A Pleistocene Hunter

When David Falkayn realized the potential of the planet Satan:

"Sheer instinct roused him. He was abruptly a Pleistocene hunter again.
"'Judas!' he yelled. 'Yes!'" (p. 358) (For full reference, see here.)

I quoted this passage at greater length before. See The Realization About Satan. Now I want to connect it with two similar passages about Dominic Flandry (see Our Animal Ancestry and A Moment Of Truth?) and also with some comparable passages in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series (see Subjectivity and The Presence Of Innocence).

Falkayn, Flandry and Everard are high tech hunters.

How David Falkayn Indirectly Caused The Discovery Of Satan

The Serendipity computer presents a "...dry recital, in that windful tone..." (p. 353) (For full reference, see here.) Windful?

David Falkayn had demonstrated that the blue giant star, Beta Centauri, had captured a system of rogue planets;

this discovery excited interest elsewhere;

the Collectivity of Wisdom in Kothgar on Lemminkainen dispatched an expedition that checked every previously unvisited giant star within several hundred light years;

as expected, none had planets;

however, the Lemminkainenites detected one rogue planet approaching Beta Crucis;

several years later, a Lemminkainite captain who had been on that expedition consulted Serendipity;

Serendipity reduced his fee in exchange for information from several expeditions, including the incidental datum about the planet approaching Beta Crucis, which had not been included in the report that originally reached Earth;

Falkayn asked the Serendipity computer about ways that he might make money;

the computer correlated Falkayn's discovery about Beta Centauri and the Lemminkainite discovery about Beta Crucis with the observation that the planet passing close to Beta Crucis would be a favorable site for the production of heavy isotopes...

Thus, Satan's World is a sequel to "A Sun Invisible."

Falkayn's Interview With The Serendipity Computer

Poul Anderson, Satan's World In Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 329-598 AT Chapter III.

"He sat in an ordinary self-adjusting chair..." (p. 348)

Such chairs are ordinary in Anderson's fictional futures. See Futuristic Furniture.

When the computer speaks:

"The voice was not the flat baritone of most human-built robots; it was high, with a curious whistling quality, and varied both pitch and speed in a way hard to describe." (p. 349)

Anderson has described the experience quite effectively. This computer is not of human manufacture. A customs inspector bribed by van Rijn had said that Serendipity received a shipment of computer components that he was sure were not human-made. He had acquired an eye for style and his hunch was confirmed when the computer worked in ways that no one else was quite able to duplicate.

The computer connects Falkayn's name with incidents involving Beta Centauri, Ikrananka and Merseia. Thus, Anderson refers back to three of the four previous Technic History installments featuring Falkayn. Only Ivanhoe, where he was an apprentice, is not mentioned here.

On p. 350, Anderson describes how "...the machine thought...":

"...electrons and quanta hurtled through vacuum...";
"...charges and the absence of charges moved through crystal lattices...";
"...distorted molecules interacted with magnetic, electric, gravitational, nuclear fields..."

Charge and absence of charge correspond to binary 1 and 0. We can use lines of 1's and 0's to record information but the mechanism processing the 1's and 0's is not conscious. Nor are electrons, quanta, molecules or fields. Thus, it sounds as if the Serendipity computer is not "consciousness-level." (See AI Again.) Falkayn thinks of it as "...the great quasi-brain..." (p. 347) as "...a gadget...," (p. 349) that does not warrant an apology and as "...the huge blind brain." (p. 351)

Moving Planets

Copied from Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments:

"Men can alter a world, or ruin one; but they cannot move it one centimeter off its ordained course. That requires energies of literally cosmic magnitude.
"So you couldn't ease this planet into a suitable orbit around Beta Crucis. It must continue its endless wanderings."
-Poul Anderson, Satan's World IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 329-598 AT p. 357.

Would gravity control not allow the moving of planets? In James Blish's Cities In Flight, men move a planet between galaxies faster than light with graviton polarity generators. In Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, the telepathic galactic mind launches a star cluster between galaxies.

Satan, the planet passing close to Beta Crucis, is a rogue. It seems that Anderson is correct when he tells us that there are many such planets. Satan's cryosphere becomes atmosphere and hydrosphere at periastron passage but re-forms during recession.

"'Nothing basic would have happened.'"
-op. cit., p. 356.

- except that the planet can be put to massive industrial use while it is energized. Satan and Mirkheim are two amazing creations by Anderson and the latter idea was suggested by his editor, John W. Campbell.

London And Luna

Copied from Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments:

In Flandry And Leamas, we compared Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry with John le Carre's Alec Leamas. Now we find a lesser parallel between Anderson's David Falkayn and Leamas.

Both London and Luna are in the cosmos although we do do not think of London as a "cosmic environment."

In London, to evade any followers, Leamas:

suddenly jumps on a bus to Ludgate Hill;
dismounts in a traffic jam;
catches a tube;
stands in the end carriage;
alights at the next station;
catches another train to Euston;
goes back to Charing Cross, where a van waits in the forecourt.

On Luna, to evade any followers, Falkayn:

passes through a large sporting goods store;
walks behind large items;
leaves by a rear door;
finds a kiosk;
enters the antigrav dropshaft;
gets off at the eighth sublevel;
proceeds along the corridors to his destination.

In one of his novels, Frederick Forsyth explains how a trained team can follow anyone without being spotted and not lose him. Anyone who turns a corner, runs to the next corner and looks back merely alerts the team that he thinks he might be followed.

Past Jupiter

"The girl who called herself Veronica..." tells David Falkayn that he is "'...the glamor man...'" because:

"'...none of us girls has traveled past Jupiter. Hardly any of the men we know have, either. Not one of them compares to you.'"
-Poul Anderson, Satan's World IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 329-598 AT pp. 329-330.

Imagine that! When it is considered parochial not to have traveled beyond Jupiter. I haven't been that far, have you?

Falkayn, celebrity and confidante of Nicholas van Rijn, knows that he will be spied on in the Solar System so he carefully gives Veronica no advance warning of his movements. In fact, professionally suspicious, he thinks of her as the girl who calls herself Veronica.

We have seen Falkayn as apprentice, journeyman, Master Merchant leading the first trade pioneer crew and savior of Merseia. This is only his fifth appearance. Everything that happens has a substantial background in earlier stories but, at the same time, Anderson must move his future history forward. Falkayn has a great future still to come. Technic civilization will go through major changes in his lifetime and later.

Addendum: Falkayn and Veronica are in Elfland on Luna. For Falkayn on the Moon, see:

On The Moon In The Technic History
The Serendipity Partners
London And Luna (This is the time of the month when I try to direct attention towards other blogs.)

Adzel's Career

We have followed Adzel's career:

in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," he pays his way as a student on Earth;

in "The Trouble Twisters," he gets drunk during the trade pioneer crew's inaugural mission on Ikrananka;

in "Day of Burning," he addresses a Merseian Star Believers' meeting (see Public Speaking);

in Satan's World, he is interrogated by police on Luna (see Know Your Enemy IV);

in "Lodestar," he waits with his colleagues to hear how Nicholas van Rijn will respond to what they have done at Mirkheim;

in Mirkheim, he visits Babur and joins freedom fighters on Hermes.

I think that we should dip back into Satan's World for a while.

AI Again

We are told that there are "consciousness-level computers" in the Technic History timeline. Flandry meets one. Computers manipulate symbols. Manipulation of symbols is not consciousness of their meanings or of anything else and will not become such merely by increasing in speed or improving in efficiency. However, a future artifact might both compute and be conscious.

I saw a TV interview with an uneducated Indian woman who, without understanding how she did it, instantly performed any mathematical calculation in her head. She simply stated the answer correct to six places of decimals. Her answers were checked by a man with a calculator which was slower and went only to four places of decimals so they seemed to disagree until she explained the discrepancy. She was a conscious organic computer.

Chee Lan tells the ship's computer, Muddlehead:

"'You're not a person!...Not even in fact, let alone the law!'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 208.

I thought that Muddlehead was a consciousness-level computer but will now have to reread the texts more carefully to make sure. A person is a self-conscious entity like:

a human being;
a hypothetical extraterrestrial;
a disembodied soul;
an angel;
a demon;
a god;
other kinds of imaginary supernatural beings;
a consciousness-level computer.

I do not believe that most of these entities exist but, if they did, then they would be persons in fact, even if not in law.

Falkayn On Trade And War

David Falkayn says:

"'...we want to trade, and you can't trade during a war.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 202.

Can't you?
Can't one arms dealer sell to both sides?
Did Napoleon's soldiers wear British-made boots while blockading Britain?
Did a German subsidiary of IBM make punch card sorting machines for the data management of the Holocaust?
Did Coca Cola make Fanta inside Nazi Germany?
Does the global economy not continue to function during international conflicts?
Can building firms not plan to profit from post-war reconstruction?
Do some Polesotechnic League companies not profit by selling spaceships and nuclear weapons to barbarians in exchange for the exclusive right to mine and industrialize their planets?

In any case, Falkayn works for van Rijn who, we know, finds peace not only more profitable but also more morally acceptable than warfare.

What We Remember

We regularly notice "moments of realization" in Poul Anderson's works. Rereading one such moment, I find that I have discussed it twice before, in 2016 and in 2014. Falkayn realizes how he can contact the ship without a radio. What I do not remember is how he does it! And I have not summarized his solution in either of the previous posts. Despite endless rereading, we, or at least I, cannot remember the twists and turns of every plot. Some posts are meant to appreciate complex narratives precisely by summarizing the details that are usually forgotten, e.g.:

Circularity In The Corridors Of Time
The Sorrow Of Odin The Goth
A Time Patrolman's Dynasty
337-344
Dakotia 

1960-2018

In the 1960s, I read, among many other things, contemporary thrillers by Ian Fleming and John le Carre and futuristic sf by Poul Anderson. Since then, the Cold War has become history and events have overtaken most near future speculations. However, writers of contemporary fiction can keep their current works contemporary and can also write retrospectives like le Carre's The Secret Pilgrim. Meanwhile, events cannot overtake fictions set further in the future and sf authors also write alternative histories like SM Stirling's Draka and Emberverse series.

Fleming died in 1964. Anderson continued writing new future histories until the beginning of the twenty first century. Le Carre, still writing, shows us what Fleming did not, his characters in their old age. SM Stirling is still writing...

Flandry And Leamas

Fictional spies, and probably also real spies, are actors. How often does Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry pretend to be effete and ineffective while covertly running a sophisticated intelligence operation? SM Stirling's OSS agents must pretend to be Draka! (For the uninitiated, think "super-Nazis.")

John le Carre's Alec Leamas plays the opposite role from Flandry: sacked from the Secret Service, hating his former superiors and their American allies, unemployed, over-drinking, going to seed, serving three months in prison for assault, having an affair with a Communist Party member - this entire act is designed to persuade his former adversaries in East German Intelligence that they can recruit him. Maybe Flandry and Leamas have more in common than I had thought?

Leamas was played in black and white by Richard Burton. Flandry should be played in full color by two actors, before and after his biosculp. This should happen.

Two Kinds Of Spy Fiction

I am starting to reread The Spy Who Came In From The Cold in preparation for reading le Carre's recently published sequel. There are two kinds of spy fiction:

realistic;
action-adventure fiction with secret agents as the protagonists.

Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry is science fiction and also action-adventure spy fiction. As such, Flandry is comparable to Ian Fleming's James Bond but contrasts with le Carre's Smiley, Leamas etc. My reading schedule will shortly alternate between The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Anderson's early Technic History where the trader team is still on the planet Ikrananka.

Two Views From Rangakora

Flandry, standing on a high balcony of a palace surrounded by a garden and by a white, yellow and red stone city, sees:

a snowcap that glows gold in the perpetual sunset;
a rainbow-misted waterfall;
a fertile plain.

Chee Lan, creeping through tall growth to the city wall:

sees a cloud scudding through the purple sky above the dark cliff of the wall;
smells pungent tarry vegetation;
feels a cold wind;
hears the roaring waterfall.

Two perspectives and four senses in few sentences.

Absent And Metaphorical Drunkenness

Chee Lan does not get drunk because:

"Ethanol is a normal product of Cynthian metabolism."
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 163.

Muddlehead, the ship's computer, informs an Ikranankan that:

"'...Drunkard's Walk computations involve comparatively sophisticated mathematics.'"
-op. cit., p. 170.

Early in my sf-reading career, I read Drunkard's Walk by Frederik Pohl but never wondered about the meaning of the title. Now it is possible to google and find The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. See here. This is yet another detail that could easily have been skipped over when reading a Poul Anderson story. Check everything. It is worthwhile.

Adzel III

Adzel appears in:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"
"The Trouble Twisters"
"Day of Burning"
Satan's World
"Lodestar"
Mirkheim

These six works might count as an "Adzel series." However, all but "How To Be Ethnic..." are also the Trader Team series. Replacing "How To Be Ethnic..." with "The Three-Cornered Wheel" and "A Sun Invisible" makes them the David Falkayn series. Replacing those two Falkayn stories with no less than six other works gives us the Nicholas van Rijn series. Thus, there is considerable convergence.

The six works featuring Adzel are introduced respectively by:

Hloch;
Urwain the Wide-Faring;
Hloch;
no one;
Hloch;
no one.

Thus, as far as collections go, Adzel is mainly a character of the Earth Book. And, of course, the entire future history comes together in The Technic Civilization Saga.

Collections And Introductions III

("Trader Team" was re-entitled "The Trouble Twisters.")

A story can be preceded by an introduction in its original magazine appearance or can acquire one when collected;

an introduction can be written by the author, by someone else or as if by someone else;

an introduction either addresses the real world readers of the story or extends the fiction, i.e., is written as if by an observer within the fictional world of the story.

"The Saturn Game," not introduced in Analog, was introduced by the author when it was collected in Going For Infinity. However, this introduction did not impart information about the story and therefore was not included when "The Saturn Game" was collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis.

The twelve works collected as The Earth Book Of Stormgate are there introduced as if by Hloch of Stormgate Choth on Avalon, thus immensely extending the fiction. One of these works, "Lodestar," had been introduced by Anderson in its its original anthology appearance. In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, Hank Davis includes Anderson's introduction as an afterword.

Anderson wrote a fictional introduction to "The Star Plunderer" when it first appeared in Planet Stories. Davis included this introduction when "The Star Plunderer" was collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire and also wrote a fictional introduction to the following story, "Sargasso of Lost Starships," which is best rationalized as a fiction within the fiction.

Anderson wrote a fictional introduction in his van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars, and three such introductions in his Falkayn collection, The Trouble Twisters. All of these are reproduced in the appropriate volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga.

Alcohol

Alcohol does not affect Cynthians so Chee Lan smokes something. However, alcohol does affect Wodenites. Despite his enormous capacity, Adzel can drink enough to get drunk.

Generally, I think, Buddhists do not drink alcohol. Certainly, if they do drink it, then they should not drink so much that it interferes with either alertness or meditation. I am not an ordained Buddhist but have avoided drink for a long time because I want to meditate regularly. This evening, having meditated earlier, I drank one glass of wine which will not affect mediation tomorrow evening.

I do think that Adzel is mistaken to get as drunk as he does in "The Trouble Twisters."

Approaching The Twilight Zone

Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 156.

What will a landscape on an extra-solar planet look like? Grass? No: "...mosslike growth..." Forests of trees? No: "... forests of plumed stalks swayed in the wind." Picture it.

David Falkayn and his Ershoka abductors approach the Ikranankan Twilight Zone. The rest of the scene could be Terrestrial. Apparently, the moss and stalks are green and:

"Once clouds massed in the north, colored hot gold. The mountains rose sheer to east, aglow in the level red light. Falkayn saw snow peaks and glaciers. Above them the sky was a royal purple deepening toward black, where fifty stars and a planet glimmered. They were at the edge of the Twilight Zone."

The author appeals to two senses because "...brooks rilled..." and there are a lot of colors: green, gold, red, white, purple and black.

Parodying Shakespeare

(Stratford-upon-Avon.)

Mark Antony:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
-copied from here.

David Falkayn:

"'I come to curry Caesarism, not to raze it.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 155.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
-copied from here.

" 'Uneasy hies tha head what caeres for clowns.' "
-copied from here.

If that's not clever, it'll do till the real clever comes along.

Ikranankan Street Scene

In the narrow sand streets of Katandara:

spans of karikuts draw planters' carts carrying Chakoran produce;

porters carry burdens on shaven heads;

Shekheji caravaneers swagger;

Tiruts guard a wagon of stalks spliced and glued to make expensive timber;

zandara-riding Lachnakoni come to trade hides for city goods;

there is harsh babble, rumblings, groans, footfalls, clangor, dust, smoke and sharp smells;

Ikranankans climb out of Adzel's way;

booths sell food, drink, cloth, pelts and handicrafts;

behind them are noisy workshops hidden from demons and black magicians.

("The Trouble Twisters.")

Organized Crime

On Ikranaka, phratries specializing in sorcery serve the Emperor. There are also phratries specializing in murder, theft, armed robbery, gambling and prostitution:

Italy has the Mafia, Camorra, 'Ndrangheta and Sacra Corona Unita;
France has the Unione Corse;
China has Triads;
Japan has the Yakuza;
Merseia has the Gethfennu;
Ikrananka has the antisocial phratries as well as remnants from earlier cycles resentful of the Deodakh conquest.

Antisocial and resentful phratries skulk in the Old City of Katandara where Ershoka go in groups although Adzel counts as a group by himself. Every inhabited planet described by Poul Anderson is more complicated than we think.

Interference

Three groups:

time travelers supervised by Poul Anderson's Time Patrol;
the crew of the USS Enterprise;
James Blish's Okies -

- must not affect or alter the cultures that they encounter whereas companies in Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League have no such scruples:

"'Kingdoms come and go, none last more'n a few generations, but a bloodline is forever.'
"Her words confirmed what Falkayn had already gathered. It bespoke an ingrained clannishness that worried him. If the attitude was instinctive, this was a poor world in which to set up operations. But if it could be altered - if the Ikranankans could be made to feel loyalty toward something larger than a cluster of families -"
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT pp. 111-112.

The prevailing, environmentally determined, demonology expresses and reinforces a paranoia that impedes free trade whereas more conventional seasonal religions are easier to deal with. In the eventual agreement, Adzel will ensure that Buddhist missionaries are allowed access to Ikrananka.

Attention

David Falkayn approaches the Imperial throne room on Ikrananka - although Jadhadi III sits not on a throne but on:

"...the Beast, a chimera in gilt bronze whose saddle he bestrode."
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 116.

"At the entrance to the throne room, four Ershoka stood guard, as gaudily outfitted as the men before the Iron House. They weren't at attention. That hadn't been invented here and the humans had been smart enough not to suggest the idea. But they and their gleaming halberds scarcely moved." (ibid.)

Ershoka are human beings incorporated into Ikranankan society as soldiers. The Iron House is their phratry barracks. The Ershoka guards are flanked by Tirut archers. Tiruts are another warrior phratry. Anderson/Falkayn refers to the Ershoka as the Emperor's "...Sickerheitsdienst." (ibid.)

For earlier blog references to periods before standing to attention had been invented, see:

On Ikrananka
Then And Now
Phoenician Inventions

Phratries

In Poul Anderson's "The Trouble Twisters," three generations ago, five hundred human beings, would-be interstellar colonists, were stranded by pirates on the inhabited planet, Ikrananka. Thus, their situation is similar to that of a smaller human group in "Star Ship," an installment of Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic History.

Fitting into Ikranankan society, the human beings, "Ershoka," become a warrior "phratry." On Earth, phratries were often exogamous (see here) but this cannot be the case with the Ershoka among Ikranankans. In any case, it sounds as if Ikranankans marry within their phratries.

On Ikrananka, phratries specialize:

Shekhej are caravaneers;
Deodaka, originally hunters, conquered and became officials;
Rahinjis are scribes;
Tiruts and Ershoka are soldiers.

However, within each phratry, there are domestic and other responsibilities. Young Ikrankans can be adopted into different phratries but not Ershoka. Each phratry initiates its members into "secrets." In the unstable Ikranankan civilization, kingdoms last for only a few generations but phratries abide.

Historical Interactions II

I said in Historical Interactions that "The Trouble Twisters" draws together many strands of the Technic History and I referred to nine earlier installments of the series. However, this story is only the second installment in the second of seven volumes. It is only the thirteenth of forty three installments in the History as a whole.

Over a century after the events of "The Trouble Twisters," the Polesotechnic League ends, to be followed in succession by:

the Time of Troubles;
the Terran Empire;
the Long Night;
the Allied Planets period;
the Commonalty period;
a later Galactic period?(see Historical Perspectives and Galactic Civilization.)

The Commonalty is not a civilization. Instead, there are disparate human civilizations in several spiral arms of the galaxy. The Commonalty is an interstellar service organization in one spiral arm, a remote successor of the League and an improvement on the Terran Empire which, according to one text, was only the first interstellar empire.

Enigmatic "Introductions" II

Despite what I wrote in Enigmatic "Introductions," The Technic Civilization Saga does give one clue that "Plus Ca Change, Plus C'Est La Meme Chose" is not a discrete enigmatic passage but the introduction to "The Trouble Twisters." The stories first appeared in magazines whereas the introductions first appeared in collections. Therefore, they are acknowledged separately.

In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, the Contents are on p. v whereas the Acknowledgments are on pp. vi-vii. Thus, "Introduction to 'Three-Cornered Wheel'" was first published in The Trouble Twisters, 1966, whereas "The Three-Cornered Wheel" was first published in Analog, October 1963. However, the Contents page does not differentiate. For "The Three-Cornered Wheel," it refers us to p. 199. Turning to that page, we find that the Introduction occupies pp. 199-200 and that the story begins on p. 201. The same applies with every other introduction and story in this and subsequent Volumes.

In Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, the Contents are on p. V whereas Acknowledgments are on p. VI. "Plus Ca Change..." was first published in The Trouble Twisters, 1966, whereas "The Trouble Twisters" was first published in Analog, July and August 1965. Yet, for "The Trouble Twisters," the Contents page refers us to p. 77. We find "Plus Ca Change..." on pp. 77-80 and the story beginning on p. 81. At last, we have unraveled everything, I think.

Japanese Gardens

(I found a lot of images of Japanese gardens here.)

David Falkayn is in the third-story guest apartment of an Ikranankan Imperial palace. From the balcony, he sees the palace gardens which suggest Old Japanese:

rocks;
low plants;
subtle colors;
a fountain in a glass column to control evaporation.

On his next mission, Falkayn will see another garden reminiscent of Japanese. See In And Around Castle Afon.

Adzel On Ikrananka

Adzel weighs a ton. He has had a plate removed from his spine and can lift Falkayn to seat him there. A crossbow dart breaks on his scales. Falkayn shoots a zandara. Adzel gallops towards the enemy, then sprints at 150 KPH, bowling over zandaras and their Ikranankan riders. His tail flattens another zandara. The remaining enemy flee while the casualties seem unable to move and Adzel hopes that he has not injured them too seriously.

This book cover accurately shows the castle, the spaceship, Adzel and lance-wielding Ikranankans on zandaras. However, it also shows Falkayn carried under one arm by Adzel rather than seated on his back.

Ikranankans

150 centimeters tall;
barrel-chested;
wasp-waisted;
long, thin limbs;
sleek brown fur all over;
warm-blooded;
omnivorous;
bisexual;
giving live birth;
not a mammal;
slender neck;
bowling-ball head;
black ruff;
pale eyes;
donkeylike ears;
corvine beak;
bare padded feet;
three long toes gripping stirrups on the leaping bipedal zandara;
three sharp-nailed fingers and a thumb;
leather cuirass with iron shoulder pieces and a kinship symbol;
dagger and saber hanging from thick belt.

(In "The Trouble Twisters.")

Two Observations
(i) It reads to me as if the author starts with a human form, then tries to make the various details seem different and alien.
(ii) On screen, we would continually see the Ikranankans. While reading prose, I cannot maintain a mental image of what they look like.

Historical Interactions

When, in "The Trouble Twisters," Nicholas van Rijn founds a trade pioneer crew consisting of -

the Hermetian, David Falkayn;
the Wodenite, Adzel;
the Cynthian, Chee Lan -

- many strands of the Technic History are drawn together:

an early story, "Wings of Victory," mentioned Hermes, Woden and Cynthia;

van Rijn has featured in five works, including one novel in which he meets the future Grand Duchess of Hermes;

Falkayn has starred in two stories;

Adzel has starred in one story which also mentioned Cynthia.

Later, Falkayn will pull together more future historical strands by his interactions with the Ythrians and with other less prominent species introduced earlier in the History.

Adzel's first three appearances are in:

"How To Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," introduced by Hloch in The Earth Book Of Stormgate;
"The Trouble Twisters," introduced by Urwain the Wide-Faring in The Trouble Twisters;
"Day of Burning," introduced by Hloch in the Earth Book.

The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, presents the entire History in chronological order, preserving the disparate introductions.

Enigmatic "Introductions"

The Trouble Twisters collected three stories about David Falkayn:

in "The Three-Cornered Wheel," Falkayn is an apprentice to a Master Polesotechnician of the Polesotechnic League;

in "A Sun Invisible," Falkayn is a journeyman with Solar Spice & Liquors and the Polesotechnic League factor on the planet, Garstang's;

in "The Trouble Twisters," Falkayn, now a Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League, leads the first trade pioneer crew for Solar Spice & Liquors.

In the collection, although not in their original magazine appearances, each story is preceded by a peculiar introduction. These introductions make interesting reading but have no bearing on the content of the stories that they "introduce." The three unusual items are entitled:

A Note Of Leitmotif;
Notes Toward A Definition Of Relatedness;
Plus Ca Change, Plus C'Est La Meme Chose -

- and each is either signed by or attributed to a fictional character who makes no other appearance anywhere in the Technic History:

-Vance Hall, Commentaries on the Philosophy of Noah Arkwright;
-Noah Arkwright, An Introduction to Sophontology;
-Recorded in the diary of Urwain the Wide-Faring.

Urwain reminisces about - Noah Arkwright! (Not about David Falkayn.)

In The Technic Civilization Saga, the three items are entitled:

INTRODUCTION THE THREE-CORNERED WHEEL NOTE OF LEITMOTIF;

INTRODUCTION A SUN INVISIBLE NOTES TOWARD A DEFINITION OF RELATEDNESS;

PLUS CA CHANGE PLUS C'EST LA MEME CHOSE.

Thus, readers of the Saga are not informed that "Plus Ca Change..." is meant to introduce "The Trouble Twisters." Instead, they read this strange, short (pp. 77-80; just three pages of text) passage between the van Rijn story, "Territory," and the Falkayn/trader team story, "The Trouble Twisters."

I discussed the content of these introductions in:

Noah Arkwright
Noah Arkwright II
Noah Arkwright
Noah Arkwright III
Noah Arkwright IV

A Few Last Details In "How To Be Ethnic..."

I wanted to summarize the board's objections to Freeman Riefenstahl's suggestions for operatic contributions to the Festival of Man but find that I have already done so. See An Opera For Man. One detail I missed was that Adzel suggested Chinese opera but Riefenstahl replied that the Chinese themselves would be doing that.

We have seen that one future gadget projected by Poul Anderson was an "infotrieve" (scroll down), which seems to perform the functions of an internet-access computer. When James Ching persuades Freeman Snyder to agree to Adzel singing Fafner and playing the dragon for Chinese New Year, Snyder is seated:

"...behind his desk, surrounded by his computers, communicators, and information retrievers..."
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-197 AT p. 194.

Thus, it seems that computers compute, communicators communicate and information retrievers retrieve information but these functions have not yet been combined into a single device.

"How To Be Ethnic..." is fascinating but short. Having again analyzed this story in as much detail as possible, we have to move on but it might be good to stay with the theme of Adzel.

Adzel II

Adzel rents a shack in the San Jose district of San Francisco although I cannot find that district on a googled map.

Jim and Adzel met on a course in micrometrics.

Adzel dials for pipa music.

Humor: Adzel is surprised to be told that he is living in a crime area and comments that he has never been molested. (He is something like a dinosaur.)

Two points of comparison between Adzel and Poul Anderson's and Gordon R. Dickson's character, "Brob":

both can be peaceable because they are physically powerful (see here);
both have adopted the Japanese tea ceremony (see here).

And, of course, Brob's home planet is another Mirkheim.

Outsystem Food

My favorite food for eating out is Indian but we also have Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Italian etc. James Ching likes:

"...a snack in a restaurant featuring outsystem food."
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-197 AT p. 187.

Adzel, on Earth, eats (a lot) at the Silver Dragon Chinese Food and Chop Suey Palace. Nicholas van Rijn likes onion soup a la Ansa here, Dominic Flandry recommends an Ansan vermouth here and I think that the Technic History has more about mixing Terrestrial and extraterrestrial foods?

In fact:

The only other Avalonian city is Centauri at the mouth of the Sagittarius in the Gulf of Centaurs. In the Phoenix House, Tabitha/Hrill orders a catflower cocktail. She and Chris/Arinnian eat piscoid-and-tomato chowder, beef-and-shua pie, salad of clustergrain leaf and pears and drink coffee spiced with witchroot and a bottle of vintage dago. The Nest, a tavern for ornithoids, is the tallest building in Centauri with a gravshaft to its rooftop for humans who have not brought flying gear. It is unwalled, protected from rain by a vitryl canopy. Insectoids circle fluoroglobes and a service robot serves New African beer.
-copied from Who Knows Of Avalon?

Adzel

This year, Chinese New Year is Feb 16-18. For a previous year, see:

Adzel On Earth
China 

Lancaster will kick off with a Gala the previous Sunday, Feb 11, although, that weekend, I hope to be on retreat at Throssel Hole Buddhist Priory. See here.

Why do I mention these matters here? Because, among the International Brotherhood of Beings Who Are Fans Of Poul Anderson, both Chinese New Year and Buddhism remind us of Adzel.

When Nicholas van Rijn founded his first trade pioneer crew, we had already met the characters, van Rijn, David Falkayn and Adzel and had also read references to the planets, Hermes, Woden and Cynthia.The xenologist of the Olga, Vaughn Webner, had studied the trade-route cultures of Cynthia and James Ching knew of:

"...treetop highways under the golden-red sun of Cynthia!" (p. 183) (For full reference, see here.)

(Cynthia must have been discovered very early.)

This assumes that we have read the Technic History in the chronological order of fictitious events. Anyone reading the series in the order of its publication would notice that the references to inhabited planets were carefully written into stories set earlier but written later. In fact, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," about the Wodenite Adzel's student days on Earth, is an expansion of a passage in "The Trouble Twisters," that story about the founding of the trade pioneer crew.

Adzel, an alien convert to Buddhism who plays the dragon in Chinese New Year processions and Fafner in Siegfried, is a culturally significant character.

The Daily Life Of The Future II

In Robert Heinlein's "daily life" of the future, a couple who have returned from the Lunar colony to Earth see the intercontinental rocket pass overhead. In Poul Anderson's "daily life," James Ching sees, from San Francisco, cities on the dark side of the Moon while also hearing the clangor of crews working to replicate the Golden Gate Bridge.

"Wings of Victory" describes first contact with Ythri and explains Ythrian biology;
"The Problem of Pain" describes Ythrian-human cooperation and presents Ythrian psychology and theology;
in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," Jim, yearning to go into space, thinks:

"Wild wings above Ythri!"
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-197 AT p. 183.

These stories display three stages in the development of a pyramidal future history:

an alien race is introduced;
members of that race become protagonists in a later story;
they also become background material for later installments of the History.

Meanwhile, the emblem of the Polesotechnic League is:

"...a golden sunburst afire with jewels, surrounding an ancient rocketship..."
-"Margin of Profit," p. 138. (For full reference, see here.)

That sounds like later sun and spaceship of Empire.

The Daily Life Of The Future

Somebody said that Robert Heinlein's Future History gave the future a daily life. Some of the stories in The Green Hills Of Earth answer that description.

Ideally, Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization would have had a lot more stories like "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" which puts daily life center stage:

James Ching sits in a lounger;
his phone warbles;
he had set it to pass calls from at most a dozen people;
Jim is studying tensor calculus and transformations in hyperspace theory;
the Education Central computer projects material onto his screen;
his preliminary tests for the Academy are due soon;
the entrance exams, if he gets that far, will be a year later;
there are a hundred applications for every regular spaceman's berth;
training as an apprentice to a Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League would be more practically based but apprenticeships usually go to relatives on the ground that relatives of survivors are more likely to be survivors;
Jim has an air car that he can fly over the ocean;
he has occasionally visited Luna, for example, most recently, as his sixteenth birthday present;
because Jim's surname is Ching, his principal counselor, Freeman Simon Snyder, wants him to represent the San Francisco Chinese community in the upcoming Festival of Man;
"'My people?' says Jim, as the room wobbles.

This story provides a welcome contrast to the extra-planetary adventures of van Rijn, Falkayn and Flandry.

Machines

(I dislike this magazine cover but it is the issue that Poul Anderson's "Margin of Profit" appeared in. In that month, September 1956, I started to attend a boarding school in Scotland and already read sf in the Eagle.)

See Something Basic on the James Blish Appreciation blog. This post summarizes Jack Loftus' meeting with the galactic ruler, the Hegemon of Malis. Note the machines standing along the walls of the mountainous audience room. (Jack compares the room to the Hall of the Mountain King.)

Next, read Poul Anderson's account of Captain Torres' approach to his meeting with Nicholas van Rijn:

"...this hall of lucent plastic, among machines that winked and talked between jade columns soaring up into vaulted dimness..."
-Poul Anderson, "Margin of Profit" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 135-173 AT p. 137.

Difference: plastic as against stone. (Does "jade" mean the mineral or the color?)

Similarities: height and machines.

An old sf image of the future is that it will be full of machines.

Struggles With God

"Israel" means "One who struggles with God." The Bible is a dialogue in which God, personified ultimate reality, is not only heard but also questioned and challenged.

Poul Anderson's Peter Berg lives this prophetic tradition when he screams:

"'Why did You do this to her, why did You do it?'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-134 AT p. 130.

An hour later, he says:

"'Your will be done...'" (ibid.)

So Peter struggles or at least argues with God. Does this bring him closer to the Ythrians than he thinks?

How Aliens Sleep

"The Ythrians were quickly asleep, squatted on their locked wing joints like idols of a forgotten people."
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-134 AT p.124.

I thought that maybe the Merseians could sleep upright, squatting on their tails? - but, somewhere in Ensign Flandry, Brechdan Ironrede definitely talks about toppling into bed which sounds quite unMerseian to me.

Avoid assumptions about aliens. That an organism must lie down to sleep is definitely an assumption.

Collections And Introductions II

(Poul Anderson's "Esau" was first published as "Birthright" in Analog, February 1970.)

"Hiding Place," collected in Trader To The Stars, has an introduction beginning, "The world's great age begins anew..." (See here.)

When "Esau" was collected in The Earth Book Of Stormgate, it acquired an introduction by Hloch which states that, by the time of this story, the philosophy and practice that had once animated the Polesotechnic League were already becoming archaic or even obsolete.

When both stories were collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, "Esau" was placed immediately before "Hiding Place." Thus, reading consecutively, the League becomes obsolete before the world begins anew. However, the Le Matelot introduction really belongs not immediately before "Hiding Place" but before any stories dealing with the League. In The Earth Book Of Stormgate, the first two League stories are, in this order:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"
"Margin of Profit" -

- whereas, in The Van Rijn Method, this order is reversed. I prefer the Earth Book order, i.e., I prefer a longer delay before the introduction of the continuing character, van Rijn. Four substantial stories begin the History and build towards the League period, thus setting the stage for the first appearance of van Rijn.

According to Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, the League was founded in the 23rd century and Gray/Avalon was explored in the 24th century. However, I see no evidence in "The Problem of Pain" that the League existed then. I prefer to think of three exploration stories as preceding the League period.

Collections And Introductions

Poul Anderson's "Hiding Place," starring Nicholas van Rijn, was first published in Analog, March 1961, and has since been collected twice:

it is the first of three van Rijn stories to be collected as Trader To The Stars;

it is the last of eleven installments of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization to be collected as The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I (of VII), The Van Rijn Method.

Van Rijn is the title character of both these collections.

In my copy of Trader To The Stars (Frogmore, St Albans, Herts, 1975) (see image):

"Hiding Place" begins on p. 9;
p. 8 is blank;
p. 7 is a fictional quotation from "Le Matelot," beginning with an authentic quotation from Shelley -

"The world's great age begins anew..." (see here)

Thus, Le Matelot seems to introduce the volume. However, I have reason to believe that Le Matelot specifically introduces only "Hiding Place" and therefore possibly appeared with it in Analog. (Later: Le Matelot was not in Analog. See the Acknowledgments in The Van Rijn Method, pp. vi-vii.)

In my copy of Trader To The Stars, "Hiding Place" is immediately followed by an extended quotation from Anderson's first van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit" (1956):

"Hiding Place" ends near the bottom of p. 47;
the quotation from "Margin of Profit" begins at the bottom of p. 47 and continues to the top of p. 49;
p. 50 is blank;
the second story in this collection, "Territory," begins on p. 51.

However, despite this misleading layout and pagination, the quotation from "Margin of Profit" is intended as an introduction to "Territory," not as a postscript to "Hiding Place." The compiler of The Technic Civilization Saga, Hank Davis, reproduces Le Matelot as introducing "Hiding Place" and the "Margin of Profit" quotation, now entitled "A Historical Reflection," as introducing "Territory," which is the first of seven works collected in Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader.

Finally, in Trader To The Stars:

"Territory" ends on p. 103;
p. 104 is blank;
p. 105 quotes a further stanza from Shelley's "Hellas" (see the above link);
p. 106 is blank;
the third story, "The Master Key," begins on p. 107.

Thus, the stanza beginning, "A loftier Argo cleaves the main...," clearly introduces "The Master Key" and is reproduced as such when this story is republished as the fourth installment in David Falkayn: Star Trader.

Optimism

When mankind explores and expands into the universe, there should be a great deal of optimism so let's find a few expressions of that in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

En route to Saturn:

"'Here we are, safe and comfortable till we reach Saturn. After that we should never lack for excitement, or for material to work with on the way home.'
"'True.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Saturn Game" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 1-73 AT pp. 29-30.

On the Grand Survey:

"After three years we were weary and had suffered losses. Oh, the wonder wasn't gone. How could it ever go - from world after world after world?...
"It was still a heart-speeding thing to find another sentient race, actually more than to find another planet colonizable by man."
-Poul Anderson, "Wings of Victory" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 79-102 AT p. 79.

Exploring Gray/Avalon:

"'...[the Ythrians] have scientific curiosity and, yes, in them perhaps even more than in the humans who went along, a spirit of adventure. Oh, it was a wonderful thing to be young in that band!'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 103-134 AT p. 115.

For a student in San Francisco Integrate:

"'A certain Master Merchant I know will soon be in the market for another apprentice and accepts what I have to told him about you. Are you interested?'
"I collapsed into Betty's arms. She says she'll find a way to follow me."
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 175-197 AT p. 197.

When journeyman David Falkayn has averted a war and explained that mercantilism is nobler than knighthood which depends on slavery or serfdom and killing:

"He murmured, as best he could in Latin, 'Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea...'"
-Poul Anderson, "A Sun Invisible" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 263-315 AT p. 314.

When Nicholas van Rijn recruits Emil Dalmady as an entrepreneur:

"'Afterward you go get rich, if you survive, and have a big ball of fun even if you don't. Hokay?'"
-Poul Anderson, "Esau" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 517-553 AT pp. 552-553.

When the Polesotechnic League has begun:

"'The world's great age begins anew....'
"As it has before, and will again...
"We cannot foretell what will come of it. We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way." - Le Matelot.
-Poul Anderson, "Hiding Place" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 555-609 AT 555-556.

"A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
"Fraught with a later prize;
"Another Orpheus sings again,
"And loves, and weeps, and dies.
"A new Ulysses leaves once more
"Calypso for his native shore." -Shelley.
-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 273-327 AT p. 273.

On The Planet Lucifer II

Quetlan and Laura, the suns of Ythri and Avalon respectively, are in the constellation Lupus.

Coya, astrophysicist and frequent space traveler, is at home in the universe, able to identify the brightest stars among the rest. The Dewfall has traveled at high speed for nearly a month from Quetlan towards the Deneb sector. Since Quetlan is 278 light years from Sol towards Lupus, they are now a hundred parsecs from Earth in unknown space. Coya knows this. To that extent, she is as at home there as a Londoner is in Hyde Park. The universe is our home and we ought to be one with it.
-copied from here.

We first read of Avalon in Hloch's Introduction to "The Problem of Pain," then in a conversation on Lucifer:

The planet Lucifer is inhospitable but might be marginally habitable and has mineral wealth. Both days and nights are long, storms are frequent, there is no green vegetation and the violent blue sun continually disrupts electronics. A uranium-concentrating root causes a unique ecological cycle in one area.
-copied from here.

I am rereading the relevant passages of "The Problem of Pain" for any more information about Lucifer. The narrator tells us that the planet is well named. However, if it proves to be even marginally habitable, then its mineral wealth will be worth exploiting. The exploratory team must determine whether the survival problems can be solved economically. Furious day-time weather ends in a twilight gale. Storms blow dust. The air is thin. Auroras flame. Frost covers the land and glittering ice sheathes twisted "trees."

When, in the concluding sentence, the sun rises from the burning horizon, I think that this is an appropriate pathetic fallacy for the theme of the story. See here.

Four Senses On Avalon

We read an account of a natural scene on another planet, expecting Poul Anderson to appeal to at least three of the senses:

"The wind was strong and loud as yet, though easing off in fickleness, flaws, downdrafts, whirls, and eddies. Clouds were mostly gone. Those which remained raced gold and soft orange before a sun low in the west, across blue serenity. The lagoon glittered purple, the greensward lay aglow. It had warmed up till rich odors of growth, of flowers, blent with the sea salt."
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-134 AT p. 125.

In fact, I count four senses there. To the beauty of nature, Anderson adds the beauty of Ythrians in flight:

"And splendid in the sky danced Enherrian, Whell, and Rusa. They wheeled, soared, pounced, and rushed back into light which ran molten off their pinions. They chanted, and fragments blew down to the humans: 'High flew your spirit on many winds.... be always remembered....'" (ibid.)

Realizing that, "'They're holding a service for Arrach...'," Berg kneels and prays for the repose of her soul, then wonders whether she would really want rest. She would have wanted to give God the Hunter a good fight, which she has already done.

On The Planet Lucifer

This post, like the preceding (see here) and some earlier ones, is illustrated with the magazine cover for Poul Anderson's "The Problem of Pain." I wondered who the chess players were and whether they were human. However, the cover image in fact illustrates this story. The unnamed first person narrator says of Peter Berg:

"...he plays chess at just about my level of skill."
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-134 AT p. 106.

Like any good installment of a future history series, "The Problem of Pain" performs more than one function:

it recounts a specific story about the one-off character, Peter Berg;

it increases our knowledge of the Ythrians, introduced in the previous story, introduces the planet that will be renamed Avalon and presents some information about Berg's home planet, Aeneas.

But it does more than this: Berg is introduced by another character, the unnamed narrator, and their conversation occurs on yet another planet, Lucifer, which is never to be seen again but which nevertheless makes its own small contribution to the Technic History.