Brobdingnagian

(A single word in an Andersonian text can inspire a blog post as I will now demonstrate.)

Fictions refer to earlier fictions. References accumulate. Many works are remembered although many more are forgotten. We all know Sherlock Holmes but not Cyril Saunders. (In fact, we recognize Holmes even when he appears unnamed in Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol.")

Here is a beautiful literary reference:

"The sail now nearly bisected the sky. Seven kilometers wide, the foam-filled members that stiffened it marching across the field of view like Brobdingnagian spokes with its slow rotation, that disk massed close to a hundred tons."

-Tales Of The Flying Mountains, p. 205.

I had intended to compare this passage with one by CS Lewis but find that I have already compared that Lewis passage with one by SM Stirling here. For other uses of the adjective, "Brobdingnagain," see here. (Scroll down.)

I must satisfy the inner man in two senses: first, eat; then, meditate.

Birds And Future Histories

There was a birds of prey display at the Southport Flower Show today as there has been in the past at Muncaster. Was I alone in Southport in thinking of Poul Anderson's intelligent flying carnivores, the Ythrians? They always come to mind on sight of peregrines etc.

Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, which features Ythrians, is what Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and Frank Herbert's Dune series should have been: a detailed history of interstellar civilizations with a vast cast covering multiple periods. What matters is the details of individual lives in planetary environments, not political manipulations by powerful cliques. James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume III, Earthman, Come Home, shows us the Mayor and City Manager but not the population of New-York-in-flight but Blish - partly - made up for this in the later-written Volume II, A Life For The Stars.

Cities In Flight, like Robert Heinlein's Future History, would have matched the Technic History if lengthened whereas the Foundation series and the Dune series would have needed total rewrites. Thus, this blog ranks sf works.

Blish's major disadvantage vis a vis Anderson is a much smaller output.

Satellites

Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

"'The equipment in orbit, man! There're a couple of hundred assorted devices near Earth these days.'" (p. 199)

There are 16,400 active satellites today. 

No sf writer predicted our future in 2026 with an International Space Station, 16,400 satellites, some unmanned interplanetary probes and massive new knowledge about exo-planets. What is a plausible extrapolation from our 2026? One without sf cliches? I do not have the slightest idea. Posts will be sparse tomoz because of a coach trip.

Opinions

Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

Characters express opinions which are not necessarily those of the author but sometimes are. I have just had that by now familiar experience of thinking that Don Bell had said something derogatory about the name of the Social Justice Party, then rereading dialogues in "Rambles With A Gamblin' Man" and not finding the derogatory remark. Maybe someone else will find it or it will come to light.

The following story, "Sunjammer," contains two characters' opinions that might be said to balance each other.

Sam Storrs:

"There isn't a government of any importance on Earth these days that isn't based on some version of 'social justice.' So of course independent thinking, conscientiousness, ordinary competence have gone by the board." (p. 191)

Social justice is incompatible with independent thinking, conscientiousness and competence? We know that there are people who think like this so it is an authentic opinion.

Edward West:

"That's another thing I don't like about the Republic. They can brag as much as they want about free enterprise, but it still amounts to the rawest, most cold-blooded kind of capitalism. Maybe the welfare states on Earth have gotten stuffy and overbureaucratized - nevertheless, we don't let the devil take the hindmost!" (p. 195)

A Brit thinking "gotten"? Well, this is the future. But a nineteenth century Englishman says it in "Time Patrol."

Poul Anderson's attitude to the asterites is generally positive so it is good to read another perspective. People always compare societies, in this case, the Republic versus the welfare states. Why compare? Assess each in its own terms. Both address survival but in very different environments.

Tomorrow: a coach trip to Southport Flower Show.

Men And Jupiter

Tales Of The Flying Mountains, "Que Donn'rez Vous?," pp. 151-179.

This story begins and ends with two men playing chess.

"K-B2.

"Q-K7. 'Check,' said Roy Pearson." (p. 151)

"Before long, Pearson had recovered enough self-possession to suggest a game of chess." (p. 179)

Between these start- and end-points, much occurs. No less than six men of different nationalities interact with each other and with the Jovian environment. There are technical problems which have technical solutions although there is also and always the human element. An author must know a lot of science to write this kind of science fiction. The only sf premise is the gyrogravitics. Everything else is physics. One-man "scoopships" scoop methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, water vapour, ethylene, benzene, formaldedehyde and other organics out of the Jovian atmosphere.

There is an Andersonian moment of realization when Master Pilot Charles de Gaulle d'Andilly springs up, knocks over his chair and shouts:

"'Mon Dieu!'" (p. 171)

However, on this occasion, precedent is broken because d'Andilly explains his rescue plan to his colleagues immediately instead of leaving it to us readers to learn what the plan is when we see it implemented.

D'Andilly is a recognizable kind of competent, hard-working, hard-living, hard-drinking Andersonian character and sings the same French song as Piet Van Sarawak in Anderson's "Delenda Est" (which has a Latin title).

In The Jovian Atmosphere

Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

Jupiter is different every time we visit it. My understanding of  gas giant planets is that they have no surface, just a turbulent atmosphere increasing in density all the way down to an eventual core. The Jupiter of ...Flying Mountains does have a surface but not one that anyone can walk on:

"The greenhouse effect operated. Jupiter's surface was warm enough to have oceans like Earth's. No man had seen them. The weight of atmosphere would have crumpled any hull like tinfoil. Even at this altitude, Mary Girl sped through an air pressure several times that of sea-level Earth." (p. 158)

Scoopships skim in and out of the upper atmosphere. (See the attached Analog cover.) Any action on Jupiter in this story, "Que Donn'rez Vous?," can only be at a very high altitude. The description of Jupiter has maybe moved towards the gas giant model - and goes all the way in Poul Anderson's "Hunters of the Sky Cave"? (Except that "Hunters..." was published earlier than "What'll You Give?") (See Bibliography.)

Pointed Remarks And A Neat Solution

Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

In their conversation with the Social Justice government representative, Don and Avis Bell make some pointed remarks about the North American public. Since there is mass unemployment, why can some people not work as domestic servants? Some might but that would be a big adjustment even for the wealthier citizens who have become used to gadgets and appliances that no longer require them to employ servants. In any case, merely returning to master-servant relationships is no way forward for a technological society.

Don:

"'If they'd bred a little less eagerly, they wouldn't be so hard up today...'" (p. 129)

Sure. Birth control can be encouraged. My understanding is that births do decrease when standards of living increase.

IIRC, conditions on Earth generally improve later in this volume.

Mainly, "Ramble With A Gamblin' Man" is a problem story. 

Problem

Despite the successful War of Asterite Independence, North America still controls the asteroids in the leading Trojan point of Jupiter's orbit and is about to start dispossessing the prosperous asteroid, Odysseus.

Solution

Use gyrogravitics to move Odysseus out of the Trojan point, thus out of North American space. Then the Asteroid Republic can stake a claim for it, supported by an Odysseusan referendum. This is the peaceful completion of the Asterite Revolution. And we should have seen it coming.

Social Justice

Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

The representative of the North American Social Justice government gets on our nerves:

"'Too much that was too expensive was too badly overdue at home. And that's what Social Justice is all about. Rebuilding the country, first internally, afterward in its foreign relations; regaining our position as a first class power.'" (p. 129)

Capitalized words and phrases change their meanings. It is possible to be "conservative" without being "Conservative." "Social justice," just as a phrase, has nothing to do with becoming a "power" in foreign relations. However, we must listen to a representative of the Social Justice Party to learn what that party's policies are. Years ago, on British TV, a Government minister laughed at a young man who spoke about "communism" but then denied that he was talking about the Communist Party. I thought that the young man was quite right to make this distinction. No organization is entitled to appropriate a word or to identify all the meaning of that word just with itself.

Our Social Justice guy continues and claims that his asterite hosts, the Bells, and he:

"'...already bear a greater guilt: that we are glutted while others are poor.'" (ibid.)

No. Those who are comfortable or prosperous are neither glutted nor guilty. I am not guilty if my income is greater than someone else's. I am not even guilty if some of my income is profit that I have made from his labour because that is the economic system that we happen to be living in - at least as of now. Having said that, there is plenty of guilt in our society and it is not just on the lowest stratum where the poor are imprisoned for theft! But let's leave that issue there for the time being. I respond to whatever we find in Poul Anderson's texts, including his characters' conversations - which turns out to be all of human life and more, past, present and future.

Once again, good night. A family reunion and BBQ tomorrow.

Society Progresses...

(i) "'...because a few bold, inspired leaders have exalted goals.'" (p. 150);

(ii) ...because goals occur to us as we develop our capabilities;

(iii) ...when "'...individuals fearlessly work out their private destinies.'" (ibid.);

(iv) ...because "'...things simply happen.'" (ibid.) - and could have happened differently.

In Tales Of The Flying Mountains, Interlude 4, Lindgren summarizes others' views, (i)-(iii), then states his own, (iv). In denying that there are "'...any general rules....,'" (ibid.) he contradicts characters in some other future histories, including two by Anderson, but sf is about exploring alternative possibilities.

"...things simply happen..." is a sound empirical theory of history and society.

Some Familiar Ingredients

I am realizing that Poul Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains is an elaborately constructed future history series which I have not appreciated in sufficient detail until now.

Recently on this blog, we contemplated fictional accounts of Jupiter in Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe" and in James Blish's "Bridge," then hypothetical discoveries of antigravity in "Bridge" and in Anderson's ...Flying Mountains, mentioning other works en route. Soon we will again see Jupiter, in ...Flying Mountains.

We have just read past yet another Andersonian moment of realization. Don Bell says:

"'...it's difficult to see how we could -'" (p. 139)

- then drops his cigarette, stares and says:

"'Or could we?'" (ibid.)

We know the signs but as usual will have to wait to be told the answer.

The Milky Way is still with us together with other heavenly bodies:

"...uncountably many frost-cold stars, the curdled ice of the galaxy, and Jupiter." (p. 153)

("Curdled" appears a few times in The Milky Way Thread.)

I must eat and run across town to the Gregson.