Shifting Alliances, Exotic Or Mundane

Historically, allies and enemies change places, sometimes rapidly.

Mongo
Ming divides and rules. Only a hero from off planet can unite Lion-Men, Bird-Men, Tree-Men etc against their common oppressor.

Barsoom
John Carter:
was a Captain in the Army of the Confederate States;
became first a captive, then a chieftain, of Thark;
unprecedently united green hordes with each other and with red Heliumites against red Zodangans;
became a Prince of Helium;
overthrew white therns and Black Pirates;
gained the alliegance of the latter;
was proclaimed Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom;
but then tried to end the constant Barsoomian warfare;
was last seen defending Barsoom against invaders from Jupiter.

Technic Civilization
Gorzuni enslaved human beings but later were hired as mercenaries.
Technic civilization saved Merseia and earned undying hatred.
Avalon resisted the Terran Empire but later helped it against the Merseian Roidhunate.
Some human beings willingly served the Roidhunate whereas Dennitzans of Merseian descent were loyal to the Terran Emperor.

The Emberverse
Wiccans, Catholics and Mormons unite against the Church Universal and Triumphant.

Britain Now
Contestants in a General Election unite against terrorists. Twice, the Election campaign has had to be suspended. But issues connect. Some politicians are accused of supporting terrorists. Others are accused of provoking terrorism and underfunding counter-terrorism. Those who think that they have a solution have to acknowledge that part of the problem is no agreed solution.

Looking Back

Fictional narratives set in the future sometimes assume a further future looking back at the period of the fictional narrative. Poul Anderson's future history series, the History of Technic Civilization, refers to various historical works. These include The Earth Book Of Stormgate which is compiled shortly after the Terran War on Avalon described in The People Of The Wind. Thus, the Earth Book is old news by the time of Dominic Flandry. However, much later than Flandry's period, a Galactic Archaeological Society looks back at the Terran Empire, even describing it as "the First Empire." Since that "First Empire" waged war on Avalon, then, two centuries later according to Sandra Miesel's Chronology, was defended by Flandry, the Galactic Archaeological Society clearly exists at a much later date.

SM Stirling's The Scourge Of God is set in Change Years 23-24 but quotes a song that is attributed to a figure in the 1st century CY. This attribution thus implies a later perspective although we are not told anything about that later period.

James Blish's The Quincunx Of Time reverses this familiar historical process because its protagonists in our future receive messages from various periods of their future. HG Wells' The Time Machine can have no later perspective because the Time Traveller witnesses the end of life on Earth.

It is always illuminating to compare Anderson, Stirling, Blish and Wells.

A Paxton

SM Stirling, "The Jasoom Project" (see here).

On Barsoom (the ERBian Mars):

"...round slabs of grilled ground thoat meat between pieces of bread, mixed with strong-tasting herbs, and with a mound of deep-fried usa pieces on the side...the usa, the starchy root that was the staple of Barsoomian military rations..." (p. 249)

The hot usa, served with salt and spicy red sauce, is surprisingly good. The thoat between slices of bread is a Jasoomian (Terrestrial) dish called a "Paxton," after the Earthman, Ulysses Paxton. Although Paxton is another of that cursed pasty breed, it is granted that "'...these Paxtons are a worthy innovation.'" (ibid.) A fourteen-foot green Martian eats a dozen.

On Jasoom, we owe the sandwich to the Earl of Sandwich. See here.

Ulysses Paxton, like Gulliver Jones, has an appropriate first name. It links him to Homer, James Joyce, Arthur C. Clarke and SM Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy.

A Leaf, A Tree And A Dream

We will soon suffer a truly trivial post but I strive to stay serious for a while longer.

Thinking about the question of a hereafter in the works of Poul Anderson and SM Stirling led to reflection on a relevant poem by Kipling which led to thinking about how often Kipling has been referenced on this blog. See here.

Kipling's poem concludes:

"He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls?"

Leafs and trees are not wasted but they do not return as individual leafs or trees either. They go into the earth from which new life grows. Human knowledge goes into language and literature. Each new generation learns to speak and hopefully to read.

If, like the ancient Greeks, we regard poets as inspired authorities on such matters, then Shakespeare is a greater poet than Kipling:

We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep. (See here)

Philosophy And Literature

I said here that Philosophy and Literature would make a good combined University degree course. Novels are about people and people have beliefs so sometimes we engage with fiction by discussing beliefs. Poul Anderson's characters address and discuss their own and each other's beliefs:

Peter Berg's experience with the Ythrians makes him question his Church's response to the theological problem of pain;

Aycharaych asks whether mortality is necessary for human creativity;

Dominic Flandry addresses/prays to his murdered fiancee, the future St Kossara, while she lies in the Cathedral where she had been confirmed and they would have been married;

Nicholas van Rijn leaves it to the theologians to rule on whether aliens have souls - that is what they are paid to do.

SM Stirling's Juniper Mackenzie thinks:

"...we are right to fear [death], for it is dreadful to pass through the dark gate, even if you know what waits beyond."
-SM Stirling, The Scourge Of God (New York, 2009), Chapter Four, p. 121.

No one knows! How can anyone make such a claim? Death is:

"The undiscovered country from whose bourn
"No traveler returns..." (see here and here)

Only the Spiritualists claim direct contact with the hereafter but they have not proved their case and their account differs from that of the Wiccans, including Juniper. We did not call it "knowledge" when some said that trans-Atlantic sailors would reach Asia whereas others said that they would fall off the Earth and no one had yet been there to find out. I am permanently amazed at unquestioning acceptance of different versions of a hereafter.

Strange Places

We get into some very strange places when we not only read Poul Anderson's works but also compare them with those of other imaginative writers, e.g., fantasy science in ERB. Writers create a new kind of place at an sf/f interface.

In Anderson's "The Saturn Game," a group of characters in a hard sf setting like totally immerse themselves in a fantasy role playing game although we see only their physical environment and not also their imagined realm. In Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness," telepathic aliens in a hard sf setting simulate a fantasy world and, in this case, we do see some of what the enchanted kidnapped human children perceive. They converse with fairies which are a "glamour" of reptiloids.

In SM Stirling's Emberverse, the loss of technology enables some gamers to reenact, e.g., medievalism and Tolkienism. But something else is happening. Is a hard sf setting becoming a fantasy setting where Powers can intervene in human affairs? Or maybe it is not becoming? There never was an explanation for the white light of the Change so maybe it was magical/mystical/mysterious/supernatural/divine/demonic from the beginning?

Only time and further reading will tell.

Tarzan, Jane And Wanda

"As a girl, Jane Goodall was so inspired by the stories of Tarzan that she later traveled to Africa to study chimpanzees, where she made ground-breaking discoveries in primate behavior."
John Joseph Adams, Under The Moons Of Mars (New York, 2013), p. 45)

In Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time, we learn that Jane Goodall was a role model for Wanda Tamberly.

Thus, Tarzan inspired Jane who inspired Wanda: a perfect fiction-reality interaction.

Themes And Series

To revisit a recent post, an existing series can be extended within a themed anthology either by its creator or by another author. Thus:

Poul Anderson contributed to an Asimov-themed anthology by adding to Asimov's Robots series;

several other writers contributed to that anthology by adding to later periods of Asimov's future history and to one or two other series;

Anderson both contributed to a Knights Templar themed anthology and added to his Time Patrol series by having a Time Patrolman infiltrate the Knights;

several authors, including SM Stirling, contributed to an Anderson-themed anthology by adding to different Anderson series;

Stirling contributed to an alternative histories anthology by adding to his Angrezi Raj alternative history;

Stirling contributed to a retro-Mars anthology by revisiting the terraformed Mars of his "Lords of Creation" alternative history;

Matthew Hughes contributed to that retro-Mars anthology by adding to Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles;

Isaac Asimov both contributed to a Batman anthology and added to his Black Widowers series by having the Black Widowers invite Bruce Wayne to dinner;

several authors, including Stirling, contributed new stories to a Barsoom anthology.

And I am always more interested in particular additions to existing series than in the themed anthologies as such.

ERBian Cosmology

SM Stirling, "The Jasoom Project" IN John Joseph Adams, Ed., Under The Moons Of Mars: New Adventures On Barsoom (New York, 2013), pp. 237-277.

How did John Carter and Dejah Thoris return from Jupiter to Mars? That is another story to be told. 

In SM Stirling's Barsoom story, Carter's great-grandson and Tars Trakas' grandson arrive on Earth just as the Lunar Kalkars attack so Tarzan shows the Barsoomians how to take refuge in Pellucidar.

In ERBian cosmology:

both Earth and the Moon are hollow with inhabited interiors;
Pellucidar, inside the Earth, has not only a central sun but also a geostationary moon;
there are Polar openings;
airships and spaceships fly by harnessing the Ninth Solar Ray;
each of the other planets has both a humanoid race and a non-humanoid intelligent species;
Martian humanoids are oviparous and very long-lived;
Phobos is inhabited by minute human beings;
as a spaceship approaches Phobos, the ship and its crew shrink until they are the same size as the inhabitants;
Jupiter has a poisonous upper atmosphere but a breathable lower atmosphere, spins so fast that centrifugal force counteracts its gravitational field and is heated and lit by many volcanoes;
another star has several planets in the same orbit with a common atmosphere.

Is the ERBian cosmos accessible from Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix? If so, then there must be very good explanations for the many features that would be absurdities in our cosmos. Some basic physical laws have to be very different...

Conquerors

Dominic Flandry led the Intelligence operation when the Terran Empire annexed the planet Brae.

John Carter led the green hordes that sacked Zodanga, a city of the red men but also the main adversary of Helium. Carter married the Princess of Helium. The sack of Zodanga involved a unique and temporary alliance between Thark, Warhoon and lesser hordes.

Our heroes are someone else's villains. ERB always portrayed enemies of Helium as discreditable and reprehensible but they must also have included decent people with genuine grievances.

We have compared Dominic Flandry with James Bond and also with John Carter. Can anyone give us a three way comparison? (Britain was no longer conquering in Bond's period.)

On Flandry's first command, his executive officer, Rovian of Ferra, resembles an ERBian green Martian in several respects:

he is naked except for weapons and insignia;
the lower of his two pairs of arms can be used as legs, increasing his speed;
he does not understand human morality, e.g., sees nothing wrong with repression unless it provokes revolt;
he is amused by human formalities - and Flandry and he avoid formalisms when alone.

However, Rovian has dark fur and a large tail so he is not exactly like a Thark or Warhoon.