The second NESFA collection contains thirty five items:
Editor's Introduction by Rick Katze;
"Poul Anderson" by Mike Resnick;
10 verses, some extracted from novels;
4 serious articles;
1 humorous article;
2 Rustum timeline stories;
2 Flying Mountains stories;
2 Psychotechnic History stories;
1 Time Patrol story;
1 Technic History story;
1 "Operation..." story;
1 Gunnar Heim story;
1 story belonging to one of Anderson's very short (2-story) series;
5 stories that I have read in other collections;
2 stories that I have not read before.
Not enough! I will probably reread some of the familiar items but I really think that this collection could have given us thirty previously uncollected stories.
7 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I agree! While I don't minid NESFA Press reprinting familiar to us stories by Poul Anderson for the benefit of readers who have not read his works, I hope NESFA does a future volume focusing on the UNCOLLECTED or forgotten works of PA. The items I listed in my "Uncollected Works of Poul Anderson" article could probably fill at least two fat volumes, maybe even three.
Hmmm, "My Object All Sublime" had an ending you found unpleasant? I think I should reread that, to see what you meant. Also, what about stories like "Welcome" and "Murphy's Hall"? These stories had grim, surprising, even shocker endings. Would these count as also being "unpleasant"?
Sean
Sean,
We discussed "Murphy's Hall" before. I found it emotionally unpleasant throughout but might have come to view it less negatively as a result of our discussion. "Welcome" has a neat shock ending, like "Eutopia" - one word that changes everything. "My Object All Sublime" is unpleasant because of what is done to a sympathetic character.
Paul.
Do you see Todd Michaels as sympathetic? Granted, he's an interesting conversationalist, a good family mean, and he has courage. On the other hand, he seems to have done something very bad in his home time. At one point, he makes a cultural and moral relativist argument, that different societies have different views of what is wicked, rather than saying just what he did, and defending his actions; that seems to imply that he would have expected the narrator, and other decent people of 20th century America, to disapprove of what he had done.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Nicholas,
You are right. We do not know what he did. But he receives vicious treatment so I have been inclined to sympathize with him as against his opponents.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Yes, I recall our discussion of "Murphy's Hall." I think my basic point, one which PA seems to make as well in his "Commentary" for SPACE FOLK, was that "Murphy's Hall" shows the increasingly grim results for mankind of turning away from space, refusing to look outward, huddling on Earth and seeking an impossible and LETHAL "equality."
I agree with what you said about "Welcome" and "Eutopia." Changing a mere single word at the very end of those stories would have turned them from the shockers they were to only ordinary, forgettable SF stories. In some ways I was still very young at the time I first read "Eutopia" and so did not quite understand the sheer horror of a society tolerating institutionalized child abuse.
And I really will reread "My Object All Sublime"!
Sean
Given the title I would expect a major aspect of the story to be a punishment that fits the crime, though possibly exaggerated past anything that might be considered just. Rather like the punishments in Dante's Inferno.
Kaor, Jim!
But that was exactly what the story was about. A future criminal was sentenced to exile in the past, at a certain time and place where life would be very tough for him.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment