Currently...

I am surprised by how many pageviews this blog continues to receive even though there are currently less posts appearing here! The reason for this is I am currently posting about one book here and another here but this will not continue indefinitely. I am also watching two TV series that are sometimes discussed here.

Poul Anderson Appreciation remains the place where I will continue to discuss not only works by Poul Anderson but also Anderson-related works like other future histories and SM Stirling's Emberverse series on which I recently embarked.

Meanwhile, I hope that Anderson fans will also be interested in discussions of time and science on other blogs.

Happy New Year

The purpose of the two previous posts was to show readers of this blog what has been posted on other blogs. More recent posts on other blogs have been:

Centuries Dominated By Monotheism
Greek Philosophical Schools
Monoliths, Beamed Down
Endings
"Embedded In The Future"
Reflections On Earlier Reading

Of these six posts, the first two are directly relevant to issues previously discussed on Poul Anderson Appreciation. However, I am now also posting elsewhere about:

Jerusalem by Alan Moore;
Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli.

The nature of time and possibly other themes are common to Anderson, Stirling, Moore and Rovelli so there should continue to be links and cross-references. We have ceased to be monoblogular and have begun to expand the blogverse. However, Poul Anderson Appreciation remains the principle timeline of the blogverse in terms both of numbers of posts and of numbers of pageviews. The New Year and the further future are an open book.

Thank you and Happy New Year.

The Blogverse II

See here. Also:

Science Fiction
Ghosts And Time Travelers

Logic Of Time Travel
Further Digging

Religion And Philosophy
"It was still there..."
"Time Does Not Exist"

Comics Appreciation
Justice And Truthfulness
The Blogverse

Personal And Literary Reflections
Novels About Cities
New Worlds And Angel Language
Synchronicities
Layers Of Language
Multiple Viewpoints
An Historical Edifice
Abandoned Supermarket Trolleys
A Painter, A Prostitute And A Published Poet

The Blogverse

Copied from here.

I signed off for 2016 from Poul Anderson Appreciation here. However, since then, I have posted on six other blogs:

Science Fiction
Kinds Of Sequels (comparing Poul Anderson and SM Stirling; citing Larry Niven)
Reviews (comparing Stirling to Anderson; quoting Harry Turtledove)

James Blish Appreciation
Armageddon (comparing Blish and Stirling)

Logic of Time Travel
Back In Timeline 1 (Stirling)

Religion And Philosophy
Meanings Of A Word (gods and God)
Atman And Anatta (non-theistic religion)
Doctrinal Disagreements About What Exists (non-theistic religions and physics)
Preliminary Thoughts On "Eternalism" (responding to the Awesome Mage of Northampton)

Comics Appreciation
The Name And The Man (possibly of more general interest)
Jerusalem (the Awesome Mage)
Green Arrow: A Mini-History (comics stuff)
Green Arrow: A Mini-History II
DC Screen Continuities
Different Versions
Shado And The Huntress
Hell Or Hern (Hern the Hunter)
Christmas Presents
Changes In Comics (Hern)
Rupert Bear

Personal And Literary Reflections
Archery, Wicca, Kipling And Tyre (Stirling)
Introducing Michael Havel... (Stirling)
Another Transtemporal Inn (the Mage)
The Blogverse (which you are reading)

Endings And Beginnings

This might be the last post of 2016. 1800 is a good round number of posts and I am (temporarily) running out of inspiration. Thank you all for page views, attention and interest during 2016. Merry Yule (21 December) and Christmas (25 December) and Happy New Year (1 January). Also, Happy Birthday (1 January) to me and neighbor, Derek.

Now is a time to contemplate endings and beginnings. A Poul Anderson time traveler spent some time with pre-men. Afterwards, they thought:

"You send stranger, Old Father? Stranger is Old Father?...
"Thank you, Old Father. This holy fire you have given us - we must never let it die."
-Poul Anderson, "The Little Monster" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 142-163 AT pp. 162-163.

That sounds familiar.

SM Stirling's Nantucketers celebrate Christmas in 10 AE. Jared Cofflin, reflecting on the immigrants from Britain, thinks:

"...before the Alban War, back home they'd have given Sky Father a man, too, so the boss-god would be strong enough to chain the Wolf that would otherwise eat the sun and leave the world in eternal darkness."
-SM Stirling, On The Oceans Of Eternity (New York, 2000), Chapter Twenty-Nine, p. 575.

That also sounds familiar. How close are we still to our origins? See also here.

Addendum: On the other hand, a few relevant posts might appear:

on the Science Fiction blog. See here.
Also on the James Blish Appreciation blog. See here.
And the Logic of Time Travel blog. See here.
Also, the Personal And Literary Reflections blog. See here.

Rosetta

See Inter-Species Communication II and the posts linked from it. Discussions by Poul Anderson and Carl Sagan are a sound basis for critiquing other sf.

In Superman: The Movie, Superman, played by Christopher Reeve, tells Lois Lane that the correct spelling for the name of his home planet is K, R, Y etc, not C, R, I etc, whereas there cannot be any correct spelling for an extraterrestrial word in the Roman alphabet.

In Smallville, Second Season, "Rosetta," Dr Virgil Swann, played by Christopher Reeve, tells Clark Kent that he has been able to translate alien symbols because they have a mathematical basis. Here is a recognition that mathematics would provide a basis for universal communication whereas mere linguistic symbols would not. (In one comic strip version, a scientist did interpret Kryptonese without any help from mathematics.) However, we need a lot more explanation as to how maths could help with linguistic translation and even with pronunciation. Swann addresses Clark as "Kal-El."

Superman fans should read Poul Anderson for more plausible and better conceptualized accounts of human-alien communication.

God In Fiction

How often does the One God Himself come on-stage as a character in fantasy or sf?

Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker and Nebula Maker;
CS Lewis' Aslan and Maleldil;
the Chief in Isaac Asimov's "The Last Trump";
a senile angel in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials;
the descending Hand of Light in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing;
Satan as the new God in James Blish's The Day after Judgment;
Jahweh, then His successor, in Mike Carey's Lucifer.

(Jahweh's successor is not Lucifer Morningstar but a British schoolgirl called Elaine Belloc.)

Does this happen anywhere in Poul Anderson's many works?
Maybe the closest approach is a saint from Heaven in Operation Chaos?

Addendum: John Constantine also meets God.

Fiction And Propaganda

HG Wells wrote:

science fiction;
science fiction with a political message;
political propaganda;
one theological work.

CS Lewis wrote:

Christian propaganda;
science fiction with a religious message.

Poul Anderson wrote science fiction that addressed political and religious issues.

Thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Future Religious Figures And Divine Wisdom

In Olaf Stapledon's one-volume future history, Last And First Men, future religious figures include the Daughter of Man and the Divine Child.

In Poul Anderson's "The Longest Voyage," there is reference to a Daughter of God. In Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, Djana, brought up as a Christian, then conditioned by a Merseian, imagines a Merseian Christ. Also in the Technic History, Axor seeks a non-human Divine Incarnation and:

Gabriel Stewart goes further. Ivar is the Aenean leader and Tatiana is his bride who will bear his son that the coming Builders will make more than human. Thus, according to Gabriel (a relevant name), the political and spiritual leaderships of the movement will converge. It feels as though we are in the opening chapters of Luke's Gospel, with the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary.
-copied from here.

Thus:

Daughter of Man;
Divine Child;
Daughter of God;
Merseian Christ;
non-human Incarnation;
superhuman son.

Some of these figures are worshiped by millions whereas others are imagined by only a few. However, all express future religiosity.

I remembered the Daughter of Man and the Daughter of God because we recently discussed a goddess and the Virgin Mary. See here. Also, I proposed Indra as a "top god" and it turns out that that deity was instructed about the Spirit Supreme by:

"...Uma, divine wisdom, daughter of the mountains of snow."
-Kena Upanishad IN Juan Mascaro, trans., The Upanishads (Penguin Classics, 1984), pp. 51-54 AT p. 53 -

- a feminine personification of wisdom, as in the Old Testament.

The Sea Of SF

Space is a sea of virtual particles.
Sf is a sea of ideas and interconnections.
Poul Anderson is a good focus because he addresses many ideas and connects with many other authors.

The previous post recalled:

two series written by SM Stirling;
Sandra Miesel's Afterword to one series co-written by Anderson.

Thus, the direct Anderson connection became somewhat tenuous! However, Poul Anderson's works were the primary inspiration for the blog and it is those works that have led to comparative readings of other future histories, alternative histories, time travel stories and fantasies.

I must finish reading SM Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy Volume III, knowing that this Trilogy is a mere prelude to a much longer alternative history series and must also make some preparations for Christmas.