Going For Infinity

I have yet to read "Dialogue" and "The Communicators," the concluding two stories in Poul Anderson's collection, Dialogue With Darkness, but meanwhile I have started to read that capstone volume, Going For Infinity (New York, 2002). Poul Anderson died in 2001. I wrote then, "Our thoughts accompany Poul on the Wild Hunt," so I hope it is appropriate to repeat those words here.

In his Introduction to Going For Infinity, Poul Anderson summarizes his antecedents and early life, thus showing several major influences:

the sea;
Scandinavian history and culture;
"a solid and  loving home life" (p. 13);
Danish-English bilingualism;
from boyhood experience on a farm, "such themes...as countryside, cold, storm, animals, and men and women who make their livings by their hands" (p. 14);
science fiction magazines featuring "...the creations of Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and the other gods" (ibid.);
a degree in physics, mathematics and chemistry;
the Minneapolis Fantasy Society.

Anderson went straight from University to a long career as a full time writer. How many of his books feature the sea? (I will not write another of my long lists.) From Scandinavia, we get his Viking novels and Hrolf Kraki's Saga. The "themes" listed on p. 14 appear in many works, including the King of Ys Tetralogy, co-written by Karen Anderson. The influence of Robert Heinlein's Future History gives us Anderson's major and minor future histories. The influence of de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall is seen in the Time Patrol, which also gives us "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth." From Anderson's scientific knowledge and training come all the background details of many fictitious planets and other celestial bodies.

Joining the Minneapolis Fantasy Society must have seemed like coming home.