Spacefarers II

Implacability is also inner: "inner space." When we look inside ourselves, we see that we are still the same person that we were yesterday and the day before that. This cannot be changed by an act of will or by a magic rite. A monk interviewed on television made the point that he had not become "Super-monk" immediately on taking his vows.

As a species and as individuals, we were active organisms long before we became reflective subjects. By the time we begin to reflect on life, our lives already contain both the effects of past actions and a deeply rooted disposition to continue acting in the same way even though this has been problematic. This is the problem of "karma" (action) which need not involve rebirth. Actions matter because they have consequences, the same kinds of consequences for the same kinds of actions. Implacability again.

Poul Anderson's first future history series addresses the issue that the "protean enemy" of mankind is mankind. Practicing zazen means facing this fact twice a day. It does not involve realizing supreme enlightenment, unfortunately. We have to sit with whatever comes up but we don't have to like it. But self-knowledge is better than self-deception.

Whittering Wind On Wayland

A Circus Of Hells.

Shipwrecked on Wayland, Djana wants to send a message courier torpedo back to Irumclaw although this will get Flandry into no end of trouble with his superiors. They watch for the torpedo to depart. The view is desolate, black sky, boiling fog and steaming mist as carbon dioxide and ammonia snow vaporizes, exposing water ice and, of course:

"A whitter of wind came in through the hull." (p. 231)

A flying Waylander robot destroys the torpedo.

Good night.

Spacefarers

A Circus Of Hells.

"Now she faced the spacefarers' truth, that the one thing we know for certain about this universe is that it is implacable."

-CHAPTER FOUR, p. 224.

Cosmic implacability is perpetually evident to spacefarers because they have to be continually protected either from vacuum in space or from an unbreathable atmosphere and other hostile conditions on a planetary surface. Earth is the one place in the universe where we do not die immediately. But the implacability is here, nevertheless. Gravity gets us if we fall from a height. And I need hardly list other dangers and threats. Spacefarers see Earth as a borderless unity and the only (so far) abode of life so maybe life on Earth needs to be based on "the spacefarers' truth."

Jake

A Circus Of Hells. 

See:

Spaceships' Names

Terran Naval Craft

Flandry's scout boat is called Giacobini-Zinner because the boat is Comet class and Giacobini-Zinner is a comet.

Flandry nicknames his boat "Jake" for obvious reasons. I never wondered about that boat's name before but the recent encounter with the Comet class boats, Encke and Ikeya-Seki, gave me reason to check. Every background detail in the Technic History is fully consistent.

"Poul Anderson immerses you in the future... Anderson puts you into a whole new world."

-Larry Niven quoted on the back of Young Flandry.

The Narrator And Flandry

A Circus Of Hells.

The narrator, Flandry's biographer or whoever he is, that had opened CHAPTER ONE returns at least twice. CHAPTER TWO begins:

"Such was the prologue. He had practically forgotten it when the adventure began. That was on a certain night about eight months later." (p. 203)

Flandry saunters from the naval base into Old Town. Gradually the text transitions from objective descriptions of his movements and actions to the sharing of his experience:

"He was glad when..." (p. 206)

After a while, we are being told his thoughts:

"A million! Ye gods and demons!" (p. 208)

The biographer is back at the beginning of CHAPTER FOUR:

"The next stage of the adventure came a month afterward. That was when the mortal danger began." (p. 221)

This narrator describes the star, Mimir, its giant planet, Regin, and Regin's moon, Wayland. Lacking an adequate computer, Flandry must manually control his scout boat's approach to Wayland:

"It didn't bother him." (p. 222)

We are back inside his head again. He is taut and aware of vibrations, odour and weight and hears blood beating in his ears.

Later, in this novel, Djana and a Talwinian will be viewpoint characters.

The Lost Planet

A Circus Of Hells.

Rax asks Djana:

"'Where is the lost planet? What is its nature?'"

-CHAPTER THREE, p. 216.

An evocative phrase like "the lost planet" might have different connotations for different readers. In fact, googling brings up multiple references. In the 1950s, I saw some episodes of a TV series and read perhaps the first two juvenile novels connected with this series. See here. I am finding the Wikipedia accounts slightly inconsistent. I like the idea of Space Agent From The Lost Planet as the last of six Lost Planet books and the first of three Space Agent books. Similar crossover titles are Tarzan At The Earth's Core and She And Allan.

This has taken us a long way from Poul Anderson's characters, Rax and Djana, but that is the nature of literary connotations. Possibly Anderson intended the phrase, "lost planet," to have just a literal meaning with no other implications but that is not necessarily how it works in the minds of his readers.

Needless to say, Anderson's "lost planet," Wayland, is entirely his own creation and in no way derivative from anyone else's ideas.

Rax's Face

 

A Circus Of Hells.

"Rax placed itself before [Djana]. She had no way of reading expressions on that face."

-CHAPTER THREE, p. 215.

Nor have we since the face has not been described to us! All we have been told is that Rax's "...lumpy gray body..." walks on "...four thin legs..." (p. 213), that it has two tentacles and that the head at the middle of this body is about level with Djana's waist. Rax sounds like a Reardonite in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History although the latter has four tentacles and petals for a head. The only Reardonite that we see is called Smokesmith and he is completely different in character from Rax - opposite, in fact.

My points here are:

imagine the confrontation between Djana and Rax on screen;

film-makers would have carte blanche to give Rax any kind of face that they could imagine.

We would want a film to be both faithful and imaginative.

Conversations

A Circus Of Hells.

A considerable quantity of prose fiction consists of dialogues between pairs of characters. Thus:

CHAPTER ONE: Flandry and Tachwyr;

CHAPTER TWO: Flandry and Ammon;

CHAPTER THREE: Djana and Rax;

CHAPTER FOUR: Flandry and Djana.

I am not about to analyze the whole novel but this pattern continues. To interact, characters must talk. Ammon hires Flandry for a job that will require a companion. Flandry insists on a female companion who will be Djana. Rax, working for the Merseians, suborns Djana. Flandry and Djana begin to work together. And so on. The conversation with Tachwyr repercusses later.

A very good suggestion by Sean M. Brooks was that, later in the series, back on Terra, Flandry could have met and reminisced with an ennobled Ammon who would by then have become very much a law and order man. In a single chapter of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Flandry converses successively with the Duke of Mars, Emperor Hans and Chunderban Desai. Leon Ammon could have been slotted in there.

The previous Duke of Mars had appeared in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and Desai had appeared in The Day Of Their Return. Never waste a character or a reference.

Connections

 

A Circus Of Hells.

Flandry has been assigned to the frontier planet, Irumclaw. He met a trader from there in Ensign Flandry.

He is in the only man in the base who speaks Eriau. He learned it in Ensign Flandry.

The visiting Merseians include Tachwyr whom Flandry met in Ensign Flandry.

Flandry intends to have his face changed. That will have been done before the next volume, The Rebel Worlds.

In A Circus Of Hells, Flandry's intervention will lead to a joint Terran-Merseian scientific base on Talwin. The base will be referred to in The Day Of Their Return and will be the site of later meetings of Flandry with Tachwyr and with Aycharaych in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

At the end of A Circus Of Hells, Djana puts a psychic spell/geas/curse on Flandry which will affect his life in The Rebel Worlds and in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

In A Circus Of Hells, Ydwyr tells Djana about Aycharaych the Chereionite and also mentions him to Flandry who, however, misses the opportunity to learn more.

Anything else?

Introductions II

This post continues the line of thought from Introductions. 

We are definitely inside Dominic Flandry's narrative point of view half way down p. 198 when we read his italicized thoughts. Before that, some unidentified narrator is informing us about interstellar inter-imperial affairs and also about Flandry's position within those affairs. He and Tachwyr are in the same profession so it is possible that they will meet despite the size of their respective interstellar navies:

"...many such encounters were taking place..." (p. 197)

This phrase conveys a sense of large-scale inter-imperial interactions involving many individuals, not just Flandry and Tachwyr.

We are told what Flandry has learned on Irumclaw and what he already knows from previous experience but this information is imparted in the style of a biographer. The transition to a fictional narrative point of view happens when Flandry reflects on relations with the Merseians at the mid-point of p. 198. The story begins...

Flandry And Bond

Dominic Flandry is definitely not an sf James Bond imitation because Flandry was published first, in 1951 as against 1953, but are they comparable as spy series? I think not. Flandry is primarily sf. The many differences far outweigh any similarities. If anything, Flandry resembles a space Hornblower because he rises through naval ranks and even spends some time at sea in his first instalment.

Bond's setting is the contemporary world at the time of writing whereas Flandry's is a fantastic and arguably impossible scenario of faster than light interstellar travel and many intelligent species. 

Bond's Enemies

Russia (a French trade unionist, SMERSH, GRU, KGB)

Nazis left over from the (still recent) War

North American gangsters (Spangled Mob, Hoods' Congress, a Canadian gang)

international organized crime (SPECTRE, Blofeld)

(Once, the KGB hires SPECTRE which sends an ex-Gestapo man to work with the Canadian gang.)

Flandry's Enemies

Merseia

barbarians

The only resemblance here is that Merseia operates like Cold War Russia.

When Bond has to operate in Japan, that is a bit like being on another planet! You Only Live Twice, like Ensign Flandry, becomes in part a fictional travelogue.

Introductions

Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 193-365.

(That is definitely the best A Circus Of Hells cover.)

p. 193 is an internal title page. p. 194 is blank. p. 195 is a dedication. p. 196 is blank. Thus, CHAPTER ONE begins on p. 197.

In the opening paragraph, some unidentified narrator tells us what this story is about:

"...a lost treasure..." (p. 197)

- etc. There are seven items in total. Flandry is quoted as saying that:

"...it begins with a coincidence." (ibid.)

We are not yet in Flandry's narrative point of view. Someone else is telling us about him. In the second paragraph, this unidentified narrator discourses about the improbability of Flandry and Tachwyr the Dark meeting again.

I am being cut off. To be continued tomorrow.

Birthday

Ensign Flandry, CHAPTER ONE.

I had skipped past the opening chapter so have glanced back at it. The Terrans make a bigger deal of the Emperor's Birthday than the British currently do of the King's, which we have recently passed: 14 November. Since King Charles' date of birth is 14 November 1948 and mine is 1 January 1949, he and I are the same age for most of the year with the King getting ahead in mid-November and me catching up in the New Year. Will I live into a fourth reign? The King has better medical care than me but is in poorer health so maybe this question is in the domain of my friend Andrea's preferred deity, Fortuna. This chapter introduces Crown Prince Josip who will have succeeded by the time of the third Flandry novel with disastrous consequences, his death later in the series sparking civil war and usurpation with loss of Imperial legitimacy. And that glance ahead covers most, although not all, of the remainder of the Flandry series. Each instalment, while it can be read as a discrete narrative, has its place in the series which has its place in the longer history, like the events in our lives.

Meaning

Ensign Flandry.

Flandry to Persis:

"'...here's a job I'm fitted for, that serves a purpose. If I don't take it, what meaning has life got?'"

-CHAPTER EIGHTEEN, p. 190.

The job is Intelligence. Flandry has to be active. Defending the Empire is a purpose. We are all different. 

My meaning of life has not depended on a job. I would have been fitted for academic work but now strongly suspect that life in an ivory tower would have been a bad idea. Jobs have been only a means to a livelihood and, fortunately, a comfortable pension. Meditation and understanding, which I value, have come from outside work although one teaching job did contribute to understanding.

Flandry's preferred career suits him. If I were alive in his era, then I would be on Terra trying to understand life and probably involved in sociopolitical activities that are not mentioned in Flandry's narratives.

A Blind

Ensign Flandry.

Lieutenant (j.g.) Sergei Karamzin to Ensign Dominic Flandry:

"'I wasn't ordered to stop thinking. And you know, I think this Starkad affair is a blind. They'll develop the war here, get our whole attention on this sinkhole, then bang, they'll hit someplace else.'

"Flandry blew a smoke ring. 'Maybe.'"

-CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 171.

Flandry knows but cannot say. Karamzin has almost got it. The Merseians will maneuver the Terran fleet into concentrating its forces on the Saxonian System until a rogue planet hits Saxo, causing it to nova and destroying the fleet. By exposing this ploy, Flandry has saved Terra and the Empire in his very first exploit yet this is all written so plausibly that we do not complain. Fortunately, his second instalment is lower key although it also has lasting outcomes.

Upward and outward.

Anderson's Two Main Series

Regular blog readers probably know by now that my two favourite kinds of sf are future histories and time travel, although the latter has to be done either well or not all, and Poul Anderson presents multiple excellent examples of both. 

Future histories are one kind of fictional history. Fictional past histories include Middle Earth, Narnia and, I suggest, the Bible. I do not mean that the entire Bible is a work of fiction. However, it incorporates multiple genres, including myth, genealogy, theologically interpreted history, some works of historical fiction (Ruth, Jonah, Job) and apocalyptic future history.

Because future histories are fictional histories, because much of Anderson's time travel is to the past and because he also wrote both straight historical fiction and other kinds of historical sf, e.g., about immortals, it follows that historical processes became major themes in his works. The Roman Empire withdraws from Northern Europe and eventually falls just as the Terran Empire falls although between instalments. 

Anderson's two main series have to be the Technic History and the Time Patrol with The King Of Ys, co-written by Karen Anderson, as a close third. History, again. Which is better: the Technic History or the Time Patrol? This is not a comparison of like with like. Each excels in its own sub-genre. The Technic History is longer, seven omnibus volumes as against two, so it gives us more to reread. I cannot be 100% happy about Time Patrol treatment of causality violation but I am probably not going to be happy about anyone's treatment of that paradox. Skillful presentation of the circular causality paradox, which Anderson also does, is more intellectually satisfying.

In any case, my personal favourite series is the Technic History above any other.

Spaceships' Names

Ensign Flandry, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Unfortunately, we approach the end of this novel yet again. There are only two chapters left. It has been unexpectedly enjoyable to reread this account of Dominic Flandry's initiation into Intelligence. The second last chapter describes a space battle. See here. Previously, it took some work to study this chapter and summarize the battle but it is unnecessary to repeat that exercise. This time, I will reread at a leisurely pace, again looking out for any details missed before but not needing to keep track of the fates of Sabik, Umbriel etc.

What do the names of the ships mean?

Sabik

Umbriel

Antarctica

New Brazil

Murdoch's Land

Encke

Ikeya-Seki

When I started to write this post, I did not expect to initiate those google searches. There is always more to be found in Poul Anderson's texts.

Miles Of Smiles

Ensign Flandry.

"A smile touched [Runei's] lips." (CHAPTER FIVE, p. 51)

"He could barely see how [Persis'] lips curved upward." (CHAPTER NINE, p. 85)

"...[Dragoika's] halfhuman face broke into a smile..." (CHAPTER SIXTEEN, p. 160)

In haste. Persis is human but Runei is Merseian and Dragoika is Starkadian. Do they all smile?

Good night.

Addendum and explanation, the following morning: At a certain point each evening, our router is switched off because it is located in a bedroom where its flashing lights are unwelcome. This is why I sometimes hurry to complete a post or publish a very short one late in the day.

Dominic Flandry's Personal And Professional Development

Ensign Flandry.

"'And I thought I was your first,' she said.

"'Why, Persis!' he grinned."

-CHAPTER NINE, p. 87.

But someone must have been his first. An "Even Younger Flandry" series is called for. He tells Persis about his parents and about his "'...record for demerits...'" (ibid.) at the Naval Academy. This makes him sound like David Falkayn who went further and was expelled from a militechnic (?) academy.

"What actually did happen? Everything was so gradual. Step by step. I never really did decide to go into Intelligence. But somehow, here I am."

-CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 133.

This is where Flandry realizes that a process has been happening that began, for him, when John Ridenour spoke to him here.

Later, Persis identifies what has gone from Dominic:

"Youth."

-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 152.

In his second novel, young Flandry makes mistakes but/and learns from them. He is on his way.

Time Travel Thought Experiments

A Thought Experiment

I am sitting here in a corner of a room at home NOW. (NOW is a moment that, throughout this experiment, is to be regarded as "the present," such that every other moment is either past or future.) In the opposite corner, there is either a Wellsian Time Machine or a Time Patrol timecycle. Five minutes from now, in the future, I will walk across the room, sit on this temporal vehicle and set off to travel thirty years into the past while remaining stationary in relation to the Earth's surface. (The Time Machine does remain stationary in relation to the Earth's surface whereas a timecycle can move in space as well as in time.) It follows that, thirty years minus five minutes ago, I arrived/appeared in the opposite corner of this room. On arrival, I performed some action which had an immediate consequence. For example, I shouted, "It works!" and was heard by my younger self in the other room on this floor. Let us pause the experiment there. That is quite complicated enough for us to deal with, at least at present. 

NOW, it is true to say that my arrival, my action (a speech act) and its consequence all happened thirty years minus five minutes ago. It is true that my departure has not happened yet. It will happen five minutes in the future. However, my arrival, my action and its consequence are not waiting to come into effect five minutes from NOW either when I sit on the temporal vehicle or when I set off on it into the past. They have already happened thirty years minus five minutes ago.

Some readers might think that this is obvious and wonder why I am spelling it out. Because there are people who think that a consequence of an action performed after my arrival will somehow not come into effect until after my departure. We are discussing time travel. In this example, which is travel from the future into the past, the arrival, as well as anything that happens immediately after the arrival, precedes the departure by thirty years. If that is understood, then there is no confusion. Otherwise, discussion becomes incoherent.

Prevented Events

At any moment in his career, a Time Patrol agent might deal with consequences either of events that have happened or of events that have been prevented from happening. Guion speaks of causes that are "'...not in our yet.'" I do not at present have access to the text to extract a proper quotation. Some passages in Time Patrol stories describe events that would have happened if other events had not prevented them from happening. 

How can an event that did not happen have any effects? In Time Patrol physics, a time traveler can arrive from a prevented future. But do prevented events have any significance in our timeline? In Lancaster, there is a place that I could go to but the consequences of my going there would almost certainly be negative. Therefore, I will not go there. That event, my arrival in a particular place, does not happen. I prevent it from happening simply by doing nothing. Therefore, I do not experience its consequences. Those consequences are in a prevented timeline but they affect my actions and inactions here and now. This feels almost like a Time Patrol scenario.

Microjumps

Why, in sf, is hyperdrive sometimes said to be unworkable or at least inadvisable too near a star? Hauksberg in Ensign Flandry gives a good reason based on the nature of the quantum hyperdrive. The concentration of matter near a star increases the chance of a microjump putting part of the ship in the same volume of space as another mass, even a pebble. As I remember, such a collision had been the cause of the spaceship crash in "The Three-Cornered Wheel." Flandry will minimize the risk by flying straight up from the ecliptic. And now I really am eating and running so I will have to sign off.

Sunrise

Ensign Flandry.

Flandry flies an airboat up to an orbiting spaceship. Anyone can write such a sentence. However, Poul Anderson's account includes the following paragraph:

"Korych flamed over the edge of the world. That sunrise was gold and amethyst, beneath a million stars." (CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 137)

Any screen adaptation should show that sunrise. Such descriptions are not a necessary feature of hard sf but are always included in Anderson's prose in any genre. Readers focusing on narrative alone and anxious only for the next stage in Flandry's escape might read past Korych-rise as if it was not there but it should certainly be noticed on rereading.

I will shortly repair to the previously mentioned Gregson Institute for conversation with some sf and comic book readers so this is probably the last post for today.

Hunt well.

Dwyr

Ensign Flandry.

Imagine this on screen. Dwyr the Hook is a badly damaged, mortally wounded Merseian cyborg. He suddenly arrives as Hauksberg confronts Flandry and Persis. 

They see:

seared, twisted metal;

a severed bleeding arm;

tight, gray skin on the remains of a face;

light coming and going in artificial eyes;

a rolling head.

They hear:

a toneless, wavering voice;

a rattling servomotor;

Eriau duodecimals coughed forth;

his name, Dwyr of Tanis, once the Merry;

wobbling words;

his wife's name, Sivilla, as he begs to be switched off.

Flandry does not notice:

oil;

scorched insulation.

Sudden horror, maybe discordant with the rest of the story - although the effects of combat should also be shown when appropriate.

Merseia Viewed From An Airboat

Ensign Flandry.

"...he saw the planet's curve through a broad viewport, the ocean gleaming westward, the megalopolitan maze giving way to fields and isolated castles." (CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 109)

The megalopolis in question is the original capital, Ardaig, which surrounds the bay where the River Oiss enters the Wilwidh Ocean. The city has more recently grown east to the Hun foothills. We read descriptions of cities on bays also on Hermes and Avalon. 

Ardaig might have been a city on any inhabited planet but one detail is more specific to Merseia. The isolated buildings out among the fields are not cottages, houses or even mansions but castles. On Merseia, feudal social relationships have survived into the industrial period. The southern continent had had a Republic of Lafdigu. (Also here.) However, the dominant Wilwidh culture is based around the feudal realms called Vachs. The castles remind us of this. No textual detail is wasted.

Languages

Ensign Flandry.

"Like almost every intelligent species, the Merseians had in their past evolved thousands of languages and cultures..." (CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 104)

It would be interesting to learn about some of the few exceptions.

In a Doctor Who episode, someone had transported the Doctor to a planet which they identified only by a number. When the Doctor said that he preferred names, he was told: "Skaro." The planet of Daleks and Thals! But, of course, the answer should have been something like: "Its name, in the principal language of its dominant species through most of its history, was 'Skaro.'" Someone travelling through space and time needs to give any name some kind of context.

The passage in Ensign Flandry goes on to explain that the process of domination by one culture and unification of the planet has not gone as far on Merseia as on Terra. For some, Wilwidh laws and customs remain a mere overlay and their native languages come more easily than Eriau. Olaf Magnusson, who will enter the Technic History in a later volume, will be fluent in Eriau and two other Merseian languages. I would like to speak at least one other language fluently. We were taught French atrociously.

Auxiliaries

Ensign Flandry.

The opening page of CHAPTER ELEVEN imparts information that will be important later and is far from obvious. The Roidhunate offers to lend Abrams an airboat for use during his stay on Merseia. (It will be bugged and they would not want him to travel around unescorted.) Abrams says that he can borrow an auxiliary from Hauksberg's interstellar vessel, the Dronning Margrete. However, these auxiliaries have hyperdrive and Merseian law forbids non-Merseians to operate any vessel with that capability in the Korychan System. But the two largest auxiliaries each have an auxiliary with only gravitic, not hyperdrive, capacity. Abrams says that he could use one of those. However, the Roidhun would be disgraced if the Merseians did not show his guests full hospitality. Abrams accepts the hospitality - for his own reasons.

Later, Flandry will escape from the Korychan System in a hyperdive auxiliary and will use its auxiliary to ram a pursuing Merseian craft. If such auxiliaries of auxiliaries seem implausible, Poul Anderson has at least taken care to introduce then well in advance of their crucial role in the plot. The same remark applies to rogue planets, even more crucial but already introduced in CHAPTER THREE.

Arrival

Ensign Flandry.

In CHAPTER NINE, Hauksberg, Abrams, Flandry and Persis travel to Merseia. As if on cue, CHAPTER TEN begins by describing the Merseian co-capitals, traditional Ardaig and brawling Tridaig. So far, the three men have each been a viewpoint character so we might expect one of them to experience Ardaig for us. However, the narrative point of view shifts back to the Merseian, Brechdan, who had been the viewpoint character of CHAPTER THREE. At a welcoming reception in the Terran Embassy, Brechdan does not meet Persis because the Terrans observe the Merseian custom of not having females present on such occasions. Brechdan correctly judges that he must play close attention to both Hauksberg and Abrams but dismisses Abrams' alert young aide as "...very junior." (p. 94) Later, he thinks that Abrams is such an obvious spy that maybe he is a stalking horse for someone else. Not quite. But Flandry would have warranted more attention. Brechdan also does not suspect that the agent whom he afterwards interviews is a double working for Abrams. Alert readers should realize this.

Enjoying ENSIGN FLANDRY

I am surprised to be enjoying Ensign Flandry so much on rereading it yet again.

It is chilling to read the point of view of a being, Brechdan Ironrede, for whom the subjugation or extermination of other intelligent species is everyday business.

Perhaps I have found the real understated turning point in Flandry's career:

"'You may be out of the matter anyway, Flandry,' Ridenour said. 'Your orders came through several hours ago.'

"'Orders?'

"'You report to Commander Abrams at Highport. An amphibian will pick you up at 0730 tomorrow, Terran clock. Special duty, I don't know what.'" (CHAPTER EIGHT, p. 79)

Special duty: Abrams' aide on a mission to Merseia. After this, Flandry will stay in Intelligence. And it is our old friend, Ridenour, who gets to tell him.

En route to Merseia, Hauksberg's ship passes close to an Ymirite vessel. This reminds us that there are:

"...hydrogen breathers whose civilization was nearly irrelevant to man or Merseian." (CHAPTER NINE, p. 82.

- and is a precursor of a later episode featuring Ymirites.

The in-flight conversations between Hauksberg and Abrams and between Flandry and Persis flow naturally and the descriptions of the Merseain co-capital cities, Ardaig and Tridaig, make them sound like real places.

My advice: reread Poul Anderson.  

Juvenile Adventure

Ensign Flandry reads in part like a juvenile adventure novel. Flandry is nineteen. When the Seatrolls attack:

"He was too excited to be scared." (CHAPTER FOUR, p. 35)

When he is about to go underwater as a part of a team to open negotiations with the sea-dwellers, he tells Dragoika:

"'Wonderful adventure. I can't wait.'" (CHAPTER SEVEN, p. 68)

I remember thinking that combat, like maybe flying over London in the Battle of Britain, would be exciting. Of course, Flandry soon sees the effects of combat.

OK. Maybe that second experience would be an adventure for someone who does not mind being submerged. Dragoika knows only that, where Flandry is going, there will be no sun, moon or stars but only blackness, cold, enemies and horrors. Flandry soon learns what their environment is like to the sea-dwellers. The novel is partly an example of the sf travelogue sub-genre.

Wishful Thinking

Ensign Flandry.

Hauksberg inwardly addresses Fodaich (Commandant) Runei:

"...I'll assume you're honest, that you'd also like to see this affair wound up before matters get out of hand. I have to assume that. Otherwise I can only go home and help Terra prepare for interstellar war." (CHAPTER SEVEN, p. 65)

How to reason with someone like Hauksberg? It is possible that the Merseians are not honest, that what Hauksberg calls "matters getting out of hand" is precisely what they are aiming at, in which case to assume the opposite is disastrous. War might be imminent but his policy is to assume that it is not? Surely he has to be prepared for at least two possibilities? And one priority is to gather as much intelligence as possible which means cooperating with Max Abrams instead of regarding that Commander of Intelligence as one of the "...iron-spined militarists..." (p. 66) I would expect to have many disagreements with Abrams if I met him but I would also pay very close attention to his every word about the Merseians. Of course, Poul Anderson has set it up that, in the Flandry series, the Merseians of the Roidhunate are the bad guys, regarding diplomacy as war by other means - but, fortunately, he describes these greenskins/gatortails plausibly and also presents other alien species that are completely unlike the Merseians. If Abrams had been present during the colonization of Avalon, then he would have known better than to assume the worst about the Ythrians.

Dragoika's Place

Ensign Flandry.

Despite her status as captain, shareholder and speaker, Dragoika lives not in the High Housing of the wealthy but:

"...in the ancient East Housing, on Shiv alley itself." (CHAPTER SIX, p. 52)

- which is full of memories ("ghosts") and of:

"'...too much stuff to move.'" (ibid.)

Give a lot to charity shops if they have any on Starkad!

Her stuff is:

furs

carpets

furnishings

books

weapons

bronze vases and candelabra

glass goblets

seashell souvenirs

plunder from across Starkad

The High Housing dwellings are each surrounded by hectares of trained jungle. Not gardens or lawns but jungle. Imagine this, an alien world, and how it would look on screen.

 

Apology To John Ridenour

In Young Flandry, I listed consequential characters who are introduced in Ensign Flandry:

Flandry

Tachwyr

Persis

Max Abrams

Dragoika

- but forgot John Ridenour - but have now added him. My experience of summarizing interconnections in Poul Anderson's Technic History is that it is necessary to write several drafts in order to include every relevant detail. Fortunately, blogging allows us to revise what has already been written. Blog readers should also draw attention to omissions or errors.

Ridenour is important because he converses with Flandry, then becomes a viewpoint character in a later narrative set on another planet which in turn is referred back to in the post-Imperial period.

The Technic History excels in interconnectedness - as I keep saying.

Future Allies

I envisage future episodes of the Technic History although they cannot be. Poul Anderson can no longer write them and no one else can do it as well as he did. I can suggest ideas but nothing more.

Throughout history, former enemies have become allies. It happened with the Klingons in Star Trek and it could happen with the Merseians in Technic civilization. We have seen sympathetic Merseians on Dennitza in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. Let us take that thought one stage further. The morale of the Roidhunate cracks before the Empire falls. Flandry and Tachwyr re-meet as former adversaries but with no remaining conflict between them.

If Aycharaych did, after all, survive the bombardment of Chereion, then he certainly has no remaining reason to serve the Roidhunate. Quite the contrary. I imagine him and Axor examining Ancient ruins together. 

Moons

Ensign Flandry.

Egrima and Buruz are the two moons of Starkad. Abrams sees them from Highport and Flandry sees them at sea. Seen from the Starkadian surface, Buruz is Luna-sized but Egrima is twice that. I have not noticed them before. (I have just checked the blog for any references.)

How many moons of fictional planets are there in the Technic History? How many moons have Merseia, Aeneas, Avalon, Dennitza etc? I am not going to look them up now but there is information to be found by searching this blog.

In Anderson's Psychotechnic History, the colonized terrestroid Atlantis is a moon of a gas giant called -? I posted it recently. (James Blish coined the term, "gas giant.")

I have to get back to work. This has been a pleasant lunch break.

The Wisdom Of Max Abrams

Ensign Flandry.

Abrams to Flandry:

"'Sure, the Empire is sick. But she's ours. She's all we've got. Son, the height of irresponsibility is to spread your love and loyalty so thin that you haven't got enough left for the few beings and the few institutions which rate it from you.'" (CHAPTER FIVE, p. 49)

Sick? Sick? Then something needs to be done about that. The military can reply, "That's not my department." And, indeed, I would not advocate a military take-over which would not cure sociopolitical sickness in any case. But the purpose of this series is to show us Flandry's adventures off Earth, not social problems on Earth. But that there is something wrong with the Empire is part of the backdrop of the series. Flandry staves off the Long Night which will nevertheless fall if not during his lifetime, then afterwards. The Technic History also covers the post-Imperial period. 

Chunderban Desai analyzes the problems in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and this should point the way towards a network of decentralized interstellar realms which do not all rise or fall together.

On Starkad

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

Starkadian land- and sea-dwellers are natural enemies. Merseians back sea-dwellers so Terrans back land-dwellers. In Highport on Starkad, the Terrestrial envoy, Lord Hauksberg, and his concubine, Persis d'Io, entertain Naval staff, including Ensign Flandry, the young hero who has improved relations with local allies and captured a Seatroll.

When Commander Abrams says that Tigeries (land-dwellers) barbecue any Seatrolls that they capture, Persis chides Flandry who had said that he liked the Tigeries. Abrams replies:

"'Might be hard for a civilized being to understand, Donna,' Abrams drawled. 'We prefer nuclear weapons that can barbecue entire planets.'" (CHAPTER FIVE, p. 44)

Slow down there, Abrams. There is no moral equivalence between an individual who tortures a prisoner and an individual who is a citizen of a nuclear-armed state. So far, such states have avoided using nukes since they were tested in Japan although there is still much "conventional" destruction. Long-range missiles have just been authorized in a current war. Is World War III starting as I type? I must switch on the TV for news. There is continual interaction between futuristic fiction and current affairs.

Onward, hopefully. 

A Unique Synthesis

I cannot help saying yet again that Poul Anderson's Technic History is a future history series with a unique and fascinating structure.

The Polesotechnic League Tetralogy climaxes and concludes with Mirkheim.

The People Of The Wind is a one-off novel set centuries later about human beings and Ythrians on Avalon.

The Earth Book Of Stormgate is a retrospective omnibus collection that tells us everything that we did not already know about the League, Ythri and Avalon. With each story, including one novel, introduced by an Avalonian Ythrian historian, this volume is a perfect synthesis of the future history so far.

Flandry In The Technic History

And so we return to Dominic Flandry although I am not sure how much remains to be said about him. I first read of Flandry in "The Game of Glory" in a British reprint edition of Venture SF. I did not know at first that Flandry was a series character or, later, that his series was part of a future history. It did not occur to me that that remark about lying to a telepath referred to an earlier story. At some stage, I learned of Nicholas van Rijn and his protege, David Falkayn, but was surprised to read in an sf mag letter column that Falkayn might have had dealings with Merseians. Now, of course, each of us can, if we want to, own the entire The Technic Civilization Saga with Flandry's name in the titles of four of the seven volumes. Van Rijn and Falkayn get one each which leaves just one other title: Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, begins with Mirkheim and ends with The People Of The Wind with four pivotal shorter works between them. That is the turning point of the entire Technic History.

When Abrams thought that Flandry was probably dead, he could well have been. How many people did die that would have made a big difference if they had lived? Does even a hypothetical omniscient being know all the alternative possibilities? Or do these possibilities exist in any case? Such questions take us out of the Technic History but into other works by Poul Anderson.

Flandry

If Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry had had a different title, then we would not have realized until its CHAPTER FOUR that it was about someone called Flandry.

CHAPTER ONE is set on Terra and its viewpoint character is Lord Markus Hauksberg who knows nothing of Flandry.

CHAPTER TWO is set in Highport on Mount Narpa on Kursoviki Island on the planet Starkad and its viewpoint character is Commander Max Abrams, Terran Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, who knows that Ensign Dominic Flandry is missing, probably dead. The rest of the chapter is about other matters.

CHAPTER THREE is set on a terrace of Castle Dhanghodan on Merseia and its viewpiint character is Brechdan Ironrede, the Hand of the Vach Ynvory, who knows nothing of Flandry.

CHAPTER FOUR, set back on Starkad begins by identifying its viewpoint character:

"Ensign Flandry, Imperial Naval Flight Corps, did not know whether he was alive through luck or management."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 1-192 AT p. 29.

So he is alive. Flandry has had a massive build-up: first, Volumes I-III of The Technic Civilization Saga; then, CHAPTERs ONE-THREE of this, his first novel. From now on, we are with Flandry, mostly, until the mid-point of Saga, Volume VII.

In MIRKHEIM

In Mirkheim:

Baburites (outwitted by a van Rijn employee in "Esau") seize Mirkheim (discovered by Falkayn in "Lodestar") and occupy Hermes (Falkayn's home planet);

Merseians (helped by Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan in "Day of Burning") have become disaffected from the Polesotechnic League;

Ivanhoans (seen in "The Three-Cornered Wheel" and "The Season of Forgiveness") and members of many other races, including Wodenites (Adzel's species), Cynthians (Chee Lan's species) and human beings have joined the Supermetals company founded by Falkayn to mine Mirkheim; 

a Mirkheim miner from Vixen bears the same surname as two Vixenite women who will appear later in the Technic History;

Grand Duchess Sandra's son by van Rijn has grown to adulthood and will be the next Grand Duke of Hermes;

David and Coya Falkayn's son is born and named "Nicholas" - his son, Nat, will have been born on Avalon in "Wingless."

Thus, Mirkheim combines as many plot threads as possible. The equivalent novel in Robert Heinlein's Future History is Methuselah's Children.

Longer And Shorter Future Histories

A longer future history series is able to invest more of its instalments in building its foundations. In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, Fourre, Valti and others begin to construct a new world order in the opening instalment, "Marius." That world order, expanding into the Solar System, subsists for the next ten instalments although it is in terminal decline in the last of these stories, "Brake." Then the narrative jumps abruptly to an entirely different interstellar/Galactic scenario centuries later.

In Anderson's Technic History, the pace is more leisurely and almost imperceptible. In the first nine instalments:

(i) the Solar System is explored;

(ii) other planetary systems are explored and Ythri is discovered;

(iii) Avalon is explored;

(iv) Adzel is a student on Earth;

(v) Nicholas van Rijn is introduced;

(vi) David Falkayn is apprenticed to Martin Schuster on Ivanhoe;

(vii) Falkayn has become a journeyman in van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors company;

(viii) other Polesotechnic League merchants are active on Ivanhoe;

(ix) van Rijn meets the Grand Duchess of Falkayn's home planet, Hermes.

These characters and situations will come together and will take their time about it. Considerable additional information is imparted in these instalments, especially since six of them acquire new, fact-packed introductions when they are collected in The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

The decline of the League is also gradual. It has begun in "Lodestar" and "A Little Knowledge," both also collected in the Earth Book, and has become terminal in Mirkheim which ties together every previous narrative strand. Thereafter, there is a step by step transition to a very different interstellar order, involving the Terran Empire, the Domain of Ythri (including Avalon) and the Merseian Roidhunate, all of which brings us to Dominic Flandry - and the Technic History continues long after both Flandry and Empire.

A More Complex Future History Series

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History is united by a few common background references - "Cosmos," Nerthus, the Coordination Service - whereas his Technic History presents multiple interweaving historical processes. The Merseian Roidhunate had been distant but growing in the pre-Flandry novel, The People Of The Wind. Pre-Roidhunate Merseians had appeared in "Day of Burning" and Mirkheim. In "Day of Burning," the Merseians had interacted with Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew comprising David Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan although van Rijn himself was not named in this story. Van Rijn, Falkayn, Adzel and references to Chee Lan's home planet, Cynthia, had all appeared before these four characters gradually converged. The second and third Technic History instalments introduce Ythrians and the planet Avalon. The People Of The Wind is about the Terran Empire attacking Avalon centuries after Falkayn has led the joint human-Ythrian colonization of that planet. Two short stories describe two successive stages of the colonization process. Two preceding short stories had recounted the proclamation and early days of the Terran Empire. And so on. I advise anyone new to sf to read Robert Heinlein's Future History and Anderson's Psychotechnic and Technic Histories in that order.  

Young Flandry

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume IV, Young Flandry, collects a trilogy of novels about the beginning of Dominic Flandry's career. The first novel, Ensign Flandry, assumes the existence of the Terran Empire and its antagonist, the Merseian Roidhunate, both of which had been introduced in previous volumes. Ensign Flandry introduces characters who will either reappear in later volumes or at least influence later events:

Flandry himself;

his Merseian opposite number, Tachwyr;

Persis d'Io whose son by Flandry will later serve the Merseians;

Max Abrams whose daughter, Miriam, mentioned here, will later marry Flandry;

John Ridenour who will be on Freehold in  "Outpost of Empire."

Dragoika of Starkad who, with some of her people, will later be evacuated to Imhotep.

Each future history instalment builds on previous ones. Actions taken by Flandry in his third novel and later in his series will have consequences in the very last Technic History instalment set several millennia later.

Superheroes

Current other reading: histories of superheroes, a genre that overlaps with sf.

HG Wells: a supervillain, the Invisible Man.

Larry Niven: Gil "the ARM" Hamilton; the protectors.

Julian May: Jack the Bodiless; Diamond Mask.

Poul Anderson: the UN-man; the Sensitive Man.

In addition, Anderson's Galactics, mentally generating an envelope of air and heat around themselves, fly not only through planetary atmospheres but also between stars faster than light. A few, but not many, superheroes can do this.

An Adventure

"The Chapter Ends."

"...half a dozen children watched [Jorun] with large eyes. The younger Terrans were the only ones who seemed to find this removal an adventure." (p. 204)

Just so. In my childhood, when my younger sister was told that we would be moving house, she regarded it as an adventure, not as a cause for regret.

This could be the cue for a series of juvenile narratives about extra-terrestrial colonization: a well-established literary tradition. Earlier in the Psychotechnic History, eleven year old Wilson Pete joined his uncle and aunt on Nerthus during the early colonization of that extra-solar planet. Later, we saw the planet when it had been fully settled. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, David Falkayn's twelve year old grandson is involved in the early colonization of the Hesperian Islands on Avalon. Later, we see that planet when it has been fully settled. 

Imagine colonizing a planet with non-human inhabitants. On Nerthus, there were non-humans because it was not known that there were natives when the first human colonists arrived. On Avalon, there are non-humans because human beings and Ythrians jointly colonized the planet. In "The Chapter Ends," the Galactics find an uninhabited Earthlike planet for the evacuated Terrans. Slightly less adventure, maybe.

Robert Heinlein's Scribner Juveniles feature extra-terrestrial colonization, e.g.: Red Planet; Farmer In The Sky; Time For The Stars. These three novels and two others, Space Cadet and The Rolling Stones, share a background with the first interplanetary period of Heinlein's Future History. (Of course, Time For The Stars diverges by presenting an alternative account of early interstellar travel.)

Sequels

Sequel to "Symmetry"

The duplicate Dunhams work together and become differentiated while matter duplication disrupts the Stellar Union.

Sequels to "The Chapter Ends"

The people from Earth settle on their new planet.

Jorun wondered irrationally whether the girl in the statue in Solis Township would be lonely in her indefinite future on a deserted Earth. She need not be. Science advances. Hulduvians and human beings find ways to control cosmic energy that do not interfere with each other's ways. Hulduvians on Jupiter and Saturn invite human beings to return to Earth. A monument is built to Kormt in the Township. Happy ending in an indefinite future.

Anything else?

Coffee break post.

Assessing The Second Part Of The Psychotechnic History

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History is unusual in splitting so neatly into two almost completely disconnected parts. In his later Technic History, Dominic Flandry's period incorporates multiple references back to Nicholas van Rijn's period.

In the second half of the Psychotechnic History:

"The Pirate" and The Peregrine make a good Trevelyan Micah two-parter;

they and "Gypsy" make a good Nomads-Coordinators trilogy;

Nerthus is a good unifying factor in six instalments;

"Symmetry" maybe leads in to the Third Dark Ages;

"The Chapter Ends" is a good conclusion;

other instalments add body to the future history.

It is all more than it seems.

A lunch break post.

Leaving

"The Chapter Ends." 

The last people living on Earth queue to enter spaceships that will take them away forever not only from their home planet but even from the Solar System and from the Galactic periphery where night skies are dark although scattered with stars.

Not exactly the same experience but, before Christmas, Sheila and I will leave a house where we have lived for forty five years, over half our lives to date. But we will move only a few streets and will be nearer to our daughter who, of course, grew up with us. Nevertheless, there will be a permanent departure from rooms with which we have been familiar for all this time. We hope that the new, smaller house will suffice for another twenty or more years. And I imagine the people from Earth on their new planet closer to the Galactic center. Potential sequels time again.