Brain Wave
Vault Of The Ages
The War Of Two Worlds
Shield
Planet Of No Return
Three Worlds To Conquer
The Long Way Home
Tau Zero
World Without Stars
After Doomsday
The Byworlder
The Enemy Stars
The Winter Of The World
The Avatar
For Love And Glory
Qualifications to this classification:
as noted in earlier posts, Three Worlds To Conquer and Tau Zero each have a short prequel whereas The Enemy Stars has a short sequel, so maybe these are mini-series;
The Boat Of A Million Years is a long novel with a novel-length concluding section set in an indefinite future but the earlier sections are historical science fiction with one contemporary chapter;
Starfarers is not on the list because it is, most of, the Kith History series;
Twilight World is not on the list because it is a series - in particular, its epilogue is set in a much later period;
some time travel works have passages set in the future but are mostly about the past;
Genesis is not on the list, although maybe it should be, because I classify it as a future history (a synthesis of the Stapledonian and Heinleinian models) and would therefore shelve it alongside the other shorter future histories like Flying Mountains and Rustum rather than with the more straightforward novels listed here.
Still to do:
finish reading and commenting on The Snows Of Ganymede;
discuss the lesser known (?) The War Of Two Worlds;
say (a little) more about Ace Doubles;
acquire Anderson's second and third mystery novels;
but first re-enter the realm of Morpheus;
and wonder whether discussion of Anderson's works is really, as it seems to be, endless...
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I realize you carefully said FUTURISTIC science fiction written by Poul Anderson. And that would seem to exclude THE HIGH CRUSADE (and its short story sequel "The Quest") from your list. Because it was set in the past, not the future (altho it does have a Preface and Epilogue set in our future). All the same, it might be debatable if THE HIGH CRUSADE should be excluded, because it does use such standard SF tropes as a FTL drive, non human rational beings, colonization of other worlds, etc.
I recall how much I enjoyed reading THE WAR OF TWO WORLDS. An example of Anderson using a Mars inhabited by another race before, alas, it was discovered how unlikely to be like that. A fast paced, entertaining short novel with an ingenious twist.
Sean
In my personal classification of PA's works. THE HIGH CRUSADE belongs with THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN and ROGUE SWORD as 3 works set in the 14th century. Like BOAT and time travel works, it does have futuristic passages.
Hi, Paul!
Hmmm, yes, that does makes sense and explains why you did not include THE HIGH CRUSADE in your "futuristic" list. I had forgotten how you believed ROGUE SWORD, THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN, and THE HIGH CRUSADE belonged in a list of works set in the 14th century.
And, recall how I discovered, to my astonishment, that two books as different from each other as ROGUE SWORD and THE HIGH CRUSADE had a CONNECTION to each other. Brother Hugh de Tourneville, an important secondary character in ROGUE, was related to Baron Roger de Tourneville.
Sean
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