Virn (Jules Verne) and Ouells (H.G. Wells), deemed by many to be the founders of modern science fiction. There is a multitude of gods, most named for science fiction writers. For example, Filfomar, god of rivers, refers to Philip José Farmer, known for his Riverworld series. N'veen, god of tides, is Niven himself, a reference to the tides in Neutron Star.[1]
