Supernatural Changes

As you know, I think of Poul Anderson and James Blish in parallel:

hard sf

original imaginative means of FTL travel, e.g., quantum hyperdrive and "spindizzies"

future histories, e.g., the Technic History and Cities In Flight

historical fiction

fantasy

That is quite a lot in common. Blish had a smaller output and much less time travel.

While staffing a stall at a musical event at Lancaster Kanteena this afternoon, I passed the time mentally by reviewing the dramatic events of Blish's Black Easter and The Day After Judgment. The closest approach among Anderson's works is The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson). In both cases, the action is mainly on the human level while the behind-the-scenes supernatural realms change.

The Andersons: Gratillonius is King of Ys while its gods and other gods withdraw before the advent of a single new god.

Blish: the demons win Armageddon but with unexpected results.

But we have summarized all this on this blog before. Comparable supernatural changes occur in the graphic fiction sequence of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman followed by Mike Carey's Lucifer:

Lucifer retires;

Dream dies;

God withdraws and is succeeded by his granddaughter, a British schoolgirl!

Despite all these fantastic changes, the universe continues, fortunately.