-copied from here.
However, superheroes began in sf because Superman was the first superhero and his origin was extraterrestrial, not magical or supernatural.
I mention this because there is a scene straight of Superman in Poul Anderson's "The Chapter Ends." The psychotechnician Jorun:
has flown thirty thousand light years through space in ten days by controlling cosmic forces with his own brain;
holds an envelope of air and heat around him while hanging in space, looking at Earth;
then streaks down to the North Pole.
Does he "streak" horizontally, like Superman?
Jorun is nearly a thousand years old and can will negative emotions out of his trained nervous system. That alone might be enough to qualify him as a "superman."
These powers do not require a change of form, as discussed here. See also Getting Superman Right here.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteAnd it is precisely these powers and abilities of Jorun in "The Chapter Ends" which makes me disinclined to believing it belongs to the Psychotechnic series.
I would argue for an editor collecting ALL of the Psychotechnic stories in one or two volumes prefacing "The
Chapter Ends" with a note saying commentators disagree on whether that story belongs in the series.
Sean