Next, at some stage, I will reread "Outpost of Empire," the second work featuring John Ridenour, in order to unravel its complicated political and ecological background. At the same time, works by other authors remain to be read. On my shelves right now are three Inspector Montalbano novels and Un Lon Don by China Mieville which, apparently, bears comparison with Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Garth Ennis, writing graphic, not prose, fiction, produces both realistic war fiction and fantasy and sometimes combines them. Poul Anderson's works transcend the sf magazines literary ghetto, which emerged during the twentieth century, and should be read alongside everything else.
I am pleased to have found this F&SF cover displaying Anderson, van Rijn, Flandry and other characters in a single illustration.
9 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I actually have a copy of FANTASY AND SF's Special Poul Anderson issue. I think I obtained it partly because of the very useful bibliography of Anderson's works from 1947 to 1971. And, of course, "The Queen of Air and Darkness" was a treat to read!
Sean
I thought "The Queen..." failed as a detective story because the reader knew the answer from the beginning.
Hi, Paul!
I feel compelled to disagree and also say I found this comment of yours rather puzzling. While we readers saw the Queen almost at the very beginning of the story, we did not know she was an impostor. What especially pleased me was the logical and very Holmesian methods used by Eric Sherrinford to finding the true answer to the mystery of who had stolen Barbro Cullen's son. Like Eric and Barbro, we had to wait till almost the end of the story before we found out exactly who or what the Queen and her people were and the abilities they had.
As we both know, Poul Anderson was a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and wrote several affectionate science fictional pastiches based on the great detective. One example being "The Martian Crown Jewels."
Sean
What Sherrinford saw was a colonized planet apparently with no natives but where the human colonists had come to believe in fairies. That would have been a good mystery to solve. But the author had told the reader from the beginning that the planet was inhabited and that the natives were the apparent fairies.
Hi, Paul!
And that was exactly the mystery Sherrinford solved. And I'm not sure what you mean by the author telling the reader from the beginning about the unknown natives being "apparent" elves. We still had to wait till almost the end of the story for Sherrinford to strip away the masquerade. We don't see them in their true forms till then.
I still think "The Queen of Air and Darkness" was a good SF mystery.
Sean
Puzzled: I received email notification of another comment but I can't see it here yet. Yes, it is pertinent to say I am criticizing a story for not being what it does not set out to be. Sherrinford does good detective work but, for the reader, there is no mystery because we know from the start that the natives exist, live as fairies and abduct children. I would have preferred to find out these things as and when the detective did. But I may be criticizing the story for not being what it was not meant to be.
Hi, Paul!
Now I understand better what you meant. Yes, I can see, from the POV of a pure mystery story, that we readers should not have known that Roland had a native race which skillfully played on human legends and archtypes as a means of waging war on the settlers from Earth. But, I did take as much pleasure watching how Sherrinford found out the truth using Holmesian methods.
Sean
It's an interesting point. Several years ago, I loaned Paul 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt, a book in which the reader very soon discovers that there is a murder, who is murdered and by whom. The interest then, is in the process. What caused the murder? Could the murder be justified in any way? Why should we care?
Paul disliked the book because the essential questions were answered pretty much before the story began while I was gripped and fascinated by the process that led to the terrible events that I knew were about to unfold.
Two entirely different reactions to the same story, which only shows that no writer can ever satisfy his entire audience in one go. Poul Anderson, luckily for his fans, was prolific enough that the odd disappointment, should it occur, could be forgiven.
Hi, Ketlan!
Yes, exactly! In this case, it was the process, how a problem was solved, which is the point at issue in both "The Queen of Air and Darkness" and the book you mentioned. We, the readers, were watching from the outside, rather than from the inside. I think both methods are equally valid--it's only that the method used by Poul Anderson and Donna Tartt in the examples discussed will not please all readers.
Sean
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