Monday 14 January 2013

A Diversion

For months, I have been reading, mainly rereading, Poul Anderson's novels and posting about them while reading them. This means that I read the books more slowly than usual but also that I get more out of them. It also means that I read less other stuff. However, I must occasionally read something else.

Having received the Smallville TV series First Season DVD's as a present, I have been watching the early episodes and have also started to reread a Smallville novel, Dragon by Alan Grant.

Grant's description of a small spacecraft surrounded by a meteor swarm entering the Solar System and falling towards Earth while the Luthors and Kents go about their business in Smallville, Kansas, is worthy of Anderson. Many different authors have written Superman. Isobel Allende wrote a Zorro novel - called Zorro. Poul Anderson contributed to many other authors' sf series. (In fact, "Anderson in Asimov's, Niven's and others' universes" could be a topic in itself.)

What if Anderson had written a Superman novel, scientifically rationalising all the absurdities of a humanoid alien with impossible powers and presenting the character as interacting not with even greater absurdities but with the real world of economic crisis, climate change and US military interventions - Clark Kent reporting from Iraq and investigating Lexcorp? The twentieth century myth of Superman deserves such treatment in the three related media of prose fiction, graphic fiction and film. Graphic story-telling is intermediate between prose and film. Each of the three can do what the others can't. Poul Anderson would have been able to write a memorable novel.

8 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I can think of at least two contributions Poul Anderson wrote set in the "universes" of other authors. CONAN THE REBEL was Anderson's version of a Conan the Barbarian story set in world created by Robert E. Howard. And he set INCONSTANT STAR and "Pele" in the world of Larry Niven's Known Space series.

Not sure if Anderson wrote any stories set in other universes (aside from FOR LOVE AND GLORY, set in a timeline I don't quite recall). I wonder what PA might have done with Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe!

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

PA did write a Robots short story, published in an anthology called FOUNDATION'S FRIENDS. The two troubleshooters from I, ROBOT are fixing a robot in the Outer Solar System and mention a politician called Byerley (?) who is running for election back on Earth.

Niven and Pournelle's joint future history has a WARWORLD period to which other authors contributed, I think including PA.

I think LOVE AND GLORY, which I still haven't read, is a PA original. I haven't read INCONSTANT STAR as a novel.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Oops, I should have checked my copy of FOUNDATION'S FRIENDS to find that Anderson story. Altho I did have Asimov's Galactic Empire more in mind (rather than the Robots era).

I checked, and the first volume of Pournelle's WARWORLD series had a PA story, "The Deserter." Pournelle had many other writers contributing to the Warworld books.

I would need to check, but Anderson's FOR LOVE AND GLORY was an expansion of, I think, two stories he contributed to another series.

And I'm getting very impatient for my copy of MULTIVERSE to come. Soon I'm going to ask Subterranean Press when they will be mailing out copies. Hope you get yours soon!

Other books have been keeping me from rereading some of Anderson's books. Most recently THE LORD OF THE RINGS and two of John Wright's books. The Anderson book I want to reread is MURDER IN BLACK LETTER, one of his mysteries.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

That is news to me about fOR LOVE AND GLORY but interesting. IF MULTIVERSE is imminent, then I had better chase it up.

Paul Shackley said...

I have got the ISBN and will enquire tomorrow.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Thanks! I would be very interested in knowing when Subterranean Press plans to pub. MULTIVERSES. I'm quite keen to get that book. It would be analogous, in a far too belated way, to FOUNDATION'S FRIENDS.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Or maybe not till the day after. Lancaster Waterstones (big bookshop) wants me to tell them the ISBN but, if it's deffo not published yet, they not be much the wiser?

Jim Baerg said...

I was thinking of Superman in my comment in the previous post.
The writers had to put in the kludge of Kryptonite to create conflicts Superman might possibly lose.