Working For What?

War Of The Wing-Men, XV.

After a military defeat:

rolling mist;

stony dales;

chill twilight;

hopeless hunger;

wood burned;

land scoured;

worms eaten;

dank dark;

sullen volcano -

"...only the wind and the rushing, glacial waters lived." (p. 103)

Well, sure. We were waiting to see what the wind was doing!

Poul Anderson writes a detailed description which I try to summarize rather than quoting it at length.

However, where the Eart'ska work:

fires burn;

wheels turn;

lathes chatter;

hammers thump.

The fat Eart'ho, van Rijn, has roared down protests and kept the factory working.

"Working for what? thought Trolwen, in a mind as gray as the mist." (ibid.)

That is a very good question and not one that will be answered here tonight!

Clement Planetology

For convenience, we have been rereading Poul Anderson's The Man Who Counts in a paperback edition with the alternative title, War Of The Wing-Men. Before that, we had been rereading this novel in the omnibus collection, The Earth Book Of Stormgate. However, if we are to reread an introduction that Poul Anderson, as opposed to Hloch of the Stormgate Choth, had written for the novel, then we must turn back to The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, where the Compiler, Hank Davis, re-presents Anderson's earlier introduction as an afterword. 

Anderson informs us that:

"...Hal Clement's marvelously detailed and believable fictional worlds..."

-Poul Anderson, AFTERWORD IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 513-515 AT p. 513 -

- were one "wellspring" of this early novel. 

This explains why Adzel studies at the Clement Institute of Planetology earlier in the Earth Book and on p. 187 of The Van Rijn Method. 

Anderson's account of Clementian creation:

a star's age, chemistry, mass, luminosity etc

a planet in a given orbit

the length of its year

its irradiation level

its surface features

its kind of life

the evolution of that life

the odour of a flower

that odour's meaning to an individual

A Clementian paragraph in Anderson's text:

"This atmosphere carried the dust particles which are the nuclei of water condensation to a higher, hence colder altitude. Thus Diomedes had more clouds and precipitation of all kinds than Earth. On a clear night you saw fewer stars; on a foggy night you did not see at all."

-War Of The Wing-Men, XV, p. 103.

Lodestar

 

War Of The Wing-Men, XIV.

"'It is written: "The Lodestar shines for no single nation."'" (p. 100)

This saying was quoted in War On Diomedes and discussed in "The Lodestar Shines...", is also the message of Matthew 5:45 and is manifested by the laws of physics and of karma. 

Physics

The same law of gravity operates both for the man who climbs a cliff with due caution and for the man who jumps off it.

Karma 

Wrong actions have bad consequences. This law applies to everyone. A man who has acted rightly until now does not evade bad consequences if he now acts wrongly.

Authors sometimes invent wise sayings for fictional societies. Are there any other examples on Diomedes?

Submarines and Antigravity

"The Bruce-Partington Plans" are secret plans for a submarine. Does that make this Sherlock Holmes story sf? At the beginning of Tale Of The Flying Mountains by Poul Anderson and of They Shall Have Stars and Welcome To Mars by James Blish, a scientist gets on the track of gravity control or antigravity. If a scientist in a contemporary novel did this, then the novel would be not only fiction about science but also science fiction. I remember a spy film in which a scientist was thought to be working on antigravity but was found to have been getting no results but nevertheless letting interested governments think that he was making some progress. Not sf? There can be borderline cases and any given example might be one of them.

(There was a Holmes film in which the Loch Ness Monster was, anachronistically, a submarine. Anachronistic because the "Monster" phenomenon had not started that far back.)

Wind In The Sails

War Of The Wing-Men, XII.

For once, the wind or, in this case, the lack of it makes a physical, not just a metaphorical, difference. Wace has directed the manufacture of weapons too heavy to be moved except by rail but the trains are moved by sails and the usual strong wind fails to blow. Van Rijn does not labour physically - if he can avoid it - but he does solve problems. The Lannachska can pull the wagons with ropes. But they disdain physical labour. Then make it a team sport and a competition! That works. Van Rijn's brain never stops working.

When the battle begins, it is:

"...a gale of wings and weapons." (XIII, p. 90)

The enemy plunges, hacks and stabs.

Diomedeans are "Wing-Men." Ythrians are "People of the Wind." Both species are major elements in Poul Anderson's Technic History.

Fair winds forever.

On another blog: I have been refining my comparison of prophetic and contemplative traditions.

Historical Changes

Hasty post before going out. Not for the first time, it occurs to me that The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, displays more historical change than many another future historical volume. In this single volume are concentrated:

the beginning of the end of the Polesotechnic League;

the two-stage colonization of Avalon;

the Time of Troubles;

the early Terran Empire;

the Terran-Ythrian War, particularly its effects on Avalon.

This volume is the bridge between League and Empire. Before it, the League fills most of Volumes I and II. After it, the Flandry period of the Empire stretches from the beginning of Volume IV to the mid-point of Volume VII, exactly half of the Saga! The Technic History was not written to any system or plan and is the better for that.

Addendum: See combox and here.

Dice Games

War Of The Wing-Men, XII.

"The number of species in the galaxy which have independently invented some form of African golf is beyond estimation." (p. 82)

I did not know what African golf was and do not remember noticing this phrase on previous readings of this novel. Apparently, it means "craps" which means a gambling game played with two dice. I had not known that either although I had heard of craps.

How likely are inestimable species to invent it? The premise of the Technic History, explained in an introduction in The Trouble Twisters, is that there are innumerable intelligent species, that enough of them are similar enough to engage in trade, war etc and that any that are too dissimilar are bypassed or ignored. Examples of the latter are Ymirites and Sphinxians.

Wind On Diomedes

War Of The Wing-Men, XI.

On Diomedes:

nights are short;

morning smoulders;

cold moons sink;

a shivering volcano spits boulders;

and there is wind -

"The wind came galing, stiff as an iron bar pressed against Wace's suddenly chilled back." (p. 78)

"The wind laid its fingers in [Sandra's] tightly braided hair and unfurled small banners of it." (p. 79)

A cliff tumbles;

a river foams;

sun tinges mountain snows and -

"The wind came streaking up the dales and struck the humans in the face." (ibid.)

I don't know whether these winds stand for anything any more but it is impossible to miss them after everything that has gone before.

What We Want And Need

Alan Moore said somewhere that a good writer gives his readers not what they think that they want but what he knows that they need. I agree, although the test of whether the writer is right about what his readers need is whether they buy what he writes.

Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to write fewer Sherlock Holmes stories because he thought that his historical fiction and other kinds of writing were of greater value. Poul Anderson stopped writing his Technic History because he thought that it had made its point and because there were other fictional narratives that he wanted to write. I think that Genesis is significant but would have preferred less of the Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy and of For Love And Glory and more of the Technic History. 

The Doyle and Anderson cases are not comparable. Doyle was right that detective fiction is inherently limited whereas the Technic History is inherently unlimited and could have been continued indefinitely while increasing in complexity without decreasing in creativity. We did not need any more "Captain Flandry" stories but Anderson would not have given us that. A shorter Diana Crowfeather and Targovi series? An Aycharaych novel? More about the Long Night, the Allied Planets and the Commonalty? There are no limits to the potential of this series.

Historical Processes

See Sign-Offs.

At the end of The Earth Book Of Stormgate, Hloch concludes his account of two historical processes, the Polesotechnic League and the colonization of Avalon. At the end of Mirkheim, Poul Anderson concludes his account of the League by recounting closing conversations between:

David Falkayn and Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen;

Nicholas van Rijn and Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen;

Adzel and Chee Lan.

Van Rijn tells Sandra and us what has gone wrong with the League but also plans a campaign to stave off its collapse to be followed by an active retirement.

Although the Earth Book is compiled in the wake of the Terran War on Avalon, Hloch does not record that war. However, accounts by other historians of the post-League Troubles, of the early Terran Empire and of the Imperial attempt to annex Avalon are to be found in the last three Technic History instalments that are collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire.

Almost as comprehensive as a genuine history.