Perspectives

Homer, expressing the Greek perspective, describes Odysseus as crafty and wise whereas Virgil, expressing the antagonistic Trojan perspective, describes him as cruel and deceitful.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Fall of the Terran Empire is followed by a period of chaos called the Long Night. Pete Pinto, the second-hand bookseller, made the point that later civilizations which had grown out of that period would not refer to it as "the Long Night."

Poul Anderson imagines an sf writer in Augustan Rome who considered three possible futures:

the Empire will conquer the whole world;

in accordance with Augustan policy, the Imperial borders will remain unchanged;

the Empire will fall as barbarians move in, leaving - 

"...nothing...but ruins and wilderness."

-Poul Anderson "The Discovery of the Past" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 182-206 AT p. 190.

Instead, Anderson tells us that:

"A heretical offshoot of the religion of a subjugated people, afar in a corner of the Mediterranean ambit, took over Romans and barbarians alike, completely transforming them and breeding new, utterly different civilizations." (ibid.)

Augustus himself, in a fictional account, tells Lycius the dwarf that the prophetic volumes foretold that either the Romans would:

"...last a few hundred years and then [be] gone - - eaten from outside by barbarians, from inside by strange gods."

-Neil Gaiman, August IN Gaiman, Fables And Reflections (New York, 1993), pp. 98-122 AT p. 113, panel 5 -

- or that they would conquer the whole world.

And here is my point about perspectives: what Anderson describes as transformation by a foreign heresy, Augustus describes as being eaten by strange gods!

The Future

Life and fiction meet in the blog. A post can be inspired by a lengthy series written by Poul Anderson, by a single phrase in an Anderson text or by an everyday event.

Life remains turbulent in Britain and around the world. Will the twenty-first or twenty-second century bring forth:

a World Federation (Robert Heinlein's Future History);

a Solar Union (Anderson's Psychotechnic History);

a Solar Commonwealth (Anderson's Technic History);

a nuclear war (Anderson's Maurai Federation etc);

a global political dictatorship (some Anderson short stories);

ecological collapse (happening now);

alien invasion (highly unlikely!);

an American theocracy (also the Future History);

humanoid robots (Asimov; one Anderson short story);

regular space travel (in much sf but long delayed);

post-organic intelligences (Anderson's Genesis);

the completely unexpected (certainly)?

What we definitely will experience is a single as yet unknown future.

Conscious Simulations

 

Andrea usually says something relevant. 

In Poul Anderson's Genesis, a far future post-organic intelligence creates simulated environments with conscious inhabitants who think that they really are living in ancient Greece, in nineteenth century England or in an alternative history etc. Andrea summarizes current arguments to the conclusion that we are now living in such a simulation.

(i) If there is one material environment containing many simulated environments, including simulations within simulations, then it is statistically more probable that we are living in one of the simulations than in the original material environment.

(ii) Apparently, sub-atomic particles are observed to exhibit properties that would conform to the simulation theory but I have lost track of the argument. 

See:

Simulation hypothesis

It gets complicated - and it is getting late here. But Anderson's sf is still at the forefront of speculation.

Historical Fiction

Quick breakfast post before a day above the Old Pier Bookshop.

Writers of historical fiction must read history. I read of the Roman generals, the Scipios, father and son, in Poul Anderson's "Delenda Est." While "studying"/suffering Latin at school, I found that I was translating a sentence about the younger Scipio saving his father's life at the battle of Ticinus. I reflected that, unknown to the historians, Time Patrolman Manse Everard was nearby at Ticinus.

Neil Gaiman's "August," about the Emperor Augustus, is presented as extracts from the memoirs of the dwarf, Lycius. Gaiman's source was Robert Graves' translation of Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars which confirms the historicity of Lycius as depicted in "August," although we must assume that the dwarf's memoirs relating the real reason for the decline of Rome have not survived...

Authors of fiction write in the cracks of history.

Into The Northern Wilds

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

roads, fields and houses left behind

grisly tales of savage raiders and trolls

cannibal villages

steeper, higher mountains

the Jotun range

cold, dark and ice

northern lights

home of giants

harsh land

glacier-scarred boulders

wind-gnawed crags

long slopes

razorback ridges

narrow, almost lightless, ravines

thinning woods

twisted scrub oaks

sparse, stiff grass

chill by day

cold at night

scudding clouds

pale sun

brilliant stars

torrenting streams

no coffee

little tobacco

This is what the characters travel through in the Eddas but I suspect that Poul Anderson describes it in greater detail. 

Fantasy And SF II

While still rereading Poul Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions, we also remember Anderson's antithetically dissimilar work, the History of Technic Civilization.

Three Hearts... is fundamentally a fantasy despite its half-hearted and superficial rationalizations of lycanthropy etc.

Thesis: fantasy - supernatural events; no explanations needed.

Antithesis: sf - "natural" events only; at least nominal rationales needed.

Synthesis: a fictional multiverse incorporating both natural and supernatural universes.

(In a comic book multiverse, one parallel Earth was inhabited by anthropomorphic animals because everything published by that same company had to be included.)

Three Hearts... is part of a fantasy history in which King Arthur etc had existed. The Technic History is a future history covering many generations, centuries and millennia although only three of the seven volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga are multi-generational:

Volume I covers:

exploration of the Solar System

the Grand Survey (early interstellar exploration)

the later exploration of Avalon

the Polesotechnic League in the time of van Rijn and Falkayn

Volume III covers:

the beginning of the end of the League

the two-stage colonization of Avalon

the Time of Troubles

the early Terran Empire

the Terran-Ythrian war with its consequences for Avalon

Volume VII covers:

the Terran Empire in the time of Flandry

the post-Imperial Long Night

the Allied Planets

civilizations in several spiral arms

Volume II is the van-Rijn-Falkayn period. 

Volumes IV-VI are the Flandry period.

Fantasy And SF

Poul Anderson," Fantasy in the Age of Science" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, September 1981), pp. 265-286.

Paraphrase: sf makes the scientific assumption that the universe is comprehensible whereas fantasy is free to assume "...the completely supernatural...forever unamenable to the scientific method." (p. 271) It is necessary to explain teleportation or faster-than-light space travel but not the powers of magicians or gods.

However, in quantum mechanics and in possibilities like naked singularities, science approaches the bounds of comprehensibility. Furthermore, fantasy is rooted in prehistoric traditions stemming from ancient times when human beings marveled at nature and stood in awe of the unknown. We cannot return to our earliest state but nevertheless should remember our origins.

Hugi's Mule

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

When the Saracen, Sir Carahue, had joined Holger and his companions, he:

"...added they had better acquire a mule, on which Hugi could ride with ample food supplies." (p. 113)

- and the following chapter confirms that this has been done.

Thus, I am paid back for suggesting here that the attached cover illustration was inaccurate: a price to be paid for posting while reading although I willingly pay it.

However, surely, to be fully accurate, this illustration should show Carahue now travelling alongside Holger, dwarf and swan?

In any case, that is my lot for this evening. I relax by returning to other reading that (usually) does not require me to think about posting.

Tomorrow is another day and all that.

Some Other Titles

My copy of The Great Divorce by CS Lewis, a 1982 Fontana Religious paperback, advertises some interesting other titles in its concluding pages -

Peter Abelard, a novel by Helen Waddell. (For Abelard in a short story by Poul Anderson, see: Open To Everything.)

The Religious Experience of Mankind by Ninian Smart (who was my thesis supervisor).

The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by CG Jung.

The Holy Spirit by Billy Graham (a very different approach).

Audacity To Believe and Prayer for Pilgrims by Sheila Cassidy (who was tortured in Chile; some Catholic Lancaster University students attending a religious house for a retreat found that Sheila Cassidy was staying there and she joined in their retreat).

And there are more.

I was surprised to find the title of a novel about Abelard, then to remember his Anderson connection. None of the others are directly Anderson-related but they are all of interest (I think).

This Sunday

Today, my wife and daughter have embarked on a day-long coach trip to Holy Island. Having meditated, breakfasted and blogged, I will walk by Lancaster Canal to a Hospice cafe for lunch and will then return home, again to meditate, read, blog and eat. Tomorrow evening, Zen group. Tuesday, the monthly visit to (male) Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop.

Reading involves noticing the multiple parallels between Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman. In Three Hearts And Three Lions, Alianora somewhere refers to Queen Mab who appears as a character in both authors' works.

OK. It is time for me to move.

Laterz.