Ssf presents future societies and their technologies or alien environments and their inhabitants whereas aaf presents battles, fights, captures, escapes and epic voyages whether the settings are historical, contemporary, futuristic or exotic. Thus, in Anderson's Three Worlds To Conquer, human colonists of a Jovian moon communicate with native inhabitants of Jupiter while the colonists resist counter-revolutionaries and the Jovians resist invaders.
On Jupiter, our quadrupedal viewpoint character, Theor (see image), has:
participated in a sea battle against trans-oceanic invaders of a previously unknown species unexpectedly assisted by large domesticated sea beasts;
fought an individual invader beneath the surface of the ammonia sea;
on land, been captured at pike-point;
after a confrontation with the enemy warmaster, been pushed into a small booth by an armed guard who now stands outside in the rain while Theor converses with Mark Fraser through his communication disc.
All that remains is for Theor:
to escape, preferably with Mark's help;
to embark on an epic voyage;
to return;
to win the war.
All this will happen although I cannot remember how Theor escapes. The frequent formulaic escapes of aaf are to be assessed for their excitement value but also for their plausibility.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Even Edgar Rice Burroughs manages to work in some serious and interesting ideas in his "action adventure fictions" shown in Barsoom, despite the, kindly put, IMPLAUSIBILITIES to be found in his "science fiction" (which might better be called "science fantasy"?). That, combined with his very real abilities as a writer, is what keeps me fond of his Barsoom novels.
And as we are seeing with your discussion of THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER, Poul Anderson was much more accurate and plausible, as of the time he wrote the book, of both the science and what was then known of Jupiter. And for the most part I've found his action adventure to be plausible, if we assume his heroes are bold and decisive. To say nothing of carefully thought out societies, both human and non human, embodying ideas and views he did not always agree with.
Sean
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