Assimilation

"Star Ship."

Masefield Carson describes Dougald Anson as:

"'...an absorbed Khazaki.'" (p. 282)

Old Chiang, one of the ten human beings who had arrived in the Star Ship, has seen the second and third human generations on Khazak play, work and fight with Khazaki and adopt their dress, speech and outlook. Few have tried to remain Terrestrial.

Advanced technology had enabled human civilization to achieve complete sexual equality which, however, is now being lost to Khazaki barbarism. Du-Frere Marie does not care about equality, thinks that a woman should not try to be a man, only wants to cook and keep house for a man and bear his children. 

Anson recognizes this as:

"...a typical Khazaki attitude." (p. 285)

Not just Kkazaki: it comes from our past and sf authors have projected it onto more than one alien species.

Difficulties On Khazak

"Star Ship."

Five human couples are stranded on Khazak. Fifty years later, they have adult children and grandchildren; we are not told how many.

Khazak has:

"...an early Iron Age civilization of city-states..." (p. 284)

Its dominant species is:

"...naturally violent and predatory." (ibid.)

Violent sophonts are preferable to no sophonts!

The few stranded human beings have to:

ensure their own security by teaching the local Krakenaui military principles and means of making superior weapons;

develop chemical plant;

mine and refine manganese, chromium etc;

produce superalloys and rocket fuel;

address many other important and difficult requirements;

learn from scratch how to design and test a rocketship.

Does any of this even begin to be feasible?

Later

Robert Heinlein soon found that everything that he wrote did not fit into a single Future History nor did it need to. However, since one of the features that we appreciate in any future history series is consistent internal cross referencing, it is necessary to be clear about whether any particular story belongs to such a series.

"Star Ship" could fit into Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History in the same period as The Peregrine which is a few centuries later than "Gypsy." Then the Galactic Coordinators become the Coordination Service and the Galactic civilization becomes the Stellar Union.

And that is all for now because I am about to go out for the rest of the evening. Keep rereading Poul Anderson.

A Different Galactic Background? II

"Star Ship." 

The background is definitely different from what it should be at this stage in this future history series. A Service sends exploratory expeditions which are away for years at a time and therefore consist of married couples. The ship carries atomic weapons. This Star Ship had been a few weeks out from the obscure outpost of Avandar which has probably grown since then. There are too many stars for the Galactic Coordinators to be able to find ships that do not return. Expansion into this particular region had not been scheduled for two more centuries. None of this sounds like the stage the Psychotechnic History should be at so soon after the invention of the hyperdrive and even before the founding of the Stellar Union.

A Different Galactic Background?

According to the Psychotechnic History Chronology of the Future:

2784 Hyperdrive invented

2815 "Gypsy"

2875 "Star Ship"

2900 Stellar Union founded

The Traveler had been bound for Alpha Centauri and a generation had grown up in it, then settled on Harbor, before the events of "Gypsy." So the Traveler had left the Solar System soon after 2784.

"Star Ship" refers to:

"...the fabulous Galactic civilization..." (p. 282) and to:

"'...the Galactic Coordinators...'" (p. 286)

- and informs us that rockets are:

"...centuries obsolete in Galactic civilization." (p. 284)

Thus, "Star Ship," like maybe also the later "The Green Thumb," seems to assume an interstellar/galactic background different from the one that is supposed to be in place at this stage in the Psychotechnic History. 

Authors try to fit stories together into common schemes that do not always work. In my opinion, "Entity" and "Symmetry," both included in The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3, do not fit and we know that the concluding instalment, "The Chapter Ends," is disputed.

Nerthus And Other Places

Future history backgrounds include repeated references to fictional places. Robert Heinlein's Future History has Luna City on the Moon, Drywater on Mars and Venusburg on Venus. Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History has the colonized planet, Nerthus, which appears in four instalments and is referenced in a fifth. We see colonists on Nerthus, the Coordination Service has a base there and the Nomad ship, the Peregrine, visits there. Sandra Miesel tells us that:

"Nerthus grew into a prosperous hub of its galactic sector, attracting visitors from other worlds and cultures. It even hosted a regional base of the Stellar Union's peace-keeping Coordination Service."

-Sandra Miesel IN Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (Riverdale, NY, July 2018), p. 42.

Although Anderson's second future history series, the Technic History, features many fictional places, it does not focus on any particular locations - its equivalents of the city of Stellamont on Nerthus - but instead shows entire planets, notably Earth/Terra and Gray/Avalon, at successive stages of their future histories.

Khazaki Politics

"Star Ship." 

For discussion of Khazak, see Planet Stories, combox.

OK. On Khazak, King Aligan of Krakenau had outlawed Prince Volakech who, however, raised an army of pirates, mercenaries and other outlaws and bargained with groups within the city. The rebels capture the royal arsenal of human-made guns and crush resistance. Volachek also seizes the single recently constructed rocket because he wants to reach the orbiting Star Ship and thus command the planet. The rebels within the city were led by Masefield Carson, now King Volachek's lieutenant, but so far have failed to apprehend Carson's sister, Ellen, the only being of either species on Khazak who can fly the rocket because she had learned astrogation from her grandfather, killed by the rebels. 

As you can see, this is quite a complicated scenario specific to a single short story. The instalments of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History are not episodes of a single narrative but more like beads on a string. When the conflict in Krakenau has been resolved, the History will move to another planet, Nerthus.

Anson On Khazak

"Star Ship."

Dougald Anson is human but his skin is tanned by the sun and winds of Khazak. His clothes and weapons are Khazaki and he speaks Krakenaui more easily than Terrestrial. In other words, he is assimilated or acculturated like Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter the Virginian who was a captain in the Army of the Confederate States but became a chieftain of Thark and a prince of Helium, then Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom which means "Emperor of Emperors, Warlord of Mars." Anderson's Anson operates on a more modest scale but he has fought across Khazak.

Although Anson is our viewpoint character, there is a momentary shift of pov because it is old Chiang Chung-Chen who notices and nods gravely and wearily at the younger Anson's Khazakization.

The Andersonian power politics are more complicated than maybe I want to go into at this time of night. There are conflicting loyalties among human beings and Khazaki alike. And all of this is just on a single planet, not affecting anything else in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History.

Unusual Peace

"Gypsy" is an odd one out, especially since it falls between "Brake," which is fights in a spaceship, and "Star Ship," which is fights on an extra-solar planet. In "Gypsy," the environment on Harbor is so idyllic and society is so peaceful that the only problem is that some of those who remember a more adventurous life become restless - but they are able to return to that earlier life.

There is peaceful trade with the inhabitants of the fifth planet in the system. There is no physical conflict either between the human beings on Harbor or between them and anyone else. The only conflict is the disagreement between those who want to remain on Harbor and those who prefer to leave and this is easily resolved because each group gets to do what it wants. An unusual Poul Anderson story.

A similar story is "Rescue on Avalon" in the Technic History. Despite the human viewpoint character's initial antipathy to the Ythrians, two intelligent species can easily share a planet.

Description And Action

"Star Ship."

Dougald Anson sails into Krakenau at sunset, in the rain and into uncharacteristic darkness and silence in the city: 

no water front torches or music; 

recently installed street lights unlit. 

A single flash of blue lightning shows him:

the bay;

anchored galleys;

fishing fleet;

wharfs;

town;

hilltop citadel;

sky.

Visualize this vivid scene on screen. 

A street of "...high steep-roofed houses..." (p. 274) resembles a dark tunnel. Darkness is dispelled only when wet cobblestones gleam in the lightning. 

Andersonian description is followed by Andersonian action. Anson ducks a flung javelin and defends himself with sword against four mailed Khazaki warriors. Next, Andersonian political conflict - the warriors wear the brassard of Prince Volakech but:

"'There's more to this than Volakech, and more than a question of the throne,'..." (p. 275)

No doubt but questions of the throne are never far away. Meanwhile, for what it is worth, we have come a long way from Western Reformists building an asteroid base in the Solar System.  

Separation

The Traveler crew are separated from the rest of humanity because they have been blown off course and cannot find Earth. Eventually, their descendants, the Nomads, will encounter and interact with other human beings but will remain Nomads. A long time later, all of humanity will migrate to the Galactic centre, leaving Earth behind.

The human beings in "Star Ship" are separated from the rest of humanity because they have landed on a planetary surface and cannot get back off it, at least not for a couple of generations.

There are other examples in the Psychotechnic History and also in the Technic History. Poul Anderson welcomed spatial dispersal and human diversity and also recognized that, after many generations in alien environments, descendants of human beings would cease to be human.

If there are intelligent beings billions of years in the future, then it will not matter whether they are directly descended from us because they will be completely unlike us in any case. They might not even be organic - and that thought takes us from Anderson's first future history to his last.  

Seasons

An author can tell us in a single word that a year has elapsed or alternatively can evoke the passage of time by recounting the passage of the seasons:

"That summer blazed up into fall, winter came, spring, and summer again, while we made ready. Our last year on Harbor."

-"Gypsy," p. 269.

"The days turned to weeks and spring turned to summer...

"Autumn came suddenly and still he had not made a move. When it got colder he bought an electric heater..."

-Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest (London, 2010), p. 730.

We appreciate the passage of time more with a longer description. We realize how much preparation is necessary before leaving Harbor and it is restful to read about Larsson's fugitive character in hiding:

"...staring out of the window, day after day, week after week."

-Larsson, op. cit., p. 731 -

- while only seconds elapse for us as readers.

What Has Happened?

 

"Star Ship."

When Dougald Anson returns to Krakenau, the city is dark and quiet:

"It wasn't right. He'd only been gone a few days. What had happened in the meantime?" (p. 273)

Returning home to find that things have changed is a common theme in sf but usually over longer distances and timespans! When Dan Dare returned to the Solar System after ten years, his old enemy, the Mekon, had conquered Earth in his absence. On a later occasion, Earth had been evacuated for some reason. When the protagonist of Larry Niven's A World Out Of Time returns after a relativistic round trip in suspended animation to the galactic centre, the Solar System is barely recognizable and what might be Earth is in orbit around Jupiter.

But Dougald has been at sea for only a few days... But that things change and that you cannot go home again are perennial themes. Indeed, world-changing events are just beginning. 

Kraken And Volga

Poul Anderson, "Star Ship" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 2 (Riverdale, NY, February 2018), pp. 273-306.

"When Dougald Anson brought his boat into Krakenau harbor..." (p. 273)

- he swore in several languages, including Krakenaui, Volgazani and spaceman's Terrestrial.

We notice:

the same naming convention as in "Gypsy," with the personal name at the end, although this new character is clearly on a different planet;

"Krakenau" connotes "kraken" while "Volgazani" connotes "Volga," thus the sense of being in a foreign place at sea/on water;

unlike on Harbor, there might be more than one intelligent species involved here.

This is an independent story with the very loose connection that both are set within the fictional future timeline of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History.

Why Go?

"Gypsy."

Thorkild Gustav asks why anyone would want to return to space. He states his case emphatically. He has his feet on the ground, his own ground, his own home which is growing. He is building, planting, seeing it become real. It will be there for his children and theirs. There is air, wind, rain, sunlight, sea, woods, mountains:

"'Cosmos! Who wants more?'" (p. 266)

("Cosmos" again.)

He contrasts this with homeless, hopeless life "...in a sterile metal tank..." (ibid.)

Slow down, Gustav. The spaceship will be the Nomad's home with interior space enough for a park. Their voyages will be hopeful. He states good reasons why some should stay on Harbor but not necessarily everyone.

Those who depart say goodbye, knowing that they will never again see or hear from those who remain behind:

"It was like dying." (p. 270)

That implies that their voyage will be outward forever. However, by the time of the Peregrine, Nomad ships move around, trading and exploring, within a large but finite volume of space. On this basis, regular or occasional return visits to Harbor would be possible.

Peasants

"Gypsy."

Thorkild Alanna characterizes the colonists on Harbor as "'...a peasantry...'" (p. 268) albeit "'More or less mechanized...'" (ibid.) They are rooted to and close to the soil. They have the strength, solidity and provincial outlook of peasants. Most of them would not return to Earth even if they were able to. However, a city man would be unhappy if put among peasants and the same applies to those who grew up in the Traveler. A mountain range is not an acceptable horizon. They must see what is beyond it and must return to space.

This discussion of peasants reminded me of something that CS Lewis had written about peasants and aristocrats. See here. However, quoting from memory alone, I had slightly misquoted Lewis. Mark Studdock's:

"...education had been neither scientific nor classical - merely 'Modern'."

-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 9, 2, p. 540.

And:

"...he had neither peasant shrewdness nor aristocratic honour to help him. He was a man of straw..." 

-ibid., p. 541.

We find a good word for the peasantry in both Lewis and Anderson.

Contentment And Excitement

"Gypsy."

What work do human beings do when, after failing to find their way back to Earth, they colonize an uninhabited terrestroid planet?

Thorkild Erling regularly travels to the fifth planet in the system to exchange human-made machines for ores and allots.

Thorkild Gustav farms and domesticates local species.

Ortega Manuel superintends a vehicle factory. 

Petroff Ivan has a semirobot fishing boats project. 

Public posts, captain, communications officer, portmaster etc, are part-time voluntary occupations, the only compensation being first use of commonly owned machinery. 

Life on Harbor is described to sound idyllic. However, the contrast between the contentment of mechanized peasanty and the excitement of interstellar exploration is so intense that, inevitably, some will opt to return to the latter. It is good to know that the contentment continues for those who prefer it. What will Harbor be like centuries later?

Possible And Impossible Universes

In philosophy, in physics and in science fiction, including some works by Poul Anderson, we contemplate multiple universes, including alternative versions of otherwise familiar human history. The proposition that the German lost World War II is true in our universe but not in every possible universe. What propositions would be true in every possible universe? Many, e.g.:

1+1=2;

if ((if p, then q) and p), then q;

all white men are men -

- in other words, any proposition that is true by virtue of the meanings of the terms used. We do not have to observe every white man to check whether one of them turns out not to be a man because one of them turning out not to be a man has already been ruled out by the phrase "white men." On other hand, "All white men are conceited" is empirically falsifiable.

I have heard it argued that a universe to which mathematics or logic did not apply would not be an impossibility but merely a universe that we would be unable to perceive or understand. I think that this argument misses the meaning of "logic." Logic is not a set of rules that happen to apply in some situations but might not apply in others. It is the kind of consistency without which we would be unable to describe any situation. Thus, if a man began a talk on Socrates by stating that Socrates was executed in 399 BC and ended the talk by stating that Socrates was executed in 299 BC and if, when questioned about this contradiction, he replied that he is free to contradict himself because logic is not applicable, then he would not succeed in telling us when Socrates was executed.

A geometrical figure cannot be triangular and square at the same time. A surface cannot be red all over and blue all over to a single observer at the same time.

Every narrative assumes two propositions: 

"There is a narrative"; 

"The narrative is (fill in the blank)."

Spatially distinct and temporally enduring subjects and objects of consciousness are part of the first proposition. not of the second.

However, that still leaves a lot of scope for other possible universe to differ from ours. Poul Anderson gives us the Romans losing the Second Punic War and worlds ruled by magic instead of physics.

Cosmos

A very long time ago, I read a fanzine article by Sandra Miesel about Poul Anderson's many future history series. I remember only two points. 

Miesel described the Technic History in which the Terran Empire rises and falls, a process that takes about a thousand years. (Without the hyperdrive, a single millennium would have been a very short time on an interstellar scale.)

Miesel referred to another future history series in which the characters swore by Cosmos. Is this the Psychotechnic History? The Chronology of the Future dates the beginnings of the Cosmic Religion to 2130 although we are told nothing about this religion. (By contrast, we learn something about Cosmenosis in the Technic History.)

Remembering the time spent wandering through space in the Traveler, in which he was born, Thorkild Erling reflects:

"...before Cosmos, I had loved every minute of it!"

-Poul Anderson, "Gypsy" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 2 (Riverdale, NY, February 2018), pp. 255-270 AT p. 262.

When conversing with his wife, he exclaims:

"'...good Cosmos, Alanna!'"

-ibid., p. 263.

In another isolated community on another planet later in the Psychotechnic History, Masefield Ellen exclaims:

"'Oh - oh Cosmos, no!'"

-Poul Anderson, "Star Ship" IN Volume 2, pp. 273-306 AT p. 300.

(Small details like naming conventions and swear words indicate a common timeline.)

Sandra Miesel's sign-off italicized passage in Volume 2 concludes:

"The Cosmos and the life it sheltered held challenges both unpredictable and inexhaustible." (p. 307)

The capital initial suggests that maybe this "Cosmos" is not just the universe or the cosmos but the subject of the Cosmic religion. We will look out for any further references in Volume 3.

Meanwhile, we are free to imagine anything about the Cosmic religion! I suggest that the empirical universe and the object of numinous or mystical experience are a single reality differently perceived. See here.

Revisiting "Gypsy"

As we read or reread Poul Anderson's "Gypsy," how much internal evidence do we find that this story comes after anything that we have read before? I will check but I don't think that there is any. There does not have to be, of course. History is full of populations living in their specific contexts without referring to any earlier events or to any wider perspectives. But everything is connected anyway. The protagonists of "Gypsy" found the Nomads who will later interact, frictively, with the Coordination Service, a branch of the Stellar Union, the successor of the Solar Union and before that the UN world government which was only just in the making in the aftermath of World War III (its own date now in our past) in the opening instalment of the Psychotechnic History, "Marius." We recognize future history substantiality and complexity even though these qualities in this series do not match the corresponding features of its successor, the Technic History.

A reminder that I will be away from the computer for all of tomorrow.

After "Brake"

Poul Anderson's "Brake" seems less barren a story every time I reread and reassess it. The first time, it seemed like just one fight scene after another and it is largely that, of course. 

The Chronology of the Future lists the Second Dark Ages as commencing just thirty years after the events of "Brake." We hope that the characters that we have come to know do not come to grief.

Sandra Miesel's interstitial passage between "Brake" and "Gypsy" informs us that:

"A saner civilization emerged..."

-Sandra Miesel IN Poul Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League (Riverdale, NY, February 2018), p. 253 -

- from the Second Dark Ages.

It is some time before we see anything much of that civilization. "Gypsy" and "Star Ship" are about spaceship crews who, for different reasons, have been separated from their civilization. And the Stellar Union is not founded until after the events of both those stories. In any case, history happens which is the point of any future history series. Most of the characters appear only in their single short story.

Humanity And Physics

"Brake."

I have learned a new reason for a spaceship not to land on a planet. Nuclear energy can lift and lower large masses but:

"To build up her fantastic velocities, [the Thunderbolt] must spurt out ions at nearly the speed of light: which required immensely long accelerating tubes, open to the vacuum of space. They would arc over and burn out if air surrounded the charged rings." (p. 226)

Couldn't the rings be covered for a descent with retro-rockets?

Lifeboats are useless at hyperbolic speeds, i.e., greater than Solar escape velocity, because smaller craft would run out of reaction mass before decelerating sufficiently.

There were only four men in the Western Reformist hijack gang and Banner has killed them one by one but now there is the problem of decelerating the sabotaged Thunderbolt. The human problem has generated a physical problem but Andersonian heroes are problem-solvers.

Visually Realizing Narrative Details

"Brake."

Luke Devon has had Tighe System training and therefore is a Sensitive Man as well as a Planetary Engineer and a Rostomily clone.

All this action requires cinematic or graphic treatment. Prose is an inadequate medium especially for a reader with abstract, non-visual thought processes. A visual medium would also be an opportunity to show us some of what the characters merely refer to:

Americans as well as Ganges River farmers worshipping the Destroyer;

the other religions alluded to;

the Western females that Banning dislikes;

the Western Reformists' asteroid base which they hope to build into a fortress.

There is more here than we might expect but it is necessary to dig it out of the text.

Shakespeare And Action

"Brake."

Luke Devon, the Planetary Engineer and Rostomily Brother, quotes from Henry IV, Part 1, Act 1, Scene 2, in the middle of an action scene on p. 232, then is shot, although not killed, by a man whom Captain Banning then kills by throwing kitchen knives in zero gravity. Passengers are trying to hijack the ship although we do not yet know why. Several characters have been killed and more will be. I have summarized all of this action in earlier posts.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a day trip to London which is a long way from Lancaster, from North West to South East, so there will be few or no posts.

The THUNDERBOLT And Her Passengers

"Brake."

On p. 219, the Planetary Engineer, Luke Devon, quotes Hamlet.

On p. 220, Banning deduces that Devon is a Rostomily Brother although we have to have read the earlier story, "Un-Man," to make much sense of Banning's reflections on that earlier period when the embattled UN world government had been defended by Un-men including Rostomily clones.

Engineers began to terraform Ganymede and Callisto in "The Snows of Ganymede." Now, Devon takes terraforming equipment to Europa.

In conversation with Serge Andreyev, Devon summarizes much information for the readers' benefit:

the Thunderbolt is a large spaceship;

she is beyond Mars en route to Jupiter;

there are fifteen people, crew or passengers, on board.

Banning lists the passengers:

Cleonie Rogers, tourist;

Devon, the Engineer;

Andreyev, Solar Union bureaucrat sent to negotiate a trade agreement;

Robert Falken, nucleonic technician accepting a job offer on Callisto;

Morgan Gentry, astronaut, hired to pilot inter-satellite shuttles in the Jovian Republic;

Gomez, professor of advanced symbolics, starting a position at the new University of X.

There was an X on Ganymede before but not a University: the familiar combination of history and change.

After Andreyev has pulled a gun on Devon, Banning regards the other passengers with suspicion. 

Banning And Cleonie

"Brake."

"...[Banning] regarded [Cleonie Rogers] as a woman, which he did not the crop-headed, tight-lipped, sad-clad creature that was today's typical Western Terrestrial female..." (p. 221)

From within a spaceship, Anderson conveys as much as possible about social conditions back on Earth:

"...this bleak age..." (p. 217)

"...civilization-splitting tension..." (p. 220)

Kali worshippers versus puritanical pro-technologists. (p. 222)

OK. Tension makes people, including women, tense. But what do we think of Banning, denying womanhood to human "females" because they do not measure up to his preferences or expectations? Archaic twentieth century male sexist prejudice.

It seems that Cleonie is the only woman on board. We read on but, as I said in a recent post, there is a lot of physical action and conflict before we receive any elucidation of the issues involved. Basically, disagreements about how to organize society were not resolved in earlier instalments and therefore recur in a new form. The latest enemy is not the Actionists or the Humanists but the Western Reformers but we do not know that this early in the story. 

Introducing "Brake"

Poul Anderson, "Brake" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 2 (Riverdale, NY, February 2018), pp. 217-252.

"Brake" should be collected at the end of a volume as the seventh and last Solar Union story and the eleventh and last STL (slower than light space travel) story in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. The next volume should begin with "Gypsy" as the first Nomad story. The later section of this future history series is mostly set during the period of the Stellar Union whose Coordination Service has problems with the Nomads although a synthesis is reached in The Peregrine which is the sixth and last Stellar Union story and the second and last Nomads story. (Here I am excluding a couple of titles that are included in The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3.)

"Brake" begins with Captain Peter Banning. (One of my current correspondents, not mentioned here until now, is a certain Peter Bann who in no way resembles Anderson's spaceship captain with a similar name.) This story is set in a "...bleak age.." (p. 217) It locates itself within the Psychotechnic History by referring to clan gatherings on Venus and to a Planetary Engineer. The latter is a Shakespeare freak, quoting Macbeth on the opening page, although we do not yet know that this is because he is a Rostomily Brother. 

Since this series began, Venus has been terraformed and the Order of Planetary Engineers has been founded. Nothing stands still. And the next instalment, "Gypsy," will be set over five centuries later.

Imagination

This blog handles weighty stuff. No credit to me. I just record what others write. 

In the immediately preceding post:

Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix multiverse and Technic History;

Alan Moore's "last Superman story";

CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy.

Two media: prose fiction and sequential art story telling;

three genres: sf, fantasy and superheroes;

one issue: the relationship between the natural and the supernatural or 

the range of the human imagination.

Ransom speaks with an eldil.

Lois Lane remembers the Kryptonian.

The Old Phoenix hosts guests who are fictional to each other.

The Technic History involves technological advances and diverse religious beliefs - we read to the end of "Starfog" and want to continue.

Science And Magic

Rereading Alan Moore's excellent Superman stories, we are reminded that superheroes grew out of sf but soon became a hybrid genre, also incorporating fantasy. Aliens met magicians and ghosts. Poul Anderson wrote sf and fantasy but kept scientifically based and magically based characters in parallel universes. Nicholas van Rijn appeared in the Old Phoenix, briefly and surprisingly, but magic would have been an unwelcome, indeed impossible, intrusion in "Starfog," where all that matters is the laws of physics.

Alan Moore wraps everything up into a single package:

"'Magic' lake water

"(Probable unidentified radiation source.)"

-Alan Moore, Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow? (New York, 1997), p. 31, panel 4.

CS Lewis' Elwin Ransom met, on Mars, beings that were both extraterrestrial and supernatural. Keeping these two categories apart is:

"...false security..."

-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT 1, p. 151.

Maybe. Maybe we will find out.

Order And Chaos

"...the minions of Chaos were as determined as the forces of Order. A collision was inevitable."

-Sandra Miesel IN Poul Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 1 (Riverdale, NY, February 2018), p. 215.

Order versus Chaos in the Psychotechnic History? It is Law versus Chaos in some of Poul Anderson's fantasies and chaos, manifested in a personal causal nexus, is the ultimate enemy of the Time Patrol.

See:

Law, Chaos And Nazis.

Chaos is uppermost in the next instalment, "Brake." A post-war era begins in "Marius" and approaches its end in "Brake" - even though there was one interplanetary war between these two bookends!

"Brake" was a difficult story on first reading - continuous action with no explanation until very near the end - but I now know what to look out for on rereading: a Planetary Engineer who is also a Rostomily Brother; a reference to the seminal figure of Fourre; bizarre sectarianism on Earth, even more bizarrely referred to only tangentially by characters in space.

Here, we prepare for a house move, although within Lancaster, and for participation in some current activities. Stay tuned.

Avalon

"The Snows of Ganymede."

A Ganymedean Outlaw assesses a Planetary Engineer's spacesuit:

"'Not Ganny make,' he said. 'Mebbe they be really from Earth.' He spoke as a man at home might have spoken of Avalon." (VIII, p. 198)

In 2024, we reread a story published in 1955. This generates two chronological perspectives. First, a story published in any given year obviously might refer to works published earlier than that year. Secondly, we now regard 1955 as a long way in the past and therefore can reflect, e.g., on what that same author wrote after that.

Avalon is part of our history whether we are in 1955 or in 2024. For an incursion of Arthurian myth into modern sf, read CS Lewis' The Hideous Strength, where Avalon becomes Abhalljin or Aphalljin in Perelandra, i.e., on Venus.

Secondly, everyone here knows that Avalon is the name of a major planet in Poul Anderson's second future history series, the Technic History. This "Avalon," written in 1973, exists not only in a later period but also in a different timeline than "The Snows of Ganymede." Rereading "The Snows...," we automatically think of the Technic History Avalon although obviously Anderson cannot possibly have intended that back then. Some connotations are retro-.

Power-Beaming And John Milton

"The Snows of Ganymede."

Each future history instalment builds on the foundations of earlier instalments. Thus, power-beaming technology is developed in "Holmgang" and crucially contributes to the climax of "The Snows of Ganymede."

Sometimes Biblical quotations are supplemented by other literary quotations. Thus:

"'They also serve who only stand and wait...'" (IX, p. 206)

I think that we all know it but where is it from?

When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. But patience, to preventThat murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His stateIs Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.”

-John Milton, "On His Blindness."

The Planetary Engineers speed and post o'er the Solar System without rest.

The Subconscious Mind Collaborates

 

"The Snows of Ganymede."

Although the Psychotechnic Institute has been outlawed, psychodynanics has benefitted the Order of Planetary Engineers:

"...a Planetary Engineer had training for his profession such as had never been seen before. He didn't have to stew for weeks before seeing the answer to a problem.

"His subconscious mind collaborated all the time." (IX, p. 205)

Energy sources, coal and oil, lay untapped in the Earth until the Industrial Revolution. After that, came nuclear and solar energy. Mental resources remain largely untapped. Psychological understanding and training should be able to release previously untapped mental potentialities. What will fully developed brains and minds produce? The solution to a problem enters consciousness after the unconscious mind has had time to work on it. How quickly will answers be found if the subconscious and conscious minds collaborate continuously? How much potential is there in the whole population? At present, intellectual capacities are educationally developed only to the extent that they are needed by the present job market. The Engineers terraform planets. What will unleashed mental abilities achieve in the Solar System and beyond? 

Social Eating

"The Snows of Ganymede."

"It was a shaking effort to nibble sedately at the food instead of wolfing it." (VIII, p. 199)

The dignity of the Planetary Engineers must be preserved even when they are guests of barbarian Ganymedean Outlaws. This is another sentence on which I will hang some remarks that are more about life than about Poul Anderson's text. But fiction is about life. In fact, I can make a comparison between the Order of Planetary Engineers and the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. 

Brother Wilfrid told us that he refrained from eating sandwiches in front of other rail passengers because, being hungry, he might have eaten them hungrily. He was conscious of his public image. A monk should not seem to act from greed, hate or delusion - in this case, greed. 

Also, once again on the train, Wilfrid experienced hostility from a drunken football supporter whose team had lost a match. Wilfrid's monastic garb and appearance antagonized the drunk. Wilfrid decided, while travelling, to conceal his habit under an overcoat and his shaven head under a woolen cap because a drunken football supporter whose team has lost a match has a right not to be abruptly confronted with the fact of organized religion if he doesn't want to be.

On Ganymede

"The Snows of Ganymede," VII-VIII.

Snow on the ground is ammonia crystals. Shadows are hard and sharp. Amber Jupiter light sparkles on solid ammonia fields, flashes off ice glaciers and drowns out any stars in that part of the sky. When Jupiter is full, it allows full colour vision. Walking is a long glide. Thin air makes objects seem close but the near horizon makes them seem far. Spacesuit failure causes choking, exploding or rapid freezing. Most of the city, seen in earlier chapters, is underground. Outlaws live behind airlocks in natural caves and tunnels, lit, heated and ventilated, and range far because they cache oxygen bottles.

The information in the text is succinct but conveys a sense of what it must be like to be there.

Wind In ZEN AND...

Sometimes a passage elsewhere in literatures echoes passages in Poul Anderson's works. See:

Literary Writing In The 1930s

Robert M. Pirsig differentiates between the roots and the branches of reason. Then:

"'People keep looking for branch extensions of reason that will cover art's more recent occurrences, but the answers aren't in the branches, they're at the roots.'

"A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop. 'The ancient Greeks,' I say, 'who were the inventors of classical reason, knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future.'"

-Robert M. Pirsig, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance (London, 1989), 14, p. 174.

Regular blog readers will recognize what I am getting at here: wind punctuating, emphasizing and possibly even commenting on the dialogue. This is almost part of Anderson's grammar to such an extent that readers might not notice these background sound effects any more than they notice his literal grammar: whether he uses a comma or a semi-colon etc.

However, this does not exhaust Pirsig's references to the wind. He continues:

"'They listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?'" (ibid.)

This wind is taking us somewhere unexpected. There is further discussion of wind and another major reference before the end of this chapter but they take us away from the comparison with Anderson.

Life And Death

Sometimes we comment on the content and quality of Poul Anderson's writing. Other times, we comment on life or death with Anderson's words as our starting point, as in the previous post. But Anderson gives us many such starting points. 

We must each have a personal response to the idea of only having thirty minutes worth of oxygen left. I express mine and others might express theirs. I disagree with Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-copied from here.

I do not want to rage. Thomas' other approach is better:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

-copied from here.

I do not believe that they shall rise again. However, this second poem:

is a magnificent affirmation of life and continuance;

provided a title for James Blish;

fully expresses the spirit of Poul Anderson, maybe particularly as displayed in Tau Zero.

Half An Hour

"The Snows of Ganymede."

The two surviving Engineers, Davenant and Kruse, are in spacesuits on Ganymede with only half an hour of oxygen left:

"They could stretch out their lives by sitting still, but there was no point to that." (VII, p. 190)

There would be a point if it were known for sure that there was nowhere for them to walk to and therefore that all that remained to them was to spend their remaining short span of consciousness in recollection, reflection or contemplation. However, if there is the remotest possibility of walking to a source of oxygen, then they need to keep moving while maybe, if they want to and are able to, remaining recollected, reflective etc. I do not know how I would respond. I do know that I have thought that I would respond in one particular way to an upcoming situation and have then been surprised by my spontaneous response in that situation when it arrived. Decades of meditation practice help. That is all that can be said for now. If I have some meditation realizations, then I might know more. If I survive a close shave with death, then I will definitely know a lot more. Like the Planetary Engineers, all of us face the democracy of death.

Escape And Survival

"The Snows of Ganymede."

After the recent action scene: the captured rocket, also described as a boat, has wheels. It moves down a corridor and up an airlock ramp, then takes off. Again, the escape goes more smoothly than it might have done. We are told that:

"It was useful, having enemies indoctrinated out of all initiative." (VI, p. 189)

Why is this? It turns out that:

"No one had thought to cut off the automatically opening valves." (ibid.)

Poul Anderson's narrative imperative is to get the Engineers out of the city as quickly as possible so there is a plausible explanation for each comparatively easy stage in their escape. His next imperative is to have the rocket shot down and most of the Engineers killed. Thus, we return to the opening scene where three, then only two, survivors trekked across Ganymede. Everything since the end of Chapter I has been a flashback. Now, at the beginning of VII, we have returned to our starting point. So what happens next? We read on but I take another break from rereading. Anderson's heroes endure - those of them that survive, of course. I think that human resilience is his most consistent message.