Poul Anthony / Winter Solstsice

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Susan wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/35515>:

<< I've always been a fan of the Queen of Air and Darkness, and just
read "House Rule".....thought about the Leaky Cauldron...anyone else
read this work?  >>

Potioncat replied in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/35516>:

<< I remember one that involves a boy who doesn't seem to have any
magic. They think he's a "Mundane".

Potioncat....who knows she read Poul Anderson, but is now wondering
if she's mixed him up with a different author. >>

Yes, Potioncat, you're thinking of Piers Anthony's Xanth series.

I don't recall 'House Rule' by name, but I suppose it's one of the
short stories about The Old Phoenix Inn, which appears wherever and
whenever it wants to, and people from different universes meet inside.
In one story, an Abelard whose Heloise had died in childbirth met an
Heloise whose Abelard had been killed (rather than merely castrated)
by her uncle Foulke.

OPERATION CHAOS is probably the most Potter-ish Anderson novel because
it's set in our normal world except with magic; it also includes a
trip to Hell. I liked it very much when I was young. I also liked the
Norse saga stuff -- HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA, THE BROKEN SWORD, the one
about Harald Hardraada ... I'm giving the wrong impression by not
mentioning any of his very many science-fiction (no magic) books ...

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/35521>:

<< Carol, who has yet to figure out why people refer to Christmas and
New Year's as occurring in midwinter when winter has barely begun >>

Because the theory that seasons BEGIN on the Solstice or Equinox is a
big modern hoax. If the season is defined by length of day, with
winter having short days and long nights, then whatever length is
defined as  'short', there are an equal number of short days before
the Winter Solstice and after it. And there are an equal number of
long days before the Summer Solstice as after it, which is why
Mid-Summer Day approximates the Summer Solstice -- or do you complain
that the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is set when Summer has
barely begun?

The above is something I have always believed, but (unlike my
conviction that putting the sentence's period inside the word's
quotation marks is a LIE and mis-attribution because the period is not
being quoted) it's not just my unimportant opinion -- a professional
astronomer has the same opinion:
<http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/badseasons.html>.