Approaching Completion

(Another historic building is to be visited today.)

I have now discussed every Poul Anderson work in my possession, several of them more than once. With the passage of time, it is possible to reread a novel and to discuss it afresh - but more time has to elapse.

Two or three NESFA collections remain to be acquired but, on past form, are unlikely to contain many unfamiliar works. Also, the unfamiliar works tend to be less interesting. It is a safe bet that the the best of Poul Anderson has already been collected.

I am a big fan of good time travel fiction and regard Anderson as Wells' main successor in this respect - also a vast improvement on Twain. The NESFA collections have yielded two time travel stories:

"My Object All Sublime" contributes nothing new to the concept;
"The Barrier Moment" presents a clever but, by its nature, limited philosophical application of the concept.

Laters.

Space Time Fiction

In Poul Anderson's and Gordon R. Dickson's "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound," the quadrupedal criminal indeed turns out to have been masquerading as the Hound of the Baskervilles. No surprises there.

If anyone were to read the fourth NESFA collection of Anderson's short works from cover to cover, then they would encounter the third Gunnar Heim story, the fourth Hoka story, the fourth Time Patrol story, two independent stories and a pivotal David Falkayn story one after the other. Some readers might even prefer these unexpected reappearances of familiar characters. To this extent, the collections recapture something of the unpredictability of the original magazine publication of the author's works.

I remarked recently that Captain Heim of Fox II might recall Captain Kirk of the Enterprise. However, I feel that a worthier comparison can be drawn between Anderson's interstellar fiction and some comic strip sf written for example by Alan Moore. See here.

The Contents of NESFA Collections Vol 4

non-series stories, 12
Psychotechnic History, 4
Technic History, 2
Gunnar Heim, 1
Hoka, 1
Time Patrol, 1
"Directorate," 1
Operation..., 1
verse, 1

In this volume, "Marius," the opening story of the Psychotechnic History, immediately follows "Gypsy," a much later installment of that same future history. "Marius" is a near-future post-nuclear-war story set so close to the present that its characters had been involved in World War II whereas "Gypsy," set in a remote future of faster than light interstellar travel, recounts the origin of the space-traveling Nomad culture. Reading these two works here, there is no way to tell that they belong on the same timeline. The idea is merely to appreciate them as individual stories. "Quixote and the Windmill" and "Holmgang" recount stages of the history intermediate between these two chronological extremes.

I find it impossible to read such a collection without mentally re-cataloguing its contents. It is possible that the fifth volume will contain not a single story that I have not read before. At the same time, even already familiar stories can generate new observations and comments when they have been re-packaged and re-presented.

Admiralty And Admiralty II

I was surprised to find a passage that is much shorter in the later version of "Admiralty." See previous post. On p. 14 of Admiralty, there is a reference to an Aleriona delegate who is called "...Admiral Cynbe ru Taren..." I did not think that the text of The Star Fox had applied Terrestrial naval terms to the Aleriona, who instead had much more elaborate - literally florid - ways to describe their own military ranks and functions, so I checked the corresponding passage in the novel. This passage, on p. 143, turns out to be much shorter, one sentence instead of two paragraphs, and not to refer to Cynbe.

However, on the question of naval terms applied to Aleriona, The Star Fox, p.24, has "Cynbe ru Taren, Intellect Master in the Garden of War, fleet admiral, and military specialist of the Grand Commission of Negotiators..." so the word "admiral" is used even if only by way of comparison with Terrestrial ranks. Anyone who has the NESFA collections and The Star Fox can, if they want to, make detailed comparisons of the texts at every such point.

The Aleriona, like the Merseian Roidhunate, are unequivocally determined to eliminate humanity. Consequently, the human characters who are prepared to wage war are in the right. Peace mongers are at best mistaken and at worst dishonest. However, Anderson shows a different situation in the sequel, Fire Time, where it is the Terrestrials who are imperialistic in their war against the Naqsa.

"The boats went forth. Heim settled himself in the main control chair and watched them..." (The Star Fox, p. 139)

How many of us read about Captain Heim and the Star Fox and remember Captain Kirk in Star Trek? However, this is serious hard sf, not a popular TV series.

Admiralty And Admiralty

The title of this post refers to two versions of a Poul Anderson text:

(i) "Admiralty," original version, republished in NESFA collections, Vol 4, Admiralty (Framingham, MA, 2011);

(ii) "Admiralty" in The Star Fox (London, 1968).

(i) fills pp. 11-55 of Admiralty and is divided into nine sections numbered 1 to 9, preceded by an unnumbered introductory page.

(ii) fills pp. 133-204 of The Star Fox and is divided into ten Chapters numbered One to Ten.

In (i), the introductory page presents a summary that is unnecessary in The Star Fox where "Admiralty" is immediately preceded by the two earlier Gunnar Heim stories. The summary informs or reminds us that:

the Phoenix region of space is about 150 light years from the Solar System;

this region contains a French colony on the planet New Europe in the Auroran System;

the alien Aleriona from the system of The Eith have occupied New Europe and are building what will become impregnable orbital defences;

the Aleriona are opposed only by a single, well-armed privateer, Fox II, captained by Gunnar Heim;

Fox II captures Aleriona ships and sells them in the Solar System;

 
however, the prize crews cannot return because Fox's movements must remain unpredictable;

the Aleriona begin to arm unescorted cargo ships;

however, despite its unexpected armaments, Fox captures the ship, Meroeth;

nevertheless, this capture will end Fox's raiding missions - we must read on to find out why.

The introductory page begins with the omniscient narrator directly addressing the reader:

"Consider his problem." (p. 11)

This leads into the summary.

In (ii), Chapter One fills eight pages, presents less summary and describes the battle with Meroeth. Missiles and lasers are deployed. Meroeth's FTL drive is disabled and its captain surrenders. Heim sends a boarding party which learns that Meroeth carries human prisoners.

The second paragraphs of section 1 and of Chapter Two both begin:

"The mess seethed with men."

Crew and liberated prisoners celebrate.

"Home" And "Delenda Est"

I thought that I had previously read all but two of the stories in the NESFA Press The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson, Volume 4, but in fact I had previously read all but one of them. "Home" is such a forgettable title that I did not immediately recognize this story. However, I have argued previously that it introduces a short future history. See:

A Future History Or Not?
Poul Anderson's Ninth Future History
Reviewing STL Future Histories

The story as presented here does not include one short passage that gives a chilling insight into the psychology of the alien Mithrans.

"Delenda Est," as presented here, does include references to characters who were introduced in two stories published later so it looks as if this is the revised, not the original, version of "Delenda Est." 

The Barrier Moment

"The Barrier Moment" was short enough to read over lunch. Poul Anderson shows how time travel would be able to answer a philosophical question that previously was inherently unanswerable but I will not state the question here.

However, I will comment on one statement made by the philosopher character:

"'The human psyche does not feel comfortable with any form of philosophical idealism...any belief that mind is somehow supreme over matter.'" (Admiralty, p. 309)

On the contrary, the human psyche has embraced idealism in all its forms from propitiating gods to believing that society is based on ideas like freedom rather than on a particular stage in the material struggle for survival.

Like "My Object All Sublime," in Vol 2, "The Barrier Moment" should be included in a revised edition of Past Times, the collection of Poul Anderson's non-series time travel short stories.

That's all for now, folks.

Admiralty

NESFA Collections Vol 4 arrived by post the day after it was ordered from Amazon. Any faster would have been time travel. Initial observations:

there seem to be only two stories that I have not already read, the lowest proportion yet;

one of those is about time travel, thus potentially although not necessarily, an interesting story;

this original version of "Admiralty" differs textually from the version in The Star Fox so it will be read;

some other stories may be reread;

the introductory essay on Poul Anderson by David G Hartwell is clearly of interest.

There are at least two NESFA volumes after this. Vol 5 is called Door To Anywhere. Is that, like the other five volumes, named after one of the stories collected in it?

My immediate life agenda is: lunch (eat it); Latin (attend a class in it); litter (buy it for the cat). However, posts about Admiralty will not be long delayed.

Solar Flare II

OK. I have answered the questions that I asked in "Solar Flare." I just had to reread carefully. Some readers must be thinking that it is too obvious to be stated.

If the cargo had remained unshielded, then the solar flare would have detonated it, killing the herdship pilot and contaminating near-Earth space. The only solution was to haul the cargo away from near-Earth space, then to jettison the gas into space, and to do all this before the flare arrived - a race against time.

Removing the cargo from near-Earth space prevents contamination of that space. Jettisoning the gas prevents any explosion even further out. Doing all this as quickly as possible minimizes the period during which the pilot is vulnerable to an explosion caused by the flare. Even if a heavily armored man survived the explosion, he would soon be killed by flare radiation.

However, shielding the cargo with the sliced up sail prevents an explosion even after the arrival of the flare. By hauling the cargo away from the Sun until the flare subsides, the pilot saves the isonitrate to be collected by tugs. Future cargos will be shielded to prevent a repeat disaster. This time, only the sail must be sacrificed  - and parts of it might sell as souvenirs! (Anderson's heroes always solve economic as well as technical problems.)

Solar Flare

(See recent posts.)

How To Save Lives, Prevent The Cargo From Exploding And Also Avoid Having To Jettison It In Space

Get crew from several ships to cut the sail into fifteen-yard squares.
Layer the squares within a welded framework to shield the cargo section.
Keep shield, cargo section and hauling herdship facing directly into the blast of the solar flare.
The herdship pilot, loaded with anti-fatigue pills and psychodrugs, must continually counteract gravity which tries to swing the ensemble into orbit.

I have done my best to understand both the danger and the means taken to avert it but still have some questions which arise purely from my lack of scientific and technical knowledge:

we are told that the herdship's own internal shielding "...drank up..." (p. 242) lethal radiation which seems to mean that the herdship crew would have been safe in any case?;

they haul the cargo to where a tug can collect it in the Moon's shadow whereas their previous plan had been to "...valve it out..." (p. 225) at a safe distance from Earth and Moon so why has the use of the improvised sail shield changed this part of the plan?

I am sure that the answers to these questions are obvious to readers with any knowledge of celestial mechanics.

Isonitrate II

I never thought that "isonitrate" would warrant a second post.

An interplanetary industrial process:

scoopships collect substances, including metal atoms, from the Jovian atmosphere;
an orbital station processes these complexes into dangerously explosive isonitrate;
unmanned sailships/sunjammers, moved outward by light pressure or inward by gravity, take months to tack between orbits;
a sail is a metal-coated carbon compound sheet, continually eroded by micrometeorites and eventually replaced;
each sailship also has sensors, automata, signalling equipment and motors that are powered by solar batteries and controlled by a pilot computer;
the motors control rotation and precession of the sail;
one sailship cargo is a ten yard diameter sphere containing cold, liquefied, high pressure, high energy isonitrate, shaded by the sail to prevent boiling;
Earth pays the asterite Beltline Transportation Company well for this cargo, needed to start several chemical syntheses;
Beltline herdships/maintenance ships stay close to the orbits of sail and power craft;
thus, when an isonitrate cargo is endangered by an imminent solar flare, a herdship crew is on hand to detach the sail and other mass, then hook the cargo to their ship and haul it to a safe distance from Earth and Moon before valving it out.

I have learned far more about these processes by summarizing them than by merely reading about them. Readers without a scientific or technical background are at a disadvantage with this kind of hard sf.

Isonitrate

"'Cargo of...I say, this is an odd one. She's carrying eight hundred metric tons of isonitrate from the Sword's Jovian-orbit plant.'" (NESFA Vol 3, p. 224)

I thought that I was going to have to google "isonitrate." However, Golescu asks, "'Isonitrate what?'" (ibid.) and is answered:

"An important industrial chemical,' West explained. 'Alkali complex of 2, 4 benzoisopro -'" (ibid.) -

- at which point Golescu interrupts, saying that he is sorry he asked. I took this to mean that isonitrate was invented for story purposes by Anderson but then googled to make sure and found something that seems to be a different meaning of the word.

At any rate, Anderson's isonitrate will explode if, as expected, the sun flares, so it has to be hauled out of the danger area or should I say volume. The gaseous metallic-complex molecules would cause billions of dollars of economic damage by contaminating orbiting photocells, monitors, spectrometers, weather satellites, manned space stations and cybernets controlling radio relays or Mossbauer clocks. (Someone might have better luck than I did on googling "Mossbauer clock.")

This story is overly technical even for Anderson but, of course, the characters are real people arguing politics and wanting to get back home safe and sound.

"Sunjammer"

Over breakfast, I make a big decision. Should I continue to reread previously read stories in the third NESFA collection of Poul Anderson's short works or instead return, without further delay, to rereading his future history novel, Starfarers?

It is impossible to read or reread anything by Anderson without learning something. In the second paragraph of "Sunjammer" (NESFA Vol 3, pp. 221-243), we read that the Andromeda galaxy is one and a half million light years away. I thought that it was two million. To settle the matter, I check Wiki, which says two and a half million! Lesson learned: we really do only have approximations for cosmic distances.

In the same paragraph, Earth seen from space is described as "...a cabochon of clear and lovely blue..." and Luna as "...a tarnished pearl beyond." (p. 221)

Two thoughts:

beautiful, well-observed descriptions, as in the phrase that generated the title, A Stone In Heaven (see here);
another to me unfamiliar word.

I will reread the rest of "Sunjammer."

"Robin Hood's Barn"

The first story in the Rustum History was not called "Robin Hood's Barn," was it? I will check the next time I am in arm's reach of my copy of Orbit Unlimited. I started to read this story in NESFA Vol 3 and quickly realized what it was. (I have checked. It was called "Robin Hood's Barn" but I do not understand the significance of the title.)

It presents yet another routine use of an air-car, this time by a character whose house is raised above the sea on caissons.

Old Svoboda, a Government Commissioner, goes to a lot of trouble on behalf of his son:

his own reasoning and the books of a theoretician called Anker have convinced Svoboda that there is no hope for a better life on Earth in the foreseeable future;

so he wants to give Svoboda Junior a fresh start in a new world;

but this can happen only if there is a colony on an extrasolar planet;

and the colonists are most likely to succeed if they are able people who have left Earth voluntarily;

but such people will leave only if there is a problem on Earth that they cannot overcome;

so Svoboda Senior covertly hires the actor Laird to play the role of an orator who founds the Constitutionalist movement based on Anker's philosophy;

then he retires Laird with a new identity and a lavish pension;

when Laird is no longer around, having disappeared then drunk himself to death, the possibility that Svoboda has had him assassinated remains open;

Svoboda Junior, who has a rebellious temperament, becomes a Constitutionalist;

Svoboda Senior gets the Government to re-institute free public education and, as part of this, to close the independent Constitutionalist schools;

the Constitutionalists, including Svoboda Junior, can preserve their culture and way of life only by emigrating;

the Government sponsors their expedition because, while they remain on Earth, the many professionals and technical experts who are Constitutionalists threaten strikes, sabotage and insurrection;

these well-off people own property which they cannot take with them and which can therefore be sold to fund their expedition.

Results:

Government gets rid of Constitutionalists without having to imprison or massacre them;
Constitutionalists build the society that they want;
Svoboda Junior makes a fresh start in a new world.

But could any one person plausibly contrive all that?

"Eve Times Four" II

Poul Anderson's "Eve Times Four" in NESFA Vol 3:

is yet another Holmesian story ("Time Patrol" and "The Martian Crown Jewels" are in NESFA Vol 1 and "The Queen of Air and Darkness" is the title story of NESFA Vol 2);

makes the interesting point that, on a planet with longer days and nights, organisms active at night and those active by day will be more specialized and differentiated;

presents clues that we, or at least I, did not recognize as such (e.g., why is planetary rotation so slow when there is no large satellite to retard it?);

presents an odd mixture of castaways - one young man, three young women, one older woman, two extraterrestrial quadrupeds of different species - but then explains the oddity;

nevertheless, remains an example of a kind of rather flippant humor that does not appeal to me.

NESFA Vol 1 contains the three Wing Alak stories.

NESFA Vols 1-3 contain the first three Time Patrol stories although these are collected in Time Patrol.

NESFA Vols 2-3 contain the first two of the three Gunnar Heim stories although these are collected with the third in The Star Fox.

 

NESFA Vol 2 contains two Flying Mountains stories and Vol 3 has another two although these are all collected in Tales of the Flying Mountains.

The second Rustum story is in NESFA Vol 2 and the first is in NESFA Vol 3 although these are collected in Orbit Unlimited.

Awesomeness

I have scrolled back down this blog. The content is awesome. I am not congratulating myself. The contents of these posts are entirely down to Poul Anderson and to comparable writers like SM Stirling. I could not have written any of these works but can read, reread and recommend. Plot summaries and commentaries illustrated with book covers or with other appropriate images should provide good introductions or reminders for other readers.

I turned to rereading one chapter of Anderson's Starfarers while awaiting the third volume of his collected short works which was to arrive by post. Now I will read one more new (to me) story in this volume and then maybe reread one or two of the already familiar works before returning to an in-depth rereading of Starfarers although I had posted about this novel, I thought comprehensively, before. Word by word rereading and posting is incomparably more rewarding than reading a book from cover to cover then going on to something else. Anderson's apparently endless detail work in thinking through the backgrounds and rationales of his plots can easily be missed by readers carried forward by the momentum of an exciting action-adventure narrative, although such works can also serve as entertaining diversions for anyone who does not want to delve any deeper into their texts.

Each work has at least two levels and usually a lot more.

"Mustn't Touch"

Poul Anderson, "Mustn't Touch" IN NESFA Vol 3 (see previous post).

Interesting Points

(i) "...spaceman's bombillas of tea..." (p. 410)

(ii) "'I say nothing against the Australian Authority - war had to be eliminated somehow...'" (p. 413)

Anderson acknowledges that other nations might wield world power in future, especially in the wake of a nuclear war. In other works, the Maurai and the Swedes.

(iii) Computers have been replaced by "...creatively synthesizing robot brains..." (p. 408), which are "...rational, conscious beings." (p. 410) One character remarks:

" ...we've talked for a long time now about making contact with alien races. But I wonder if we'll ever find any as alien as this one we've built ourselves.'" (p. 413)

Dr Richard Slaughter speculated that, if artificial intelligence is ever created, then it will be the real alien intelligence. He mentioned this idea to Isaac Asimov who replied, "Yes, I might get a story out of that."

Important: See next post.

NESFA Vol 3

Rick Katze, Editor, The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson, Volume 3, The Saturn Game (Framingham, MA, 2010).

The Table of Contents lists 30 items. However, these include two Introductions and one Acknowledgments. Therefore, 27 works by Anderson. Of these, 9 are short verses. Therefore, 18 works of prose fiction by Anderson. (No non-fiction articles in this Volume.)

The 18 works comprise:

5 in the Technic History;
2 in the Flying Mountains future history;
1 in the Rustum future history;
1 in the Time Patrol series;
1 in the Gunnar Heim series;
1 in the Operation... series;
7 non-series stories.

Important Addendum: see here.

We have already read the 11 series stories and 5 of the 7 non-series stories.

When I listed "Series With Only Two Installments" (see here), I made at least one omission. "Sam Hall," counted here as one of the 7 non-series stories, describes the Sam Hall revolution which is referred back to in Three Worlds To Conquer. Thus, this short story and this novel can count as another short series.

Greg Bear On Poul Anderson

Greg Bear, "Poul Anderson" IN Rick Katze and Lis Carey, Editors, The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson, Volume I, Call Me Joe (Framingham MA, 2009), pp. 7-10.

"...Poul's...full range and brilliance became even more obvious when I read The Broken Sword and Tau Zero back to back." (p. 7)

Heroic fantasy and hard sf. Like reading Tolkien and Stapledon back to back. Brilliant but I would also find it disorienting. When I reread The Broken Sword, I wanted to follow it with Anderson's four other fantasies that form a loose sequence with it:

The Demon Of Scattery;
Mother Of Kings;
War Of The Gods;
Hrolf Kraki's Saga -

- and then I wanted to stay in the past with:

(what I call) the three BC;
Ys;
the Last Viking;
the three novels set in the fourteenth century;
the time travel and other works set in various past periods;
the alternative histories -

- before returning to any of Anderson's technological futures.

Similarly, after rereading Tau Zero, I would want to reread its short prequel, "Pride," before staying with works of hard sf set in other timelines. While immersed in one kind of fictional narrative, I find it hard to jump into a different, almost diametrically opposed, imaginary universe.

"Poul was a modern skald, heir to the traditions of those who entertained weary Vikings centuries past." (p. 8)

Yes, both when he wrote about Vikings and when he wrote about spacemen - whom we learned to call "astronauts."

"This is not to say that Poul's work is not serious, or that it came easily to him..." (ibid.)

Anderson's works address the most serious issues of life, society and the universe. But surely his immense output alone shows that writing came more easily to him than, e.g., to James Blish who did struggle with the text of his historical novel, Doctor Mirabilis, and whose total output is unfortunately much smaller?

Imaginary Science? II

"Clement himself often allows faster-than-light travel, mainly because he needs it to get his characters to his alien worlds in reasonable time but partly, he has admitted, because of a feeling that it may be possible in spite of what most physicists say."
-Poul Anderson, NESFA vol 2, p. 107.

To me, that first reason is no longer acceptable. If an sf writer wants to transport characters from Earth to another planetary system, then he can:

accept the limits of slower than light travel;

locate the other system fairly close to the Solar System, focus his narrative on events in the other system and fudge the issue of STL v. FTL;

do something original with FTL as Anderson tried to do each time he resorted to it;

find a way within current relativity theory to allow for FTL as Carl Sagan did in Contact;

do something that I haven't thought of (I am the fan, not the writer);

but please do not just invoke an unexplained sf cliche called "hyperspace."

This blog has discussed Anderson and other writers connected to Anderson and is now discussing Anderson on other writers. Onward.