Conan And Many Others

Conan The Rebel.

Poul Anderson clearly did not want to write just about Conan or from Conan's pov. 

In Chapter I, Tothapis converses with Set who gives Tothapis a remote viewing of a conversation between Conan and Belit. Mitra detects and interrupts Set but remains off-stage.

In II, Tothapis converses with Ramwas and Nehekba and gives them a remote viewing of Jehenan and his guards.

In III, Belit tells Conan about Hoiakim, Shaaphi, Jehanan, Aliel, Kedron, Ramwas and three men that she killed. We read not only her dialogue but also some flashbacks.

In IV, Shuat converses with his adjutant, then Ausar addresses his men and converses with his daughter, Daris.

I have not reread any further yet. Clearly, Conan is one of a large cast of characters. There are XX chapters and I am probably going to reread Larry Niven or someone else for the rest of this evening. 

Ivory, Apes, Peacocks And Jealous Gods

Conan The Rebel, III.

"'With what ivory, apes, and peacocks we could muster, I sent back a commission for a warcraft to be built and outfitted.'" (p. 29)

For some history of the phrase, "ivory, and apes, and peacocks," see two previous posts here.

Belit says that Conan and she will have:

"'...a life together. If the jealous gods allow.'" (ibid.)

Probably series editors and authors will not allow but I cannot remember what shape the Conan-Belit relationship is in at the end of this volume and will wait to find out.

We know of one "jealous god" in the Bible but what is the origin of this phrase? Were other gods "jealous"?

Belit's remark reminds us of Manse Everard's realization that the gods are "...a miserly lot." Time travellers who spend a lot of time in the past probably learn to think that way.

I expect to be doing more gardening than blogging tomoz.

Laterz.

Belit And The Wind

Conan The Rebel, III.

Conan is currently with a woman called Belit whose parents, husband and son are dead because of a Stygian raid led by Ramwas. The men were killed. The mother killed herself and Belit killed her young son to save him from slavery. She and her brother were enslaved but she has escaped. She must have revenge so that her dead will have slaves in the hereafter. While she is telling Conan about this, there is a characteristic Andersonian interruption:

"'...I must use my wits, so that Hoiakim, Shaapi, Aliel, and Kedron may have many slaves to attend them.'

"A flaw of wind made the ship lurch and the sail crack.

"'Ramwas had business in Khemi...'" (p. 26)

At the mention of slavery in the hereafter, the ship lurches and the sail cracks because of the wind. It seems to be automatic for Anderson to use the wind to emphasize dramatic moments in the dialogue. By now, regular blog readers have become very familiar with this motif.

Genre Requirements

 

In hard sf, when a spaceship moves faster than light, Poul Anderson has to present a scientific rationale, e.g., in his Technic History, a rapid succession of quantum jumps of the entire ship, whereas, in fantasy, when a sea vessel moves with supernatural speed, magic or the will of a god is a sufficient explanation.

In Virgil's Aeneid, Neptune, favouring one captain in a boat race, reaches up and moves that boat forward by hand! Another captain, realizing what must be happening, rallies his men by declaring that the first place is the gift of the gods and that men must strive for second place.

In Poul Anderson's multiverse, universes with quantum jumps and gods coexist and there is some limited contact between them but never enough to compromise the integrity of the distinct genres.

It is a matter of individual taste which kind of narrative we prefer.

Jehanan And Ramwas

Conan The Rebel, II.

A prisoner, Jehanan, spits on an image of Set in front of his guards. This is unwise. Set is powerful and his worshippers are vengeful. In any case, maybe Set as a deity merits some passive respect although no more than that.

Addressing Ramwas, who is a Stygian military officer, minor nobleman and large landholder, Topathis says:

"'Though the penalty for failure is unbounded, the reward for success can be high.'" (p. 16)

This is a characteristic of evil organizations in fiction and probably also in fact. Failure is punished as if it were deliberate wrong-doing! Knowledge that I was working for such a regime would certainly make me want - and plan - to get out. Ramwas is concerned not about that but only about the dangers of the task that Topathis sets for him.

As in Ian Fleming's From Russia, With Love, the villains assemble before we see much of our hero.

I appreciate Conan The Rebel as one part of Poul Anderson's works but not as an instalment of the Conan series, not having read any other volumes of the latter.

Myth And Fact

 

"'...that which was myth in one world might always be fact in some other.' PERELANDRA"

-CS Lewis, "Forms of Things Unknown" IN Lewis, The Dark Tower and other stories (London, 1983), pp. 124-132 AT p. 124.

(Lewis quotes from his own novel, Perelandra. I have Perelandra upstairs but will not now go to look for that passage in the original.)

Yggdrasil, the World Tree, is a myth to Dominic Flandry (see Yggdrasil And Youth) but a real place to Odin and Loki (see Yggdrasil). Poul Anderson's War Of The Gods is set in a universe where Yggdrasil is real. That universe is visited by Virginia Matuchek from the goetic universe in Anderson's Operation Luna (see Mimir).

Neil Gaiman retells Norse myths and asks whether Ragnorak has happened yet. The ambiguity of the answer to this question makes these myths:

"...seem strangely present and current..."

-Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology (London, 2018), p. xii)

- instead of just past.

Lewis, Anderson and Gaiman are a trinity of the imagination.

Set And Mitra

Conan The Rebel, I.

We are on familiar imaginative territory. Although the magician Tothapis addresses Set as:

"'...lord of the universe...'" (p. 2)

- Set reminds Tothapis:

"'...how many and diverse are the gods of earth, sea, sky, and underworld...'" (p. 3)

Many peoples regard serpentine Set as a devil. His main divine enemy is solar Mitra, worshipped by the Hyborians (not on our map), who would tread him underfoot.

What would we do if we inhabited such a universe? Not worship Set. Tothapis' mattress is:

"...stuffed with the tresses of sacrificial maidens...'" (p. 1)

I would probably pay due respect to Mitra and to local gods while continuing to practice a form of meditation that works just as well in a universe without gods. All kinds of universes coexist in Poul Anderson's multiverse. 

Night In Stygia

See the previous post.

If the fifth dimension is spatial, then we say that the timelines coexist in parallel with each other. If it is temporal, then we say that they succeed each other. If it is something else, then we do not know what to say.

It would be strange to read Poul Anderson's canon in chronological order of fictitious events starting with Conan The Rebel and we would not usually advise anyone to do this. But when we do begin to read the novel, we find Anderson's characteristic detailed descriptiveness:

"Night lay heavy on Stygia. Where the great river emptied into its bay, no whisper of wind came off the ocean beyond. The sky was hazed, so that only a few stars glimmered in sight above Khemi..."

-Poul Anderson, Conan The Rebel (New York, 1981), I, p. 1.

We find Stygia and Khemi on a two-page map after the contents page.

We, editorially speaking, remember almost nothing of previous readings so maybe it is time for another reading at a leisurely pace?

5 Dimensions + 3 BC

Imagine that the events of Poul Anderson's fictional narratives occur in different parts of a single five-dimensional space-time. Each particular sequence of events has the usual three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Additionally, the sequences are separated by a fifth dimension which is either a fourth spatial dimension, a second temporal dimension or a third kind of dimension. The fifth dimension is traversed by multiversal travellers and by guests of the Old Phoenix.

Each sequence of events is a single timeline. Thus, there are multiple pasts and futures. In some cases, we are shown very remote futures. When we say that three of Anderson's novels are set BC, we do not necessarily mean that they are set in the BC period of the same timeline. In fact, they are almost certainly not.

Conan The Rebel is heroic fantasy set in a remote fictional past.

The Dancer From Atlantis is historical sf/time travel fiction set in Atlantis.

The Golden Slave is historical fiction set in 100 BC.

Conan... is the earliest.

The Changes Concluded

Brain Wave, 21.

Archie Brock presides over a community of morons, imbeciles and animals. A chimpanzee and a moron build a charcoal apparatus.

A small silent ovoid with no visible means of propulsion lands and a man steps through its shimmering side. Intellectual mankind will leave Earth not to conquer the many lesser intelligences out there but just to build its own interstellar civilization which might help others now and again. Spacefaring human beings do not:

"'...intend to establish a galactic empire. Conquest is a childishness we've laid aside...'" (p. 187)

These guys know what they are doing in a way that we need to.

Brock's community and any others like it will inherit the Earth. They might be helped now and again but basically they are on their own. Brock would not want to return to the old days. Everyone is making the most of their new reality which, I suddenly realize, is what we have to do every day.