Poul Anderson Appreciation

Friday, 16 October 2026

Aurora

We are focusing on details and not getting to the heart of the story yet but give us time. A weekend stretches ahead.

"A few years ago [Diaz]'d spent a furlough at Antarctic Lodge. He and some girl had taken a snowcat out to watch the aurora, thinking it would make a romantic background. But when they saw the sky, they forgot about each other for a long time. There was only the aurora." (p. 12)

For the Northern Lights in Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time and in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, see:

The Winter Hunters

And on a personal note:

It is sometimes reported that the Northern Lights are or will be visible in Britain, even in places to the south of us here in the North West of England. One night, my daughter, Aileen, and I drove to Morecambe Bay; on another occasion to a hill inland but both times saw nothing. When I told her the story of people being carried away by the Northern Lights, she suggested that this might have a basis in reality. Some people, fascinated by the lights above their heads, might have wandered too far for safety in the dark...

The Satorist

Poul Anderson, "Kings Who Die" IN Anderson, Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 11-40.

(Nearly finished for this evening.)

See War, Wells And Anderson.

An unexpected word:

"[Diaz] drew a breath which was a good deal shakier than the Academy satorist would have approved of." (p. 11)

"Satorist" is to be found neither online nor in any earlier posts on this blog. Obviously it is a noun derived from the noun, "satori." The latter term is familiar especially since I practice zazen. The Japanese connection is confirmed in the immediately following sentence when Diaz imagines the satorist speaking:

"('If your nerves twitch, cadet-san, then you know yourself alive and they need not twitch. Correct?' To hell with that, except as a technique.)" (ibid.)

Since Diaz, who murmurs, "'Nombre de Dios,' (p. 12) and crosses himself but is trained by a "satorist," is at war with Unasians, this story is set in a period of cultural interaction and conflict. But how much deeper will we dig into this evening? Only time will tell.

The Moral Of The Story

"Details," 5.

"'...nationalism and atomic energy had become contemporaneous...'" (p. 140)

The worst possible outcome.

(There is an Isaac Asimov story in which atomic energy and local interplanetary space travel have been discovered/initiated contemporaneously. These two discoveries should qualify Earth for Galactic Federation membership. However, when a bureaucrat learns that atomic bomb tests are being conducted within the planetary atmosphere, an application form goes not into the mail but into the wastepaper basket... This story is called "Silly Asses!" and is in one of his later collections.)

The moral of "Details":

"'Psychodynamics is not an exact science.'" (p. 139)

Asimov created the Mule, an unpredictable individual mentally powerful mutant, in order to throw Seldon's psychohistorical Plan off-track but this was unnecessary. The entire human population comprises unpredictable individuals. Asimov's premise was that a Galactic population would grow large enough to become mathematically predictable, comparing individually unpredictable human beings to individually unpredictable particles which become statistically predictable en masse. However, increasing the numbers, and thus multiplying their interactions, increases the unpredictability.

To continue with the moral of "Details":

"'...human nature is so complicated that we'll never have a complete science of it.'" (p. 140)

To paraphrase rather than to quote:

only broad trends can be mathematically predicted;

trends comprise millions of individuals and incidents;

an artist knows when to supplement equations with intuition and common sense;

only a technician who is also a poet can write a report that is not only quantitatively accurate but also qualitatively alive, conveying the feel of events.

This is overstated. A researcher must have something of the artist and the poet, not be either of them.

I did not think that this story had this much in it.

The Plan This Time

"Details," 4.

There will be a war in Europe and another in the Pacific but these must be kept separate with Russia neutral. "'...Germany alone cannot conquer Britain...'" (p. 137) so there will be a European stalemate during which Britain can help the US to defeat Japan. Then the Galactics will goad Germany and Russia into a war that will weaken them both until the US, armed from its war against Japan, can intervene and break them both.

Three Wars, None Of Them A World War

Germany v. Britain

US v. Japan

Germany v. Russia (then v. US)

Tombak, the agent in the field, thinks:

Roosevelt will not let Britain fight alone and will be able to swing his country behind him;

the Nazis are "...entirely capable of attacking Russia..." (p. 137);

that would mean the US aiding the Soviet Union and the latter ending the War as a world power...

A hobo says that the US:

"'Ought to have a guy like Hitler...'" (ibid.)

Tombak, posing as a hobo, replies sharply as is always necessary to such comments. Then he wonders what the embittered geniuses expelled from Europe will do if anyone gathers them together. How will that affect the Plan?

Turning the page, we read:

"'No!'

"'Yes... They're making an atomic bomb!'" (5., p. 138)

Terrestrial perversity counteracts extraterrestrial interventions. Is this good or bad?

The Day Before Black Thursday

"Details."

That self-confident psychotechnician again -

Knowing that the Weimar Republic is unstable and that economic depression and mass unemployment would lead to a dictatorship in Germany within five years, he assures his colleagues:

"'...I'm here to see that capitalism does not, ah, go bust.'" (p. 134)

On Friday, October 23, 1929, he sells heavily in order to bring the fluctuating market down, having proved from games theory that this will not cause a panic.

Before that, he had been able to perform wolfishly on Wall Street because he had the benefit of:

"...a million-year-old science of economics..." (p. 132)

- whereas his competitors were:

"...operating mostly by God and guess..." (ibid.)

But how much of economic activity is inherently random and unpredictable even to a million-year-old science? He gets it wrong in October, after all.

Sealed Train

I have confirmed that, after life-changes and a house move, only one Michael Moorcock book remains on a shelf upstairs and it is not the one that I was looking for. In perhaps Volume III of Moorcock's Oswald Bastable alternative histories trilogy, a chapter is devoted to an aged revolutionary called Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov who is conscious that he had missed an opportunity at some earlier stage in his career. We are not told what name he might have had in our history and he does not think, "I should have got into that train..."

Back to Poul Anderson, "Details":

In the spring of 1917, a Galactic playing the role of a German captain waits with his men to travel in a sealed train into Russia. Another Galactic, playing the role of a nobleman, has persuaded the German General Staff to transport a Russian exile, Ulyanov, into Russia because:

"...a psychotechnic evaluation...gave the little revolutionary a surprising probability of success." (p. 130)

Right at the end of section 2, the omniscient narrator informs us, the readers, that Ulyanov's:

"...Party name was Lenin." (p. 131)

How many readers did need to be told that?

Time Patrol agents know the importance of every detail including individuals as varied as a Pope, an Emperor, Hitler and Lenin. See:

Some Details Of History Or Archimedes And Others

Individuals

The Time Patrol And Other Reading

So What Are Some Of These "Details"?

"Details."

A League agent operating on Earth thinks that Kaiser Wilhelm specifically needs to be put in his place. This is too much like an extraterrestrial expressing a particular Terrestrial point of view.

"The Plan called for a peaceful, democratic British Commonwealth to dominate and stabilize the world." (p. 126)

Oh dear.

The new boss of the secret Galactic operation on Earth is:

"'A good psychotechnician, but seems to think the psychotechnic laws will cover every situation.'" (p. 124)

With or without psychotechnics, we have to make predictions, see how what happens differs from what was predicted and learn from that. Trotsky thought that World War II would end with world revolution. After 1945, there had been no world revolution so some orthodox Trotskyists concluded that the War had not ended yet! (I believe this is true - Trotskyists concluding that, I mean.)

Details dismissed as unimportant by the new boss:

the Turkish-Italian war;

the Ottomans;

"'...this Balkan business.'" (ibid.)

potential civil war in Ireland which can be quickly put down by a single English division if it happens.

The main line of development after Europe is the US which must:

"'...be kept out of this mad-dog nationalism, to lead the world toward reason when their day comes.'" (p. 127)

When the US is the main world power, it will lead us all toward reason.

Predictions And Details

How precise might a science of society become?

"In the main, sociodynamic theory predicted quite accurately the effects of the secondary drive."

-Poul Anderson, "Inside Straight" IN Anderson, Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 95-118.

- although there were:

"...errors of detail." (ibid.)

When spacemen build a starport big enough to be called "City" in orbit around the humanly colonized planet Landomar, some young Landomarians visit or work in City:

"The elders grumbled, until we brought in sociodynamicists to extrapolate the trend for them and prove that it would never really affect their own timeless oneness with the planet. At most, a cluster of small space-oriented service enterprises would develop groundside. Which is what happened."

-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), II, p. 8.

If only all conflicts could be resolved by bringing in sociodynamicists...

"...[a] few lines of text and paramathematical symbology concerned eight billion human lives."

-"Details," p. 120.

"...backward planets were, mathematically, an elementary proposition...Great Designer, only a single world to worry about..." (ibid.)

But the point of "Details" is that the details upset the mathematics even on a single planet.

Is the opening statement that the League is a mature culture ironic? This culture caters to the whims of its leaders because their total personalities must be satisfied...

Ten Leagues Beyond

Poul Anderson, "Details" IN Anderson, Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 119-140.

SEVEN CONQUESTS: The Introductions

As in Homeward And Beyond (and here), each story in Seven Conquests has a short auctorial introduction.

Summarizing The Introductions (If Possible)

"Kings Who Die": Technology changes not only the methods but also the nature of war.

"Wildcat": Men turn every new capability against each other, indirectly and subtly but significantly.

"Cold Victory": revolution is different from war until it causes civil war.

"Inside Straight": war is often the only way to preserve values dearer than life.

"Details": even if we knew how to end war, could we do it?

"License": Abolition of war would leave a potentiality for violence.

"Strange Bedfellows": Progress happens but will insanities remain?

"Inside Straight" also has a fictional introduction that is the opening passage of the text and is presented as an extract from a history of this fictional timeline. Two paragraphs are followed by:

"-Simon Vardis, A Short History of Pre-Commonwealth Politics, Reel 1, Frame 617" (p. 95)

We remember similar fictional historical introductions in Anderson's Technic History but "Inside Straight" is a one-off story. However, Vardis repeats some of what we know from the Technic History:

Reasons For Extra-Solar Emigration

fresh start

malcontents

"peculiar people"

Consequences

colonies from colonies

human scattering

isolated odd societies

each planet economically self-sufficient

- but other causes of conflict.

Again like Homeward And Beyond, Seven Conquests includes a Psychotechnic History story, in this case "Cold Victory." Just from reading them, there is no way to tell that "The Pirate" and "Cold Victory" are two installments of a single future history series.