Fred
Carol
Poul
Ted
Jack
Bob
Bob's red-headed wife
Arthur
Larry
Catherine
Isaac
Frank
Beam
Ray
Sprague
the editor of Astounding
Leigh
Two processes occur during the preview:
we receive confirmations of the identities of some of the named individuals - Bob has written about Mars, Fred has a low opinion of advertising men etc;
the sf writers interpret what they see of a Martian canal, humanoids etc.
An amusing opening no doubt but the body of the novel is bound to present more substantial contents than these few names and speculations! And again we have come full circle. The blog has currently shifted its focus from Poul Anderson to SM Stirling as a worthy successor of Anderson and now we find this same Anderson as a character in a novel by Stirling. I could not have invented any of this but I am content to be here to read and post about it.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Hmmm, let's see how many of this list I can identify.
Fred Hoyle
Carol
Poul Anderson
Ted Sturgeon
Jack Vance
Bob, Robert A. Heinlein
Bob's red headed wife, Virginia
Arthur C. Clarke
Larry Niven
Catherine (de Camp?)
Isaac Asimov
Frank Herbert
H. Beam Piper
Ray Bradbury
L. Sprague de Camp
John Campbell, editor of ASTOUNDING
Leigh Brackett
The only one I could not identify even tentatively was "Carol."
Fred's poor opinion of advertizing men reminded me of Dorothy L. Sayes mystery novel MURDER MUST ADVERTISE. Sayers used to do some advertising work herself and obviously regarded her old colleagues with amused affection.
Sean
Sean,
Carol: me either.
Frederik Pohl's attitude to advertizers, as expressed in THE SPACE MERCHANTS and "The Tunnel Under The World" was neither amused nor affectionate!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Darn! I had the wrong "Fred" in mind. Yes, I think you are right, Frederik Pohl was the man Stirling had in mind. It would be interesting to speculate what kind of SF and F these writers, esp. Poul Anderson, might have written if we HAD been fortunate enough to have a habitable and inhabited Venus and Mars.
As for Sayers' MURDER MUST ADVERTISE, my memories of the book was of her regarding advertizers with amused affection. I'll quote in part her prefatory note to the novel: "I do not suppose that there is a more harmless and law-abiding set of people than the Advertising Experts of Great Britain. The idea that any crime could possibly be perpetrated on advertising premises is one that could only occur in the ill-regulated fancy of a detective novelist, trained to fasten the guilt on the Most Unlikely Person."
Granted, the quality of advertizers might have gone way down since MURDER MUST ADVERTISE was pub. in 1933.
Sean
Sean,
Could "Jack" be Jack Williamson?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Darn! Another very likey possibility I missed. I'm starting to think Stirling delivberately worked in ambiguities to the opening pages of IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS precisely to get fans like us speculating and debating! (Smiles)
Sean
Sean,
The Jack in the book sold his first story to Gernsback in the '20s.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then that makes it likely Stirling meant Jack WILLIAMSON. I did some checking up on JW and I find myself wondering why I never took a serious interest in his works. After all, Williamson's "Legion of Space" series sounds like the kind of SF we would both like!
Jack Williamson was also the first to coin such SF terms as "terraforming" and "genetic engineering." I suspect he was very much a role model or mentor to the young Poul Anderson.
Sean
Sean,
I have encountered and read very little Williamson. I found his THE LEGION OF TIME disappointing although it was probably an influence on Anderson's Time Patrol.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sorry Williamson's LEGION OF TIME disappointing to you. It was nowhere as good as the roughly contemporary LEST DARKNESS FALL (by L. Sprague de Camp)? All the same, some of JW's stuff seems interesting, esp. his LEGION OF SPACE stories.
And Jack Williamson was very long lived. He was 18 years older than Poul Anderson and outlived him by eight years.
Sean
Sean,
LEGION not comparable to DARKNESS: neither historically based nor logically consistent.
Paul.
"...that young friend of Beam's was off in a corner, the one doing surveys of the writers for Boeing and the Pentagon." I believe this is Jerry Pournelle.
Before I learned that Theodore Sturgeon was Guest of Honor at the Convention (at least in our timeline), I'd believed "Ted" might be Cogswell, because Pournelle mentioned meeting him at the '62 Convention "in Robert A. Heinlein's suite." H. Beam Piper was there as well. Still, the Guest of Honor bit argues against that.
JW's *Seetee Shock* has the interesting psychological twist that the main character is dying of radiation sickness throughout the story, which makes his attitude different from what it might otherwise be. For one thing, why try to develop a romance (as opposed to a roll in the hay) with the pretty girl when you know you won't live another full year? My opinion of JW's work is generally not high -- *Legion of Space* had a number of aspects that got on my nerves -- but a hero who has NO expectation of survival was different enough to intrigue me.
Dear Mr. Birr,
Drat! Somehow I missed "seeing" Jerry Pournelle in Stirling's Prologue to IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS.
I really can't comment on Jack Williamson, altho I might have some of his short stories scattered thru some of my SF collections.
Sean
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