Moments Of Realization

Exhaustive though this blog may be, it falls well short of an Encyclopedia. Every time I find a "moment of realization" in an Anderson story or novel, I draw attention to it but there is no way that I am going to catalogue them all.

"The Dutch...fought themselves free of Spain and free of the ocean itself; when the French or Germans came, they made the enemy sea their ally -
"The bottle fell from his grasp."
-NESFA Vol 2, pp. 71-72.

In other words, this asterite, not at sea but in space, has just realized how he can fight the North Americans - but we will find out what he is going to do when we see him doing it. And I do not remember although I have read the story at least twice.

A surprise ending is a moment of realization for the reader. This story, "Industrial Revolution," begins with a reminiscent dialogue involving a "Missy Blades." (p. 48) The body of the story is an extended flashback during which Mike Blades interacts with two women, his secretary and an enemy North American. So which of them will become his wife and widow? Only the surprise ending will tell us.

"Cold Victory" in the Psychotechnic History begins with a dialogue, then presents an extended flashback featuring two brothers on opposite sides in a civil war, then ends by showing us that we had been misled as to which of the brothers was involved in the opening dialogue. Thus, another moment of realization for us.

"That Flowing Spaceman's Pace..."

Robert Heinlein's Future History was rightly said to have given the future a daily life. Heinlein concentrated on lunar colonization. Poul Anderson and Larry Niven followed this with asteroidal colonization.

"He...stepped off toward the nearest entry lock with that flowing spaceman's pace which always keeps one foot on the ground. Even so, he didn't unshackle his inward-reeling lifeline till he was inside the chamber."
-Anderson, NESFA Vol 2, p. 51.

On an asteroid whose rotation counteracts its minimal gravity, Mike Blades wears grip-soled boots, keeps one foot on the ground and uses a life-line. Anderson writes as though he and his readers were familiar with that flowing spaceman's pace.

I distinguished between social and political stories when discussing Anderson's Psychotechnic History. Mike Blades' story in the Flying Mountains future history contains both of these elements, details of daily life in an asteroid but also political tension after a change of government back on Earth. I know from experience that members of armed services avoid political argument with civilians. They are probably warned against this. Yet a visiting Navy man blurts out that Belt companies are:

"...only using natural resources that rightly belong to the people, and the accumulated skills and wealth of an entire society." (p. 58)

This insensitivity plus intelligence-gathering questions from other Naval personnel indicate that trouble is brewing.

"Cold And Vacuum And Raw Rock..."

Michael Blades, hanging upside down from the wide end of a truncated pyramidal asteroid, seeing pitted rock, jutting crags, black shadows, glaring lamps, a cliff-like horizon mere kilometers away and crowding stars, thinks:

"You couldn't escape from people on Earth. Cold and vacuum and raw rock and everything, the Belt was better."

-Poul Anderson, "The Industrial Revolution" IN Anderson, The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson, Volume 2: The Queen Of Air And Darkness (Framingham, MA, 2009), pp. 48-80 AT p. 51.

Well, I prefer people! However, if enough people think like Mike, then the human race will colonize the Solar System. Poul Anderson and Larry Niven have shown that mining the Asteroid Belt will be profitable even if making it comfortable to live there will take a lot more work.