"Strangers" II

Poul Anderson, "Strangers" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, May 1997), pp. 1-21.

Each story, article or other entry in this collection is preceded by an auctorial introduction. The introduction to "Strangers" informs us that:

this story is about the inhabitants of another planet;

it is hard sf, assuming nothing currently regarded as physically impossible;

although human beings have travelled to an extra-solar planet, they do not necessarily have FTL;

they might instead have utilized time dilation, suspended animation or something else.

In other words, this story might fit into one of Anderson's STL future histories:

Rustum

Directorate

Kith

In any case, the story is entirely about conditions on a particular planetary surface and we have posted about it before. See:

Strangers

"Strangers"

Historical Complexity And Interpretation

We, editorially speaking, are reading a newly published book written to mark the ninetieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War. Real history is much more detailed than fiction although some fictions plausibly simulate reality. I understand that Tolkien's Middle Earth is convincingly and consistently detailed. Poul Anderson conveys the sense of clashing factions in a civil war in "Tiger by the Tail" and an entire political spectrum on an occupied planet in Mirkheim.

Historians interpret events in:

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series (See Reality And Interpretation);

the Interludes of Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains;

reality (was Franco's campaign a crusade against left terror or, alternatively, was the entire Civil War just a regretful fratricide caused by democratic immaturity?)

When we return to recent themes, we will reread two further stories about human beings colonizing - or maybe, in the second case, just visiting? - an already inhabited planet:

"Terminal Quest," in Alight In The Void

"Strangers," in All One Universe

We have a lot to (re)read both blog-wise and otherwise.

"The Faun"

"The Faun."

In this story:

one extra-solar planet;

two human characters;

two alien animals;

more exposition than action;

the unexpected name, Krishnamurti (see also here).

We have probably said all that we are going to say about this short story in earlier posts and will shortly redirect our attention elsewhere.

Faun And Wyvern

There is nothing left to reread in The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories except "The Faun," a juvenile short story with just over five pages of text. Having just returned from the Duke's Playhouse, we will not reread this story tonight. However, we notice its reference to Epsilon Eridani. Also, it is another sf story that begins like a fantasy: first, the title; then the opening sentence -

"A wyvern flew up in a thunder of splendid wings."

-Poul Anderson, "The Faun" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (New York, December 1973), pp. 86-91 AT p. 86.

Extraterrestrial birds and animals can be named after mythological beasts.

I want to check stories in a couple of other Anderson collections but a house guest is sleeping in the room with the books. Meanwhile, I also want to reread some more Stieg Larsson before turning in. This weekend, "Heritage" events continue in Lancaster: concerts in churches etc.

Onward, Earthlings.

See also:

Dragon, Wyvern And Faun

blog search result for wyvern (scroll down)

Wind And Illusion

 

"The Queen of Air and Darkness."

That Andersonian wind never ceases to fill the silences or apparently to comment on the characters' dialogues and actions. When Barbro has sung the concluding lines of an Outling ballad to Sherrinford:

"She laid the lyre aside. A wind rustled leaves. After a long quietness Sherrinford said..." (p. 34)

The quietness that is necessary for reflection on what is conveyed by the ballad is accompanied and emphasized by the sound of rustling leaves.

I think that there is too much of Sherrinford expounding what has happened and not enough of us readers being shown what is happening. One scene in particular would require very dramatic visual effects in any screen adaptation. Barbro sees Fairyland spires, a courtyard, candles, fountains and beauty and hears melody and birdsong. Then there is growling, fire, thunder, screaming and a steel intruder. Bare crags replace towers and a cave gapes. Some of those who retreat into it have scales, tails and beaks. Sherrinford has destroyed the illusion.

I suppose that there could be an open-ended sequence (rather than a series) of stories about extra-solar colonies with little or no contact between them. They could even have contradictory misinformation and traditions about what Earth had been like before their ancestors had left it. A more sensible Star Trek scenario.

Some Details On Roland

"The Queen of Air and Darkness."

The opening passage describes a boy and a girl, then informs us that:

"Their age was about sixteen, but they did not know this, considering themselves Outlings and thus indifferent to time, remembering little or nothing of how they had once dwelt in the lands of men." (p. 3)

They did not know this... As in several passages written by Stieg Larsson, this sentence in a Poul Anderson narrative does not present the point of view of either of these two newly introduced characters. Instead, the omniscient narrator directly - and unusually - informs us, the readers, of a fact about the characters that they themselves did not know. 

(Most readers neither notice nor reflect on this, of course!)

They are on Roland, a planet that is so terrestroid that human beings can not only breathe the air but also eat the food and drink the water. (p. 11) How plausible is that?

One "outwayer" farmer hopes to harvest:

yerba hay;

bathyrhiza wood;

pericoup;

glycophyllon;

chalcanthemum to be sold by city florists;

rover pelts for the furriers. (p. 26)

Every fictional Andersonian planet has a rich and detailed ecology. 

And, like nearly every other Andersonian environment, this one also includes loud wind and roaring rain:

"...outside, wind hooted, lightning flared, rain crashed on roof and walls and roared down to swirl among the courtyard cobblestones." (ibid.)

As ever, that wind punctuates conversations and emphasizes dramatic pauses in the characters' dialogue. When the farmer has spoken intensely and his family has grown still:

"Wind hooted beyond the walls and rattled the storm shutters." (p. 27)

With this backup, the farmer repeats his entreaty to Barbro Cullen not to venture into forbidden territory:

"'Don't you.'" (ibid.)

1000 Parsecs

Poul Anderson, "Time Lag" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness (New York, December 1973), pp. 115-149.

A constellation seen from a colonized extra-solar planet:

"Sedes Regis was an L scrawled across heaven. Tradition claimed Old Sol lay in that direction, a thousand parsecs away. But no one on Chertkoi was certain any longer. Golyev shrugged. Who cared?" (p. 119)

For other extra-solar constellations, see Armies Of Stars and links from it.

One parsec is about 3.26 light-years. People have travelled at sub-light speeds from Earth to Chertkoi and other extra-solar planets where they have built civilizations, which must have taken a long time. However, Golyev's only source for the figure of a thousand parsecs is tradition. A sequel could be written in which that tradition was shown to be inaccurate. Maybe "a thousand parsecs" was just someone's expression for a long distance? How much of the information in a work of fiction is in the minds of the characters and could be overturned in a sequel?

Stories, Sequels And Series

I don't think that I could get into any sf author who just wrote a large number of short stories with no sequels or series. A completely new fictional background for every short narrative? No ideas or characters developed beyond just one story? (I realize that I might be describing Harlan Ellison and someone who is more familiar with his works might want to respond?)

When I first read Poul Anderson's "The Game of Glory," I saw of course that this story was about a character named Dominic Flandry but did not yet know either that there was a Dominic Flandry series or that this series covered one period of a future history series - one of several such series by the same author. I learned that Flandry's enemies, the Merseians, had existed in the period of the Polesotechnic League when I read a reader's letter in an sf mag. Imagine if the only work ever to have been set in the Technic History timeline had been the first Flandry short story!

In Planets And Timelines, we refer to:

Poul Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness" and "Time Lag";

James Blish's "A Case of Conscience," A Case Of Conscience, "Seeding Program" and "Watershed."

We have seen how the two Anderson stories connect with others of his works.

"A Case of Conscience" was incorporated into A Case Of Conscience which is Volume III of After Such Knowledge and one volume of the Haertel Scholium. "Seeding Program" and "Watershed" are Books One and Four of The Seedling Stars. All of these works are bettered by becoming part of something bigger.

POVs In Anderson And Larsson

Because Poul Anderson controls narrative points of view so well, I want to contrast him with another author who is equally effective but who sometimes takes a different approach.

"Neither [Blomkvist] nor Berger had ever heard of Nils Bjurman, so neither of them were aware of him being there."

-Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (London, 2009), CHAPTER 2, p. 35.

"[Wu] slipped out of the entrance door on Lundagatan less than five minutes before Blomkvist parked outside and rang her doorbell."

-ibid., CHAPTER 20, p. 331.

"[Salander] noted the names Hans Faste and Curt Anderson, but she missed Jerker Holberg altogether as his name was not mentioned in any of the articles."

-ibid., CHAPTER 21, p. 359. 

There are other examples but they carry the same message. A passage narrated from either Blomkvist's or Berger's point of view (pov) could not have told us that they were not aware of Bjurman. It could only have told us what they did notice. Neither Wu nor Blomkvist knows that they missed each other by less than five minutes. The omniscient narrator informs us of this directly, unmediated by either of these characters' povs. That Salander noted Faste's and Anderson's names can be narrated from her pov but that she missed Holberg cannot. Again, the omniscient narrator must inform us of this directly. I find this interesting which is why I comment on it.

Planets And Timelines

Poul Anderson, "The Queen of Air and Darkness" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (New York, December 1973), pp. 3-49.

Poul Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness" is definitely the ninth and last instalment in his Rustum future history series whereas the same author's "Time Lag" is much more tentatively and speculatively - although I might be alone in suggesting this - the concluding instalment of a considerably shorter and diffuser "Directorate" future history series. What these two stories have in common is that each is set in a future period when enough time has elapsed that human beings, travelling in slower-than-light spaceships, have colonized several extra-solar planets and there is also some travel between the colonies although there is no longer any contact with Earth. In "Time Lag," at least in the volume of space where the action occurs, Earth is simply too far, a thousand parsecs, away whereas, in "The Queen...":

"Earth has long ago sunk into alien concerns." (p. 10)

That fits with what we are told in the Rustum stories. 

One of the reasons why people had left Earth was to preserve:

"...constitutional government..." (p. 6)

We remember the Constitutionalists on Rustum.

Eric Sherrinford says that birds big enough to carry a small child a short distance:

"'...do exist on Beowulf - and on Rustum, I've read.'" (p. 15)

This confirms that Roland and Rustum exist in the same timeline although, having said that, a fictional planet can, like Earth, Mars etc, exist in alternative timelines:

in James Blish's "A Case of Conscience," later adapted and expanded as A Case Of Conscience, Book One, the planet Lithia exists in 2049;

in Blish's "Seeding Program," near future events on Earth differ from those recounted in "A Case of Conscience" and Lithia is not mentioned;

in Blish's "Watershed," set millennia after "Seeding Program," Lithia exists;

in A Case Of Conscience, Book Two, Lithia is destroyed in 2050.

I think that this makes sense. Lithia plays a major role in A Case... and a minor role in "Watershed" and, in each case, its fate, whether imminent destruction or longer term survival, is appropriate to that narrative.

In any case, Rustum and Roland exist in a single timeline.