Poul Anderson's Martians: Shield And Un-Man

Albeit without rereading Poul Anderson's Shield (New York, 1970) from cover to cover, I now think that I cannot find a physical description of the Martians in this novel because there is no such description. The entire action of the novel is on Earth. On p. 11, Koskinen, who has just returned from Mars, reminisces...

The Martian, Elkor, has a "huge form" and communicates with Koskinen with coded vibrations transmitted through a "palp" laid from behind on the Earthman's neck. That is all - and it is enough. As I said in the previous post, I usually forget details of a description of an alien form given once early in a text but, on rereading, these enigmatic hints about Elkor are preferable to the graphic stork-like bipedal form of "The Martian Crown Jewels."

(To touch base with SM Stirling's In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings, which is being read meanwhile, in "The Martian Crown Jewels," the Martian Syaloch's apartment is illuminated by "...glowsnakes..." (Call Me Joe, p. 429). Thus, these two races of Martians use biotech. ...Crimson Kings also features the very high tech of the Lords of Creation. This tech, concealed underground but glowing and affecting brains and minds when approached, reminds me of the Kryptonian tech in the Smallville TV series.)

Rereading part of Chapter III of "Un-Man" (New York, 1962) confirms that there are a few surviving native Martians, "...shy and secretive..." (p. 19), in Anderson's Psychotechnic History. Again, I do not think that there is any description. They are mentioned because it has been discovered that they can sleep through the winter or a drought. Although their blood freezes:

the freezing point is much lower than for human blood;

when freezing does occur, released enzymes prevent cell rupturing;

a process comparable to ion exchange circulates oxygen and nutrients even through the ice;

returning heat revives the organism.

I never knew that.

Yet More On Mars

See here.

At least four works by Poul Anderson -

The War Of Two Worlds,
Shield,
"Duel On Syrtis,"
"The Martian Crown Jewels" -

each present a different version of indigenous Martians.

I have yet to read "The Martian Crown Jewels," which I understand is a Sherlock Holmes tribute, and would be grateful if someone could point me towards a collection or anthology containing this story.

Anderson's Holmes tributes are various:

Holmes and Watson appear in "Time Patrol," the first Time Patrol story, and Holmes is mentioned again as "Altamont" later in the series;
a descendant of Holmes features in "The Queen Of Air And Darkness," the last Rustum History story;
a criminal character called Moriarty appears in There Will Be Time, the last work in the Maurai sequence;
better than this, a lineal descendant of Moriarty is the viewpoint character of "The Word From Space," a non-series short story.

From Mars to Holmes covers just two of Anderson's numerous interests.

More On Mars

Someone could compile an encyclopedia just about all the fictitious Martian races, maybe starting with the major writers -

British: Wells, Stapledon, Lewis;
American: Burroughs, Heinlein, Bradbury;
also: Blish, Anderson, Niven, Weinbaum;
ERB-related: Arnold, Kline, Moorcock;
screen: Quatermass and the Pit, Doctor Who's Ice Warriors, Mars Attacks!;
comics: DC Comics' Martian Manhunter.

And many others. Some of these writers have more than one version of Mars and its inhabitants and some of the Martians exist only in the imaginations or speculations of the fictitious characters.

Here is a question for Anderson fans: how many Martian races does Anderson have? (And should we include extra-solar colonists of Mars who come to be called "Martians"?)

Fictitious Martians are either serious scientific speculation about hypothetical Martian life or exercises in imagination about possible other life forms. Anderson's Shield contains both. He mentions something like gnarled trees with long branches, an idea about conceivable Martian vegetation. But the Martians themselves have a different language for each sense, vocal, tactile etc. Further, each language articulates a different aspect of experience so that they are not mutually translatable but between them build up a completer view. Here, Anderson has gone beyond talking about Mars and is instead speculating about alternative modes of consciousness.

On The Run

Like some other novels by Poul Anderson, Shield is an "on the run" story. Our hero is permanently on the run from his own government and its enemies with every man's hand against him:

Military Security arrests Koskinen but he escapes when Chinese agents attack;
a gang boss captures Koskinen but he escapes when Chinese agents attack;
revolutionary conspirators detain Koskinen but he escapes on his own initiative;
Military Security besieges Koskinen but the Air Force rescues him.

But more happens in the novel than that! Koskinen talks with an influential industrialist, with the industrialist's politically experienced secretary, with a trade union leader who turns out to be one of the revolutionaries and with a social philosopher. The dominance of Military Security is explained with the historically resonant term, "Caesarism." The Roman general Marius is mentioned for perhaps the fifth time in Anderson's works.

The head of Military Security and the revolutionaries are alike in sacrificing individual human beings to their vision of society. Anderson, speaking through the industrialist's secretary, analyses the American, French and Russian Revolutions and I disagree with one point that is made about one of these revolutions but that is to be expected in a novel with so much political content.

Russians And Martians

In Poul Anderson's Shield (New York, 1970), I found the cryptic passage about the Russians, on p. 46, and it was not quite what I thought. Apparently, they got hit in the war but had a bad experience before that. Martians will not cooperate with anyone not friendly with the human beings that they are already dealing with and they can tell. Further, they can detonate someone else's atomic weapons and this is what happened to a Russian Mars expedition. Thus, the Martians did not intervene on Earth but did deal very effectively with attempted deceit on Mars.

Cooperation was very close with the American expedition. Martian field theory and Terrestrial practical solid state physics combined to produce the force field "shield." The Martian Elkor communicated with an Earthman with coded vibrations in a palp laid on the man's neck and addressed him as "Sharer-of-Hopes..." (p. 11)

The Protectorate

I got a detail wrong before as a result of commenting on a book while rereading it instead of waiting till the end. In Poul Anderson's Shield (New York, 1970), the American Protectorate is global despite what I said two posts ago. It bans armed forces beyond the level of police forces in all other countries, including China. Despite this, China remains a rival power because it clandestinely supports "...a network of agents and agitators..." while disowning them officially and this works because there are not enough qualified inspectors (p. 56).

Thus, the Americans play the same role here as the Maurai in their series and the Swedes in Tau Zero. What has become of the Russians? I think that something was said about their fate but have not yet found it looking back. (Meanwhile, my forty three year old paperback copy of Shield is falling apart.)

Another occasional idea in science fiction, for example in James Blish's The Star Dwellers and also here, is enhanced education techniques in the future. In Shield, because of his high IQ, Peter Koskinen is raised by the Institute, taking "...a master's degree in physics with a minor in symbolics at the age of eighteen..." (the year my generation started their first degree) and is immediately accepted for a Mars expedition (p. 7). The country needs many trained personnel fast so the means are found.

Future differences in beliefs and worldviews are shown by different expletives in characters' speech. Koskinen prays, "God...or Existence, or whatever you are..." (p. 20) and again, "Great Existence..." (p. 35)

- so ontology has replaced theology?

Shield II

(Shield is, of course, also very different from The Shield Of Time.)

Rereading Poul Anderson's Shield (New York, 1970) as far as p. 41, we find some more familiar science fiction background material:

the megalopolis includes low level slums for the large numbers made unemployed by the advent of machines;
welfare services cannot keep pace with population growth;
police rarely intervene in gang-ruled areas;
entertainment is provided by three-dimensional television (although here it is called 3D, not the usual 3-V);
our hero, on the run both from the authorities and from their enemies, is passed from pillar to post in the, to him, unfamiliar environment of various low dives where he is at the mercy of the local criminal underworld;
he is in possession of a potential weapon wanted by governments and gang bosses alike but his immediate aim has to be his own survival.

Anderson deploys these familiar plot elements well and can be expected to do more with them and also to say something about his basic underlying themes before the end of the novel.

Shield

(Shield, not SHIELD: the latter means something else on the Comics Appreciation blog.)

I had remembered that Poul Anderson's Shield was set after a nuclear war but it is one of his futures in which such a war had occurred without destroying civilization. Society remains urban, even megalopolitan, with interplanetary capability.

Some standard sf props and familiar background details soon become evident:

the megalopolis is vast enough to join Boston, Norfolk and Pittsburgh;
there is a "Protectorate" to prevent further nuclear exchanges although this one is not global - China remains a rival power;
the reader must quickly ascertain whether for current narrative purposes the men from Military Security are to be regarded as good guys or bad guys;
"air cars" land on and take off from the flat roofs of tall city buildings, are assigned to various altitudes by a central "Control" and can be flown on autopilot (I previously mentioned such standardized futuristic vehicles in a list of familiar props when discussing Anderson's The Star Fox here).

I have reread only to page 14 of 158 so there will be more to say about Shield.

Vault Of The Ages

Yes! By reading Poul Anderson's Introduction, "The Time Capsule," to his Vault Of The Ages (New York, 1969), I have confirmed that it is indeed set on Earth five hundred years after a nuclear war. Therefore, I will reread it after Twilight World and Shield, although this will take a while especially with a family funeral scheduled for next week.

Is Vault Of The Ages classified as a juvenile novel?

"The Time Capsule," which I do not remember reading before, is an excellent synopsis of information about the time capsules in Atlanta, Georgia, and New York City. For the latter, 3650 copies of a Book of Record, printed on permanent paper with special ink, distributed to libraries, museums, monasteries, lamaseries, temples etc and containing a request that it be translated into each newly emerging language, describes how to find the securely buried capsule when it is to be opened in 6938.

The Roman poet Horace wrote: "Exegi monumentum aere perennius (I have erected a monument more lasting than bronze)."

A Shakespeare sonnet ends:

"And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
"Praising thy worth despite his cruel hand."

 James Elroy Flecker wrote a poem To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence, ending:

"To greet you. You will understand."

(Flecker's recorded voice reciting this poem is on the Internet.)
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l3EgFRbzG4