Monday 2 December 2013

Tanni On Toka

Now this is neat. The third story in the second Hoka collection, Hoka (New York, 1985), by Poul Anderson and Gordon R Dickson, tells us how Tanni Jones copes back home on Toka while Alex Jones is on Earth in the second story. Alex Jr with his copy of Kipling's Jungle Books accompanies Tanni into a jungle area where the Hokas cast him as Mowgli and themselves as Mowgli's animal companions.

Tanni must follow her husband's advice and find a way to manage the Hokas by turning their own logic against them. Thus, when she wants to stop them interfering, she reminds them that, by the Law of the Jungle, the wolves should be asleep during the day...

The texts describe Tanni as blonde and beautiful so she is drawn thus in the illustrations which could easily be extended into a comic strip or animation. The Joneses have been on Toka for twelve years so the timeline has not been advanced.

The fourth story, which I have yet to read in full, also starts with Tanni coping while Alex Sr is away, whether on the same trip or another. An illustration of a Tokan street scene shows a Childe Cycles shop advertising bicycles built for brew and a Three Hearts and Three Lions Tavern:

The Childe Cycle is an unfinished series by Dickson;
"A Bicycle Built For Brew" is a story by Anderson;
Three Hearts And Three Lions is a novel by Anderson.

Thus, this illustration is similar to Kevin O'Neil's panels in the Alan Moore-scripted The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (see here): backgrounds must be studied for literary references. There is another sf reference on an earlier page of Hoka:

"...here is the race that shall rule the sevagram!" (p. 47)

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