"A west wind..."

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XVII.

I will close for the day and the month by quoting in full an evocative descriptive passage to which I have alluded twice before (see here):

"A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a pale heaven. Clouds were brighter; they scudded in flocks, blinding white, their shadows sweeping chill across the world, off, on, off, on. Winged animals wheeled and thinly cried. Trees around the lot and along the street that ran from it - mostly Terran, oak, elm, beech, maple - cast their outer branches about, creaked, soughed Delphic utterances though tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement. Rainpuddles wandered and wandered. All nature was saying farewell." (p. 552)

We recognize perennial images:

skirling wind;
cloud shadows;
imported Terrestrial trees;
nature reflecting feelings;
the suggestion that trees speak in an unknown language - did this happen once with Manse Everard?

"Winged animals" remind us that we are not on Earth.

Possible Futures

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XIV.

We always live in the present with a single past and several possible futures. Flandry and Kossara plan their futures:

when they are married, he will settle on Dennitza;

if there is war between Dennitza and Terra, then they can:

"'...best be messengers between Emperor and Gospodar.'" (p. 527);

if Dennitza does become independent, then it will still deserve Terran help and Flandry will still prefer to live on Dennitza - like Falkayn preferring a new start on Avalon.

We can imagine a sequel along these lines but it did not happen. Flandry will have no reason either to resign his commission or to leave Terra.

The past is littered with paths that we did not go down. Leaving my son-in-law on a Thursday, I said that I would see him on the following Tuesday but he died on the Friday.  

Levels Of Problems

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XV.

"'Tonight - We'll not deceive Father and Mother. The first chaplain we find can marry us.'
"'But, uh, your cathedral wedding -'
"'I've come to see how little it matters, how little the universe does, next to having you while I can. Tonight, Dominic. Now.'" (p. 534)

If we continue to read this passage, then we run straight into Djana's curse on Flandry. OK, here are the next two sentences:

"He seized her to him.
"A flash went blue-white in the front windows." (ibid.)

The flash was a tactical nuke destroying Kossara's home and killing her family. Djana had willed that Flandry never have the woman that he really wanted.

But what I wanted to draw attention to was Kossara's suddenly changed sense of priorities. It can be good to have a big problem now and again because:

a big problem chases out little problems;
we learn that even big problems usually pass.

At least, we survive until we die - although, unfortunately, Kossara herself will not survive this crisis.

Ghosts And Shadows

Poul Anderson sure knew how to destabilize a government and not just in "Tiger by the Tail."

In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows:

the Terran Emperor leads a fleet to quell the barbarians on the Spican marches but were those barbarians paid to cause trouble in order to draw Imperial attention away from the Taurian Sector?;

when it is reported that human subversives on Diomedes are Dennitzan, the Gospodar of Dennitza, governor of the Taurian Sector, sends his niece to Diomedes to investigate and she is then framed for subversion!;

she is sold into slavery on Terra without anyone realizing who she is but then the news of her enslavement is quickly transmitted back to Dennitza;

Dennitzan Intelligence reports that the Merseians are mobilizing as if for an attack on the Empire whereas Terran Intelligence reports that they are not so did the Merseians put on a show for the benefit of Dennitzan spies, having been forewarned that they were on their way?

We do not need to be told the answers to all such questions. It is sufficient that the characters are caught in a web of deceptions and are unable to find their way out of it.

Dennitzans, both human and ychan, have developed customs and practices enabling them to cope more effectively with unrest than Terrans would have been able to do. The same goes for Avalonians, both Ythrian and human, at least those who are members of choths.

A Powerful Anti-Racist Statement By Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson did not, as far as I know, make any major political statement about racism. However, he wrote works of fiction carrying an implicit message.

Some sf characters are not black, white, red or yellow but green:

Dan Dare's Treens from Venus;

ERB's Tharks, Warhoons and lesser hordes on Barsoom;

Anderson's Merseians.

Thus, sometimes sf addresses current issues obliquely through a sort of "knight's move," two squares forward into a fictional future and one square sideways into an alternative reality. We know that Mars is not like Barsoom but still read ERB. An Alan Moore-style deconstruction of Rupert Bear might show teenage Rupert working in an office in a city beset by species riots between Elephants and Rabbits - ("I'm a Bear!") - simultaneously bizarre- and familiar-sounding.

Anderson introduced the Merseians as space opera villains and would-be galaxy-conquerors in a pulp magazine. (See image.) After such an introduction, these greenskins could have retained that uni-dimensional role throughout an interminable Captain Flandry adventure series. Instead, as the series progresses, we see:

Merseians protecting Flandry on Talwin;
later friendships between Terran and Merseian scientists on Talwin;
cultural integration on Dennitza;
Kossara's life-long friendship with Trohdwyr;
ychani definitely not wanting Roidhunate rule on Dennitza;
Flandry and Kossara marching with ychani to the Dennitzan Parliament;
and -

"...moonlit gravbelt flight over woods, summer air streaming past her cheeks, a campfire glimpsed, a landing among great green hunters, their gruff welcome..."
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, IV, p. 401.

Perfect: the green aliens have been effortlessly transformed from stereotypical villains into great green hunters giving a gruff welcome. The most powerful anti-racist message is a narrative showing the complete absence of any conflict between members of the two groups.

Dennitzan Geography

Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

In the far north, there is a two-kilometer high ice cliff. A river of melt water flows from the cliff through the tundra past Bodin Miyatovitch's hunting lodge. Further south, the Lyubisha River, also melt water, flows through taiga and has cut through the northern wall of the Kazan into the Dubina Dolyine province where Kossara's father is both voivode and nachalnik.

The Lyubisha flows into Lake Stoyan where the planetary capital, Zorkagrad, is located at the center of the Kazan. The Elena river flows east out of Lake Stoyan and enters the Black Ocean on the Obala, the east coast of the Rodna continent, where most of the zmayi live.

There may be a few more details to round up.

Philosophy And Fiction

When I discuss artificial intelligence, I express the views of John Searle. Today, I bought a copy of his 1984 Reith Lectures.

Searle asks:

"...does the digital computer give us the right picture of the human mind? And why is it that the social sciences in general have not given us insights into ourselves comparable to the insights that the natural sciences have given us into the rest of nature?"
-John Searle, Minds, Brains And Science (London, 1984), ONE, p. 13.

Dominic Flandry converses with a:

"'High-grade central computer - consciousness grade...'"
- Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), CHAPTER TWO, p. 210.

Searle argues that any computer, however fast or powerful, merely manipulates symbols according to a programmed set of rules and that this process involves neither consciousness in general nor, more specifically, any knowledge or understanding of the meanings of the symbols. In order to become conscious, an artifact would have to duplicate brain processes.

Liquidity or wetness is a feature of water and is caused by interactions between many water molecules none of which is individually liquid or wet. Similarly, consciousness, including subjectivity, is a feature of a brain and is caused by interactions between many objectively observable neurons none of which is individually conscious. Artificial neural networks would be conscious.

Searle's second question above is relevant to Anderson's Psychotechnic History.

The Structures Of The Three Greatest Series

See the previous post.

Poul Anderson's three greatest series, as I call them, have different sructures:

the Technic History is seven omnibus collections, as we see here again;

the Time Patrol, one omnibus collection and one long novel;

The King Of Ys, a continuous narrative in four long volumes, although I have seen an internet image of the cover for a one-volume edition.

In the Technic History, Volume III culminates in The People Of The Wind which, however, casts its shadow back over Vols I-III because the Earth Book Of Stormgate introduction to the second story in Vol I refers to the Terran War on Avalon which is eventually described in The People Of The Wind. The life time of Dominic Flandry fills three and a half volumes but this does not feel disproportionate. We want not less of Flandry but more of everything else.

After a thirteen year gap, the Time Patrol series began to grow from four short stories until eventually it filled two long volumes. I do not think that I would get into a writer whose works comprised only unconnected short stories.

Pulling Back To The Bigger Picture

In any given post, your blogger can either concentrate on a single detail, maybe just one word, in a particular work by Poul Anderson or can instead pull back to contemplate an entire series, then further back to consider that series in relation to its author's complete works. Every time I do this, I am bound to repeat a lot but maybe some different aspects are highlighted each time.

Anderson's three greatest series have got to be:

the Technic History;
the Time Patrol;
The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson).

The common theme is history:

a long future history series, based partly on a theory of past historical cycles;
time travel to concretely realized historical periods;
historical fiction, although with an element of fantasy.

However, these three peaks tower above a mountain range and, as soon as I begin to list other prominent works, I do not want to leave any out:

three novels of different genres set B.C.;

eight Viking volumes, ranging from heroic fantasy to historical fiction;

three novels of different genres set in the fourteenth century;

three ways of getting sf into the historical past - time travel, aliens and immortality;

Wellsian time travel to the ultimate future in "Flight to Forever";

five novels and two short stories directly or indirectly linked by the inter-cosmic Old Phoenix Inn, with van Rijn from the Technic History visiting the inn in one of the short stories!;

three short stories and one long novel set in different periods of the Maurai future history and a further novel in which mutant time travelers visit past and future periods, including the period of the Maurai Federation;

three contemporary detective novels;

a single novel combining Heinleinian and Stapledonian future historical models and also readdressing the Frankenstein theme;

several other future history series;

many individual sf novels and shorter works;

informative non-fiction.

Multiverses

There are different kinds of multiverses. Somewhere, I think in his anthology, The Oxford Book Of Modern Science Writing, Richard Dawkins clearly differentiates between two theories of multiple worlds but I have not been able to find the relevant passage on looking back through the book.

However:

many universes might occupy the same space while vibrating at different rates or instead might occupy different spaces separated by intervals along a fourth spatial dimension;

universes might differ only in the course of events - in the outcome of every human choice and of every particle movement - or, more fundamentally, in the laws of nature.

We are used to the idea that what is fiction in one world might be real in another but might what is a mere belief in one world be true belief in another? Poul Anderson's Holger Carlsen converts to Catholicism after his return from the Carolingian universe in Three Hearts And Three Lions. There is a Heaven and a Hell in the parallel world of Anderson's Operation Chaos and a Norse mythological world in another universe in the sequel, Operation Luna.

The suggestion that the Resurrection might occur and that a hereafter might exist in one universe although not in another strains my willing suspension of disbelief almost to breaking point. Here, I differentiated between the premises of fantasy and of other genres but one kind of multiversal fiction can incorporate both.

Descent to Dennitza

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XIV.

Clouds and ice make Dennitza whiter than Terra when seen from space. Oceans are azure and dazzling. As Flandry and Kossara bail out on gravbelts, they experience:

"...a roar of night winds." (p. 520)

- then descend to:

"...the unpeopled taiga north of the Kazan." (ibid.)

(I would have guessed that "taiga" meant some kind of terrain other than a forest.)

In perhaps my first year at school, maybe 1954, I was frightened by a film of men bailing out of a plane and was allowed to leave the school hall. A few years later, I would have enjoyed a film, if there were one, of Flandry and Kossara bailing out of the Hooligan.

Today, walking past the back of the Infirmary, I was for the first time ever right beside the helipad when a helicopter circled around, descended just above my head and almost landed (it was only a training flight), raising a strong, cold wind that blew my hat off into a line of cars that had been temporarily stopped by a barrier during the helicopter's approach. That would have been an exciting experience for a young schoolboy.

(A friend who has been mentioned on the blog was once flown to the Infirmary with a broken back.)

More Of Everything?

Continuing a thought from the previous post, imagine a Technic History containing as many volumes about the Long Night, the Allied Planets, the Commonalty and subsequent periods as we already have about the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire and all written by Poul Anderson, not as a franchise.

There are only two ways that this could have happened. Either Anderson would have had to have devoted his entire working life to this one series, like Tolkien with Middle Earth, or he would have had to have lived for two or three times as long. However, if life were to be extended for as long as that, then would anyone spend that amount of time doing the same kind of work?

Two other future histories are relevant:

James Blish's Okies do spend centuries flying around the galaxy doing exactly the same jobs - Mayor, city manager, astronomer, policeman etc;

in Larry Niven's Known Space History, a man who has had a normal-length career on Earth goes in cold sleep to an extra-solar colony where he will begin a new career in a different profession.

Right on, Niven's character.

Some Reflections On Death III

(The Man With The Golden Gun was published posthumously.)

Some time after Ian Fleming's death, his brother, Peter, also a writer, was contacted by a man whose young daughter practiced automatic writing. This man and the daughter claimed that she had transcribed posthumous novels that were really created by Ian Fleming and several other prominent but dead authors. (Another woman plays music allegedly created by dead composers.) Peter Fleming concluded first that the man and his daughter were sincere and secondly that the parody that she had produced could not possibly have been created by his brother.

We are bound to ask: if a deceased author were really able to stay in business, what would we like him to write? In Poul Anderson's case, maybe:

an Old Phoenix collection;
a trilogy of novels about Diana Crowfeather and her companions;
a concluding Time Patrol volume?

However, in the unlikely event that there is a hereafter, I doubt that it comprises a mere continuation of Earthly activities.

Some Reflections On Death II

(Flandry kills a Merseian and thus rescues Kossara Vymezal who will later be martyred so this image is relevant to the post.)

Poul Anderson wrote historical fiction, detective fiction, science fiction and fantasy. In fantasy, a hereafter is a valid fictional premise whereas all other fiction reflects experience to the extent that some characters believe that there is a hereafter whereas others do not and the question remains open. Thus, in Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, a futuristic sf novel:

Kossara is murdered;

her co-religionists believe that she is in Heaven and even canonize her;

however, her bereaved fiancee remains skeptical.

In this respect, a futuristic novel does not differ from a contemporary novel - unless, of course, it presents a scientific rationale for continuation of consciousness after death, but usually they do not.  In a fantasy, which this not, St. Kossara might actively have intervened in subsequent events.

Some Reflections On Death I

(Aycharaych tells Flandry that death is "a completion" so this image is relevant to the post.)

Some, though not all, of my reflections on death relate to Poul Anderson so please bear with me as I express them here. One such reflection relates to Robert Heinlein who is significant for this blog as a precursor to Anderson. Any complete discussion of Anderson's first two future history series would have to be preceded or accompanied by a discussion of  Heinlein's Future History. (Wells wrote about the Time Traveler whereas other authors, including Heinlein and Anderson, have written about time travelers. Heinlein wrote the Future History whereas other authors, including Anderson, have written future histories. Wells and Stapledon did write histories of the future but these were fictional historical text books, not series of stories or novels on the Heinlein model.)

In fact, since Heinlein's comment on death that I want to discuss appears in a volume that purports to continue his Future History, let's get that point out of the way first.

"There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it."
-Robert Heinlein, INTERMISSION: Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long IN Heinlein, Time Enough For Love (New York, 1974), pp. 240-251 AT p. 240.

I have spoken to two people who agreed with this comment. My response: if there is "life after death," then we will know about it whereas, if there is no "life after death," then we will not know about it. How could Heinlein or his readers miss this point? Wishful thinking: they are assuming the very proposition that is in question.

Some people argue that death is the end of life, therefore that "life after death" is a contradiction in terms but questions of fact cannot be answered by defining words. Empirically and legally, the criterion of personal identity is spatio-temporal continuity of a visible, tangible, living body. However, if our experience were different, then our criteria might change. See:

Dead Men (Tell Tall Tales)
Minds And Brains

There is no conclusive evidence of "life after death"? I agree but there is alleged evidence which should be investigated. I hope to live into a society where such questions can be considered scientifically and dispassionately, not as entrenched positions with most people either for or against.

There is no evidence of any sort against it? On the contrary, there is considerable evidence that brain states are both necessary and sufficient for mental states. Without eyes, can we see? Without ears, can we hear? Without a brain, can you or I think? Logically, I think that we might but a mere logical possibility, which I would have to defend against some philosophers, is nowhere near to a proof.

These reflections will have to be continued.

Another Cafe

See Some Preliminaries, particularly the references to cafes.

"I must also praise the cafe at the Oxford Museum of Modern Art. Whenever I was stuck with a problem in the narrative, a cup of their coffee and an hour or so's work in that friendly room would dispel it, apparently without effort on my part. It never failed."
-Philip Pullman, Acknowledgements IN Pullman, The Amber Spyglass (London, 2001), pp. 549-550 AT p. 549.

Narratives written by:

HG Wells
CS Lewis
Poul Anderson
Neil Gaiman
SM Stirling
Philip Pullman
and some others

- cross between parallel universes. However, of the authors mentioned, only Anderson and Gaiman describe an inn where travelers from different universes meet.  

Breakfast In The Hooligan

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XII.

"He joined her at table. Orange juice shone above the cloth. Coffee made the air fragrant. He drank fast." (p. 493)

"Chives brought in an omelet and fresh-baked bread." (p.494)

We vicariously enjoy three senses and, blogging late in the evening, I look forward to breakfast tomorrow morning.

Flandry, Chives and Kossara speed towards troubled Dennitza but that planet is so far out in the marches that the journey will take a month. We enjoy their time together in the Hooligan and anticipate the excitement of their arrival.

See The Food Thread.

About Dennitza

(This is an image of the Russian city of Kazan.)

I am sold on Poul Anderson's fictional planet of Dennitza, particularly that planet's much-linked Kazan, Obala and Zorkagrad Old Town. It is good, when rereading A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, to find as if for the first time some Dennitzan detail that generates a blog post like the blue sky over the Kazan in the previous post. I have not yet reread as far as Flandry's and Kossara's arrival on Dennitza so I hope to find more such details but will in any case reread the rest of the novel.

Blue Over The Kazan

See prayers written by Poul Anderson here, also Mary And Grass and Prayers.

"Then rest while you can, Kossara. Sleep comes not black, no, blue as a summer sky over the Kazan, blue as the cloak of Mary.... Pray for us now, and in the hour of our death."
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, X, p. 468.

O, men from the fields!
Come softly within.
Tread softly, softly,
O! men, coming in.

Mavourneen is going
From me and from you,
To Mary, the Mother,
Whose mantle is blue!

From reek of the smoke
And cold of the floor,
And peering of things
Across the half-door.

O men from the fields!
Soft, softly come thro'.
Mary puts round him
Her mantle of blue.

-copied from here.

Planets Revisited

Nicholas van Rijn is shipwrecked on Diomedes in a novel that has been variously published as:

War Of The Wing-Men
The Man Who Counts
Earthbook Of Stormgate 2

Dominic Flandry visited Talwin in A Circus Of Hells and had heard of Chereion some time before the events of "Honorable Enemies."

In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Flandry:

revisits Talwin;
visits Diomedes;
visits, then bombards, Chereion.

It is good that these imaginatively conceived planets are re-used but the main glory of A Knight... is Dennitza, entirely new to the reader. Flandry would have settled there if his Dennitzan fiancee had not been murdered...

In the next novel, Falkayn's home planet, Hermes, is seen again and Ramnu is introduced.

A Ghost Of Wind

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, VIII.

On Diomedes, the resident's wife commits adultery with Flandry in her private suite where, surprisingly, the window remains uncurtained:

the view is grim;
hail, thicker and harder than Terran, dashes the vitryl of the window;
an ember sunbeam shines through a gap in the clouds;
the scene is blue-black, lit by lightning;
"Past every insulation and heaviness came a ghost of the wind's clamor." (p. 447)

OK. Clamoring wind pierces the insulation even if reduced to a ghost of its real self. Thus also, Flandry enjoys Lady Susette's company but is reminded of the real threats without. He must pump her about recent guests in the Residency.

Warmth And Light

Dominic Flandry is a dinner guest but:

"This warm, well-furnished, softly lighted room, where a recorded violin sang and from which a butler had just removed the dishes of an admirable rubyfruit souffle, was a very frail bubble to huddle in."
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, VIII, p. 442.

(Warmth, light, music, food.)

Manse Everard and Janne Floris go out to dinner:

"Maybe the sense of evanescence, this warmth and light and savor no more than a moment in an unbounded darkness, something that could come to never having been, gave depth to pleasure."
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT 6, p. 522.

(Warmth, light, savor.)

Maybe.

The Poul Anderson reader recognizes moments that resonate across two timelines.

In fact, see also Warmth And Light In Two Timelines.

Translation Of Concepts

"In fact, a story laid some centuries hence must be thought of as a translation, not merely of language but of personalities and concepts corresponding only approximately to anything we know."
-Poul Anderson, AUTHOR'S NOTE IN Anderson, Virgin Planet (London, 1966), pp. 150-156 AT p. 151.

That comment on a volume of Anderson's Psychotechnic History is also applicable to his Technic History where Dominic Flandry, playing a role, makes himself sound like a frivolous but self-important nineteenth or twentieth century Brit:

"'I say, could you tell the chauffeur to come aboard and fetch my bags? Deuced lot of duffel on these extended trips, don't y' know.'"
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, VII, pp. 433-434.

Flandry sees that he has possibly irritated the Diomedean portmaster but it is more important to:

"...stay in character from the beginning." (p. 433)

And we must remember that he is playing the role of a frivolous Terran.

Continuing the performance:

"'Nobody else staying there, what?'" (p. 434)

"'I mean, after all, if some of the tribes revolted, an infernal nuisance, 'speci'lly for trade, but surely Thursday Landing can hold out against primitives.'" (p. 435)

He knows that the natives are not merely primitive but submits to being told this by the chauffeur.

To the resident:

"'See here, d'you mind if I bore you for a few ticks? Mean to say, I'd like to diagram the situation as I see it. You correct me where I'm wrong, fill in any gaps. that kind of thing, eh?'" (p. 437)

The resident resignedly agrees.

"'You and Maspes seem offhand to've put on a jolly good show.'" (p. 441)

He sounds like Lord Hauksberg whom we met a few volumes back.

On another point about the use of language, the Diomedeans have "...bat wings..." (p. 433) so it resonates when Flandry says "'...infernal nuisance...'" (above) and reflects:

"It was not [the resident's] fault that demons haunted the planet which were beyond his capability of exorcising, and might yet take possession of it." (p. 436)

Beyond the resident's capability but not beyond Flandry's.

Thursday Landing

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows,  VII.

See Diomedean Geography II.

Thursday Landing:

built at the intersection of the equator and the eastern shore of the Centralian continent;

blocky interconnected ferrocrete buildings protecting their internal terrestroid environments from devastating rain and wind;

a vitryl-domed park illuminated by lamps imitating Solar light;

among cultivated fields, tall, narrow native dwellings with many balconies, designed to yield to the intense weather;

boats and entire floating communities in the harbor;

flying Diomedeans above;

at this time of year, neither true day nor true night;

"...purple and black twilight...bloodily glimmering ocean." (p. 432)

Flandry reminds himself that this place is OK for Diomedeans. Nevertheless, its apparent unreality reminds him of the shadowy nature of his current mission. He is soon to learn that the arch-deceiver, Aycharaych, is at the back of it all.

Flandry On Diomedes

Although we cannot quote every Andersonian description of natural scenery, the following passage, set on Diomedes, warrants a full quotation:

"Concealed by an overhanging cliff, the ship stood halfway up a mountain, with an overlook down rugged kilometers to a horizon-gleam which betokened sea. Clouds towered in amethyst heaven, washed by faint pink where lightning did not flicker in blue-black caverns. Crags, boulders, waterfalls reared above talus slopes and murky scraps. Thin grasslike growth, gray thornbushes, twisted low trees grew about; they became more abundant as sight descended toward misty valleys, until at last they made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought, maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of wind."
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, VI, p. 421.

This novel not only introduces Dennitza and informs us of conditions on Chereion but also increases our knowledge of Diomedes. We notice recurrent themes:

grasslike growth;
brains that thought;
the omnipresent wind.

Action will resume shortly but Anderson always takes time to realize an extraterrestrial environment first.

Packaging Poul Anderson's Technic History II

The previous post referred to the contents of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Vols V-VII. Dominic Flandry was a Captain throughout Vols V-VI and has become a Vice Admiral, then an Admiral, in Vol VII which then also covers three post-Imperial periods.

For completeness, we should add that, in Vol IV, Young Flandry, he is successively Ensign, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander and Commander and that the previous three volumes, covering the pre-Flandry periods of the Technic History, comprise what I call an "Extended Earth Book of Stormgate." See here.

Thus, the seven-volume Saga is a systematic presentation of this long and complex future history series.

Cover Images
I: van Rijn.
II: Falkayn.
III: Ythrians.
IV-VII: Flandry.

Packaging Poul Anderson's Technic History

(I am unable to attach a cover image of Flandry's Legacy. Have I used up my entitlement to free internet images? No, it has come on.)

I think of:

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows
A Stone In Heaven
The Game Of Empire

- as three "Children of Empire" novels and of:

"A Tragedy of Errors"
The Night Face
"The Sharing of Flesh"
"Starfog"

- as the four post-Imperial installments of the Technic History. Thus, these two sequences could provide the contents of the two concluding omnibus volumes of the Technic History.

However, in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga:

Volume VII comprises all the above works except A Knight...;
Flandry is a Captain throughout Volumes V and VI;
Vol VI concludes with A Knight...;
"Bodin's Prayer" is a highly appropriate concluding passage for Vol VI.

In A Stone... and The Game..., Flandry is an Admiral at last, still in Intelligence with a staff loyal to him and choosing his own assignments. He also finally marries and The Game... is potentially the beginning of a new series about his daughter in Intelligence.

Thus, maybe Baen Books' packaging makes sense.

Peace And Decadence

Poul Anderson, "The Warriors from Nowhere" IN Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 303-337:

p. 303 is an internal title page for this single short story;
p. 304 is blank;
p. 305 repeats the story's title, then presents an entire speech or monologue by Dominic Flandry.

I will summarize Flandry's speech but please read or reread his words, not just my summary of them.

Flandry alleges that:

someone who shoots another to steal his property is enslaved for murder and theft whereas someone who kills a million people, takes their planet and taxes the survivors is a hero;

eventual recognition of this contradiction generates "'...a desire for universal peace.'" (p. 305);

the desire generates decadence;

the early stages of decadence are the most agreeable to live in;

they are comparable to a banana turning brown;

the Terran Empire is currently decadent but "'...just a bit overripe.'" (ibid.)

However, according to the immediately following installment of the Technic History, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, the Empire was at that time in a state of civil war. Hans Molitor had seized the throne less than two years previously and was still opposed by three armed rivals and:

"'Everything was still in upheaval.'" (1, p. 350)

Five Senses In The Hooligan Saloon

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, 1.

See:

Radiant Road
Freyan Ornithoids

In the saloon:

bulkheads are "...nacreous gray..." (p. 342);
benches are padded in maroon velvyl;
the authentic teak table holds Scotch and its accompaniments;
warm, recycled air carries a dance tune and a lilac odor.

Flandry and his son:

see the colors;
feel the padded benches and the warm air;
taste the Scotch;
hear the music;
smell lilac.

It is immediately after this that we are told of Flandry's philosophy of decadence.

An Annotated Text

Nowadays, I can reread Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows while simultaneously consulting my own previous notes on its text, e.g.:

Dominic Hazeltine
spiral arm
Catalina
Mayor Palatine
niello
Trohdwyr
zmay
ychani
Gwyth
Zorkagrad
etc

The first three chapters of A Knight... make many references to earlier installments of the Technic History:

Persis d'Io in Ensign Flandry;
Fenross who was Flandry's superior in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and "The Warriors from Nowhere";
Scotha in "Tiger By The Tail";
Princess Megan in "The Warriors from Nowhere";
Avalon in The People Of The Wind;
van Rijn on Diomedes in The Man Who Counts;
Manuel Argos in "The Star Plunderer";
Kheraskov from The Rebel Worlds;
Chunderban Desai from The Day Of Their Return;
the McCormac rebellion in The Rebel Worlds;
the potential Aenean jihad in The Day Of Their Return;
the Polesotechnic League becoming cartelized in Mirkheim -

- and, in a later chapter, a flashback scene is set on Talwin which was introduced in A Circus Of Hells.

But we are also told the sequels to some of the earlier events:

Persis' son by Flandry;
what happened after Emperor Josip, against whom McCormac had rebelled, died;
what happened in Sector Tauria after Flandry's rescue of Princess Megan;
what Chunderban Desai did after his spell on Aeneas;
what Flandry has been doing - taking it easy.

Thus, we are introduced to an entire new period in Imperial history with a new set of threats and also to the later phase of Flandry's career.

Our Dark Past, Our Ambiguous Present And One Fictional Future

Yesterday, Sunday, evening, I attended the Holocaust Memorial inter-faith service at Lancaster Priory Church. At the end of the service, first a Jewish layman, then an Anglican clergyman, recited the Aaronic Blessing in their respective languages. There were Buddhists of two traditions in the congregation.

I mention this because these three faiths survive into Poul Anderson's Technic civilization:

Master Merchant Nicholas van Rijn is Catholic whereas Adzel, the planetologist in van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew, is a Wodenite convert to Mahayana Buddhism;

Dominic Flandry's mentor, Max Abrams, is a Jew from the planet Dayan whereas Flandry's fiancee, Kossara Vymezal, is an Orthochristian on the planet, Dennitza;

Flandry's daughter, Diana Crowfeather, teams up with another Wodenite, Axor, who is not only a convert to but also ordained in the Jerusalem Catholic Church.

The Technic History also encompasses one man with a Sikh surname and another with a Muslim name.

It is to be hoped that humanity will survive long enough for these faiths to flourish in future.

Decadence

Because Poul Anderson wrote historical fiction, time travel fiction and futuristic sf, including future histories, it follows that not only science but also history is important in his works. Anderson teaches many lessons about history, including that it has decadent periods and that it is right to enjoy such periods if we can.

The living quarters of Dominic Flandry's private spaceship:

"...reflected her owner's philosophy that, if one is born into an era of decadence, one may as well enjoy it while it lasts."
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, I, p. 343.

"The spaceman grinned. 'Wait till you've been to the decadent stage of the Third Matriarchy! You don't know what fun is.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 2, p. 14.

Manse Everard says that Augustan Rome is:

"'...overrated. Unless we want to go 'way upstairs, the most glorious decadence available is right in my own milieu. New York, say.... If you know the right phone numbers, and I do.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Time Patrol, pp. 173-228 AT 1, p. 175.

Nicholas van Rijn practices decadence so here is a quiz question. How many references, whether direct or indirect, are there to van Rijn in the Flandry series and where are they?

Bodin's Raid

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (see reference below) by Poul Anderson:

is an sf novel;

is one volume of Anderson's main future history series, the History of Technic Civilization;

is the concluding installment to be collected in Volume VI of Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga;

opens with an untitled, italicized passage that refers to a future historical event, Bodin's raid, with which the reader is as yet unfamiliar;

asks how the tale of this raid should be told;

laments the passing of the poet, Andrei Simich, who thrilled both human and zmay with his lays of the heroes of "...this our Morning Star..." (Scroll down.)
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 341;

in the absence of Simich, reluctantly settles for the "...poor plain words..." (p. 342) of Poul Anderson!

Observations
No mention as yet of Flandry although he comes on-stage very soon in the opening sentence of the first numbered chapter.

We are not yet familiar with "zmay" although it will turn out to be a new name for a familiar species.

Here, in this introduction, is a whole new planet with native organisms, human colonists and historical events in addition to the many well imagined planets that have already appeared in this future history series.

At The End Of The Rebel Worlds

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

McCormac's flagship is:

"...hilled with boat nacelles and gun turrets, thrusting out cannon and sensors like crystal forests. Satellite craft glinted around her." (p. 505)

Thus, this large spaceship resembles a planet with hills, forests and satellites.

Flandry urges McCormac to go into exile:

"'There's room yet, a whole galaxy beyond these few stars we think we control, out on the far end of one spiral arm.'" (p. 512)

When you reach the end of the last installment collected in any of the seven volumes of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, continue to read. The six-page CHRONOLOGY OF TECHNIC CIVILIZATION compiled by Sandra Miesel is an inspiring, insightful summary of Poul Anderson's main future history series.

In Ensign Flandry, Commander Abrams addresses Ensign Flandry as "Son." In The Rebel Worlds, Commander Flandry addresses Ensign Havelock as "Son." This future history is vast enough to incorporate two fictional biographies, Falkayn's and Flandry's.

Near The End Of The Rebel Worlds: The Milky Way And A Buckethead

The Rebel Worlds.

Dominic Flandry looks out from a spaceship:

"Twice he identified slivers of blackness crossing the constellations and the Milky Way; nearby warcraft."
-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 504.

The captured ruka links with Cave Discoverer's noga and krippo to form the miserable entity who self-designates "Woe." Heesh was first mentioned in the opening paragraphs of the novel. See here. This noga and krippo were already accustomed to linking with another foreign ruka to form Raft Farer who was also mentioned at the beginning.

Before leaving Dido, Flandry and Kathryn were enclosed by:

"Steamy heat and jungle abatis..."
-CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 488. (Scroll down.)

Flandry thinks of Hugh McCormac as a "...bucketheaded mass murderer..." (CHAPTER TWELVE, p. 485) and Manse Everard uses the phrase, "...a blind buckethead..." in Time Patrol, p. 61. Technic History-Time Patrol parallels are always pleasing and have been noted before.  

After Battle

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWELVE.

A captured ruka needs linkage to survive and can be forced to link with two Thunderstone units, thus creating a new conflicted personality that will learn more with possible longer term benefits.

Falndry declares his love for Kathryn:

"'I want to be your man myself, in every way that a man is able.'
"The wind lulled. The river boomed." (pp. 484-485)

Kathryn gives no answer. I quote this passage both because it is pivotal in the novel and because it is yet another instance of the wind commenting on the action.

Battle On Dido

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWELVE.

The woman on this cover of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows is Kossara Vymezal but could equally have been Kathryn McCormac and in fact the image is re-used on a volume collecting both novels. See Time With Kathryn And Kossara.

Barbaric Didonians, undetected by krippo scouts because hiding in a cave, attack Flandry's group but are driven off by Terran guns. After the battle, the Thunderstoners, Flandry's Didonian allies:

"...could assemble one full person at a time." (p. 481)

- and opt for Guardian Of North Gate, then for Lightning Struck The House whose units have learned pidgin by combining with those of Cave Discoverer who, it seems, is no more. (Later: Yes, Cave Discoverer's ruka has been killed.)

Flandry reminds Kathryn that:

"'...this particular fracas was an incident in your precious revolution." (p. 482)

The barbaric Didonians have no understanding that they are attacking Imperials who have been shot down by barbarian mercenaries hired by a pretender to the Terran Throne - a reminder that the universe is bigger than any of us can imagine.

In Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, the slogan "Coal, Not Dole," appears on a wall in a scene set in London. Thus, the Great British Miners' Strike of 1984-'85 was one small part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The Two Sides Of Empire

A fictional hero can be either an agent of empire or a resistance fighter.

Whereas Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry is the titular character of Agent of The Terran Empire:

"Entire companies of the Emperor's most diabolical soldiers - trolls, giants and worse - were tasked with [the wolf's] capture or destruction."
-Bill Willingham, Fables: Legends in Exile (New York, 2012), p. 130.

- and:

"'There's thirty, forty men with guns all coming for us. Imperial soldiers, what's more.'"
-Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife (London, 1998), 14, p. 308.

So which side are we on? Usually, when reading fiction, on the side of our hero but which side is he on?

"'Why do you stand with Josip? You know what he is.'"
-The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 475.

It is possible to appreciate Anderson's fiction while not always agreeing with his heroes. And, meanwhile, we have to take sides in real life with no author to point the way.

Twenty Seven Potential Didonian Entities

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Three Didonian entities, Cave Discoverer, Harvest Fetcher and Smith, accompany Flandry's 2000 kilometer trek to Port Frederiksen. Their nine units can recombine as, e.g., Iron Miner, Guardian of North Gate or Lightning Struck The House.

If we look back to the opening paragraphs of this novel, we find:

"Make oneness.
"I/we: Feet belonging to Guardian of North Gate and others who can be, to Raft Farer and Woe who will no longer be, to Many Thoughts, Cave Discoverer, and Master of Songs who can no longer be; Wings belonging to Iron Miner and Lightning Struck The House and others to be, to Many Thoughts who can no longer be; young Hands that has yet to share memories: make oneness." (p. 369)

Observations On These Paragraphs
(i) By CHAPTER ELEVEN, several of these designations have become familiar to us.

(ii) In the opening paragraphs, a noga ("Feet") and a krippo ("Wings") educate a ruka ("Hands").

(iii) Guardian of North Gate can be because all three of his units are still alive.

(iv) Raft Farer and Woe will no longer be because it has been decided not to reassemble them - I think.

(v) We already know that Many Thoughts, Cave Discoverer and Master of Songs share their noga and ruka. (See Three Didonians.)

(vi) These three entities can no longer be because their noga, ruka or both are dead.

(vii) Iron Miner, Lightning Struck The House and others are to be because their reassembly is intended.

En route, rukas leave linkage to gather berries while krippos leave linkage to fly as scouts whereas nogas plod forward, carrying equipment:

"Separated, the animals could carry out routine tasks and recognize a need for reunion when it arose." (p. 472)

Imagine:

your hands leave your body to gather fruit;
your eyes fly up to scout;
your body walks, carrying luggage;
while separated, your three sections are unintelligent.

Each of three nogas can link with each of three rukas. Each of these nine two-way linkages can link with each of three krippos. Thus, nine units can potentially form twenty seven entities.

This Afternoon And Evening

Hello. I am having lunch before heading over to Morecambe to try to visit Andrea. A more complicated post about Didonians is gestating but will have to wait until this evening. The Indian curry mentioned recently here is postponed because a friend is unwell. Rereading Poul Anderson blends with the rest of life. Sheila will visit her family in Northern Ireland and I might revisit the friend in Birmingham. Because Sheila likes Malta, we might revisit there although I do not want to make a habit of flying in the current climate.

Laters...

(Andrea's brother's Old Pier Bookshop, front and interior. Andrea inhabits the two floors above the shop.)

Three Didonians

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER NINE.

The rhino is a noga.
The bird is a krippo.
The ape is a ruka.

Three Didonian entities, Master of Songs, Cave Discoverer and Many Thoughts, differ only in their krippos. I think that that makes them the same person with only a third of their memories different - assuming that each of the three units carries a third of the memories.

However, these three Didonians have different skills:

Master of Songs, self-explanatory;

Cave Discoverer, explorer and adventurer;

Many Thoughts, the wisest in the communion, journeying in the spirit.

The shared noga and ruka provide a common vigor and boldness.

I am learning more about Didonians by heeding these details.

Three Types Of Didonian Societies

The Rebel Words, CHAPTER NINE.

(i) "'Certain cultures let entities form promiscuously.'" (p. 456)

Units learn less. Lives are shallow. No advance from savagery.

(ii) Each unit belongs to only one entity except for educational purposes.

Impoverished  lives in stone age societies.

(iii) Usually, each unit belongs equally to a few stable entities, assembling other temporary partnerships as necessary.

Each entity becomes a full personality, combining a broad background with specialized talents.

And that is all from me this evening. Good night. (Earlier, we had a Chinese New Year meal. Tomorrow evening, an Indian curry with former work colleagues.)

Didonian Communication

(I neither understand nor like this cover image but we need variety.)

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER NINE.

A Didonian speaks through all three linked organisms simultaneously:

"Three voices answered her." (p. 454)

Flandry thinks that the linguistic structure must be contrapuntal but I am not sure what that word means in this context.

"'Skilled With Soil is evidently just what the name implies, a gifted farmer. In other combinations, heesh's units might be part of an outstandin' hunter or artisan or musician or whatever. That's why there's no requirement for a large population in order to have a variety of specialists within a communion.'" (p. 455)

Human beings need a large population of diverse individuals to run a complex society. If everyone wanted to be an electrician, who would do the plumbing, let alone the brain surgery? Didonians, like Ythrians and Ishtarians, are Andersonian aliens with appropriately alien societies.

Of the Didonian units:

nogas eat, therefore remember botany;
rukas manipulate, therefore remember manual trades;
krippos fly, therefore remember meteorology and geography;
all species remember language and some other general information.

I think that there will be more posts on Didonians.

Changing Expectations

Reading sf in the 1960s, I had three expectations for the twenty first century:

regular interplanetary (at least) spaceflight, comparable to the regularity of airflight in the twentieth century;

computers connected around the world;

the unexpected, which I looked forward to greeting as it occurred.

A lesser possibility was survival in a nuclear wasteland.

The twenty first century became the expected setting for stories about interplanetary travel. It was a surprise when one Philip K. Dick story (title forgotten) with an interplanetary background was set in the 1990s but that was still decades in our future. In that story, TV space operas were called "captainkirks."

Poul Anderson was one of many contributors to the "space age" vision of the future. In "The Game of Glory," Dominic Flandry operated on an interstellar scale. In Twilight World, post-nuclear mutants traveled to Mars and, in the Epilogue, their remote descendants had colonized the outer satellites. Anderson found ways to combine the space travel and post-nuclear survival options.

My changed expectation remains Andersonian. Now I see the shadow of God the Hunter across the end of this century. Apart from the climate, someone has just shown me a graph of the rate of profit consistently declining from 40% in 1869 to 20% in 2007. I no longer look forward to greeting the unexpected.

Getting Into Future Histories

(Two Tales Of... covers.)

Is it possible to get as deeply into any other future history series in the way that this blog does with Poul Anderson's Technic History? Maybe Larry Niven's Known Space series is as long and complex as the Technic History but I cannot get into it in the same way.

Which do you prefer:

Lucas Garner, Gil Hamilton, Beowulf Shaeffer and Louis Wu or Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and Dominic Flandry?

Kzinti or Merseians?

The planets of Known Space or those of Technic civilization?

The later Thousand Worlds period or the later Commonalty period?

The former Slaver civilization or the former Chereionite civilization?

Niven's or Anderson's version of hyperspace?

Niven presents several more imaginative ideas:

protectors;
the Ringworld;
the Fleet of Worlds;
the good luck gene;
the nanotech autodoc.

By one criterion, this makes Known Space better sf. Some fans have argued that a work that presents original and imaginative ideas succeeds as sf even if it fails by any other literary criteria but I disagree.

Anderson would have been able to transmute ERB's or EE Smith's scenarios.