Saturday 20 February 2016

Alternative And Future Histories

Poul Anderson wrote alternative and future histories, although considerably more of the latter, and also contributed one story to the War World period of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history.

SM Stirling has specialized in alternative histories and has also contributed to the CoDominium history which covers:

interstellar colonization;
interstellar empire;
future warfare;
First Contact (two novels co-written with Larry Niven).

Thus, The Prince by Pournelle and Stirling looks like a good prospect to read after my current rereading of Anderson's For Love And Glory, which, however, will continue for some time.

I think that I have read Anderson's War World story, "The Deserter," somewhere but do not think that it is in any of his own collections. Any information on this would be appreciated.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Drat! I forgot "The Deserter" was Poul Anderson's contribution to Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium/Empire of Man series, in the subseries devoted to the "War World" stories.

I did some checking and found out "The Deserter" was apparently first published in 1988 for NEW DESTINIES 4, edited by Jim Baen. I said "apparently" because the story was also printed the same year in the first volume of the WAR WORLD series, ed. by John F. Carr and Roland Green.

Since then I don't think "The Deserter" has been reprinted.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
Then maybe I have not read "The Deserter." I have a vague memory of a story in which someone unexpectedly turned out to be descended from Saurons but maybe it was written by - Niven?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And, considering how long it's been since 1988 perhaps I should have included "The Deserter" in my "Uncollected Works of Poul Anderson" article?

The only bell your comment rings in my head is how it reminded me that one of the characters in THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, Midshipman Horst Staley, is from the planet Sauron. So he was possibly descended from Sauron "super soldiers"?

And MOTE was co-written by Niven and Pournelle. Have you read the amusing essay by Pournelle on how he and Niven wrote the book? It can be found in the former's collection A STEP FURTHER OUT.

Sean