Kith (Poul Anderson)
The Kith are a starfaring culture featured in a number of stories by Poul Anderson:
- "Ghetto" (1954)
- "The Horn of Time the Hunter" (also known as "Homo Aquaticus", 1963)
- The novel Starfarers (1998) - John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 1999[1]
The Kith develop out of early interstellar explorers in the 21st and 22nd centuries. Because of the effects of time dilation associated with travel at near-light speeds, the Kith maintain separate settlements ("Kithtowns") in which care was taken to keep their language and culture consistent over the course of millennia. As Kith usually marry among themselves, they seek to avoid in-breeding by a strict Exogamy; Kith must find their mates in a ship other their own, marriage between crew members of the same ship being considered a kind of incest.
Inevitably, Kith come to regard planet-bound cultures with aloof detachment, as an individual Kith may witness in his or her lifetime the passage of hundreds of years, the rise and fall of empires which can only seem ephemeral. To the ground-dwellers such attitudes come to seem superior and arrogant, and the Kith's apparent near-immortality arouses envy. Although the Kith are instrumental in maintaining the network of trade that makes human interstellar civilization possible, over time they become the object of derision, suspicion and ultimately persecution.
As set forth in Starfarers and "Ghetto", the Kithtowns ultimately become ghettos, and pogroms are launched against the Kith. "The Horn of Time the Hunter" suggests that the Kith are ultimately forced to flee human space altogether, and chronicles the return of one group of Kith to human space after hundreds of thousands of years' relativistic travel to the Galactic core.
References
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| Hoka | |
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| The Psychotechnic League |
- Star Ways
- The Snows of Ganymede
- Virgin Planet
- The Psychotechnic League
- Cold Victory
- Starship
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| Tomorrow's Children |
- Tomorrow's Children
- Chain of Logic
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| Technic History
Polesotechnic League period of Nicholas van Rijn |
- War of the Wing-Men
- Trader to the Stars
- The Trouble Twisters
- Satan's World
- The Earth Book of Stormgate
- Mirkheim
- The People of the Wind
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| Technic History
Terran Empire period of Dominic Flandry |
- Ensign Flandry
- A Circus of Hells
- The Rebel Worlds
- The Day of Their Return
- Agent of the Terran Empire
- Flandry of Terra
- A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows
- A Stone in Heaven
- The Game of Empire
- The Long Night
- Let the Spacemen Beware
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| Time Patrol |
- Time Patrol
- Brave to be a King
- The Year of the Ransom
- The Shield of Time
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| History of Rustum | |
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| Maurai | |
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| Harvest of Stars |
- Harvest of Stars
- The Stars Are Also Fire
- Harvest of Fire
- The Fleet of Stars
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| Other novels science-fiction | |
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| Collections |
- Strangers from Earth
- Un-Man and Other Novellas
- Time and Stars
- The Horn of Time
- Beyond the Beyond
- Seven Conquest
- Tales of the Flying Mountains
- The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories
- The Worlds of Poul Anderson
- The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson
- Homeward and Beyond
- The Best of Poul Anderson
- Homebrew
- The Night Face & Other Stories
- The Dark Between the Stars
- Explorations
- Fantasy
- Winners
- Cold Victory
- The Gods Laughed
- Starship
- The Winter of the World / The Queen of Air and Darkness
- Conflict
- The Long Night
- Past Times
- The Unicorn Trade
- Dialogue With Darkness
- Space Folk
- Alight in the Void
- The Armies of Elfland
- Inconstant Star
- Kinship With the Stars
- All One Universe
- Going for Infinity
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| King of Ys (fantasy) |
- Roma Mater
- Gallicenae
- Dahut
- The Dog and the Wolf
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| Operation Otherworld (fantasy) | |
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| Other novels fantasy | |
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| The Last Viking (Historical) |
- The Golden Horn
- The Road of the Sea Horse
- The Sign of the Raven
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| Historical novels | |
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| Anthologies |
- Nebula Award Stories Four
- The Day the Sun Stood Still
- A World Named Cleopatra
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| Selected novellas/short stories | |
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| Non-Fiction |
- Is There Life on Other Worlds?
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