Gaia

Chapter 3 of Eternity by Greg Bear is set on Gaia, the alternative Earth that Patricia/Patrikia had accessed near the end of Eon. I feel that, at this point, the hard sf of Eon became fantasy. The element that I find fantastic is not the existence of alternative Earths but the means of finding and entering them.

While inside the infinite artificial corridor called "the Way," which  physically is out there somewhere in interstellar space, projected from one end of a spacecraft, Patricia was one of a number of people who had a knack like water-dousing. Each of them wielded a device that enabled them to locate a particular point on the inner surface of the Way, namely a point at which it would then be possible, using the same device, to open an entryway to a particular alternative Earth at a particular moment of its history.

Patricia sought a history in which there had not been a recent nuclear war, therefore in which her parents and fiancee had not died in such a war, but in which she herself had nevertheless died in some accident so that the Patricia arriving from the Way would be able to replace the Patricia who had died in the accident. She walks around inside the Way holding the device called the "clavicle," somehow sensing the presence of alternative Earths, receiving an impression of their contents, even information about them, and homing in on the one that she wants. It seems that she does not read the data on dials or a screen on the clavicle but rather inwardly senses them with the help of the clavicle?

So an analogy might be an astronomer seeking stars with habitable planets who points a telescope at the sky, moves it around and is guided by the telescope to focus on a particular part of the sky and eventually on a single star? This does not sound like a scientific process. In fact, to complete the analogy, he would be able to specify and locate a planet not merely habitable but Earth-like in every detail although uninhabited?

When she begins "...the gate dilation," the clavicle whistles painfully, she sees "...a circle of whirling possibilities at her feet..." (Eon, London, 2002, p. 470) and the circle becomes a gateway to a point on the Earth's surface, although she gets the wrong Earth. But I find it difficult to accept that she can get to any Earth by such a means.

A View From Space

"President Kies Farren Siliom stood on a broad transparent platform, the wide orb of the Earth coming into view beneath him as Axis Euclid rotated. Five hundred square meters of stressed and ion-anchored glass and two layers of traction field lay between the president's conference chamber and empty space; he seemed to stand on a stretch of open nothingness."
-Greg Bear, Eternity (London, 1989), p. 9.

This passage is a visual description. We think that it should be drawn or filmed. But we also appreciate prose, especially since it tells us what a picture cannot, i.e., the real nature of that "...open nothingness."

Under Recovery legislation, mental therapies have been applied on Earth. Belligerents have been pacified and:

"Mental illness and and dysfunction were virtually eradicated." (ibid.)

Meanwhile, I have received a vision of the future from an unexpected quarter. Waiting for a funeral service to begin, I read the introduction to the Anglican hymn book, revised in 2000. Whereas the original version had been used throughout the British Empire, the editors recognized, first, that life had changed and that many issues had become less certain in the twentieth century and, secondly, that this most recently revised edition is to be used in a new century of probably unimaginable social changes - in other words, a science fictional century.

Eternity II

I collected my copy of Greg Bear's Eternity, a direct sequel to his Eon. I said earlier that an internet review of Eternity did not make it sound like a sequel. That is because it was a review of Bear's City At The End Of Time! But these titles can be samey, especially to someone who hasn't read the books yet. In fact, I have just seen an artistically beautiful graphic adaptation of Harlan Ellison's Star Trek episode, The City On The Edge Of Forever, another resonant - and similar - title.

In Eternity, set four decades later, I will be interested to see whether the proposal to "purge" the minds of Earth-dwellers has been carried out. That would alter the characters' motivations and thus make this a novel not of humanity but of changed humanity. Karen Anderson is again credited for linguistic and historical advice so the Anderson connection continues.

Since I am about to attend a funeral and will be otherwise engaged for part of this evening, there will be a short intermission until normal service is resumed.

Norse Myths In Modern Fiction II

It is easy to remember books featuring Odin and the Aesir in diverse forms. However, I was reminded of Anderson's understated use of another aspect of Norse myth. Operation Chaos, like its inspiration, Heinlein's Magic Inc, had climaxed with an expedition to Hell, where Valeria Matuchek's parents rescued their kidnapped baby daughter. In a far less dramatic chapter of Operation Luna, Valeria's mother visits Yggdrasil to consult the oracular severed head, Mimir, who regularly advises the Aesir. Ginny and her guide, a dwarf, see the path trodden by Odin when he descends Yggdrasil to visit Mimir but they neither meet nor want to meet the Hanged God.

I remembered this as I was rereading Mike Carey's Lucifer which also mixes mythologies - Michael and Lucifer fight above Yggdrasil, Fenris Wolf attacks the angelic city etc. Also, the Nine Worlds featured in a recent Thor film. The myths live as fiction.

Eternity

Tomorrow, I must collect Eternity by Greg Bear from Waterstones Bookshop, Lancaster, and attend a funeral at St John the Baptist Church in the village of Low Bentham (see attached image). Thus, Eternity and eternity.

How many sf books have "Eternity" in their titles?

Eternity by Greg Bear;
Sailing Bright Eternity by Gregory Benford;
Threshold Of Eternity by John Brunner;
Assignment In Eternity by Robert Heinlein;
The Palace Of Eternity by Bob Shaw;
Highway Of Eternity by Clifford Simak;
Empress Of Eternity by L.E. Modesitt Jr;
One Against Eternity by A.E. Van Vogt;
The Siege Of Eternity by Frederick Pohl;
On The Oceans Of Eternity by S.M. Stirling;
The Eternity Stone by Aden Foster Romine and Mary Cox Romine;
"The Eternity Engine" by Jack Williamson;
The End Of Eternity by Isaac Asimov;
no doubt others.

Asimov gives us dire time travel logic. Brunner gives us fairly incomprehensible time travel. Some titles I have found by googling. I will be interested to learn how Bear's Eternity follows from his Eon.

A Multiversal Threat?

Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, four stories unambiguously set neither on our Earth nor on another planet but on another Earth in an alternative timeline, does not mention multiple timelines (I don't think) except in the Introduction written for the collected edition. Three Hearts And Three Lions begins on our Earth, then moves to another. Finally, A Midsummer Tempest provides an inter-universal meeting place for travelers from many timelines. Thus, there is narrative progression.

In that Introduction to Operation Chaos:

"Whatever manifold form it takes, the war of Law and Chaos surely goes on in them all.
"We have learned certain things. We ought to broadcast the lesson and the warning."
-Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (Sutton, Surrey, 1995), p. 2.

Law and Chaos make war in Three Hearts... and in Michael Moorcock's Multiverse. Order and Chaos make war in DC Comics, including Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. So what is the warning? Will Chaos attack all the timelines simultaneously? Will characters from different Anderson works and from other fictional universes have to join forces against a common threat? Well, no. Anderson was an imaginative but also a restrained author who continued to write good novels of different genres set in different periods and universes but who did not follow up on that Introductory warning. Its sense of impending menace contributed to the particular volume but did not need to be taken any further.

The Limits Of The Possible

I am currently reading not Poul Anderson but other authors who prompt reflection on Anderson's works. This is always possible because Anderson's sf and fantasy output was so voluminous and comprehensive. Other writers' multiverses initiated reassessment of A Midsummer Tempest.

If a multiverse contains everything possible, then what are its limits? I think that the possible does have logical limits - the only question is what they are - which is why the title of this post does not end with a question mark.

(i) A group of beings with superhuman powers answering the description of "gods" is possible. They can be rationalized in sf or unrationalized in fantasy.
(ii) That a single powerful being created a particular universe is possible. Thus, "God" instead of "gods."
(iii) That that being beginninglessly preexisted everything else without any explanation or origin is not possible, I don't think.

I mentioned that Anderson's fantasies do not include any "God is dead" scenario - although this might follow from the King of Ys Tetralogy (with Karen Anderson). A new God replaces the old gods at the beginning of the Piscean Age so what will happen at the end of that Age?

I grew up believing that God was both changeless and necessarily existent, therefore, for two reasons, unable to cease existing. I now think that no consciousness can be changeless and that no existence is necessary - although maybe being-nothing alternation and actualization of possibility are somehow necessary?

Self is recognized as such only by contrast with other. Other is seen as independent of self only if it is sometimes recognized as having been perceived previously, with the assumption that both subject and object have continued to exist independently of each other since the earlier perception. Otherwise, there is no difference between objective other and subjective imagining. Recognition is memory, necessarily involving the perception of time, minimally the distinction between "now" and "before." Therefore a timeless, changeless self-consciousness is impossible.

Nothing can begin and end simultaneously. Either it begins, endures, however briefly, and ends or it does not begin. Instantaneous consciousness would be unconsciousness. Therefore, again, timeless consciousness is impossible. But might something be trans-temporal instead of atemporal? The trans-temporal, if this concept can have any meaning, would have to incorporate and transcend change, not exclude it.

Multiverse III

Valeria Matuchek tells Holger Carlsen:

"'...God never felt obliged to make the universes easy for us to understand.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), p. 98.

There is some empirical basis for Valeria's reference to "God" because, in her universe, where magic works, it is possible to contact a Heaven, a Hell and their inhabitants. But are these supernatural realms specific to that universe? Another timeline visited by Holger has Aztec gods. Are those supernatural beings autonomous or subordinate to a single multiversal creator, as Bacchus and the river god are subordinate to Aslan, although with a surprising degree of autonomy, in Narnia?

Valeria's father makes the point that:

"...if parallel worlds exist, they must be linked in a very fundamental way; otherwise the hypothesis is unverifiable in principle and therefore meaningless. Deriving from the same source, embedded in the same matrix..."
-Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (Sutton, Surrey, 1995), p. 2.

But is the single source a common creator? If every possibility exists, does this include universes where statements like "God does not exist" or "God is dead" are true?

I thought that "God is dead" meant something like "God never existed but now more people realize it," but apparently some "God is dead" theologians mean that a powerful supernatural being literally ceased to exist. I think that every possible interpretation is put on unverifiable statements of this kind.

James Blish's Black Easter ends with a demon announcing God's death but the sequel ends with Satan wondering whether He has merely withdrawn. In Mike Carey's Lucifer, a character says that God is dead whereas He has merely withdrawn - but will not return. Could such options exist within Anderson's multiverse?

Multiverse II

A multiverse incorporating parallel Earths with some characters and events that are fictions on one Earth but real on another has existed in:

the film, The Last Action Hero, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger;
a number of monthly comic books with a common publisher;
A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson.

What this scenario needs for its fullest development is a team of competent authors writing parallel series that periodically overlap like Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan At The Earth's Core but done much better. Alan Moore, explaining comics crossovers, asked his readers to imagine Frankenstein kidnapping the Little Women, investigated by a team-up of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

Despite Poul Anderson's massive output, he did not have much time or, probably, inclination to cross-refer between his fictional universes. However, he does capture the essence of the multiversal scenario in two short chapters and a one-page epilogue of A Midsummer Tempest:

Holger, real in the Carolingian universe but a myth in several others, has spent some time on an Earth where there was a World War II against Nazi Germany, is now traveling between universes trying to return home and has just encountered real Aztec gods;

Valeria Matuchek, born on an Earth where World War II was against the Saracen Caliphate, meets Holger while traveling between universes for research purposes but also meets a Prince Rupert of the Rhine from an Earth where Shakespeare's plays were true histories;

in the Epilogue, Valeria addresses a group that includes Sherlock Holmes and Huckleberry Finn.

We are free to imagine an endless multiple series in which these characters mostly lead their own lives but occasionally meet either by accident or in common response to some vast multiversal crisis. In fact, Anderson's Operation Chaos, during which Valeria is born, begins with an attempt to broadcast a lesson and a warning to other universes before it has even been verified that they exist...

Multiverse

Poul Anderson's inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix, is the setting for:

"House Rule"
"Losers' Night"
A Midsummer Tempest, xi THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX.
A Midsummer Tempest, xii LATER.
A MidsummerTempest, Epilogue THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX.

In A Midsummer Tempest, the inn is a meeting place for:

Prince Rupert from the Shakespearean universe of the same novel;

Holger Carlsen from the Carolingian universe of Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions;

Valeria Matuchek from the magical universe of Anderson's Operation Chaos and Operation Luna.

In "House Rule," the inn is a meeting place for:

Nicholas van Rijn from the hard sf universe of Anderson's Technic History;
Sancho Panza from Don Quixote;
Erik the Red, possibly from our universe.

Other guests from our universe or nearer ones include:

the first person narrator of the two short stories;
Leonardo da Vinci;
Albert Einstein;
Heloise and Abelard;
Francois Villon;
Winston Churchill;
an unnamed but identifiable Irish political leader.

Anderson wrote that he hoped to return to the Old Phoenix again...

The inn could have provided a framing sequence for a collection of new stories to display each of the different genres that Anderson wrote. Neil Gaiman used his Inn of the Worlds' End as a Chaucerian venue.

Today, I have read in Latin Caesar's and Tacitus' accounts of the Druids and their resistance to Roman rule.