John Reed AFB, Vasiliev And Kunin

"The Pugilist."

I must correct a mistake before anyone else does it for me. Dowling's wife, Bonnie, writes to him at:

"...John Reed AFB, Willits, California 95491..." (p. 90)

"AFB" means "Air Force Base."

The political officer, Mannix, tells Dowling:

"'You're slanted for Commander here at Reed, once the mutiny begins.'" (p. 100)

Thus, "John Reed" is part of Dowling's postal address, not a pseudonym. 

Poul Anderson's political fiction becomes more complex, and thus more authentic, with every page. Russia, described even in the US as the Motherland, is on the verge of civil war between Vasiliev and Kunin factions. Mannix categorizes these factions as:

"'Party versus army.'" (p. 99)

He elaborates:

"'The essential struggle is between those who are loyal to the principles of the party, and those who would substitute military dictatorship.'" (ibid.)

Mannix includes Dowling in the latter group and indeed Dowling reflects that he and his fellow Decarutists have said:

"'...better government by colonels than commissioners." (ibid.)

Better government by neither but what do we make of Mannix's formulation? Who speaks of "the principles of the party"? If a Stalinist says it, then it is anti-democratic. But, when John Reed and many others say it, it means greater and indeed genuine democracy, people discussing, debating and deciding, not billionaires funding TV ads. Yes to the principles of the party!

John Reed And Vishnu

Final pageview count for yesterday, according to the computer: 1,167,871.

In Poul Anderson's "The Pugilist," the narrator's name is indeed Dowling. Because he is a prisoner and his whereabouts must be concealed from his former fellow conspirators, his wife writes to him as "John Reed," a significant name. See John Reed (journalist). Dying in Moscow in 1920, Reed "...may have soured on the Soviet leadership..." Indeed. He would not have supported the People's Republic of the United States in "The Pugilist."

In Anderson's "Strange Bedfellows," Indian political parties include Conservationists and Vishnuites. Worshippers of Vishnu the Preserver are usually called Vaishnavites. They are my favourite monotheists, being the most comprehensive, even incorporating the Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu. Ultimate reality is either He or THAT - or indeed She since there is also Goddess-worship.

Poul Anderson gets us to discuss an American revolutionary and a Hindu god while I eat toast, drink coffee, look out at the rain, plan a visit to Audiology and look forward to several good events in the next few weeks. Probably more posts later today.

Psychotechs, Listeners, A Leader And A Titoist

"The Pugilist."

The Decaturists employ "psychotechs" (p. 98) to give them treatment to prevent them from talking under either serum or torture. 

Microminiature listeners slipped into food operate off body heat!

The Decaturists have a leader, Sotomayor, his identity and whereabouts unknown even to them.

The political officer, Mannix, identifies the narrator's politics as "'...Titoist.'" (ibid.)

Interesting details but there are nearly thirty more pages of this story. Not tonight! I try to leave some time for other reading.

Does anyone know how accurate pageview counts are? My computer screen tells me that this blog has had 1,071,487 pageviews since 1:00 AM., which I find hard to believe. This count will continue for another three hours.

More Of The Future History In "The Pugilist"

"The Pugilist."

In the Sacred War, Russian missiles destroyed the US's second-strike capability;

therefore, US cities became hostages, rendering their subs impotent;

however, the USSR was too damaged by US missiles either to control their Sino-Japanese antagonists or to occupy the US;

but a treaty imposed inspectors, advisers and arms limitations on the US;

Moscow determined who was an acceptable candidate for US President;

the US government began collectivization;

the Constitutional Convention proclaimed the People's Republic;

later, the narrator (he had to be born first) and others joined the Stephen Decatur Society.

The narrator's grandfather had expounded to him:

militarists, capitalists, imperialists, racists and the bourgeoisie were blamed for the war;

however, the liberals lowered the US's guard, the conservatives saved on taxes, the radicals disrupted and the copouts copped out!

Thus, some history and a comprehensive analysis.

Stone Mountain And Stephen Decatur

 

"The Pugilist."

I had not heard of Stone Mountain. The regime destroys the monument as a:

"...symbol of oppression..." (p. 94)

History should be preserved. In Britain, a crowd pulled down a statue of a slave trader and threw it into Bristol Harbour. The statue was rightly recovered and is now exhibited in a museum in its graffitied state. A jury found four people who had pulled it down not guilty of criminal damage. A new plaque on the now empty plinth tells the story. We live history and make it.

The narrator was a member of the Stephen Decatur Society. Here, more than ever, Poul Anderson's knowledge of history informs his futuristic sf. Remember the short story called "Marius." Another almost forgotten short story that I had approached with misgivings yields far more than expected.

Imposed Change And Future History

"The Pugilist."

There are changes that people, individually or collectively, want and implement for themselves and others that are imposed on them. Before the narrator's birth, the US government had tried to modernize, i.e., collectivize, Georgia but, because this was impracticable:

most small farms, stores, sawmills and repair shops were put on leasehold;

schools got taped propaganda instead of trained political educators;

the narrator's grandfather ranted that the black Sheriff was being used.

That grandfather had fought for the imperialist regime, suppressing the Mekong Revolution. The narrator's father was ten at the time of the Sacred War and the subsequent hungry years stunted his growth.

I am doing my best to summarize future historical details as they are disclosed to us. There are three generations here and there is always a wealth of information in a Poul Anderson short story. 

The Wind Shouted Too

 

Poul Anderson, "The Pugilist" IN Anderson, Conflicts (New York, August, 1983), pp. 89-127.

The opening sentence:

"They hadn't risked putting me in the base hospital or any other regular medical facility." (p. 89)

First person narration plus this guy is dangerous and in a military setting.

There is a war on. Although they are in the US, the narrator's wife works in a co-op and a Recreation Bureau has to ok its employees vacationing at Lake Pillsbury.

A guard has a stunner - a futuristic weapon, I think? The regeneration techniques that the narrator mentions are certainly futuristic.

This guy has been:

"'...charged with treasonable conspiracy against the People's Republic of the United States...'" (p. 92)

- not just individual treason like the narrator of "High Treason."

That phrase, "People's Republic...," is used literally, not sarcastically or ironically.

The narrator's wife, Bonnie, writes to him as John Reed but a political officer addresses him as Colonel Dowling. All will be made clear, no doubt.

The US and the Soviet Union are at war against a Sino-Japanese alliance.

Somewhere during the changes that have happened, the narrator's grandfather shouted with:

"...autumn sumac a shout of red behind him, and the wind shouted too, till I imagined old bugles blowing again at Valley Forge and Shiloh and Omaha Beach. Maybe that was when I first thought I might make the army a career." (p. 94)

(A man shouts so the wind does: Andersonian pathetic fallacy.)

OK? I'm not. We understand some of what is happening but not all of it yet.

History And SF

"High Treason."

"(You see, I've read quite a lot of history. Hobby of mine, and a way to pass the long time between stars.)" (p. 56)

Historical fiction and futuristic sf have in common that they are set in periods other than that of the author and his readers. Poul Anderson wrote historical fiction and his sf includes historical sf. Interstellar travellers reading and reflecting on history is a good way to bring history and sf together.

"'Earth-type planets are none too common. They wanted the same real estate we did.'" (p. 57)

Exactly the same language is used of Terrans and Merseians in Poul Anderson's Technic History.

Because of the narrator's treason (= refusal to commit genocide), Earth will lose the interstellar war but this defeat will not be a disaster. It will be like the Americans defeating the English or the English defeating the French but not like the Germans winning World War II.

In the collection, Conflict, "High Treason" ends:

"So I am now going to spend what time remains in thinking about

"THE END" (p. 67)

- whereas, in the anthology, Four For The Future, this story ends:

"So I am now going to spend what time remains in thinking about"

Poul Anderson, "High Treason" IN Harry Harrison (Ed.), Four For The Future (London, 1974), pp. 45-59 AT p. 59.

Editor Harry Harrison saw no reason to add "THE END" after Anderson's unfinished concluding sentence and there isn't one.

Facing Death

"High Treason."

This is one of those occasions when a passage in a Poul Anderson text prompts personal reflections that take on a life of their own - and we think that this is valid and legitimate. Each of us has our own reflections, of course.

Today is Sunday, day of reflection. Yesterday I met and had a friendly conversation with a Methodist minister at a community event. A week from today, members of our meditation group will visit the Buddhist monastery to which we are linked over in the North East and will meet the Head of the Order before he returns to Canada. Although Jews have Saturday and Muslims have Friday, Sikhs in Christian countries attend Gurdwara on Sundays for convenience!

The passage:

"Perhaps I should not even have dismissed the chaplain. With so much religiosity about, as our universe goes down in wreck, I have painted myself more strongly Lucifer (for references to "Lucifer" in Anderson's works, scroll down) by not spending these last hours in prayer. Will my children hear at school, He wasn't just a traitor, he was a dirty atheist -? Never mind, I  am not entitled to a great deal, but let me claim the dignity of remaining myself." (p. 50)

"Remaining myself" can mean either shutting everyone else out or remaining honest and authentic.

Society is unhealthy if there is a religiosity that condemns "dirty atheists." Was the narrator offered a chaplain of his own denomination or was a single appointed chaplain foisted upon him? If the latter, then, if I were in the narrator's position and depending on the chaplain, I might have a conversation with him, then invite him to pray silently while I meditated. If he told me that I was damned, then I would invite him to leave.

"Spending these last hours in prayer..." can mean such different things for different people! God, if He exists, hears it all.

Impressionistic Reading: Beginning, Ending And A SPOILER ALERT

Poul Anderson, "High Treason" IN Anderson, Conflict (New York, August 1983), pp. 49-67.

At last starting to reread this story but not going very far with it this evening. (Darkness and rain outside.) 

It begins:

"In three hours by the clock they will be here to kill me." (p. 49)

First person, future tense. We expect this opening to be followed by some present tense narration and also reminiscences explaining the narrator's death sentence. Will he be rescued or reprieved or escape? Nothing in the text has yet identified genre but that will happen soon. They are on board a ship. What kind of ship? Since this is an sf collection, we expect a spaceship and indeed there is a reminiscence about flitting down to a planet further down on the opening page. We guess from the title and from some opening remarks that the narrator is a convicted traitor. We have read this story before so we remember in general terms how it ends. Since we are focusing here on narrative point of view and on the author's deployment of tenses, we might as well at this stage look ahead and compare the opening sentence quoted above with the concluding sentence:

"So I am now going to spend what time remains in thinking about

"THE END" (p. 67)

- half-sentence.

Comparison And Contrast With Non-Fiction

Other reading always illuminates.

Non-fiction records reality whereas fiction merely reflects it. Thus, an investigative journalist writes a book about a recent event. He refers to then Prime Minister Tony Blair among many other real people. We all (?) remember Blair and can confirm his existence and activities by consulting many printed or on-line sources, not just this single book - which I recommend. Indeed, Blair has been represented on screen by an amazing number of actors. I cannot find any total number. Dramatizations and docudramas are sources of information although they must be checked against nonfictional sources.

Poul Anderson writes a series of narratives of different lengths about fictional future events. He refers to two public figures among many other fictional characters. We have never heard of either of these two figures before reading Anderson's accounts of them and these accounts are our only sources of information about these characters although we must imagine that other people living in the same fictional timeline would have access to multiple, multi-media sources comparable to ours about Blair.

Freelady Hanny Lennart, a vice president of Global Cybernetics, is described as the guiding genius of the Home Companies which is one of the two cartels that have coalesced within the Polesotechnic League. As such, she converses with Nicholas van Rijn twice - in our hearing, I mean. Later:

"...serving the [Solar] Commonwealth at a credit a year as Special Assistant Minister of Extrasolar Relations..."

-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim (Riverdale, NY, March, 2011), pp. 1-291, AT XIV, p. 195 -

- Lennart converses twice with Admiral Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen of the Hermetian Space Navy. 

If I have overlooked any details about Lennart, then they are to be found in Mirkheim because that is the only work in which she appears or indeed is mentioned.

Brechdan Ironrede, the Hand of the Vach Ynvory, is the Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council and appears only in Ensign Flandry although he is mentioned twice later. Those works are our only sources on Brechdan.

Two important figures: how much must be known about them in their periods and in later history? Any author who sets out to compile a history of Anderson's Technic History will have to absorb every minute datum in Anderson's texts and might also have to improvise some more whereas the main task for a biographer of Blair has to be selection. Fiction mirrors reality but cannot reproduce its detail or complexity. 

Today, we braved the elements for a Unity march with band and banners along Morecambe Promenade so I come late in the day to blogging.

War In Poul Anderson's Technic History

"Margin of Profit"

Fighting pirates. Could have become a war.

"A Sun Invisible"

Invasion of a planetary system.

The Man Who Counts

War on Diomedes.

"Hiding Place"

Action against pirates.

Mirkheim

The Babur War. First civil war in the Polesotechnic League.

"The Star Plunder"

A slave revolt.

"Sargasso of Lost Starships"

Imperial annexation of Ansa just completed, then a conflict in the Black Nebula.

The People Of The Wind

The war between the Terran Empire and the Domain of Ythri.

Ensign Flandry

Not a war but a battle near Starkad.

The Rebel Worlds

The McCormac Rebellion in the Terran Empire.

"Outpost of Empire"

War against the Empire on Freehold.

The Day Of Their Return

A war of religion narrowly averted.

"Tiger by the Tail"

Flandry foments war in the Scothani Empire.

"The Game of Glory"

Annexation of Brae.

"A Message in Secret"

Conflict on Altai.

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

The Ardazhiro occupy Vixen while Terrans and Merseians fight elsewhere.

The Game Of Empire

The Magnusson Rebellion.

"A Tragedy of Errors"

Interstellar conflicts after the Empire.

To War Or Not To War

Poul Anderson's Seven Conquests (New York, 1970) is a collection of short stories about war:

"...human conflict leading to institutionalized violence."

-Foreword, p. 9.

In "Kings Who Die," war, too dangerous on Earth, is waged in space.

In "Wildcat," nuclear war destroys all life on Earth.

(Thus, these two stories agree about something.)

In "Cold Victory," a "civil war" involves three planets, Earth, Mars and Venus, because it is a conflict within the Solar Union.

(What we can do with words!)

In "Inside Straight," the war is between two extra-solar planets colonized by human beings.

(Our first step outside the Solar System in this collection.)

In "Details," well-meaning extra-solar intervention on twentieth century Earth causes more wars than it prevents.

(Thus, this story is about wars that are all too familiar to us.)

"License" is about war in the sense that it is about a society that has to cope with the fact that war is too dangerous to wage on Earth and cannot be moved into space.

"Strange Bedfellows" is about a human conflict but not one that leads to institutionalized violence. Also, the author's introduction to this story seems to have no bearing on the story so is there some mistake here?

Civilization And Savagery

"License."

We still have not exhausted the riches of p. 160. Nor will we, certainly not in a single attempt. After spelling out how bad civilization has been and still is for human beings, Rheinbogen (I can't get used to that name and have to check the spelling each time) adds:

"'And yet nowadays we haven't any choice, we can't go back.'" (p. 160)

This remarks takes us in opposite directions simultaneously. On the one hand, it is not only impossible but also undesirable to return to the:

"'...impoverished, frightened, hard-working, short life...'" (ibid.)

- of a savage. On the other hand, it is possible to think about going forward:

"'Civilization does have fantastically wonderful potentialities, if only we can realize them.'" (ibid.)

And psychodynamic research is for this purpose.

But lastly (maybe), what do we make of Rheinbogen's claim that most people as they are now could not live happily in a world with neither war nor crime? Are we happier for hearing about Ukraine and crimes of violence on the TV news? My answer is that we are certainly not.

The Primitive And The Civilized

"License."

The previous post presents two very short lists of benefits of civilization:

power

gadgets

medical science

potentialities

Why not just one list of four? Because I am summarizing an extremely condensed text in which the first list appears right at the top of p. 160 and the second near the bottom. It is no easy task to respond adequately to the entire text although the attempt is rewarding. 

According to our expository psychodynamicist, civilization is:

"'...a certain level of technology and a certain type of social organization.'" (p. 160)

The technology is agriculture and construction. The social organization is division of labour leading to class division. And there is an important point that we have not yet touched upon.

Rheinbogen the psychodynamicist claims that it is a matter of record that surviving primitive peoples have been decenter than civilized peoples. Wars, if they had them, were games, not slaughters, and they had very little theft, murder, rape, sadism or insanity. By contrast, being civilized fills us with:

"'...tensions and hatreds...'" (p. 161)

- and, as a result:

"'From petty chicanery and backyard malice, up to world war and the Almighty State, civilized man has to hurt his neighbor.'" (ibid.) 

This is a mixed bag. Individuals cheat and backbite. Economic systems, which take on a life of their own, generated administrators who became rulers and bodies of armed men to guard granaries. From these humble beginnings - small acorns - grew states that have waged wars. 

But there is hope. Here I pass from quoting to commenting. The benefits of advanced technology can be utilized to end causes of tension and hatred. Then we can become like the primitives.

Civilization And Freedom

See:

Psychodynamics

Bernal's "Devil" Is Anderson's "Protean Enemy"

The psychodynamicist says that most people hate civilization and could not live happily in a world with neither war nor crime.

The Un-man reflects that we rebel again both civilization and freedom.

These are not quite the same proposition. The psychodynamicist says that people hate the restrictions of civilization because they want to regain a primordial freedom to run, chase, kill, rejoice, feast and then sleep when full. If some people do rebel against freedom as such, then presumably those people do want to be restricted in some way - because they perceive restriction as safe, secure, predictable or whatever?

But what do we think of either proposition? The psychodynamicist goes into more detail about civilization. Trekking through a wild area, he enjoys fresh air, open spaces, a blue jay against green spruce, a brook belling over mossy stones and a thrush singing and wonders why men stopped hunting. Marie suggests that farming made food more secure and certain but he (psychodynamicist/gangster/her kidnapper/Rheinbogen) replies that this was the case only in bad hunting areas where, of course, farming began. He then concedes that there are some advantages to the civilization that has developed from the agricultural surplus:

"'The power, the gadgets...'"

-"License," p. 160.

But that is somewhat half-hearted. Technology is more than gadgets. We have learned about the universe. We read printed books, watch films and discuss them on the Internet. We have vastly expanded the range of our consciousness and understanding. Would we prefer to chase a mastodon? Right at the end, Rheinbogen thinks that he himself needs to hunt to satisfy his instincts but then reflects that research is a hunt, that Newton, Darwin and Einstein neither killed nor stole because they hunted bigger game and that he can do the same as a psychodynamicist.

Before that, he does rightly identify the deadly aspects that civilization has had:

crowding;

confinement to a single place;

anonymity;

being bossed, herded and cut off from nature;

subordinating everything else to a single job.

But he also acknowledges good results like medical science and:

"'...potentialities, if only we can realize them.'" (ibid.)

And we can now realizes potentialities like automation that can end drudgery.

Beyond Governments

I said last night that we would start into Poul Anderson's story, "High Treason," but I now think that issues in Seven Conquests still warrant further discussion.

In "License," the narrator says:

"'Consider, as merely one example, German history after the Thirty Years' War.'" (p. 161)

- but does not elaborate with the result that I am none the wiser!

What he is talking about more generally is the issue of a global authority to oversee or regulate the activities of national governments. In this story, there is a Peace Authority which, he says:

"'...is possible only because we've found a better outlet than war, at least a less harmful one, for the evil in man.'" (pp. 161-162)

When challenged on the word, "evil," he concedes that hatred of civilization might be a better description. We will have to return to this. Meanwhile, the Peace Authority will not let armed South Africans go beyond their own borders to attack whites. (Apartheid lasted from 1948 until 1994. "License" was published in 1957.)

In "Strange Bedfellows," Sevigny, taking evidence of sabotage on the Moon to the World Safety Corps on Earth, must evade corrupted agents of the US Federal Police. Corps men are peace officers of the Commonwealth which addresses only international matters, which sabotage on the Moon is, but first Sevigny must contact the Corps to make his case.

In Anderson's "Un-Man," the UN is becoming a world government but must overcome strong opposition, including that from within national governments. Thus, a UN agent, an "Un-man," is on the run from US Security men, "S-men." (The UN Lunar Guard is a forerunner of the later Solar Union's Solar Guard.)

There is always more to be said here.

CONFLICT

After Conquests/Seven Conquests, we (might as well) turn to Conflict (not Conflicts!), a similarly themed Poul Anderson collection. Having recently reread:

"Time Lag"

"The Alien Enemy"

"Kings Who Die"

"Details"

- we are left with:

"High Treason"

"The Pugilist"

"I Tell you, It's True"

"A Man To My Wounding"

"Among Thieves"

"The Turning Point"

Sometimes the title of a short story evokes an inchoate memory not of any plot details but only of emotional tone and not necessarily a favourable memory. However, this is irrelevant. We have demonstrated that a Poul Anderson story reread analytically repays our analysis with a wealth of entirely forgotten details and nuances so we will start with "High Treason" the next time that we return to this blog although, since I now approach the end of a period of recuperation from a cold, I will be publishing considerably less than ten so or so posts per day! Other aspects of daily life in twenty-first century Lancaster will resume. Into the future.

Psychodynamics

"License."

A psychodynamicist's analysis:

men evolved to hunt;

they are adapted for it biologically and psychologically;

their eyes are most sensitive to the colour of sunlight through leaves;

their feet are adapted to walk on yielding surfaces and are flattened by pavements;

they want to run freely and to sleep after a full meal;

they want the excitement of a chase and a kill, followed by a feast;

they need both tribal intimacy and opportunities for solitude;

they do not want crowding, confinement or subordination of life to a routine job;

psychodynamics showed that most men subconsciously but intensely hate civilization;

hatred must be vented;

soldiers could vent it;

but war has become too destructive and must be prevented;

the destruction, chaos and suffering of the Smashup vented a lot of anger;

now, crime has been legalized and regulated as a safety valve;

imprisonment has been abolished and outlawry instituted;

most people could not live happily in a world with neither war nor crime so they are allowed regulated crime.

The narrator, who makes this analysis, accepts a kidnapping job but would he have accepted a murder job? These also are regulated and legal.

(My task here has been to summarize this analysis, not to agree with it.)

Different Kinds Of Happy Endings

At The End Of "Strange Bedfellows"

There had been no question of Sevigny and Maura staying together. He helps her to make her escape and covers her tracks. Then, he will:

help the authorities to round up (some of) the bad guys;

enjoy a well-earned rest in a Canadian forest preserve;

happily return to his work in the Lunar air mines.

In this case, the happy ending is preservation of a beneficial and desirable status quo.

But what of cases where the status quo is undesirable or at best a stopgap?

"'It can't go on this way forever. The present system is frankly meant as a stopgap.'"

-"License," p. 159.

At The End Of "License"

Rheinbogen will:

stop his summer job as a gangster;

work as a psychodynamicist in one of Dulac's industries;

thus, stay in touch with Dulac's daughter, Marie;

research psychodynamics to find a longer term solution for society.

In this case, the happy ending is going beyond the status quo, first personally, then globally.

Breakfast And The End

"Strange Bedfellows."

Sevigny, with every hand - seemingly - against him, avoids recapture by hiding with Maura, the woman who had been used to distract him earlier. No one will look for him there. As in "License," we had wondered whether the heroine, for want of a better word, would play any role later in the narrative and she does. The ending is abrupt. After all his travails, Maura proposes to make breakfast for herself and Sevigny, then - scene change - he is reunited with his boss, the Buffalo, and everything works out ok. Andersonian endings are usually - not always - optimistic. (Always in novels, I think.)

One part of one panel in a comic strip by Alan Moore contains a parody of a comic strip script:

Pages 1-7: guys fight in space.

Pages 8-13: everything works out ok.

A summary of many stories but the author has to fill in the details!

Maui And A Dead Dirrel

"Strange Bedfellows." 

Although there is much opposition to the Luna Corporation on Earth, one Honolulu policeman tells Sevigny:

"'Me, I think this work on the Moon is the greatest thing that's happened since Maui's time.'" (p. 199)

Sevigny reports theft and kidnapping to the police who take him in for questioning but then try to hand him over to two US Federal Police Agents who have been told to arrest him for conspiracy. The kidnappers from whom he has escaped have political clout. This time, Sevigny's dirrel is shot and killed helping him to escape but he himself again flees into nightime Honolulu and is this story becoming a sequence of Andersonian fight and escape scenes? It will go somewhere else but we have to wait to find out where and when. Another twenty pages and we will have reached the end of Seven Conquests. That should be this evening.

Capture, Escape And Reflection

"Strange Bedfellows."

We see some "strange bedfellows." Sevigny is kidnapped by:

a representative of the Fatimite Brotherhood which holds that terraforming defiles the Moon;

a leading member of the Indian Conservationist Party which wants its country, not the Moon, to be reclaimed;

the chairman of a company that will fertilize Terrestrial deserts if the Moon is abandoned.

We are reminded of the disparate anti-UN alliance in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History.

Helped by his dirrel, Sevigny grabs the gun that has been held on him and escapes - an Andersonian action scene.

Hurrying through city streets, Sevigny gapes at shop display windows and thinks:

"Was such luxury possible on an Earth that everyone called impoverished? Wait. Remember your history classes. Inordinate wealth for a few has always gone along with inordinate want for the many. Because the many no longer have the economic strength to resist...." (p. 197)

Surely we, living in Terrestrial history, take that for granted. However, for Sevigny, coming from a frontier society, it is a history lesson.

Even Anderson's action scenes are reflective.

A Meal In Honolulu

"Strange Bedfellows."

It is a long time since we have had a food post.

Donald Sevigny, Clan Woodman of the Shaws, and Maura Sumantri of Djakarta and Chicago set out to consume:

martini;

pate de foie gras;

smoked oysters;

marinated artichokes;

thousand-year eggs;

soup;

teriyaki;

consome Mexique;

filet of mahimahi;

tossed salad;

ice cream with Martian herb sause;

champagne.

However, their meal is interrupted by an action sequence.

From a skyscraper restaurant, they see:

multi-coloured Honolulu, flashing and glistening by night;

sheening ocean;

Waikiki surf;

crowded sky;

quarter Moon.

Sevigny is kidnapped but we are dwelling on the details, not following the action. That can wait.

Death And The Martians

"Strange Bedfellows."

There is Martian as well as human cultural diversity in this fictional Solar System:

the Great Confederation dries and powders a dead body and scatters it on the winds;

in Illach, they process a body as fuel for their Biological Engine;

K'nea uses bodies for animal fodder;

Hs'ach does something else but Sevigny cuts short R'ku's account.

It must be impossible to count how many fictional Martian species there have been. Have we seen the last of them? No, enterprising and imaginative sf writers, like SM Stirling, can write retro-sf.

Just move sideways in time and you can write what you want. But it had better be original!

One More Mini-Future History

"Strange Bedfellows."

The Buffalo will fill Sevigny in. That means he will fill us in.

Politics bores Sevigny:

"'Which shows how little you know about politics, son. It's the only game in town.'" (p. 180)

The Buffalo quotes a Poul Anderson title. Then he quotes a Heinlein one when he suggests that Sevigny have an expenses-paid vacation on Earth:

"'See the green hills of Earth, the ocean Columbus sailed, Westminster Abbey, the Taj Mahal, the Brisbane Follies...'" (p. 181)

It is always reassuring to learn that some of these places still stand in a fictional future.

The History

global wars

aftermath

peace of exhaustion

Commonwealth

right to bear arms under the Treaty of Toronto

problems not solved

stability ending

conquest of space

algae seeded on Venus

Cytherean clans economic and political units

little Venus-Earth trade or contact yet

declaration of Cytherean independence

terraforming of Luna by an international Corporation

opposition from various interests on Earth

suspected sabotage of equipment

Scene-setting.

Mare Serenitatis

 

"Strange Bedfellows."

"[Sevigny] dared not go full speed on this terrain, though the Mare Serenitatis might open beneath him at any time. And what a hell of a name that was, he thought in the back of his head." (p. 172)

This story was published in 1964. In 1969, President Nixon spoke to two astronauts on the Moon. I remember him speaking of wanting to bring peace and serenity on Earth. I wondered whether Poul Anderson could have had this in mind when he had Sevigny reflecting on the inappropriateness of the name, "Mare Serenitatis," but the dates clearly do not match. Oh, well. Good try.

"Strange Bedfellows" is another story that I almost might as well not have read before. I remember, I think, that our hero goes to Earth for cloak and dagger stuff there but that is as far as it goes. Read on.

Buffalo And Dirrel

Poul Anderson's "Strange Bedfellows" continues to demand close attention from its readers. Sevigny converses with "The Buffalo..." (p. 175) This turns out to be just the nickname of Chuck Norris, Chief of Operations, whose name and rank we read, with difficulty, as it is seen backwards in the frosted glass of his office door.

The Buffalo invites Sevigny in and tells him to bring in his "'...black friend, too.'" (ibid.) A black guy? Sevigny is surprised that the Buffalo knows that he has left his companion, called Oscar, in the outer office. Long story short, Norris has a camera out there. Oscar, when brought in, sounds like a dog but turns out to be "'A dirrel,'" (p. 176) an artificial organism used as a guide and hunting animal on Venus and made by geneticists from some kind of rodent. Sevigny says:

"'Oscar can communicate with me, a little, in a special language.'" (p. 177)

This recalls a conversation with a Marist Brother resulting from reading about an extraterrestrial animal in Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones. See Making Life.

Venus is being terraformed from desert so is not really like the terrestroid Venus in Heinlein's Future History as I had thought before. Nevertheless, we have just had two comparisons with Heinlein. Onward.

A Martian And Wind On The Moon

"Strange Bedfellows."

First, that wind. Sevigny searches for two men who are missing after a Lunar volcanic eruption:

"He saw no human figures. The wind squealed faintly through the volcano roar." (p. 171)

Wind on the Moon? Yes, the Moon is being terraformed and now has a thickening atmosphere. A squealing wind is not a good omen that the men will be found and rescued.

R'ku, the tall mantis-like Martian, who moves by springing or jumping, has a narrow insectoidal face with large, unblinking, unhuman, turquoise eyes. He is yet another of Poul Anderson's many Martians. Anderson presents more intelligent Martian species than either Wells or Heinlein.

I have not got fully back into rereading this story yet. It can be a wrench to disengage from one fictional scenario, then to plunge straight into a completely different one, especially when the second narrative starts in the middle of the action and we have to pick up not only on what is going on but also on all the background stuff. Men are dying while interacting with a Martian on a changing Moon and one of the surviving men is from Venus and obviously there is going to be a lot more than that.

Someone once told me that he read sf to relax.

Cytherea And Cythera

Cytherea is another name for Aphrodite/Venus and also a Greek island.

"The Embarkation for Cythera" is a painting by Antoine Watteau.

"The Day We Embarked For Cythera" is a short story by Brian Aldiss.

In "Strange Bedfellows," Don Sevigny, a Cytherean, remembers Mount Victory looming over green Carl's Lake on Venus.

With men drilling on the Moon, a Martian and a human colony on a terrestroid Venus, the background of "Strange Bedfellows" sounds similar to that of Robert Heinlein's Future History.

We have left a fictional Solar System behind and now send probes into the real one.

On The Moon

"Strange Bedfellows."

Again, an author, in this case Poul Anderson, must convey a lot of information very quickly in order to inform his readers of where the characters are and of what they are doing there.

The text opens:

"Suddenly the plain exploded. A pillar of steam shot skyward, bone-white against darkness and the stars, tinged red with incandescent drops of metal." (p. 168)

See the image in the above-linked post. That image informs us immediately that these guys are on the Moon. On p. 169, the viewpoint character, Don Sevigny, looks at Earth above the horizon.

They are a mixed crew, their names including:

Sevigny

Aarons

Bergsma

Branch

Decker

Gourmont

Leong

Nakajima

Youkhannan

R'ku, who speaks with a vocalizer (an instrument that is becoming familiar) and turns out to be a Martian

The presence of R'ku tells us something. Men from Earth have not just recently reached the Moon. They have also travelled further into the Solar System where they have encountered at least one other intelligent species - or maybe the Martians have travelled to the Earth-Moon system? Either way, the existence of other Solarians was becoming a dated idea in 1964.

Sevigny is a Cytherean - a colonist of Venus? - and refers to other human characters as "'...Earthlings!'" (p. 170) These Cythereans have clan bonds like the "Venusians" in Anderson's Psychotechnic History. These various narratives are not set in a single timeline but they all originate in Poul Anderson's imagination.

Myths Or Not

I think that some fictional characters have become myths. See:

Modern Myths

From Fiction To Myth

Olaf Stapledon had a much more exalted conception of myths. See:

Myth And Science

"A true myth..." had to express "...the highest admirations possible..." Such definitions can become circular. In Philosophy, there is the example of the "No true Scotsman" argument, i.e.:

"All Scotsmen wear kilts."

"But Jim's a Scotsman and he doesn't wear a kilt."

"Then he's not a true Scotsman!"

A myth, surely, is just any universally known story, whether admirable or not? Consider Thor.

In the case of time travel, the modern myths are the Time Traveller, the Doctor and (maybe) Superman flying faster than light, rotating counterclockwise. (Superman is a myth anyway.) Important though they are to us here, Poul Anderson's Time Patrolmen and Jack Havig have not become myths although they are certainly significant literary successors of Wells' Time Traveller. Maybe film adaptations will make some difference?

"Strange Bedfellows": Introduction

 

Poul Anderson, "Strange Bedfellows" IN Anderson, Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 168-224.

(That Galaxy cover image illustrates Anderson's "Short Novel," whose title has been changed from "To Build A World" to "Strange Bedfellows.")

The author's introduction to this story:

"Progress does get made, however slowly and with however many setbacks. It is the work of those who are too brave to despair. Our descendants may yet create a society more sane than any which has gone before. But will this keep them from insanities of their own?" (p. 168)

My comments:

Progress has been made, albeit slowly and against setbacks, but is now under threat.

Those too brave to despair are our hope.

Our descendants might create a saner society.

We have to question any future advances.

However, sometimes questions are rhetorical, i.e., really statements. If "...will this keep them from insanities of their own?" is rhetorical, then I disagree with the implied statement - that further insanities would necessarily be inevitable. On the other hand, on the face of it, Anderson is merely asking a question which is a valid starting point for an sf story.

As an aside, I am fascinated and frustrated by the ways in which communication can fail. I once asked my friend, Fran, a question, seeking information. Fran thought for a few seconds, then said, "I think you're right..." I was bewildered. I had not said anything. I had asked something. But he had interpreted my question as rhetorical, therefore as a statement, and I did not know what the statement was!

Back to Anderson's reference to progress, my summary of specifically human activities is as follows:

Economics is production and distribution.

Politics is power and resistance.

History is progress or regression.

Amazing progress. Long regressions. No guarantees about what comes next. Sf writers write future histories...

A Happy Ending

"License."

OK. I advise everyone out there to (re)read this story and its concluding section for themselves. Kidnapper and victim discuss the history and contradictions of civilization in true Andersonian style. The identification of the conflict between primitive man and the unnatural state of civilization parallels the way this same issue is presented in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. The Smashup and its psychosociological consequences are explained more or less. Incredibly and entirely unexpectedly, the young woman who has been the victim turns the tables, saves the day and arranges a happy ending for (nearly) everyone concerned and certainly for our hero, villain or whatever he has been.

I had approached this story with misgivings but have devoted a lot of time to it. Only one (longer) story remains in Seven Conquests. After that, there are several other Poul Anderson collections. It is never the end.

Before The Smashup And Seventy Years Ago

"License."

The plot twists are intriguing. The CIO jet swoops low enough to drop Rheinbogen and his kidnap victim, Marie Dulac, into a lake, then flies on, pursued by the Delta-wing owned by Marie's father. Leaving the lake, kidnapper and victim take off their clothes to let them dry in the breeze. When Marie asks for a cigarette, Rheinbogen realizes that she has probably only recently learned to smoke, then:

"Holy Hermes, patron of thieves, she could still be a virgin!'" (p. 155) (See Three Saints And A God. Hermes = Mercury.)

He assures her:

"'...you have nothing to fear. You're under the protection of the law and my union. All we're going to do is keep you for a while in a certain place with an adequate staff and good facilities. I'm sorry to put you to this indignity but there was no choice.'" (ibid.)

He explains further that:

"'Back in the old days, before the Smashup and the reconstruction...'" (p. 156)

- amateurs kidnapped rich men's children, even babies, then often panicked and murdered them. Now she is legally protected but her detention incommunicado will put pressure on her father. Professional ethics prevent him from telling his victim who his client is. She spits, "'Ethics!'" (ibid.)

Right now I am torn between reading what happens next and reading some news about current conflicts plus a summary of what happened in Hungary seventy years ago. Back then, I was seven and thought that people in Hungary were hungry just as, earlier, I had confused Germans with germs.

(In Ian Fleming's Thunderball, a young woman kidnapped by SPECTRE is raped while detained. Blofeld electrocutes the rapist and returns part of the ransom money with an apology to the young woman's father.)

The World In "License"

"License."

South Africans patrol their territory with rifles but the Peace Authority prevents them from attacking anyone else.

The Chinese, having failed to adjust to the combination of large population with high technology, huddle "'...like hogs in a pen.'" (p. 148)

The Russians have split into "'...a hundred religious sects.'" (ibid.)

Americans have square miles of crowded projects tenements, grow algae in Lake Superior, have legalized crime and can even be licensed for crooked gambling.

So far, we have reread only thirteen pages of this short story but it seems to have the density of a future history series.

Is our world less mad?

Escape Craft

"License." 

When Rheinbogen and the stunned and kidnapped Marie have been winched up from Lake Minnetonka into a jet disguised as a helicopter, the jet sheds its rotors and false rear and easily outruns two pursuing helicopters. If the falling helicopter parts do any damage, then Rheinbogen will have to pay claims. The jet flies low to avoid radar but also has:

"...a temporary permit to break traffic rules." (p. 152)

However, a mother ship placed in the stratosphere above his place by Dulac releases a Delta-wing which pursues the kidnappers' jet. The pilots, who know each other as members of the two criminal unions, exchange greetings. Rhenbogen has to decide whether to surrender as they fly above land that had been devastated by forest fires during the Smashup and that really is as far as I go with this story this evening. As usual, it has much more going for it than I had expected.

One Last Dip Into "License" This Evening

"License." 

Labour chief Tom Swanson manages the CIO local, its benefit funds, banks, stores, factories etc. He knows Dulac's chief goon because both of them are prominent Rotarians.

Projects tenements rise on either side of the freeway with not more than three or four to a room, faces at every window and pedestrians like ants below. They are fed and entertained. A protein factory processes algae from Lake Superior. There is crowding everywhere on Earth but also a Peace Authority.

Dulac must have guided missiles in his home defence system because he has filed intent to shoot down any over-flying aircraft that is not police or Peace Authority.

The narrator, Rheinbogen, and his colleague, Nygard, check into a hotel where the bellhop asks if they want girls. "'Later...'" (p. 149) Posing as politicians' union executives, they must maintain their character and therefore add girls to their expense account.

Rheinbogen checks the taps. Water brands are not good since clan feuds wrecked the last great distillery.

The story reads like a very condensed future history background synopsis. I have read it at least once before but have no memory of the details and do not know what is going to happen next.

The Large Job

"License."

The client is James Hardy, vice chair, Teamsters' Union Inc. board.

His proposed kidnap victim is Marie Dulac, daughter of the head of the Chemicals Union Trust.

Miss Dulac has just turned twenty-one so she is no longer a minor and therefore can be kidnapped.

However, she has not taken out first-class citizenship and therefore is immune to murder, beating or criminal assault. (!)

Both the Teamsters and the Chemicals are trying to merge with the Federated Nuclear Scientists. Hardy holding Marie will make Dulac back out. (But surely it would be better if three unions merged?)

According to the narrator, Marie's imminent social debut will be an orgy.

The license certifies that, on payment of fees and filing of notice of intent, Hardy is authorized to kidnap Marie within six weeks and to hold her for not more than one year and to use any necessary and legal force on condition of paying weregild for any damage. Breach of the regulations means outlawry. 

The criminal union, the Criminal Industries Organization, will kidnap Marie but will then retain her so that they do not become accessories to, e.g., torture or slavery.

Dulac employs the American Freebooters' Laborunion which does not merge with the CIO because that might mean brothers fighting brothers. (Anderson is playing games with initials.)

Kidnapping requires information, planning, rehearsal and imagination and some locals use games theory computers.

Games theory again.

"License" III

"License."

My approach to this story has become just to keep noting its oddities until enough is explained to make some sense:

the narrator buys a whiskey at a newsstand;

water is rationed in different amounts around the country;

that new school was eighty stories high but its shooting range was overcrowded and housing projects stretch beyond the horizon so psychodynamicists have to find an answer;

the local union HQ can give our guy "'...a large job...'" (p. 143) - we will find out what;

a union brother, Sam Jeffreys, has been killed in a private murder with advance notification of intent filed, deed registered and weregild to be paid on schedule so nothing can be done about it; 

Sam had lived through the Smashup whatever that was but this sounds like we are getting to the point - some big social "smashup" that will explain how laws and customs have changed so drastically. Read on.

"License" II

"License."

The violence - and other unexpected social phenomena - continue!

While I wait for the TV news to come on:

The first person narrator, who is the taxi passenger, gets into the taxi just outside that crimeless area and wears a union badge which, we gather, identifies him not as a Teamster but as a gangster which was why the taxi driver knew to ask him if he was working. We have to read and reread carefully to pick up what is going on here. There was an airport bombing back east where he came from but both the cops and the unions (gangsters) got the perpetrators. This was unlicensed murder with illegal weapons and there were twenty innocent casualties! Our gangster narrator was outraged! 

At the YMCA, he is offered a three-room suite and asked if he wants a girl but says not yet!

There are "impurgated" editions of Romeo and Juliet and Moby Dick which change the story the way films do.

OK. Poul Anderson is doing his job as an sf writer, thinking of an outrageous premise, then showing us its implications, but I am still struggling with exactly what the premise is.

Read Anderson and think.

"License"

"License."

This story fills twenty-six pages of text in my copy of Seven Conquests (which is the same collection as Conquests). The text begins just above the half way point of p. 141 and ends about a quarter of the way down p. 167.

An sf short story that is not an installment of a series can be set on or off Earth, in the past, present or future or in an alternative timeline and in any kind of society, including societies that have never existed but are imagined for "thought experiment" purposes by a speculative author. And all of this has to be established very quickly. We flounder with "License." In its first page and a half:

place names establish an American setting;

travel is by rocket;

"...the crimeless area." (p. 141);

an armoured taxi with a gun turret;

you are reasonably safe inside a YMCA (but not elsewhere?);

the taxi driver opines that his passenger will find work because business is good which he seems to equate with crime rates jumping;

his cab displays "...framed bootlegging and procurement licenses." (ibid.);

the passenger is a gangster in summer but otherwise a Ph.D. student - it seems that the gangstering pays his expenses;

he studies psychodynamic equations so he is starting to sound like some other Anderson characters;

they pass a school where a gym class practices with machine guns in the playground;

football involves bloodshed - goggles so no more blinding but maybe legalized switchblades;

gangsters earn fat fees but have heavy expenses and the work is sporadic;

the passenger is frisked on entering the Y - it is a safe place, remember.

OK. This is a violent scene. Maybe I need a break from it!