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.
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.
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.
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.
Hard sf is based in a scientific understanding of cosmogony, cosmology and evolution. Poul Anderson imagines the evolution of:
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.
No wonder I could not remember whether:
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.
Poul Anderson's works, 1947-2001, cover just over fifty years of this period of just over two hundred years and fully develop the Wellsian-Stapledonian themes of space travel, time travel, alien invasion and future history as well as more recent themes that they did not know about.
(Frankenstein is the pivotal character between Gothic fiction and sf as Superman is between sf and superheroes and Anderson could easily have created a substantial sequel to either.)
I feel drawn towards rereading Anderson's The Game Of Empire, alongside other current reading, but it remains to be seen how much such rereading will generate blog-wise.
Nothing more this evening!
