The Daily Life Of The Future II

Orbit Unlimited, part four. 

What details have we already noted? See Some Details On Rustum. (I was bound to have noticed Joshua Coffin's reference to Lazarus.)

Although Jan Svoboda thinks of the airbus that he flies as "...this old rattletrap...," (p. 97) it and others like it are:

"...still so scarce and expensive as to be publicly owned..." (p. 100)

Svoboda, an engineer on Earth, is an iron miner on Rustum and has built his house beside the line that carries ore from his pit to the steel mill. In his garden, a phoenix nest lit by luminous fungi is "...like a goblin lantern." (p. 114). I am picking out colourful or notable details but there is much more where this came from.

"The wind, slow and heavy, rustled withering leaves with a sound which was not like October in New England, nor like anything Earth had ever heard." (ibid.)

Poul Anderson always tells us what the wind is doing: "...slow and heavy..." matches the mental states of his characters at this stage of the narrative. Although this wind is not October in New England, merely mentioning this does evoke October in New England! (Ray Bradbury, very unlike Anderson, has an evocative title, The October Country.)

There is more pathetic fallacy with the wind:

"The wind ruffled a loose lock of Mother's hair and made the trees sigh around her voice. She talked low and carefully..." (p. 103)

Appropriately, this wind, not heavy, makes the trees sigh around Mrs Coffin's low voice. Even casual readers must be subliminally affected by Anderson's fully integrated texts.

Isaac's Universe

Poul Anderson contributed two stories to Isaac's Universe, then adapted both of these stories into yet another of his own fictional futures, For Love And Glory.

For this universe that was to be used by other authors, Asimov specified five intelligent extra-solar species:

porpoise-like water-dwellers;

an insect-like species;

snake-like empaths;

small fliers;

block-like high-gravity beings.

This is not how to write original sf. For a start, the five species sound all too familiar. We have read about their like before. Secondly and more importantly, an sf writer has to start with a blank sheet or screen and question every previous premise. My current concern is: how often does unicellular life, which may be abundant on exo-planets, make the transition to multicellular organisms? But even that is just one current question. How does a writer discover an original idea? Anything that I could suggest would not be original.

Wolfe And Ware

I have come across the given name, "Theron," only twice, both times in fiction. This is an off the wall connection between two authors but there you go.

In Poul Anderson's Orbit Unlimited

Theron Wolfe was a merchant on Earth and becomes mayor on Rustum. He is a manipulator, browbeater and blackmailer although only for the best of purposes. 

In James Blish's Black Easter/The Day After Judgement

Theron Ware is a black magician who controls more demons than anyone else. His experimental release of multiple demons causes World War III and Armageddon and he then tries to influence the supernatural balance of power after Armageddon. (A great guy to have around, I'm sure.)

Is there any connection between Wolfe's and Ware's manipulations? I doubt it but you never know.

The Fourth Achievement

See Three Achievements And One Disappointment and its addendum.

Also in Poul Anderson's Technic History and first published in an anthology of original stories:

"The Dipteroid Phenomenon" IN Four For The Future, ed., Harry Harrison, 1969.

In the Technic History, we know "The Dipteroid Phenomenon" as "The Sharing of Flesh."

Four authors each wrote two stories for Four For The Future:

Anderson's other story, "High Treason," is non-series;

James Blish's first story in this anthology, "A Hero's Life," was later expanded as "A Style in Treason" and incorporated into his Haertel Scholium, a non-linear future historical sequence;

although Brian Aldiss never wrote series, he made his second story a sequel to the first;

Harry Harrison was not only the editor but also one of the authors.

Of course, Anderson contributed to other original anthologies covering:

Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars;

Isaac Asimov's Robots and Diplomacy Guild;

Jerry Pournelle's War World -

- but we have been through all or most of those details before.

Having eaten breakfast and posted twice, I am about to walk to the gym.

The Daily Life Of The Future

Orbit Unlimited, part four.

On Rustum:

Jan Svoboda, who had assaulted his son's teacher back on Earth, flies the school bus;

other children bully Danny Coffin because he is the first exogene pupil;

most native life is inedible and the ecology to support Terrestrial crops is not yet firmly established so most colonists are isolated farmers, needing air transport provided by people like Svoboda who have other professions;

Danny's foster mother, Teresa, also has four natural children of pre-school age and is pregnant again;

Svoboda's daughter, Jocelyn, will soon marry Colin Lochaber;

Jan and Judith Svoboda have Jocelyn and David, both born on Earth, and Anton born on Rustum and have adopted the exogene Gail and have lost one child;

there has been high infant mortality, for example during the Year of Sickness;

Teresa will bring cookies for the wedding.

Life continues on Rustum.

Three Achievements And One Disappointment

When an editor asks an author to contribute to an anthology of original stories, he does not know what he is going to get. Does he?

Poul Anderson's Technic History

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Future Quest, ed. Roger Elwood, 1974.

"Lodestar" IN Astounding: The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology, ed. Harry Harrison, 1973.

"Rescue on Avalon" IN Children of Infinity, ed. Roger Elwood, 1973.

Clifford Simak's City future history

"Epilog" IN Astounding... (see above)

(We are talking about only two editors and two authors here.)

We already know what outstanding additions to his Technic History those three stories by Anderson are.

"Epilog" (this should be my last reference to City): the Ants, who have covered most of the Earth with a single Building, and the robots who had helped them have died. The deathless robot Jenkins learns this when the Building begins to crumble and he is able to enter it for the first time. All that it contains is a lot of now dead ant hills. Coincidentally, when the Building begins to crumble, some wild robots who had left Earth in interstellar spaceships visit and take Jenkins away with them. End. Point?

Addendum: There is a serious omission in this post which will be addressed. The title should have been "Four Achievements..."

Later: Now see here. 

Contemplation

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, one Wodenite, Adzel, converts to Mahayana Buddhism when he studies planetology on Earth. In a later historical period, another Wodenite, Axor, is converted to Jerusalem Catholicism and ordained by missionaries on his planet. Buddhism is contemplative. Catholicism is Abrahamic, therefore prophetic, but also incorporates contemplation.

When Buddhists practice "just sitting" meditation, they enter the presence of that which theistic contemplatives call "God." Practitioners of the Abrahamic faiths identify ultimate reality with the deity that is described or "revealed" in their scriptures whereas many - although not all - contemplatives in other traditions think that personification of reality is anthropomorphic. But we can meditate in any case. When some of us say that we must sit with whatever comes up in meditation, theists say that God wants us to sit with whatever comes up: same practice, different understanding.

I am using these Andersonian characters as a hook to hang one of my personal hobbyhorses on but I think that it is a legitimate hobbyhorse nevertheless. We can find much in Anderson's works.

Trappings And Texts

A book is very different when you reread it sixty years later. Case in point: Clifford Simak's City. In my teens, I focused on the sf trappings: machines, mutants, Martians etc. Now I notice that, in Chapter VI, when a man and a woman converse in Geneva, the text, transcending its trappings, reads almost like a contemporary novel.

In Poul Anderson's works, the novelistic interactions, so to call them, are more closely incorporated into the sf:

Christopher Holm joins an Ythrian choth and becomes estranged from his father even though the latter identifies with the Domain of Ythri and speaks of "deathpride" when confronting a Terran;

van Rijn and Falkayn clash over Mirkheim;

Aycharaych appeals to Flandry to help him to preserve Chereion;

Commonalty Ranger Daven Laure learns that he cannot marry a Kirkasanter...

New blog readers might not understand many of these references. However, explanations can be found by searching this blog and also by reading Poul Anderson's works which the blog urges all its readers to do.

On Rustum

Orbit Unlimited, part four. 

A school bus on Rustum is a flying vehicle. When it takes off, its driver, Jan Svoboda, sees:

the school's sod roofs and dusty playing field;

the timber village of Anchor;

the Swift and Smoky Rivers descending from the Centaur Mountains to join as the Emperor;

land green with some blue;

dark woods;

corn and rye;

murky forest;

hills rising into the Hercules range;

reddened Centaur snowpeaks;

a big, bright, slowly descending, orange sun in a wan blue sky.

Children born on Rustum accept this environment as natural and know Earth and Sol only as history lessons.

Every fictional Andersonian planet is described in detail.

Astounding Memorial

Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology (1973, Ed. Harry Harrison) is an original anthology which includes:

"Lodestar" by Poul Anderson, intended when written to be the last Nicholas van Rijn story although Anderson subsequently added Mirkheim;

"Epilog" by Clifford Simak, one last City story, included in later editions of City;

an addition by Isaac Asimov to his very obscure "Thiotimoline" series.

For these and other contents, see the above link. I have not checked whether any of the other stories are additions to series by their authors.

"Lodestar" is both a van Rijn story and an Ythrian story. Of Anderson's seven Ythrian instalments, the first, "Wings of Victory," was published in 1972 and the rest in 1973: a rare burst of creativity.

In my estimation, "Lodestar" has to be the jewel in the crown of the Astounding Memorial anthology although it is interesting to learn that there are at least two other series stories.

"Lodestar":

signals the beginning of the end of the Polesotechnic League;

introduces van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya Conyon, who will marry David Falkayn;

shows the dramatic confrontation between van Rijn and Falkayn and also the generation gap between van Rijn and Coya;

brings together van Rijn and his trader team (including Falkayn) and the Ythrians;

is included in that ultimate future history collection, The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

presents a brief sense of life and work in the Solar Commonwealth through Coya;

refers back to the Satan affair and became the precursor of Mirkheim.

What's not to like?