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The Peregrine (view source)

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{{quote|''She said to me 'O Nomad, see I cannot follow you. The star ways were so cold and dree where all the wild winds blew. The wind between the stars, my love the restless wander call, blew low blew high, into the sky, the withered leaves of fall, and we were blown and all alone we flew from sunlit day. Into the waste where stars are sown and planets have their way.<nowiki>'</nowiki>''|Nomad ballad from ''[[The Peregrine]]''}}
 
This is a short [[Space Opera]] book by [[Poul Anderson]] written as part of the Psychotechnic History (distinct from the perhaps better known [[Technic History]]) series. Humans are expanding from Earth and forming loosely connected colonies in the unknown. At the far frontiers, the Nomads, an itinerant race of human traders are meeting at the planet Rendezvous for the Captains council between the captains of each clan/ship. Joachim, captain of the ''The Peregrine,'' has news. A mysterious and potentially dangerous race has left signs that need to be discovered. He proposed to take his ship for the job. Meanwhile Trevelan, an agent of the Coordination Office or "cordies" from Earth is off to the frontier on the same mission.
 
Sean, a lonely Nomad whose wife has left him falls in love with a mysterious native named Ilaloa. It is agreed to allow him to take her along.
 
When Thethe ''Peregrine'' docks at a space port, Trevelan ostentatiously pretends to snoop around in the hopes of deliberately causing suspicion until Joachim orders him abducted [[He Knows Too Much|as a precaution]]. By this roundabout means he gets aboard Thethe ''Peregrine'' and gains time to convince Joachim to ally with him. They follow up leads until they get to the planet of the Alori, a native race devoted to their love of nature and fearful of technological society to the point of xenophobia. They are held captive with the hope that they will assimilate. Instead the Nomads revolt, recapture their ship and head home. In the meantime Trevelan has fallen in love with and married a Nomad woman and decides to resign from his job and stay with the Nomads.
 
First published as ''Star Ways'' in 1956, and later republished as ''[[The Peregrine]]''. An online edition is available from Amazon as ''Star Ways''. Unfortunately the conversion into E-format was badly done but it is worth the read even so. The book version is also available from Amazon as ''The Peregrine''.
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*[[The Clan]]: The Nomads are a tribe of wandering ships that meets regularly. Each ship is a single clan and always marries outside.
*[[Closer to Earth]]: The Alori are this in spades.
*[[Cool Starship]]: The ''Peregrine''. Inside there are splendid decorations and artwork and facilities for a small town, which of course it is. The Nomads make their own craftwork both for sale and to decorate their ships and the council hall.
*[[Conflicting Loyalty]]: Ilaloa is an Alori spy but finds she really cares for her human lover.
*[[Culture Clash]]: Between humans and alori. There is a lesser culture clash between Nomads and Cordies.
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*[[Noble Savage]]: Both the Nomads and the Alori are subversions of this being neither savage nor completely noble despite first glance. The Alori are closer to earth and [[Holier Than Thou|never tire of reminding humans of it.]] They can also be treacherous and brutal. They are charming but not exactly noble. And they are not exactly savages in the sense of being primitive; rather they emphasized a different path to development. The Nomads have a romantic footloose existence but they are masters of technology and each ship has enough perks for a small town including books, music, and artwork. They are not always noble either; we find later that a pair of Nomad ships had tired of nomadism and used their possession of technology to become planetary conquerors and the descendants of this split off had given up wandering and now rule as a tyrannical oligarchy over an alien race.
*[[Order Versus Chaos]]: The Cordies who [[Space Police|enforce order]] find Nomads rather irritating. But they can get along and cooperate.
*[[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment]]: Trevelan represents extreme enlightenment. The Alori represent extreme romanticism. The Nomads are romantic in a different way but they also have enlightendenlightened characteristics.
**The Alori represent Edenic nature, Trevelan represents reason, the Nomads honor and both Trevelan and the Nomads represent discipline.
*[[Scenery Porn]]: There is a plentitudeplenitude of beautiful descriptions along the way. Example'sExamples include the interior of the ''Peregrine'', the Nomad's meeting hall at RendevousRendezvous and others. In general Anderson always likes laying that sort of thing on thick.
*[[Space Elves]]: The Alori. They are closest to [[Fair Folk]] in style but they are not inexplicable and their motivations are understandable to humans. They also resemble [[Avatar (film)|Naavi]]. You can say they are between type 2 and type 3 space elves.
*[[Space Cold War]]: Except the humans don't know that a war is on yet or that the enemy exists.
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