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, 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.

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 one of a kind of competent, hard-working, hard-living, hard-drinking Andersonian characters 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.

After The War

Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

The War of Asterite Independence is over quickly for us readers, introduced and concluded in a single story, but not for the asterites:

"...the despair of the war years." (p. 119)

And the war does not end as we expect. There is a stable group of asteroids in each of the two Trojan points in the Jovian orbit, sixty degrees before and behind Jupiter. The peace treaty lets North America keep the leading Trojan group while the new Asterite Republic gets only the trailing group. As conditions continue to deteriorate in North America, the government of that continent puts more economic pressure on those asterites whom it still governs. The issues that the war was fought over have not been resolved. I will have to reread this story to the end to get all its ramifications.

The main leading Trojan asteroid, Odysseus, has a Lake Circe and a "...zoo island, Aeaea..." (p. 120) The other large asteroids in this group are Hector, Achilles, Nestor, Agamemnon and Ajax. These are powerful mythological references, particularly in the wake of the film, The Odyssey.

Don and Avis Bell have a domestic staff of ten, including a cook and a butler, in their sealed house on Mount Ida above the Oddyssean atmosphere. I like the asterite attitude explained by Don Bell. The pioneers had had to be both self-reliant and mutually helpful. The successful felt obliged to employ the unsuccessful who accepted employment because all work contributed to survival and improvement. If I were there, then, lacking entrepreneurial skills, I would willingly work as a butler.

The Milky Way is always with us:

"Stars crowded the blackness, unwinking and winter-cold; the Milky Way girdled the universe with diamond dust; Jupiter blazed enormous, not many astronomical units to port." (p. 95)

From the waist-height dome atop the Bell house:

"When the sun happened to be away, as it was at the moment, every spot overhead was diademmed with stars, nebulae, Milky Way and sister galaxies." (p. 126)

Discussion

Tales Of The Flying Mountains, Interlude 3.

Orloff, who had come to the Asterite Republic from the Soviet colonies, asks whether the Astra cannot do better than "'...the extreme libertarianism...'" (p. 115) which had produced selfish, materialistic individuals unconcerned about society.

Lindgren responds:

"'I don't imagine we have room aboard for unregulated capitalism... But I'd hate to see an outright socialism evolve. Not simply because its stifling. I think it'd discourage the creativity this ship will need for long-range survival.'" (ibid.)

Lindgren says more which is worth reading but I try to limit the lengths of quotations. Phrases like "'...an outright socialism...'" should never be used without some explanation. If it were self-evident and if everyone were in agreement that something called "socialism" was stifling and discouraged creativity, then why would anyone call themselves "socialist" as many do in response to current crises? Because they're mad, of course... Let's not go down that road. Since many people argue that democratic (not bureaucratic) control of economic resources will not stifle but liberate, this argument should be engaged with, not treated as if it did not exist, which is what happens when the phrase, "outright socialism," is simply identified with "stifling" and discouragement of creativity. I imagine Astra crew members calling themselves "socialists" arguing for a greater degree of democratic decision-making in the ship and others replying that this is impractical, of course. That would be a more constructive debate.

Flowers Escapes

Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

Action-adventure heroes are captured and escape. In "Say It With Flowers," Robert Henry Flowers, Lieutenant in the Space Force of the Asterite Republic, does it. Having been captured by a cruiser of the North American Navy, he escapes in one of their space boats, taking three hostages with him. Thus, the North Americans cannot shoot at the escaping Flowers without killing their own men. But there is more to this story than that: several twists and turns which can be found by reading the story. One of the twists is that this War of Asterite Independence is over very quickly:

"Trade boomed after independence was won..." (p. 111)

The next story will be post-war. Future histories can be long or short. A single-volume history is short. Four stories, four Interludes and one Epilogue remain to be (re)read.

Ad Astra.