Betrayal

"...the edge of the receding tide of empire."

-Poul Anderson, A Circus of  Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER TWO, p. 204.

"...this twilight of empire."

- ibid., p. 209.

Evocative phrases.

As empire declines, so does loyalty to it:

"'...I've been working for Merseia. Not bought, nothing like that, I thought the future was theirs, should be theirs, not this walking corpse of an Empire - Merciful angels, can't you see their way's the hope of humankind too? -'"

-Poul Anderson, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVIII, p. 568.

"Why should Kraken pay tribute to an Imperium which enriched toadies, fettered commerce, and neglected defenses? The law of the Roidhun was strict but just. Under him, men could again be men. United, the two civilizations would linger no more in this handful of stars on the fringe of the galaxy; they would fare forth to possess the cosmos.

"Erik Magnusson was converted."

-Poul Anderson, The Game of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE, p. 435.

"Erik Magnusson, space captain and trader of Kraken, foreswore in his heart all allegiance to the Empire that had broken faith with him."

- ibid., p. 434.

Does the argument begin to sound convincing? Under the Merseian Roidhunate, the two civilizations would not be united. Terra would be subordinated. And the cosmos would be possessed by conquest.

"James Railton did not think of himself as a traitor. It was his country that had betrayed him. The old country had become a nonentity. The empire was in twilight time and the saviours had approached him just as his disillusioned view of country, family, God, and honour was at its lowest ebb."

-John Gardner, The Secret Families (London, 1989), Twenty-Five, pp. 372-373.

Saviours? From "Moscow Centre..." (ibid., p. 373) Cold Wars make a lot of people think that there are only two alternatives.

My blog posts slow down toward the end of a month, like today, and tomorrow will involve a coach trip to the nearby city of Manchester. Other current rereading: The Mystery of Consciousness by John Searle. We have referred to Searle when discussing the Artificial Intelligence question raised in sf works like Poul Anderson's Harvest of Stars and Genesis. I think that the nature of consciousness is the central question of philosophy and the most important question about humanity. It is implicit in all fiction, which is about its characters' perceptions and thought processes.

Other Texts

In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King of Ys Tetralogy, former Ysans establish a settlement that will become Quimper. In John Gardner's The Secret Families, Donald Railton travels through Quimper. So is Gardner's Railton Family Trilogy a sequel to the Andersons' Tetralogy? Well, no, it isn't, but imaginative readers are free to make fanciful links between diverse texts! The King of Ys is set in the Roman Empire period of a timeline which, other things being equal, will, centuries later, have a Cold War period. The Railtons are active during the Cold War period of a timeline that definitely had a Roman Empire period. So, very remotely, the two series could connect. 

Also in The Secret Families, a supporter of a dictator says that society needs a strong hand. That rang a bell. Merseians are autocratic and ruled by "Hands." However, the Hand of a Vach is (not meant to be) a hand on the Vach. That would be a major difference of meaning.

Finally, for now, we learn a great deal more about intelligence agents' "tradecraft" from Gardner's characters than from Dominic Flandry, James Bond or Matt Helm. Different authors cast light on each other. To Poul Anderson readers, I recommend John Gardner, Ian Fleming and Donald Hamilton.

Explaining The Subcultures

See Aenean Subcultures and combox.

Subsequent waves of immigrants were not integrated and did not benefit from high tech but adopted alternative lifestyles to which they became attached or, in the case of the tinerans, addicted. Does that sufficiently explain Aenean cultural separatism? We want to accept tinerans, Riverfolk and Orcans but need an adequate rationalization for their diversity. As Bruce Pennington, cover artist, commented, the book has:

"...plenty of pictorial content for at least a dozen good cover illustrations..."

-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return (London, 1978), back cover -

- but sf is about reasons, not just images.

Aenean Subcultures

The Day Of Their Return, 5.

After Sam Hedin come the nomads or tinerans:

"The Aenean intellectual community took little serious interest in the undercultures on its own planet." (p. 108)

Bad. However, the text continues:

"Despite the centuries, Dido still posed too many enigmas which were more fascinating and professionally rewarding." (idid.)

Well, ok. You can't do everything. Nevertheless, scientists and academics specialize. Any university, like the one in Nova Roma which attracts out-system students, should consist of departments addressing xenobiology, sociology, anthropology etc. If the subcultures have been ignored, then someone is going to see a wide-open field for research with potential for many research assistants, Ph.D.'s, publications and academic careers. Ivar Frederiksen, already a hereditary member of the University, should encourage Aenean Subculture Studies when he becomes Firstman of Ilion especially since he has learned by direct experience that the tinerans need both understanding and assistance.

Sam Hedin's Soggy Logic

The Day Of Their Return, 4.

I am reluctant to let go of Sam Hedin just as I was to let go of Chunderban Desai. Everyone tries to think consistently, i.e., logically, but that does not prevent them from:

reasoning from absurd premises;

making some very loose connections between their premises and their conclusions.

As Hegel argued, if everyone begins reasoning from arbitrarily chosen premises, then reasons according to rules chosen by themselves and then concludes their argument wherever it suits them, then it is no wonder that there is no agreement - or even mutual comprehension!

A logical argument is of the form: "If -, then -":

If p, then p;

If p, then not not-p;

If p, then either p or q;

If ((if p, then q) and p), then q.

And also:

either p or not-p;

not (p and not-p).

Sam reasons from a mixture of religious and empirical premises. We are familiar with people who argue consistently from absurd religious premises, e.g., If Evangelical Christianity is true, then everyone who is not an Evangelical is damned even if they sincerely believe in some other form of Christianity. (Why God should run a universe on that basis is beyond me.)

How do Sam's arguments hold up?

"'If God is makin' ready for His next revelation, why not through chosen race...?" (p. 108)

Big "If.." there, Sam. The church he attended probably told him that God's revelation was already complete. Here we see Sam accepting but then reinterpreting a received idea. He continues:

"'And if that's true, shouldn't prophet come first, who prepares us to be saved?'" (ibid.)

If that's true... But he made no attempt to establish that that was true. And it does not automatically follow that a new prophet should come first. God, assuming His existence of course, might do it a different way this time.

A straight line drawn from an unwarranted assumption to a preconceived conclusion.

(I have just attended a funeral so ultimate questions are on my mind.)

What Sam Hedin Said

The Day Of Their Return, 4.

People accept, reinterpret or reject received ideas. Ideas interact, conflict and change especially in times of upheaval. 

Sam Hedin:

is well-educated, well-travelled and hard-headed;

draws a cross and mutters as he passes an Ancient ruin;

asks where the Ancients came from and where they went;

thinks it unreasonable to suppose that all of them died on Aeneas and elsewhere;

quotes many who wonder (my emphasis) if they didn't go onward and out;

speaks as if the Elders will return;

then says that he doesn't know;

used to go to church but not think about such things;

now asks if so many can be wrong (Comment: yes);

adds that many hope (my emphasis) that the Elders will return, bearing the Word of God;

asks whether the exiled rebel leader could have gone their way;

has heard rumours of a new prophet;

does think that human experience and the stellar universe can't be for nothing;

again asks whether, if God is preparing a new revelation, it should not be through a better and wiser chosen race - who would be preceded by a prophet.

Summary

received ideas

questions

hopes

a rumour

speculation

Further Comments

Purposiveness cannot have preceded consciousness.

Experience and the universe have value because we value them.

If the Elders became better and wiser through knowledge and contemplation, then so can we, with or without external help. We can be Elders.

The Eastern Edge Of Ilion

The Day Of Their Return, 4.

(Tomorrow will be taken up with a funeral, then an evening meeting, so there might not be much blogging. There was a guy that I had expected to meet at the funeral but I read his obituary today.)

We realize that Aeneas is not just an empty stage where Poul Anderson's characters strut and fret their hour but an imaginatively constructed planetary environment:

there are canals, marshes and salt lakes on the Antonine (former) Seabed;

westerly winds blow moisture from the Seabed onto the eastern edge of the continent of Ilion where there is "...actual rain two or three times a year." (p. 100);

also, the Wildfoss River helps to maintain a water table that supplies a few wells;

consequently, generations of the Hedin family have been able to farm and ranch;

their settlement has a windbreak of Aenean delphi and rahab, Terrestrial oak and acacia, Llynathawrian rasmin and Ythrian hammerbranch;

their flowerbeds have to be extra-planetary because no flowers evolved on Aeneas.

Think about all that detail, then contemplate not just the Hedins but an entire population living in Ilion and in other parts of Aeneas.

Desai And Ivar

The Day Of Their Return.

It is with a heavy heart that I turn from that pedestrian plodder, Chunderban Desai, to the charismatic criminal, Ivar Frederiksen, but we must follow the author's narrative. Ivar is the kind of fugitive action hero who is passed from pillar to post, in Ivar's case, from Windhome to the Hedin Freehold to the tinerans to the Riverfolk to the Orcans and finally, since he runs out of alternatives, to Desai and the Imperium. These formative experiences will make Ivar eventually an effective and empathetic Firstman of Ilion. In particular, he will aim to free the tinerans from their addiction to the telepathic parasites which in turn might explain the fate of the Ancients who were also the Chereionites. The Technic History is a single long narrative although its diverse details might obscure certain larger scale connections. In The Game of Empire, Axor investigates the Ancients while Tachwyr wonders about Aycharaych and, as in real history, not every question is answered. As Tolkien wrote about The Lord of the Rings, it is too short. However, Tolkien's Trilogy seems rushed - the characters depart on a long journey and, almost immediately, reach their destination. By contrast, a very great deal of time elapses between the opening Technic History instalment, "The Saturn Game," and the conclusion, "Starfog." Everything else that we read about, League, Empire etc, comes and goes between these end points.

Fictional Locations

The Day Of Their Return.

I said before that the entire action of this novel takes place on the surface of a single planet, Aeneas. Sean Brooks pointed out that this was not quite true because, on just one occasion, Chunderban Desai reminisces about a conversation between himself and his Merseian opposite number elsewhere. On rereading the relevant passage, I am not quite sure where. After the negotiations that had ended the Jihannath crisis, Desai and Uldwyr had been in a restaurant that catered to many species where:

"...the meal was an inspired combination of human and Merseian dishes." (3, p. 83)

Desai reminisces on Aeneas but his reminiscence is about a restaurant on another planet. One fictional setting is imposed on another. When characters recount their experiences to each other, we have to bear in mind both the setting where the characters converse and the settings of their recounted experiences. Meanwhile, each reader is sitting in his own real world setting. We pass between real and fictional locations. Yesterday, after visiting Andrea in his three-dimensional warren overlooking Morecambe Bay, I walked past Morecambe Police Station where a camera crew was set up to film a scene for The Bay TV series. Fictional events were about to happen. There is a Lancashire Police Service but no West Lancashire Police Service.

Desai

The Day Of Their Return, 3.

Desai is our guy.

He invokes an interesting range of deities:

"God knows the present needs more of me than I have to give." (p. 85)

"God!" (ibid.)

"Krishna!" (p. 93)

"Siva have mercy." (p. 98)

He is a linking character. In an otherwise atrocious Batman film, one newly introduced character was a business contact of Bruce Wayne (the Batman), the employer of Selina Kyle (the Catwoman) and the political backer of Oswald Cobblepot (the Penguin). Similarly, Desai:

remembers his conversation with Uldwyr;

converses with Aycharaych;

replays his conversation with Jowett;

looks out, at some length, across Nova Roma and Aeneas;

reflects on the Terran Empire -

- all in a single chapter. A guy that we want to see a lot more of.

Barsoom

The Day Of Their Return, 3. 

See also:

Ghosts And Aeneas plus combox

Aeneas: Planet And People plus combox

Aeneas And Barsoom

Aeneas And Barsoom II

Diomedean Geography II

Under The Moons Of Vanessa

"...the sun was half again as far way..." (p. 88)

- on Aeneas as on Earth or Ramanujan.

Aeneas, with deserts, and Dido, with jungles, are like old sf versions of Mars and Venus with no Asteroid Belt or Earth between them.

For other references to Barsoom on the current blog, see also here. (Scroll down.)

Aeneas: Planet And People

The Day Of Their Return.

An arid environment where it rarely rains and never snows.

University, Landfolk, Townfolk, subcultures, the industrial Web, centuries-old Nova Roma, tri-cameral Parliament.

Subcultures: tinerans, riverfolk, Orcans, Highlanders (whom we never see).

Ancient remnants, e.g., a wall in the University; a ruin in the Dreary; the Arena, used by Orcans.

See Aeneas.

Ghosts On Aeneas

The Day Of Their Return.

Ivar Frederiksen thinks that he sees lights move across the dead sea bottom:

"...lanterns on ghost ships, sailing an ocean that vanished three million years ago...." (2, p. 80)

Chunderban Desai sees:

"Afar in the desert, a dust storm went like a ghost." (3, p. 99)

Poul Anderson gives us a feel for the Aenean environment. This is what Aeneans see and also what they sometimes imagine. There will be ghost stories especially since the ghosts can be those of the Ancients who departed this planet three million years ago. Aenean ghost stories could be fictions within the fiction of the Technic History.

Dominic Flandry Highlights

OK. My three Dominic Flandry highlights are all in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows.

(i) Flandry and Kossara are concealed among the Merseians who march on the Dennitzan Parliament - the idea of Flandry on a political march, let alone one composed of Merseians!

(ii) In the Cathedral of St Clement, a priest chants behind a screen while the future St. Kossara lies in state and her bereaved fiance, Flandry, effectively prays to the future saint, requesting a sign...

(iii) The italicized concluding passage that becomes a prayer:

"In glory did Gospodar Bodin ride home.

"Maidens danced to crown him with flowers..."

-Poul Anderson, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 505.

Read it in full here.

Technic History Highlights

Since part of The Day Of Their Return, Chapter 3, is one of my favourite passages in Poul Anderson's Technic History, do I have a single most preferred passage? Maybe not. Particular highlights are:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," introducing Adzel and the Earth of the Solar Commonwealth;

"Lodestar," introducing Coya Conyon and Mirkheim, disclosing the main conflict in Technic civilization and featuring the dramatic confrontation between van Rijn and Falkayn;

Mirkheim, a good novel, a good political novel and a good sf novel;

Hloch's main introduction to The Earth Book of Stormgate;

the opening paragraph of The People of the Wind, VI, introducing the Avalonian city of Centauri which is the setting for a meeting between Tabitha Falkayn and Christopher Holm.

Desai And Uldwyr

The Day Of Their Return, 3.

One of my favourite passages in Poul Anderson's Technic History is Chunderban Desai's after dinner conversation with his opposite number, Uldwyr. The passage informs, or reminds, us that the Merseian has a "...crocodilian tail which counterbalanced his big, forward-leaning body..." (p. 83) but omits to add that he would have been squatting on this tail while conversing with the seated Desai.

Uldwyr refers to:

Starkad

Jihannath

Talwin

the recent insurrection in Sector Alpha Crucis

the Domain of Ythri

- and thus touches on the contents of the previous four novels in the Technic History. (The Jihannath crisis and the Alpha Crucis insurrection were contemporaneous, therefore featured in a single novel.)

Desai knows that he is:

"...Uldwr's honorable enemy, therefore his friend. By giving him opposition, I give meaning to his life." (p. 84)

That is the social psychology of the Merseian Roidhunate. Many beings find meaning without opposition. "Honorable Enemies" is, of course, the title of the second Captain Flandry story, published earlier although set later.

In Ensign Flandry, Brechdan Ironrede had explained to one of his sons why the Roidhunate cannot simply expand around the Terran Empire and Desai here confirms Brechan's words:

"Lest the balance of power be upset, we block them, we thwart them, wherever we can; and they seek to undermine us, grind us down, wear us out." (p. 84)

The Roidhunate must (!) deal with the Empire before it can expand any further. The Empire performs the historically useful role of demoralizing the Roidhunate so that, millennia later, it is not in control of the galaxy.

Destiny's Garden

"Walk any path in Destiny's garden, and you will be forced to choose, not once but many times.

"The paths fork and divide. With each step you take through Destiny's garden, you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths.

"However, at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness.

"Sometimes you dream about the paths of Destiny, and speculate, to no purpose.

"Dream about the paths you took and the paths you didn't take..."

-Neil Gaiman, The Season of Mists (New York, 1992), Episode 0, p. 13, panels 1-4.

I immediately thought of three major works by Poul Anderson -

choices determining future paths: the Time Patrol;

darkness ahead: the shadow of God the Hunter across the future in the Technic History;

paths not taken: the alternative history novels.

Ambush And Windhome

The Day Of Their Return, 2.

Ivar Frederiksen and his band of Aenean guerrillas wait to ambush an Imperial patrol. When the marines arrive, we are told that:

"They were human..." (p. 77)

They might not have been, of course. The guerrillas are all human because only human beings had colonized Aeneas.

Defeated, Ivar sneaks back to Windhome, "...the ancestral seat of the Firstman of Ilion." (p. 79) We remember that, in The Rebel Worlds, Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac, Firstman and Imperial pretender, rode into Windhome with his sons. Now, McCormac's nephew-in-law, Ivar Frederiksen, Firstling (heir):

"...stumbled to press the scanner plate." (p. 79)

We are seeing the same place from a very different point of view. The Day Of Their Return is an unexpected interruption to the Dominic Flandry series and also a welcome addition to the Technic History.

On Aeneas

The Day Of Their Return, 2.

"East of Windhome the country rolled low for a while, then lifted in the Hesperian Hills." (p. 76)

The planet, Aeneas, had appeared in a single passage in The Rebel Worlds. Now Poul Anderson develops Aeneas in detail. In fact, I think that The Day Of Their Return is the only Technic History novel to be set entirely on the surface of a single planet. In this chapter, it is early summer. Imported oak and cedar are intensely green but rasmin is purple. We are not told the colour of the overarching delphi. The grass-equivalent land cover, fire trava, is not green but onyx tinged with red and yellow. In Anderson's novels, we are always aware that another planetary environment would not look like Earth. 

By day, the fire trava smells of flint and sparks. At night, it curls up into a springy mat. Ivar Frederiksen is not lying merely on a differently coloured grass. Born to this environment, he is not reflecting on Aenean plant life and indeed has problems of an entirely different order.

Thor And Hugh Valland

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966).

See Dream Country plus combox.

OK. I got it wrong about Thor so here's the deal. Valland tells young Wenli that:

Thor has a red beard;

goats pull his wagon;

the wheels make thunder;

Thor throws a hammer at trolls;

he will come if they ask him;

Valland helped Thor in an argument with an electrostatic generator;

Thor caught the snake that encircles the world.

Born in the twenty-first century, Valland remembers - and adds to - the myths.

Species In Technic Civilization

The Day Of Their Return, 2.

In this chapter, we are inside Ivar Frederiksen's point of view and therefore inside a worldview where Terrans are the enemy. That will not last in this novel but it does elsewhere. Near the end of The People of the Wind, an Avalonian Ythrian dies doing what he wants to do, killing Terrans - but "Terrans" do not include human Avalonians and the Terran forces include a Cynthian who dies in the attack. Ivar will consider seeking support from Ythrians and Merseians. We know that there are human beings in the Domain of Ythri. We will learn that there are human beings in the Merseian Roidhunate and also beings of Merseian species, although now called either ychani or zmayi, on Dennitza in the Terran Empire.

Will different intelligent species ever interact like different Terrestrial nationalities? I think that we will be far too alien to each other for that - as did the British sf writer, Bob Shaw, who never recounted conversations between human beings and aliens.

Dream Country

In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King of Ys, gods withdraw, becoming ghosts or goblins - or dead or non-existent? A soldier in the now Christian Roman Empire, seeing the inscribed names of Roman deities, asks whether They still have power here. Yet in Poul Anderson's "A Feast for the Gods" and in many other fictional works, gods remain active now. A version of Thor invades our cinema screens.

Gods withdrawn or gods still active: either seems appropriate but are they not mutually incompatible? No way. Neil Gaiman's Death of the Endless explains that mythologies take a long tome to die and that they linger on in a dream country affecting everyone. That is a relief. In an intergalactic future, Poul Anderson's Hugh Valland tells a child about Thor....

Enemies Of Terra

The Day Of Their Return, 2.

So far in the Technic History, we have seen the Terran Empire:

forcibly annexing Ansa;

failing to annex Avalon;

defeated on Freehold;

suppressing a rebellion led by Aeneas.

Now the newly introduced viewpoint character, Ivar Frederiksen, leads a new Aenean attack on Terrans. Given the history so far, we cannot know whether he will succeed.

We have also seen Dominic Flandry defending the Empire on Starkad and on Irumclaw and by defeating the first Aenean rebellion but, if we expect Flandry to be recalled to resist Frederiksen, then we will be disappointed. Commander Flandry will be quoted once but will not appear in this novel. From Chapter 3, Terra is represented not by an Intelligence agent but by Chunderban Desai, High Commissioner of the Virgilian System, based in Nova Roma on Aeneas. Frederiksen and Desai will meet at the end of the current novel. Flandry and Desai will meet in a later novel. The Technic History is a complicated future history series with different viewpoints and perspectives.

Oneness And Morning Star

Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 74-238.

The text begins with a quotation: Job iv, 12-16.

Chapter 1, on pp. 75-76, occupies less than one page of text and is scriptural in tone, beginning:

"On the third day he arose, and ascended again to the light." (p. 75)

The viewpoint character, Jaan, reflects:

"To be man is to be radiance." (ibid.)

It is or at least it can be but we are to learn that Jaan's "...resurrection..." (p. 76) is a deception.

The chapter ends:

"Above them paled Dido, the morning star." (p. 76)

This is the first textual indication that the novel is set not only in Poul Anderson's Technic History but also, more specifically, in the Virgilian System in Sector Alpha Crucis. Jaan must be on Aeneas where Dido is the morning star. And, since, according to Jaan, the morning star is:

"...the planet of the First Chosen..." (p. 75)

- those First Chosen are the tripartite Didonians. We know, if we are reading the Technic History consecutively, that the Didonians practise oneness. Now Jaan's inner voice, Caruith, speaks of mankind being:

"...received into Oneness..." (p. 76)

In Chapter 2, beginning on p. 76, an opening reference to Windhome and the introduction of a viewpoint character with the surname, Frederiksen, confirm that the action is on Aeneas.

Pacifism And Reformism

Abrams to Flandry:

"'...ever since Akhnaton ruled in Egypt, probably since before then, a school of thought has held we ought to lay down our weapons and rely on love. That, if love doesn't work, at least we'll die guiltless. Usually even its opponents have said this is a noble idea. I say it stinks. I say it's not just unrealistic, not just infantile, it's evil. It denies we have any duty to act in this life. Because how can we, if we let go of our capability?'"

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Family (Riverdale, NY, January2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER EIGHTEEN, p. 192.

Flandry to McCormac:

"'Read some [history] and see what the result of every resort to violence by reformists has been.'"

-The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 511.

Thus, Poul Anderson's characters dispose both of pacifism and of violent reformism. A long time ago, I would have disagreed with Abrams. Now I just think that his comments warrant further discussion. First, who are "we"? The referent of this word is contextual. Secondly, what capabilities do we have apart from destruction?

God And Hugh McCormac

The Rebel Worlds.

We know from "The Problem of Pain" and The Day Of Their Return that there are convinced Christians on Aeneas.

Hugh McCormac reflects:

"If Kathryn were tuned in on my mind...she'd say there must be something in Leviticus against mixing so many metaphors."

-CHAPTER ONE, p. 372.

Not a serious remark, obviously, but one that confirms the role of the Bible on Aeneas.

Kathryn McCormac to Dominic Flandry:

"'Dominic, I'm prayin' for both of you.'"

-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 505.

- for both her husband and Flandry who are on opposite sides in a civil war.

"[McCormac] thanked his iron God that the sun of Llynathawr was not visible in these latitudes."

-CHAPTER SIX, p. 425.

Flandry to McCormac:

"'Down on your knees, McCormac, and thank whatever smug God you've taken on as your junior partner, that I have to find some way of saving your life because otherwise the harm you've done would be ten times what it is!'"

-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 509.

Well, what is God: iron, smug or something else? Until He tells us, each of us has to find the best answer that we can. 

Before And After

In The Rebel Worlds, Commander Flandry visits the Virgilian System where the humanly colonized planet is Aeneas although Flandry spends his time on the inhabited planet, Dido. There are later consequences both for Aeneas and for Flandry. However, the difference is that, whereas The Day Of Their Return, about later events on Aeneas, was written after The Rebel Worlds, the Captain Flandry series, with the single exception of its culminating novel, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, was written before the Young Flandry Trilogy which culminates in The Rebel Worlds. Thus, The Day Of Their Return can and does refer to the mutiny in Sector Alpha Crucis, which had been the subject matter of The Rebel Worlds, whereas, until it reaches A Knight..., the Captain Flandry cannot mention the important facts that Flandry had loved Kathryn McCormac but had nevertheless defeated the mutiny led by her husband, Hugh McCormac. The author has retconned these events. The parts of the future history series fit together and, by comparing both the publication dates and the contents of the texts, we can see how they were put together.

Memories

In the concluding paragraph of some novels by Dornford Yates, the first person narrator recalls several highlights from the just-completed narrative and informs us that he frequently remembers those experiences later in life. 

I am having the familiar experience of remembering but not being able to find a passage near the end of A Circus of Hells. Djana remembers the time when when she and Flandry had hunted for wealth on Wayland. There is a similar passage near the end of The Rebel Worlds:

"Theirs had been a curious intimacy when they traveled hither... dreamy talk of old days and far places, much reminiscence about little events on Dido..."

-The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 505.

Those are events that we did not read about. We know that that journey was long whereas Anderson's narrative is almost telegrammatically compact. Those little events were too trivial to be mentioned.

One later incident on Dido stays in my memory. Passing himself off as a rebel, Flandry converses with white-bearded Director Jowett in Port Frederiksen. Jowett says that the Josipists:

"'...won't give our Emperor the decisive battle he needs.'"

-CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 493.

When asked whether the rebels should yield:

"The old head lifted. 'Not while our Emperor lives!'" (ibid.)

I appreciate the archaism of the director of a scientific base on an extra-solar planet surrounded by an interstellar civilization expressing loyalty to "our Emperor."

The Technic History In Six Omnibus Volumes

Apart from a reissue of The Technic Civilization Saga, my current idea for republication of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization would be two boxed sets:

Box I: LEAGUE AND EMPIRE

The Polesotechnic League

Avalon and Empire

The Earth Book of Stormgate

Box II: EMPIRE AND AFTER

Young Flandry and the Terran Empire

Captain Flandry of the Terran Empire

Admiral Flandry and the Post-Imperial Age

Box I covers:

the League

Ytrhians and the Terran Empire

all three

(Hloch's Earth Book introductions are written during the Imperial period even though the twelve works introduced are pre-Imperial.)

Box II covers three stages of Flandry's career and at least two (in fact four) historical periods.

Young Flandry... is a Flandry Trilogy with two non-Flandry sequels. Volume III of the Trilogy cameos the planet Aeneas which is developed fully in The Day Of Their Return. The series takes several unexpected turns.

Abrams, Flandry And Havelock

Commander Abrams to Ensign Flandry:

"'I wouldn't ordinarily say this to a fellow at your arrogant age, but since you need cheering up...well, I will say, once you hit your stride, Lord help the opposition!'

"He talked for an hour longer. And Flandry left the office whistling."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER EIGHTEEN, p. 192.

Commander Flandry to Ensign Havelock:

"'...slack off, son. Remember the girl who's waiting for you.'

"Havelock grinned and walked away with his shoulders squared."

-The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 490.

Commander Havelock...?

Young Flandry soon advances to a rank where he gets to address an even younger man as "son." Of course, Flandry passes on to Havelock whatever wisdom he has learned from Abrams. Fictional biographies reflect life, including the passage of generations.

Didonian Learning

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Guardian of North Gate does not understand pidgin because:

"...only heesh's noga had been in Cave Discoverer." (p. 481)

However, all of Lightning Struck The Houses's units have linked with those of Cave Discoverer in order:

"...to gain some command of pidgin." (p. 483)

A Didonian entity remembers heesh's own experiences but also receives memories from heesh's three units. The novel begins with a linkage between -

the noga of:

Guardian of North Gate

Raft Farer

Woe

Many Thoughts

Cave Discoverer

Master of Songs

- the krippo of:

Iron Miner

Lightning Struck The House

Many Thoughts

- and a new young ruka.

They link to share a memory:

"(Blurred, two legs, faceless...no, had they beaks?)" (p. 369)

(Im)Plausibility

In a Matt Helm novel by Donald Hamilton and in a Dominic Flandry story by Poul Anderson, our hero allows himself to be captured in order to gather intelligence while trusting in his own ability to turn the tables and make his escape whereas Anderson's Un-Men - in his Psychotechnic History - allow themselves to be captured in order to lead their organization to enemy headquarters, a much more sensible arrangement.

Donald Hamilton like many other authors wrote thrillers set in the twentieth century so that their readers were familiar with the general background, e.g., the international conflicts of the 1960s, whereas Flandry operates on exotic extra-solar planets where his author has invested considerable ingenuity in devising alien environments, biologies and psychologies. As Brian Aldiss commented, science fiction authors work hard for their living.

Death On Dido

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Cave Discoverer's ruka is killed in battle. Cave Discoverer ceases to exist. Many Thoughts and Master of Songs now cannot exist. Cave Discoverer will no longer travel to the annual fair. Therefore, almost certainly, Raft Farer will no longer exist - unless some other entity takes the former Cave Discoverer's noga to the fair, thus enabling it again to link with the other two units that, together with it, form Raft Farer. 

Have Cave Discoverer, Many Thoughts, Master of Songs and (probably) Raft Farer, these four entities, all "died"? All that has physically died here is a single organism constituting one Didonian unit of multiple entities. 

I only work here.

The Complexities Of Didonians

The Rebel Worlds.

The bird-like krippos are also viviparous. 

Cave Discoverer and Many Thoughts can never meet because they share two units although they share memories from those units.

Unless my Maths are wrong, the nine units of three entities can be reassembled into twenty-six other entities. However, a Didonian "communion" (society) pragmatically deploys the appropriate units to spend most of their time within outstanding entities, like Cave Discoverer for exploration, Many Thoughts for wisdom or Master of Songs for music. These three entities share the same noga and ruka, differing only in their krippo. Their noga and ruka are unlikely to spend much time in less talented entities. While Cave Discoverer accompanies Flandry's group across the mountains, neither Many Thoughts nor Master of Songs can be formed back in Thunderstone. Temporary entities must know that they are temporary and not object. Altruism within a communion is so natural that it has not been conceptualized.

When Cave Discoverer travels to an annual fair, his noga links with a ruka from one place and a krippo from another to form Raft Farer. Thus, Raft Farer exists only annually and only as long as three entities from different communions remain able to visit that fair.

Experiencing the transience of their consciousnesses, the Didonians can hardly conceptualize individual entities as immortal souls.

The Weirdest Species

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Flandry to Kathryn:

"'My business has put me in contact with various breeds. I remain convinced we humans are the weirdest of the lot; but your Didonians come close.'" (p. 473)

Why should human beings be the weirdest? Editor John Campbell wanted them to be not only distinctive but also superior. To avoid conflict with his editor, Asimov invented the humans only galaxy. Anderson's multi-species Technic History is infinitely richer. But I think that any reflective species would think itself the weirdest merely because it knows itself better, from the inside out. Flandry has mere "contact" with many others.

Maybe Aycharaych is the being to ask.?

Didonian Entities

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Three entities, Cave Discoverer, Harvest Fetcher and Smith, accompany Flandry's group over the mountain. This means that, for the time being, Many Thoughts does not exist, also that heesh will not come back into existence if either of the units that heesh shares with Cave Discoverer dies or is killed during the journey. The units of the three entities accompanying the group can recombine as Iron Miner, Guardian of North Gate, Lightning Struck The House or other entities. They need a change and need to maintain the different entities and they also practice oneness ritualistically. Separating, the krippos go aloft as scouts while rukas gather berries. They can perform such routine tasks but can also respond to any need for reunion. Thus, the units alternate between animal consciousness and participation in rational consciousness but in different individual entities. What can this be like? 

Resources

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TEN, pp. 468-469.

Snelund lists what bureaucrats and functionaries do:

the day-to-day work

operate spaceports and traffic lanes

deliver mail

maintain electronic communication

collect and supply data

manage public health

limit crime

arbitrate

allocate scarce resources

Stop. Why should resources continue to be scarce? See:

Interstellar Wealth

Machine Technology On Millions Of Planets

See also previous discussion nine years ago here.

The Importance Of Satan

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TEN.

The wealth-generating planet, Satan, was discovered in the Polesotechnic League period. In the later Imperial period:

"The defense of Satan became a major reason to garrison and colonize Sector Alpha Crucis." (p. 462)

A reason to colonize the sector: this is an important connection between the two periods.

When waging civil war against the Emperor, Admiral McCormac reasons:

the destruction of the Satanic factories would be an unacceptable economic loss for the Imperium;

therefore, the loyalists will probably avoid the planet;

therefore, Satan will probably be a safe sanctuary for his own rebel forces.

But, if nevertheless the loyalists do attack, then McCormac will certainly use Satan as a shield. Whether destroyed or only held by the rebels, Satanic products will be denied to the enemy.

More About Didonians

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER NINE.

Every human being welcomes unconsciousness at night, confident that, other things being equal, s/he will regain consciousness in the morning. Of course, we will die sometime and that could be in our sleep.

A Didonian entity ceases to exist when heesh's three units end their linkage. Presumably, the entity expects to be reassembled sometime but that will not happen if even one of the three units dies in the meantime.

The entity designated Cave Discoverer is an explorer and adventurer who shares two units with the wisest, Many Thoughts:

"'Many Thoughts gets the vigor and boldness of the same noga and ruka, but heesh's journeys are of the spirit....'" (p. 460)

When Many Thoughts' krippo replaces Cave Discoverer's, Many Thoughts takes a minute to absorb the information conveyed by the noga and ruka that the two entities share. Then Kathryn has to repeat whatever information went away with the departing krippo.

The loss of either the noga or the ruka would mean that neither Cave Discoverer nor Many Thoughts could be reassembled although much of their knowledge would be preserved in the surviving units.

Primary education comprises two-way linkages between mature and immature units. Didonians cannot have any concept of privacy. Poul Anderson invites us to imagine a fundamentally different form of consciousness.

Trade Unions And Governments

Nicholas van Rijn:

"'...these days the unions are political organizations as well, tied in with government like Siamese twin octopuses. You let them steer those funds, and you are letting government itself into your business.'"

-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1-291 AT Prologue, Y minus 9, p. 15.

Someone else:

"There is one common feature in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade union organizations in the entire world - it is their drawing closely to and growing together with the state power.

"Monopoly capitalism does not rest on competition and free private initiative but on centralized command.

"[The unions] have to confront a centralized capitalist adversary, intimately bound up with state power. Hence flows the need of the trade unions - insofar as they remain on reformist positions, ie, on positions of adapting themselves to private property - to adapt themselves to the capitalist state and to contend for its cooperation."

-Leon Trotsky, "Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay."

Trotsky argues that workers should be represented by democratic unions independent of government.

Cons

In Satan's World, VIII, the Lunar police have every elephant-size cell full because of a science fiction convention!

Do they have sf in the Solar Commonwealth? Do they imagine faster hyperdrive to other galaxies? Would that count as sf? They could have alternative histories like what would have happened if there had been a nuclear exchange during the Chaos? Maybe they do not have contemporary sf but value speculative fiction from earlier centuries.

I mention this because there is a serial killers convention, complete with panel discussions, guest of honour speech etc, in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. In haste. About to visit Andrea.

Fantasy And SF

Once I told James Blish that I preferred his Earthman, Come Home (interstellar sf) to his Black Easter (dark fantasy). He replied merely that they were completely different kinds of writing. The equivalent in Poul Anderson's works would be to compare Mirkheim with Operation Chaos. In Earthman, Come Home as in Mirkheim, an interstellar civilization approaches its end. In Black Easter, as in Operation Chaos, demons intervene on Earth. Demons also intervene in CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength and in Robert Heinlein's Magic, Inc. 

Blish's Satan becomes God. Neil Gaiman's Lucifer retires and, shortly thereafter, Gaiman's God withdraws to be replaced by His granddaughter, Lucifer's niece. Anderson's, Lewis' and Heinlein's God and Adversary remain in place which is what we except of them. Some traditions are usually respected.

Gaiman writes no sf but matches the others in fantasy. However, we value differences as well as similarities between authors. These particular authors display different degrees of depth and diversity.

Two Inns

Poul Anderson uses his inn between the worlds as the setting of two short stories and an interlude and an epilogue in one novel whereas Neil Gaiman uses his inter-cosmic inn as the framing device for a series of stories, as in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Gaiman's approach works well especially since the author and his successive artists ensure that their readers remain continuously conscious both of each new story and of the inn where the stories are told. One difference is that Anderson's Old Phoenix as described remains a single small stable indoors place whereas the Inn of the Worlds' End sometimes abruptly alters its size and shape.

An Anderson collection with Old Phoenix-based introductions to original stories could have featured characters from different series each introducing an new addition to his or her particular narrative. Thus, such a collection would belong not to one series but to all and would unite them into a mega-series.

Accessible Texts

Yesterday my lap top went into the shop for an overnight service. Now it is back. Meanwhile, other, not entirely unrelated, reading has generated reflections relevant to Poul Anderson although placing him in a wider context.

The accessibility of a text to a reader is first a function of which language it is written in. Obviously. A Chinese or Japanese text is impenetrable to most of us here. However, there are several other factors. How long ago was the text written? Is it poetry, prose, drama or graphic story-telling? How dense or complicated is it? How archaic, obscure or specialized is its vocabulary? To which genre does it belong? What literary conventions or references does it assume familiarity with? An English text can be effectively unreadable. We have become familiar with the cliches that have accumulated within sf but imagine if the only sf that we had ever read was the pre-cliched texts of Wells and Verne.

Some Texts Referring To Fairies As Supernatural Beings Distinct From Gods, Angels Or Demons

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595 or 1596)

Edmund Spencer, The Faerie Queen (1590-1596)

Percy Shelley, Queen Mab (1813)

George MacDonald, Phantastes (1858)

Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (1974)

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (1989-1996)

Accessibility

I have seen A Midsummer Night's Dream performed maybe five times. (Plays are written to be seen and heard, not read.)

I have never considered reading The Faerie Queen or Queen Mab.

I have just broken off a first reading of Phantastes and turned to a rereading of The Sandman as infinitely more accessible. (Yet Phantastes "baptised" CS Lewis' imagination when he read it in about 1914.)

I made perhaps two attempts to read A Midsummer Tempest before getting properly into it but now commend it as Anderson's most literary work.

The Sandman is endlessly rereadable.

Gaiman parallels Anderson in fantasy but has written no sf. Thus, both Gaiman and Anderson rework Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. The Dreaming incorporates all myths, including Odin, Thor and Loki. Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End parallels Anderson's Old Phoenix.

Tripartite Symbiosis

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER NINE.

A single Didonian intelligence is a temporary symbiosis between a rhinoceros-like noga, a bird-like krippo and an ape-like ruka except that none of these animals is very like the Terrestrial organism to which it is compared and they should look as alien as possible in any cinematic CGI. A noga is smooth and blue. A ruka runs on all four limbs and has disproportionately large chest, shoulders and arms, bigger than a man's. The krippo has a head that swells grotesquely backward. The CGI should follow Anderson's descriptions in detail and should loose any association with familiar African animals as much as possible. When linked, the noga grunts, the krippo trills and the ruka generates various sounds. Together, they speak. Kathryn replies in pidgin.

Connections Between Several Authors

 

(i) Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, James Blish and Poul Anderson were the Campbell future historians.

(ii) Heinlein, Anderson and Blish also wrote fantasy.

(iii) Anderson and Blish also wrote historical fiction.

(iv) Anderson's Psychotechnic History was modelled on Heinlein's Future History.

(v) Anderson's Operation Chaos was a conceptual development from Heinlein's Magic, Inc.

(vi) Anderson and JRR Tolkien published Norse-based fantasy at the same time.

(vii) CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy, Volume III, That Hideous Strength, quotes a detail from Tolkien's not-yet-published Middle Earth History.

(viii) Blish's After Such Knowledge Trilogy, Volume III, A Case of Conscience, quotes from Lewis' Ransom Trilogy.

(ix) After Such Knowledge, Volume IIa, Black Easter, and IIb, The Day After Judgement, quote from Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.

(x) George MacDonald's Phantastes inspired CS Lewis, Lewis Carroll and others.

(xi) Lewis and MacDonald converse fictitiously in Lewis' The Great Divorce.

(xii) Lewis' Narnia and MacDonald's Lilith influenced Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.

(xiv) Heinlein's description of a gathering of demons in Hell in Magic, Inc. influenced the graphic depiction of such a gathering in The Sandman.