War

"'You can't leave now,' Daniel Holm told his son. 'Any day we may be at war. We may already be.'"

-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 437-662 AT I, p. 437.

That is the opening paragraph of the novel.

"'-Sir, we may be on the edge of a real war.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 215.

That is the closing sentence of the opening chapter of the novel.

There can be a sense of excitement at the beginning of a war. Things are going to change, maybe for the better. There can certainly be excitement in reading about a, real or fictional, war. In these two novels, as in Mirkheim, Anderson vividly conveys a sense of what it is like to live in troubled times.

We have got used to living in a world where wars happen somewhere else, not here. Or in history or fiction. Now, Iran might attack US bases in Britain.

"Any day we may be at war. We may already be..."

"...we may be on the edge of a real war."

Fiction reflects life.

Two More Sets Of "Others" (Not Necessarily Called That)

In Poul Anderson's The Avatar, the Others are an Elder Race, i.e., an ancient, technologically superior, intelligent species whose artifacts, T-machines, are present throughout the narrative and they themselves come on-stage near the end of the novel.

Google informs us that, in Rome To The Stars by SM Stirling and Melissa Olthoff, to be published on 6 October 2026, the Roman Empire that we know from Stirling's Make The Darkness Light series will expand into the galaxy, encountering advanced technology left behind by an ancient civilization that had transplanted human beings to other planetary systems. Yet more Elder Race activity, maybe.

The Others In Two Timelines

In Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire, Axor's quest for the Universal Incarnation was initially inspired by Foredweller remains/relics/remnants on his home planet, Woden. We know from Anderson's The Day Of Their Return that remnant walls and indeed entire structures also exist on the planet Aeneas. Diana has heard that the Builders were "the Chereionites" and an Aenean spaceman referred to them as the Old Shen. Other names are Ancients, Elders and Others. That the Chereionites were the Ancients is indeed what Aycharaych, a Chereionite, told Erannath, an Ythrian, on Aeneas in The Day Of Their Return but who knows?

What does Axor expect? An eventual multi-species religion acknowledging two Incarnations, Terrestrial and Chereionite? (Or whichever species the Forerunners turn out to be?)

It turns out that "They" are not about to "Return." That was a deception fostered by Aycharaych. However, Marc Vitrac and his companions in SM Stirling's The Sky People are in a more perilous predicament because they have learned not only that the inhabitants of Venus are human but also that the language spoken there is Indo-European! It follows that the superior technology that terraformed Venus and Mars and seeded those planets with Terrestrial organisms was still active comparatively recently and therefore might still be around - unlike Anderson's long-gone Ancients.

Wodenite Biology

There are theroids on both Dennitza and Ishtar.

Wodenites are neither theroids nor herpetoids but are endothermic, two-sexed and viviparous and breed only in season, making celibacy easier for them than for human beings.

This information is imparted when Diana Crowfeather meets Francis Xavier Axor whose first two names, taken at baptism, reveal him to be a Christian.

Unfortunately, although three cover illustrations for Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire show the land Starkadian, Targovi, none display the large, quadrupedal, dinosaurian Axor. However, another Wodenite, Adzel, is to be seen on a cover of Satan's World.

All the details in Anderson's Technic History hang together.

Interplanetary SF

One way to write interplanetary sf is to catalogue the Solar System. Characters travel to the Moon, Mars, Venus etc. Robert Heinlein's Scribner Juveniles begin with Rocket Ship Galileo about going to the Moon. His Future History begins with The Man Who Sold The Moon although the first four stories in that collection are about different technological advances pre-space flight.

By the time Poul Anderson was writing sf, the Solar System was taken for granted. His Technic History began with interstellar exploration although a later-written story set earlier describes the exploration of the outer Solar System. Larry Niven's Known Space future history begins with exploration of Mercury, Venus, Pluto, Mars and technological advances on Earth, to be followed by colonization not of Mars but of the asteroids. (Which is the more substantial future history, the Technic History or Known Space? I have my opinion.)

Two trilogies: 

the volumes of CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy are set on Mars, Venus and Earth;

the first three volumes of SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation series are set on Venus, Mars and -? (I don't know. I haven't read it yet!)

There is always something new.

Who Did It?

Even in my early days at University, I still did not understand natural selection. I remember thinking and saying that, if a part of an organism performed a function, then it must have been designed to perform that function.

Hard sf is based in a scientific understanding of cosmogony, cosmology and evolution. Poul Anderson imagines the evolution of:

Diomedeans

Starkadians

Ythrians

Didonians

Talwinians

t'Kelans

Throrans

See Speculution (Speculative Evolution).

This issues hits characters in SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation series when they find Terrestrial organisms almost (or exactly?) duplicated on Mars and Venus. Dr Feldman, paleontologist and ethnologist, loathes:

"'...the God-did-it crowd...'"

-SM Stirling, The Sky People (October 2007), CHAPTER TWO, p. 26.

But Marc Vitrac and his companions begin to find evidence for:

"'...the aliens-did-it stuff...'"

-CHAPTER NINE, p. 201.

Yes. Feldman, Marc etc inhabit a hard sf universe.

More Martians

Reading SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation series made me consider writing a post about Mars and Martians in works of sf, including, of course, those of Poul Anderson, but that is a big subject and maybe we have done it before? Consequently, I searched the blog specifically for the phrase "composite Mars" because I had remembered that two authors, Larry Niven and Alan Moore, had each constructed a Mars inhabited by a small number of the Martian races already created by other authors. (Moore has Gulliver Jones and John Carter watching the Wellsian Martians departing to invade Earth etc.) The search result was beyond my imaginings and makes me want to regard the matter as having been adequately addressed at least for the time being!

In fact, see also the blog search result for:

Poul Anderson's Martians

In Olga's Landing II

Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), CHAPTER ONE.

See In Olga's Landing.

We try to convey the feel of Anderson's descriptive passages and have come close in the above linked post although we omitted some details:

the sky is not just blue but "...clear, deep blue..." (p. 195);

the breeze is cool although -

"It would have been deadly cold before [Diana's] people came to Imhotep" (ibid.);

Mount Horn is twelve kilometers above sea level;

the city holds not only the Pyramid but also the Institute, industries, shops, hotels, apartments and spaceport;

Diana is in the old quarter whose description we have quoted several times before (search the blog for "old quarter" although at least one other such quarter will come up!);

pioneers built in brick and low because of Imhotepan gravity;

in the market, videos show Terran sleaze and a vaz-Siravo dance from the Seas of Yang and Yin;

a gun dealer sells rifles, stunners and illegal Merseian blasters.

Every scene in Anderson's works reads as if the place exists and has not just been created at the stroke of a pen - or on a typewriter or a computer screen. We want to read more but can gain immensely just by rereading.

World Con, '62

Poul Anderson is a minor character in SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation series. We will come back to that. 

No wonder I could not remember whether:

"World Science Fiction Convention

"Chicago, Earth

"Labor Day, 1962"

- was in Lords Of Creation, Volume I, The Sky People, or in Volume II, In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings. It is at the end of Vol. I as a preview and at the beginning of Vol. II as the PROLOGUE (although maybe not still present as a preview in later editions of Vol. I?). 

We are still rereading The Sky People, rediscovering obscure ERBian references like "Vepaja," but have skipped ahead to the preview.

If you read this preview/PROLOGUE, then read the Wikipedia account of the 1962 World Con, then you will find that Stirling has got the names of Con attendees and even of the Guest of Honour right.

In Stirling's alternative historical Con, sf authors say a lot of things relevant to their works and this could lead to a detailed post on my Science Fiction blog. In fact, it probably will lead to something on that blog but, for present purposes, we will confine ourselves to "Poul" and to "the editor of Astounding." (Later: See Mars Books.)

While the authors watch transmissions from a Martian lander, Poul:

had brought in a case of Tuborg (The Sky People, p. 314);

addresses "Arthur" on p. 315;

grumbles that the Viking horns worn by fans were not historical on p. 316;

comments on Martian sea level and highland air on p. 317;

is said to like messing about with boats and to murmur about pointing into the wind on p. 319;

guffaws that the Martians have put the lander in a sack when the screen goes dark after a tarpaulin has been thrown on p. 322.

The Astounding editor insists that Terrestrials are the most advanced Solar species on p. 319. This was a disagreement with Asimov.

Campbell:

edited Heinlein's Future History, Asimov's Foundation and Robots, Blish's Okies and Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn;

published Heinlein's Time Chart;

made suggestions that affected Foundation, Okies and the Technic History.

In the case of the Technic History, Campbell's suggestions were the ideas that became the Ythrians and Mirkheim.

Dominic Flandry And His Legacy

Volumes IV-VII of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization are:

IV Young Flandry

V Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire

VI Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra

VII Flandry's Legacy

Young Flandry collects three novels, beginning with Ensign Flandry.

We gather from these titles alone that Flandry starts young, matures, is promoted and knighted and has an impact.

Flandry's Legacy begins with A Stone In Heaven whose Chapter I ends:

"'...have you ever perchance heard of Admiral Flandry?'"

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT I, p. 16.

Flandry's Legacy continues with The Game Of Empire. In CHAPTER ONE of that novel, Diana Crowfeather says:

"'Oh, my father's Dominic Flandry. You may have heard of him. He's become an Admiral of the Fleet, but forty-odd years ago he was a fresh-caught ensign...'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Flandry's Legacy, pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 212.

The Wodenite, Axor, responds in part:

"'I have, yes, encountered tales of Admiral Flandry's exploits...'"

-ibid., p. 213.

The remaining four instalments collected in Flandry's Legacy take us centuries and millennia beyond Flandry's lifetime although readers of the series as a whole recognize consequences of his exploits even in the concluding instalment.