Large Objects

Regular blog readers know my philosophy. Fully to appreciate Poul Anderson, we compare or contrast him with many diverse authors, including other cosmically-themed hard sf writers. Anderson, Larry Niven and Gregory Benford have all written major sf series and have interacted in different ways. For a comment by Gregory Benford on one of my posts about his Anderson-related short story, see here. For comments on Anderson's contributions to Niven's Man-Kzin Wars subseries, see here.

Benford's and Niven's Bowl Of Heaven (TOR, New York, 2013) is like getting Niven's Ringworld back. I mean an artifact bigger than planets. Ringworld initiated a tetralogy and a co-written trilogy which, like the Man-Kzin Wars, are subseries of Niven's Known Space future history. Bowl... launches a new series. The authors think big and their alien characters build big.

On the title page of Part II, the authors quote Lord Dunsany:

"Man is a small thing, and the night is large and full of wonder." (p. 79)

I think that I can improve that:

"Man is small; night is wide and wondrous."

(Scottish English gives us "Man is wee..." but that sounds twee.)

We can also compare all these series with Star Trek:

"They left a skeleton crew aboard SunSeeker, with [Captain] Redwing plainly sorry that proper ship command protocols demanded that he stay aboard." (p. 81)

Captain Kirk, take note.

Kumukahi

Poul Anderson, "Pele" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars IX (New York, 2002), pp. 3-95.

(Not a novel by my 100+ pages rule of thumb, especially since there are blank spaces at the ends of chapters.)

Kumukahi:

the inmost planet of the star, Pele;
ten Jovian masses;
spiraling inward;
temperatures soaring;
atmosphere distended into a 280,000 kilometer ovoid;
storms larger than terrestroid planets;
now orbiting only a million kilometers above the stellar photosphere;
revolving in less than half an Earth day and accelerating;
rotating in fifteen hours, slowed by tidal bulges;
night side flickering with lightnings reflected from planet-sized clouds, flashing with explosions or other atmospheric events;
day side burning, emitting incandescent gasses - some breaking free;
storms pouring along the inner tidal bulge;
a core of metallic hydrogen;
very few heavy elements.

Kzin

I say periodically and again now that tomorrow must be preparation for a Latin class the following day, therefore less time for blogging. Other activities, like today a six mile walk by the canal and the Bay, also interrupt reading and blogging.

The opening page of Poul Anderson's "Pele," in Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars IX (New York, 2002), informs us that:

on Kzin, kdatlyno slaves hand cultivate golden hsakh in the ancient way;

the fiber will be handwoven into cloaks to be worn at Midwinter Bloodfeast, then burnt.

We now learn that this is an established kzinti custom. Most probably, Poul Anderson created the custom for this one story and it will not be encountered again. Nevertheless, it now becomes potential background material for any future Man-Kzin Wars stories. We learn other facts about Kzin:

the kzinti call their sun the Father Sun whereas human beings call it 61 Ursae Majoris;
kzinti hunt slashtooths with spears but must avoid a pride and find one alone;
they make doors of flamewood;
hookbeaks hover so might be bird equivalents;
kzinti spaceships are named Swordbeak and Snapping Sherrek;
the Hero's Tongue has no words for "government" or "purely scientific";
we expect to meet High Admiral Ress-Chiu again but, of course, he died fighting beasts in the Patriarchal Arena after issuing disastrous orders in "Inconstant Star";
"'It was good sport.'" (p. 5)

Would it really be possible to run a high tech civilization on such a basis? It helps when we learn that kzinti savages were enslaved by a space-traveling race and stole all their technology from them.

Typing Up Loose Ends

Weoch-Captain and his crew are as good as dead on p. 290 of Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III. However, Poul Anderson's "Inconstant Star" continues until p. 310 because three loose ends need to be tied up:

(i) future history continuity;
(ii) personal relationships between our hero, his wife and the new female character;
(iii) who was the kzinti's intelligence source on Wunderland?

We will take the first one first.

(i) A prequel must not contradict later continuity. In Niven's Known Space future history, neither the kzinti nor the Earthmen acquired a tnuctipun weapon enabling them to win a decisive victory in the Man-Kzin Wars. Yet representatives of both species have discovered such a weapon in "Inconstant Star." Captain Saxtorph (human) has given Weoch-Captain (kzin) and his crew a lethal dose of radiation so it looks as if Saxtoroh's crew have sole control of the weapon. But they have not. Weoch's last defiant act is to propel the weapon with himself on it into hyperspace. The Rover crew "...saw their prize disappear." (p. 294)

That concluding phrase of Chapter XIX represents a literary tradition that is Wellsian or older. Except when alternative histories are invoked, it is a literary convention that fictional events occurred in the world as it is known to us. Thus, a Tolstoyan character can contemplate assassination of Napoleon but decides against it - and, if he did attempt it, would not succeed. The Cavorite sphere disappears into space and the Selenites kill Cavor before he can transmit the formula back to Earth. The Time Traveler does not return from his second expedition. On a more trivial level, in the 1950's, a weekly comic strip had cavemen discovering that the Moon is made of cheese, pulling it down to Earth and eating it. I said that the following installment must explain why there is a Moon today. Someone said, "Don't be stupid. It's only fiction." But, sure enough, the next installment explained how the Moon had been replaced.

That disappearing tnuctipun weapon follows in the proud footsteps of the disappearing Time Machine and Cavorite sphere.

Some Parallels

"Delta v" is a concept relevant to subliminal space travel but it crops up several times in Poul Anderson's "Inconstant Star" and I now have a layman's understanding of its meaning. See Comments here.

Poul Anderson describes "...popping in and out of hyperspace..." as "...transition between relativistic and quantum modes..." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 265) but this makes Known Space hyperspace sound like Technic History hyperspace. The latter is original: not another space but a succession of instantaneous quantum jumps within relativistic space.

In Anderson's Technic History, a Merseian says that "'...the highest end...'" is:

"'...absolute freedom for our race, to make of the galaxy what they will.'" (Young Flandry, p. 27)

- and tells his latest grandcub:

"'You shall have stars for toys...'" (p. 28)

One of Larry Niven's kzinti, written by Anderson, bares fangs at the stars and tells them:

"...we shall do with you what we will." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 261)

Merseians and kzinti are comparable to SM Stirling's Draka who say, "Glory to the Race!" but do not mean by this the entire human race and in fact succeed in making themselves a distinct species.

Amidst Lightnings

The passage that I am about to quote displays two features that we have found more than once in works by Poul Anderson. Regular blog readers should recognize both.

"Agony: And I am helpless, helpless.
"Revelation: No!
"Through a time beyond time, Nordbo stood amidst lightnings. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse -"
-Poul Anderson, "Inconstant Star" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), p. 251.

The most obvious feature is a Biblical reference. See here. Less obvious, but also far more frequent in Anderson's works, is a character who (i) has a problem, (ii) suddenly realizes the solution, (iii) stands thunderstruck or, in this case, "amidst lightnings," (iv) does not immediately divulge the solution - although, in this case, we need only turn the page.

Nordbo's problem is that, although the kzinti have lost their First War Against Men, he is the lone human being among a remnant kzinti crew bearing intelligence that might enable them to win the Second. When he realizes the solution, he thinks, "Revelation..." The solution is that he can kill this remnant with his concealed knife. And, appropriately, he remembers a passage from the Book of Revelation about a remnant being killed with a sword. Thus, the Biblical reference is fully integrated with the Andersonian moment of realization. That is neat, even for Anderson.

Limits On Interstellar Communication

"The 'instantaneous' pulses emitted by a ship in hyperdrive are detectable at an extreme range of about a light-year. They can be modulated to carry information. Unfortunately, within a few million kilometers quantum effects degrade the signal beyond recovery; even the simplest binary code becomes unintelligible."
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 132.

However, the interstellar civilization in Anderson's For Love And Glory has an instantaneous hyperbeam. I remember that there was some limitation on the use of hyperbeam but not what it was.

In the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space History:

"'Someday they'll miniaturize hyperwave equipment to the point where it'll fit into a spaceship.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Inconstant Star" IN Niven, Ed. Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), p. 211.

And, later in that history, Beowulf Shaeffer, exploring the galactic center alone in a spaceship, speaks to his puppeteer employer instantaneously by hyperphone. (Too easy.)

Anderson's Starfarers features an instantaneous and transtemporal communicator and Ursula Le Guin's future history has the instantaneous ansible. However, the true master of interstellar communication is James Blish:

his ultraphone is FTL but not instantaneous;
his CirCon radio and Dirac transmitter are instantaneous;
in one application of the Dirac transmitter, it receives messages from the past and future as well as from the present;
his Heart Stars empire and Angels also have instantaneous interstellar communication.

This is the kind of systematic treatment of a theme that we often find in Anderson's works.

Windjammers

"'Any [kzinti Swift Hunters] that remain in service will certainly be phased out as hyperdrive comes in, because it makes them as obsolete as windjammers.'" (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 220)

The change from slower-than-light to faster-than-light in space must be like the change from sail to steam at sea. Future histories feature this change from STL to FTL. Poul Anderson's Technic History began with FTL interstellar exploration but Anderson later added an earlier story of interplanetary exploration by light sail ships. In his earlier Psychotechnic History, the STL period involves interplanetary travel and an interstellar generation ship. Heinlein's Future history had introduced the generation ship idea and showed the start of FTL travel.

In Larry Niven's Known Space future history, the transition from STL to FTL is an important part of the history. In Poul Anderson's Known Space/Man-Kzin Wars story, "Inconstant Star," an interstellar expedition departed from Alpha Centauri thirty years ago and never returned. It would have taken ten years to cross five light years and the crew, kzinti with one man, Peter Nordbo, would have been in stasis. Now an FTL ship with Peter's daughter, Tyra, in the crew will investigate. For Tyra, those thirty years are "...the dark backward and abysm of time..." (see here) but the FTL ship will cross five light years in almost no time.

"'...what are we trying on this voyage but to probe the past and learn what happened long ago?'" (p. 222)

Smoking

Attitudes and laws regarding homosexuality and smoking have reversed in my lifetime. What else can change? In the SFWA Bulletin, Fall 1979, John Varley suggested: to write futuristic sf, think of something that is now shocking, imagine that it has become commonplace, deduce its social implications and write from the viewpoint of characters living then, not from the perspective of a shocked time traveler arriving from our present.

I do not think that easy organ transplants would lead to an increase in capital punishment for minor offenses and the obsolescence of prisons as in Larry Niven's Known Space future history. Too many other social and moral factors would counteract this. In his Known Space/Man-Kzin Wars story, "Inconstant Star," Poul Anderson considers smoking. It no longer causes cancer or emphysema. However, puritanism is cyclical so the practice is again disapproved of on Earth whereas, on Wunderland, it has become a symbol from the occupation era because the kzinti disliked it and disallowed it in their presence. Meanwhile, Robert Saxtorph, from Earth but immune to puritanism, has become famous and therefore so has his pipe. These are plausible background details in a future history series.

Overlapping Trilogies III

See here.

Ulf Markham is still alive in Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's last Man-Kzin Wars story and is killed in Poul Anderson's first Man-Kzin Wars story. Therefore, all the Pournelle-Stirling stories are set before all the Anderson stories. Simple.

In "Warriors," Larry Niven introduced the kzinti, thus creating a Man-Kzin Wars period in his Known Space future history which also features several human colony planets including Wunderland in the Alpha Centauri system.

In "The Children's Hour," Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling introduced Harald's Terran Bar in Munchen on Wunderland during the kzinti occupation.

In "Iron," Poul Anderson introduced Robert and Dorcas Saxtorph who fly from Sol to Alpha Centauri to negotiate with Commissioner Markham of the Interworld Commission after the kzinti occupation.

In "Inconstant Star," Anderson introduces Tyra Nordbo who meets with Robert Saxtorph in Harald's Terran Bar.

"The Children's Hour" and "The Asteroid Queen" by Pournelle and Stirling show us Markham before he meets Saxtorph. Their "In The Hall of the Mountain King" shows us Tyra before she meets Saxtorph.

And I think I have got that right.

"'...[the kzinti] did invent the gravity polarizer.'" (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 80)

This was said before it was learned that the kzinti got all their space technology from another race. Many, though not all, of the apparent contradictions in a series can be ironed out by reflecting that most statements are made from particular points of view. In Anderson's Technic History, are the Merseians mammals? See here.

When Saxtorph visits Harald's Terran Bar, it no longer displays a "humans only" sign. Saxtorph reflects:

"Mustn't offend potential customers or, God forbid, local idealists." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 175)

Those who object to a "humans only" sign are to be disparaged as "idealists"? I would experience a certain amount of social friction if I were to meet some of Anderson's characters.

There will be more but not tonight.

Hunters And Thinkers (In The Dark)

"Darkling in this light..." (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 158)

"...the woods loomed darkling..." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 169)

It just means "dark" or "in the dark" and is definitely a Wellsian touch.

On Earth, some species hunt - stalk, pounce, kill and eat; one species thinks and reflects. Thus, we distinguish between hunters and thinkers. Poul Anderson's winged Ythrians and Larry Niven's feline kzinti do both.

"A hunter's wind blew...The wish that it roused, to be yonder, to stalk and pounce and slay and devour, grew in Weoch-Captain until he trembled."
-Poul Anderson, "Inconstant Star" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), pp. 167-310 AT p. 169.

His fur stands up. His claws slide out. His fingers bend. But he walks steadily to meet the kzinti High Admiral. As his partial name and rank indicate, Weoch-Captain is a rational animal able, usually, to control his instincts. Those instincts, when unrestrained, will make him run through the forest and attack his prey with claws and fangs like a tiger. Such a combination of hunter and thinker is truly alien.

Patriarchs And Patricians

In Latin:

pater, father;
patres, forefathers;
patricius, of the forefathers;
patricii, patricians, aristocrats.

Patres is plural of pater and patricii of patricius.

In Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys Tetralogy, St Martin says that his cousin, Sucat, will become Christ's patrician. Sucat is renamed "Patricius," in English "Patrick," and canonized, thus St Patrick.

In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, a star is named "Patricius." Thus, the star and its planets are the Patrician System.

In Larry Niven's Known Space future history, the kzinti are ruled by a Patriarch. In Poul Anderson's Man-Kzin Wars stories, Ulf Markham admires the kzinti and has a hereditary vote in the Wunderlander House of Patricians although only on federal matters. Election as a consul of his state would give him a say in who attends the House of Delegates. This sounds to me like Anderson's political thinking enriching the Wunderlander constitution in Niven's future history.

Markham leaks the hyperdrive to the kzinti. His excuse:

"'They would inevitably have gotten it. Only by taking part in events can we hope to exercise any influence.'" (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 125)

A familiar argument: we can influence Apartheid by supporting it instead of sabotaging and ending it.

Rereading "Iron"

Poul Anderson, "Iron" IN Larry Niven, Ed, The Man-Kzin Wars (London, 1989), pp, 27-177.

Ulf Reichstein Markham and Tyra Nordbo first appeared in Man-Kzin Wars stories written by Poul Anderson, then reappeared in the fictionally earlier although later-written Man-Kzin Wars stories of Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling. I thought that Pournelle and Stirling had introduced Markham but that was just me getting confused between the publication history and the fictional chronology.

Markham respects the "'...valiant, loyal, disciplined...'" (p. 44) kzinti. This sounds like Anderson's Olaf Magnusson respecting the Merseians.

Dorcas Saxtorph accuses Markham of uttering "'...an intolerable racist insult.'" (p. 56) I missed it but maybe his generalization about flatlanders counts. Before that, they had been having an interesting discussion about society. In a healthy society, according to Markham, lesser persons accept guidance from superior persons for the longer term social good. For the leader, power and glory are not ends but means to:

"'...the organic evolution of the society toward its destiny, the full flowering of its soul.'" (p. 55)

Sounds patriarchal? The kzinti are ruled by a Patriarch. Markham uses obscure terminology:

"'...we are replacing living Gemeinschaft with mechanical Gessellschaft.'" (p. 55)

Juan Yoshii of the Rover crew wants "'To be a poet.'" (p. 60)

- like Jesse Nicol in Anderson's Harvest The Fire.

Yoshii asks:

"'In the centuries of spaceflight, how much true poetry has been written?'" (p. 60)

- and Nicol, en route to the outer Solar System, exclaims:

"'The inhuman may be what's mine, stars, comets, hugeness, a universe that doesn't know or care but simply and gloriously is - but humans are there -'" (Harvest The Fire, New York, 1887, p. 190).

Anderson, a novelist of the space age, also recognized the need for poetry.

Just after the purchase of the hyperdrive, mankind is on the verge of "'...great adventures,...the age of discovery that must come...'" (p. 45) This reminds us of:

"The world's great age begins anew...
"...it is enough that we are on our way." (The Van Rijn Method, New York, 1997, pp. 555, 556)

A red dwarf moving through the galaxy at over a thousand kilometers per second is nearly as old as the universe. (p. 65) Such Andersonian cosmic sf transcends Known Space and the Technic History and is also to be found, e.g., in the "Pride"/Tau Zero diptych.

"'Every explorer is an amateur by definition.'" (p. 46)

This reminds us of the opening and closing chapters of The Boat Of A Million Years, set respectively before Christ and in an indefinite future.

Does anyone do it better than Anderson?

Picking Up The Threads

Where were we? I was reading Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's third Man-Kzin Wars story, "In The Hall Of The Mountain King," realizing that I had not read it before. Pournelle's and Stirling's Man-Kzin trilogy is integrated with Poul Anderson's and I will probably reread the latter next.

However, when the laptop died, I temporarily stopped reading the Man-Kzin series becaue I had stopped being able to blog about it simultaneously. Also, wanting a change of genre, I instead reread Garth Ennis' graphic series, The Boys, which ingeniously integrates the fantastic concept of superheroes into an alternative twentieth century history of American business, politics and warfare. The Twin Towers still stand but not the Brooklyn Bridge. 9/11 happened but differently.

Ennis knows his comic book stuff and his real world stuff and also writes a lot of straight war fiction. Although he presents different genres in a different medium from the different perspective of an Ulsterman living in New York, Ennis' graphic fictions are comparable to Anderson's, Pournelle's and Stirling's militray sf - and he even wrote some sf in a Dan Dare revival. Common themes are military hardware, the experience of combat and the causes of conflicts. What more could we want?

Well, I would like an end to such conflicts but even then we would still have to study and read about military history. Larry Niven's ARM are out of order trying to suppress that history. The FTL interstellar scenarios of Anderson, Niven, Pournelle etc would at least ensure that humanity can survive even when weapons can wreck worlds.

Next, we must return to the Wars Against Men.

Mixed Ecologies

"Woodlots were the deep green of Terran oak and the orange-green of Kzin, tall frondlike growths in Wunderland's reddish ocher."
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Hall of the Mountain King" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars V (New York, 1992), pp. 5-202 AT p. 38.

Human colonists and kzinti conquerors have imported trees to the Alpha Centaurian planet of Wunderland. Thus, the vegetation is green, orange and red.

For similar scenes on the human-Ythrian colony planet of Avalon, see here, then follow the link to a post on the human colony planet of Aeneas. On Nike (see also here), there is blue-tinted pale green native vegetation but:

"Otherwise, the country had been taken over by the more efficient, highly developed species that man commonly brought with him."
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 484.

These are:

oak;
birch;
primrose;
grass overwhelming pseudo-moss that thrives only in shade.

On Lokon:

"Clover was another of those life forms that man had brought with him from Old Earth, to more planets than anyone now remembered..." (Flandry's Legacy, pp. 665-666)

However, either the life forms adapt to alien environments or genetic drift changes them at random. Thus, they are often unrecognizable, as humanity must eventually become. We think of man the conqueror but it seems that we should add oak, grass, clover etc to the list.

Future History Building

"'The humans must have either great luck, or more knowledge than is good...'" (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 60)

"Was General Early a military genius, or incredibly lucky?" (Man-Kzin Wars V, p. 15)

Twice, Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling mention luck. Later in Larry Niven's Known Space History, the Puppeteers, theorizing that luck is a psychic power, successfully breed human beings for luck by influencing the UN to establish a Birthright Lottery. Although human acquisition of the hyperdrive just in time to defeat the kzinti looks like very good luck, it was in fact arranged by the Puppeteers as part of their project to breed tamer kzinti. (Of course, it was lucky for humanity that Puppeteers existed and interacted with kzinti in just this way. Also, the kzinti attack was lucky because it saved humanity from stagnation.)

The Thrintun's three-armed slave technicians remind us of Niven's and Pournelle's three-armed Moties while the Jotoki, even more versatile, have five arms. (I would never have thought of giving aliens an uneven number of limbs.)

Harold's Terran Bar is an excellent invention. The characters who meet there even include one unemployed veteran and two defeated kzinti who then seek work together. The Bar, invented (I think) by Pournelle & Stirling, is also visited by Poul Anderson's characters. It will be illuminating to trace the connections between Pournelle's & Stirling's and Anderson's contributions to Niven's future history. We have come a long way from a single author writing a single novel comprising an entire future history.

Some Parallels II

"'The shadow of the God lies on us... We will go to Him together, the hunt will give Him honor.'"
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Children's Hour" IN Larry Niven, Ed, Man-Kzin Wars III, pp. 35-166 AT p. 164.

This sounds like a mixture of Merseian ("...the God...") and Ythrian ("The shadow...," "...the hunt will give Him honor...") However, it is a kzin.

Niven's Thrints' Power is Asimov's Mule's Power. The Mule was like the single alien in a humans only galaxy until we learned that he was a rebel Gaian - and that the robots were behind Gaia. Robots are like artificial protectors.

The Mule, Gaia and robots are in Asimov's Galactic Empire future history;
Merseians and Ythrians are in Anderson's Technic History;
kzinti, Thrintun and protectors are in Niven's Known Space History.

I have gained a new perspective of looking sideways across these future histories instead of chronologically along each in turn.

The conclusion of "The Children's Hour" is the turning point between the STL and FTL periods of Known Space. Poul Anderson showed STL interstellar warfare in "Time Lag," which is, perhaps, the culmination of his ninth future history.

Retrocontinuity

The author(s) of an established future history can inform us about earlier periods of the history in two ways:

(i) installments written later can be set earlier - prequels;

(ii) installments written later can be set later but can divulge for the first time information about earlier periods.

(i) Robert Heinlein described DD Harriman's death before he recounted how Harriman "sold the Moon."

Poul Anderson described Dominic Flandry's career before writing the Young Flandry Trilogy and also described interstellar exploration before interplanetary exploration.

(ii) Heinlein reveals that the Howard Families have existed throughout his Future History, that some Howards were involved in the revolutionary Cabal and that Andy Libby is a Howard.

The Last Flandry novel reveals the existence of the Dakotian and Zacharian communities and also recapitulates some earlier events from a different perspective.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Asteroid Queen," two characters encountered earlier, a United Nations Space Navy general and an oyabun in the Alpha Centauri System, turn out to be members of a Grail Brotherhood that has suppressed knowledge of the Slavers for three centuries. How plausible is this? (Some people think that this is how society is run.) If "The Asteroid Queen" is a canonical part of Larry Niven's Known Space future history, then this Brotherhood exists in the background of every other installment even though not explicitly referenced.

Seeing Far

Who wrote this?

A time traveler visits the far future;
men traverse interplanetary space;
Martians invade Earth;
there will be wars and revolutions;
an alternative history unfolds on a parallel Earth.

I have just summarized five major sf works by HG Wells - and also by Poul Anderson.

Moving on from Wells:

Stapledon gave us cosmic sf;

Capek gave us robots;

de Camp gave us a time traveler changing history;

Heinlein gave us a future history series, a generation ship, science fictional treatment of immortality, juvenile sf, elaborate circular causality and magic as technology;

Asimov gave us robotics and a predictive science of society;

Anderson developed all of these themes.

The blog has entered territory where we are comparing future histories, including several by Anderson, and assessing collaborative future histories. Thus:

Niven created a future history series that includes a period of wars between men and kzinti;
Pournalle and Stirling wrote stories set in this period;
Anderson wrote sequels to Pournelle's and Stirling's Man-Kzin Wars stories.

We have come a long way from Wells' Martians invading Earth but are clearly in the same literary tradition. We find Anderson seeing far because he stands on the shoulders of:

Wells
Stapledon
Capek
de Camp
Heinlein
Asimov
Niven
Pournelle
Stirling -

- and we have not yet mentioned Mary Shelley, creator of science fiction and of the Frankenstein theme developed further by Capek, Asimov and Anderson.

Multiple Authorship

In a future history series, we value length and complexity. Multiple authorship increases both. I used to think that future histories should be multiply authored. Now that franchise universes have been published, what do we think?

(i) Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization achieves both length and complexity with single authorship.

(ii) The Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space History is considerably enhanced by (at least) three long contributions from Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling and (just) three long contributions from Poul Anderson.

Anderson's contributions, set in the FTL period, build on Pournelle's and Stirling's contributions, set in the earlier STL period. For example, Pournelle and Stirling introduce a bar and a character that Anderson reuses. Thus, these six works, which could be collected in two volumes, comprise a substantial section of this future history.

It becomes even less feasible to consider one author in isolation from others. We might attempt a comprehensive assessment of the Pournelle/Stirling/Anderson joint contribution to the Niven future history.