With Trevelyan Micah

The first three novels written (not published) by Poul Anderson were:

The Broken Sword (fantasy);
Vault Of The Ages (juvenile sf);
Star Ways/The Peregrine (a volume of his first future history).

A future history is event-driven, not character-driven. In this, the Psychotechnic, future history, three characters appear twice and that is it as far as character continuity goes:

"Un-Man," about clones of the dead but well remembered Stefan Rostomily, cameos Fourre;

"Marius," written later but set earlier is about Fourre and cameos Stefan;

in Star Ways, Trevelyan Micah of the Stellar Union Coordination Service bids farewell to Braganza Diane before departing on a mission;

in "The Pirate," written many years later but set a few years earlier, Micah again bids farewell to Diane before departing on a mission.

Thus, Fourre, Micah and Diane each appear twice.

Trevelyan refers to the Second Dark Ages which happened between "Brake" and "Gypsy." When he visits Port Nevada, we read one of Anderson's list-descriptions:

"...humans and nonhumans hustled, jostled, chiseled, brawled, clashed, stole, evangelized, grew rich, grew poor, came, went, and were forgotten..."
-Poul Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 213-214.

Trevelyan's nonhuman colleague says of the man whom they are investigating:

"'Our information concerning his world line is fragmentary, and zero about its future segment.'" (p. 220)

Of course information about the future is zero! But does Smokesmith imply that his species does sometimes have information about future segments of world lines? The very fact he (?) discusses a man in terms of his world line is suggestive.

"...the mother-of-pearl iridescence on [Smokesmith's] rugose torso was lovely to watch." (p. 221)

(I took "rugose" to mean "red.")

Nerthus, like Tyrfing, is a name that links Anderson's hard sf to his mythological fiction.

The Twilight Of The Gods

In Poul Anderson's Vault Of The Ages (New York, 1969), the High Doctor acknowledges his error:

" 'There is no evil in the vault. There is only evil in the hearts of men. Knowledge, all knowledge, is good.'" (p. 187)

Carl reflects:

"The gods were doomed - the cruel, old pagan gods of human fear and human ignorance felt their twilight upon them. And the darkness which dwells in every mortal heart cried out to the dying gods." (p. 187)

The defeated invaders can be taught useful technologies so that they will not re-invade. The rebuilding will take lifetimes.

"But what better work could anyone ask for?
"Carl...looked out into the summer night. It was dark now, but dawn was not far off." (p. 189)

Gods And God

Poul Anderson's Vault Of The Ages (New York, 1969) ends with two climactic chapters:

19. The Last Battle
20. Twilight of the Gods

(CS Lewis and Wagner.)

In this post-nuclear future, polytheism has returned although Carl thinks:

"If the idols of the Dalesmen were no more than wood and stone, then only the great God of the ancients could really be alive - and he would be more just than the powers of earth and air and fire." (p. 100)

Pagans worship not wood and stone but an indwelling spirit or presence.

According to one theory of religion:

(i) dependent on natural forces that they could neither understand nor control, people personified the forces and tried to placate them;

(ii) as society became more complex, social forces, like economics and war, oppressed people with the same apparently external power as nature so that as a result the social forces were also personified;

(iii) the personified forces were unified;

(iv) as natural and social forces come to be understood and controlled, they cease to be personified.

In this Anderson novel, nuclear war has thrown society back to stage (i).

Verbal And Visual

The text of Poul Anderson's Vault Of The Ages (New York, 1969) tells us, of the City men:

"Most of them were very dark-skinned." (pp. 28-29)

Their Chief is taller, old, wrinkled, white-bearded and blue-eyed so is he one of the many that are dark-skinned or one of the few that are not, as shown on the book cover attached here?

This question highlights a difference between verbal and visual media. A verbal description may be incomplete or ambiguous. Even when it is clear, it is not present throughout the text whereas a dramatic character's visual appearance is present throughout a scene.

Although I have always appreciated prose fiction, I have more recently gained an increasing appreciation of various visual media and the ways in which they differ:

a detailed, accurate book cover;
an illustrated text;
a comic strip;
an animated film;
a live action film;
a stage play.

Shadowlands about CS Lewis has been successively a stage play, a TV play, a feature film and a novelization of the film. (Wisely, scenes from Lewis' fictions were not interspersed with the biographical drama. When a child looked into a wardrobe, it was only a wardrobe.) I would like to see Anderson's works adapted into other media but only if this can be done really well.

Battle

I have commented before on Poul Anderson's rich vocabulary. I have just found another to me completely unfamiliar word, "...hackamore..." on p. 98 of Vault Of The Ages (New York, 1969). The context makes clear that it is a way to bridle a horse and it is easy to google the full meaning.

Meanwhile, Anderson has given us yet another excellent description of a battle. The Dalesmen draw up on the top of a hill in the wedge formation that we have met in other Anderson works. They hold off the attacking barbarians, the Lann, until the Lann's cavalry emerges from a concealing wood, attacks from the side and breaks through, destroying the Dalesmen's formation.

The Dalesmen's leader, Ralph, rallies his men, holds them together and leads a counterattack that breaks right through the enemy lines. Since night has fallen, the Lann Chief knows that his men will not be able to pursue so he holds them back.

Thus, Ralph's leadership has saved the bulk of the Dalesmen's army but they know that they are a beaten force. Anderson makes us feel what they feel:

"Carl's body was one vast, numb ache. His head felt hollow with tiredness, and he staggered a little as he walked. Only now was he becoming really aware of his wounds..." (p. 90)

Carl must break taboo to retrieve the scientific knowledge of the ancients in order to defeat the otherwise militarily superior Lann. The attached image conveys the wonder of finding records of technology in a time vault. I think from the description in the novel that the older man showing the three boys a model of a rocket should be dark-skinned.

Doctor

Poul Anderson's "A Tragedy of Errors" is about misunderstanding and conflict caused by words changing their meanings. An important word changes its meaning in Anderson's Vault Of The Ages (New York, 1969).

In Latin, "doctor" means "teacher": doceo, I teach; docere, to teach; doctor, one who teaches. Hence, "doctrine," that which is taught, and Doctor Mirabilis ("Wonderful Teacher"), the title of James Blish's historical novel.

In English, "doctor" means a medical professional.

In Vault Of The Ages, "Doctor" has come to mean "magician."

A Doctor is:

public scribe;
record-keeper;
teacher;
priest;
medicine man, with some medical knowledge as well as magic rites;
counselor;
sorcerer;
preserver of knowledge.

The High Doctor:

"...was the one who spoke for the gods. He was the agent of those great shadowy powers of sky and earth, fire and water, growth and death and destiny, before which men quailed." (p. 72)

Oh no, a Pagan Pope! Requiring a new Reformation! The parallel with the medieval Pope is reinforced when, just before the reference to gods, we are told that the High Doctor:

"...was the absolute ruler of the order of Doctors, which owned great lands and wealth; and his hold on the people was such that he could stir them up against anyone who dared oppose his stiff will." (p. 72)

Also, he orders people killed if he thinks the gods want it.

Novels Of Experience

Despite their fantastic futuristic and other exotic settings, Poul Anderson's novels contain many passages that would belong in any fictional account of human experience. First, there are his many descriptions of nature:

"The Dales rolled green and still and beautiful away to the east, and the quiet evening air was full of sunset and the sleepy twitter of birds. No other human was in sight." (Vault Of The Ages, New York, 1969, p. 51)

"...he sniffed the rich green life about him with a new delight. Summer, leaves rustling and breaking the light into golden flecks, a glimpse of blue sky amid cool shadows, a king snake sunning itself on a moss-grown log, a pheasant rising on alarmed wings before he could shoot, like a rainbowed lightning flash - oh, it was good to be alive, alive and free in the young summer!" (ibid., p. 55)

Secondly, there are reflections on the human condition:

"...not even the supernatural, demons and ghosts and the very gods, threatened men. The powers of night and storm, flood and fire and drought and winter, were still a looming terror, but they had been conquered once by the ancients and they could be harnessed again.
"No, man's remorseless and deadly foe was only - himself.
"But that enemy was old and strong and crafty." (ibid., p. 58)

In the past and in an imagined future, Anderson shows barbarians on the move. Tribes dispossessed, whether by Huns from the east or by the Lann from the north, tend to invade other territories, to the west or the south, but is this right? No, if social leaders are capable of any moral judgement, then a better course of action is to seek military allies and trading partners in the unconquered territories.

Lastly, the human condition goes much deeper:

"...what was this mysterious 'I' which reached back a few years and forward an unknown number of days? What was it that housed in his skull and looked out at the world, forever a prisoner within itself, and - and - Collie drew back from the thought with a shudder." (Twilight World, London, 1984, p. 95)

Collie is an active extrovert who would not tend to pursue that thought much further. But where fiction ends, psychology, philosophy, spirituality and meditation begin.

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