Note: said society is preindustrial and has ample access to flowing water, but not fossil fuels or radioactive deposits. It also has access to mountain hot springs, which I thought could also be used as “batteries” during times when streams freeze. This last point is what set him off.
He also really hates wind turbines.
It’s basically a big-ass arcology built into a mountain by humans who have a symbiotic relationship with the local sapient gryphons. The gryphons are big and powerful and make sure nobody fucks with the mountain people in exchange for steady food supplies, comfortable nesting grounds, and various goods and services they couldn’t normally get on their own (which the mountain people have a surplus of because they don’t have to spend a significant chunk of their productive capacity on maintaining soldiers).
Sounds cozy. Reminds me just a bit of Dragonriders of Pern but mostly just the mountain/cave dwelling and symbiosis with a sapient flying creature part.
I like stories/settings about humans entering into mutually beneficial relationships with other sapients (biological, technological, or otherwise).
Lol, literally the only thing I know about that series is the author’s infamous “tent peg statement” (CW for homophobia if you decide to look that up)
Hell yeah, those are extremely my jam.
oh i definitely had to look that up. holy shit
she was already an old lady by the time i read the first couple books (i was like 20ish) so hopefully it was just her being an out of touch old lady believing a story told to her but i dunno
a short story she wrote about dragon bonding was in my middle school lit textbook
Did you know that at a depth of only a few meters underground the temperature stabilizes year round to about the mean annual temperature of the air?
No I didn’t, that’s really cool!