Skip's Moment Of Realization

Poul Anderson, The Byworlder (London, 1974), I.

Skip and Urania discuss the spaceship that has come from Sigma Draconis and that now orbits Earth, sometimes visiting other parts of the Solar System. Skip reflects that:

the Sigman might have no motivations in common with humanity;

on the other hand, there ought to be a humanly comprehensible reason for the building of starship since human beings hope to do likewise;

"'If -'" (p. 16)

His mouth falls open, he drops his fork and yells, frightening Urania, and the chapter ends.

Regular readers recognize a realization but understand that we must await elucidation

Addendum: No more posts on this blog today (31 Aug) but, after a day in the Lake District, Indian Philosophy, Part III, has been added here.

Flandry, Macnab And Sandalphon

"Flandry could retire whenever he chose: to a modest income from pension and investments, and an early death from boredom."
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT p. 32.

Retirement is not boring. It is an opportunity to blog.

In John Buchan's John Macnab, three men, each at the top of his respective profession, get so bored with life that they resort to poaching and the risk of exposure in order to experience a new kind of excitement. What is wrong with these guys?

Meanwhile, we learn that "Sandalphon" is:

the name of angel in Jewish literature (see here);
mentioned as such in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman;
the name of a member of the Jesus cult of Theontology in Poul Anderson's The Byworlder.

With all that going on, how can life be boring?

More Relevant Other Reading

Sheila, returning from a visit to her family in Northern Ireland, brought me a copy of John Macnab by John Buchan. Buchan and Poul Anderson have in common:

conservative politics;
large outputs;
thrillers with interconnecting characters;
references to JW Dunne (see The Fourth Dimension).

For a comparison of Buchan with two other thriller writers, see here.

Some of Poul Anderson's characters would have fitted well into the hunting, shooting and fishing lifestyle of the Scottish Highlands as described in John Macnab.

Theontology

Poul Anderson, The Byworlder, I.

No one creates new New Age movements like Poul Anderson. Let me try to summarize, rather than quote, a writing of the founder (?), Joswick:

we mentally construct our apprehension of reality;

therefore, every imagining contains partial, distorted truth and is one of many signs pointing toward the cosmic oneness called God;

by meditating on everything, we open ourselves to divine apprehension.

Theontologists choose to seek God through "cults" of:

Spirits
Jesus
Brahma
Amida
Snake
Oracle

They process in "...seven columns, the last for postulants...to the Nason's Peak trail."(?) where they have erected an altar "To the Unknown God.".. (p. 8) They have come to believe that the extrasolar visitor is "...a direct manifestation of God." (p. 9)

More direct than anything else? Would human astronauts become direct manifestations merely by crossing an interstellar distance?

A Textual Oddity

"Chives entered, on bare feet..."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 354.

"...he addressed his master." (ibid.)

Thus, we gather, if we had not known already, that Chives is Flandry's servant.

Two pages later, Flandry wonders whether to have Chives phone a cepheid agency. Then:

"As if at a signal, his personal servant appeared, a Shalmuan, slim kilt-clad form remarkably human-like except for 140 centimeters of height, green skin, hairlessness, long prehensile tail, and, to be sure, countless small subtle variations." (p. 356)

My point is that this is the sort of description of an alien that is usually given on the occasion of his first appearance in a text whereas, in this case, Chives has already appeared, undescribed, two pages previously. It reads to me as though the text should have been revised to move the description to p. 354. Why was a servant bare-footed? It turns out that Chives is an alien and therefore that a different dress code applies.

Species Loyalties?

We make different assessments of the following scenarios:

"Weston turned to Ransom. 'I see,' he said, 'that you have chosen the most momentous crisis in the history of the human race to betray it.'"
-CS Lewis, Out Of The Silent Planet IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 1-144 AT p. 120.

Weston had taken Ransom to Mars in the mistaken belief that the Martians wanted a human being as a sacrificial victim.

In Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, some human beings willingly help the mind-controlling alien slugs and, in Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, two men willingly hand a young girl over to monstrous aliens.

"...he renounced his species..." (See Inner Conflict)

On Ikrananka, David Falkayn needs to ensure social stability and does not automatically favor the human community on that planet.

"'There are humans who serve the Roidhunate, too, and not every one has been bought or brainscrubbed; families have lived on Merseian worlds for generations.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT pp. 350-351.

Avalonian human beings fight to remain in the Domain of Ythri and to stay out of the Terran Empire. Later, Dennitzan Merseians are equally determined to stay in the Empire and out of the Roidhunate.

Skip And Tom Swift

Poul Anderson, The Byworlder (London, 1974), I, p. 5 (the opening page of the text).

An extrasolar spaceship has been in Earth orbit for three years.

Real life has Theosophists and Scientologists. Poul Anderson gives us "Theontologists," living in an adobe community called "We" in New Mexico.

Our viewpoint character, Skip, is in We. However, we get the impression that he is not a Theontologist but is there because of a woman called Urania.

The community believes in the simple life but, to Skip's relief, uses fluoros, not candles. He has sarcastically thought of We as "Tom Swift and his electric Tibet."

Skip and Urania's two young sons sleep in a room with a large God's Eye on the whitewashed wall.

World Without Stars, XVII, Conclusion

In a rented "flitter," Argens flies above kilometers of forest from Niyork to a village on the Maine coast. He stays overnight but the flitter, "...parked on an otherwise deserted carfield...," (p. 123) has "...bunk, bed and food facilities..." and also the facility to tune in to "...multisense programs..." (p. 124) If only travel were that easy.

The village, dating from the days of ocean travel, had been a town of lumberjacks and whalers but then men moved west and to the stars and there are now two hundred inhabitants. Thus is history summarized.

At night, the moon shines on water, birches are silver, crickets chirp, the forest smells green, dew glitters on grass and the sea murmurs. Argens, uninterested in multisense programs not addressed to spacemen and feeling the salt and tides of Manhome in his blood, goes for a walk and learns Valland's secret.

I have returned to the satisfactory end of the novel.

Anyone interested in summaries of Indian philosophy can check:

Indian Philosophy
Indian Philosophy, Continued
Indian Philosophy, Part III 

World Without Stars, XVII

Most of World Without Stars is extracts from Argens' autobiography. The concluding chapter, XVII, is added posthumously.

The planet of the Ai Chun is never named. The planet will be revolutionized. The company will establish a commercial base there - to trade with the Yonderfolk on the neighboring planet? - and a scientific mission, operating from the base, will study the unique Ai Chun culture before it dies out. That species is expected to adapt to reality and to become "...just another race..." (p. 122) - unless the species itself dies out?

On the planet, the men were of necessity in each other's company enough to cause friction but, being immortal, were able to "...set the years in perspective..." (p. 121) Valland intends to revisit old places and to explore new places. Regularly editing memories ensures that even old places will seem new.

This concluding chapter is extremely rich. See:

Earth Abides
Earth In World Without Stars

Fables

Late night other reading, sometimes political prose, other times graphic fantasy:

How many mysterious beings live secretly among us - in works of fiction? In different works, Poul Anderson has time travelers, immortals and aliens. Other candidates are mutants, superheroes, werewolves, former gods etc. In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, a former Babylonian goddess is an exotic dancer. See Temple Prostitution.

In Fables, Bill Willingham adds another group, exiled fairy tale characters living secretly in New York. And such characters could have showed up in Anderson's inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix, where the guests include Sherlock Holmes, Huckleberry Finn, Nicholas van Rijn and Sancho Panza - all fictional to us but real to themselves.

Good night and may Morpheus send sweet dreams.

Through A Supernova

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XVI.

In Storm And War, I wrote:

"Valland leads a planetary revolution."

However, he explains further:

"'Our side'll be content to hold this territory, maybe get back some of what was stolen before; but the Packs aren't about to try conquerin' the world. If the downdevils aren't hopelessly stupid, they'll make terms, once we've rubbed their noses a bit. Then we five can really buckle down to business.'" (p. 118)

However, the changes already initiated, particularly in Pack military organization, are already revolutionary. The downdevils are fairly stupid and at the same time are also canny enough to know the possible consequences of the human beings getting off planet - and maybe coming back. Therefore, revolution, or a reaction that will provoke revolution, is still on the cards.

Valland says:

"'...the Packs...'ll go with us through a supernova...'" (p. 117)

Dominic Flandry thinks, of the men of his first command:

"They'd ship out for hell if I were the skipper."
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 367-520 AT p. 497.

Valland inhabits not only a different timeline but also a different kind of period when science has replaced supernaturalism as a source of metaphors.

Storm And War

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XV.

Hugh Valland shoots a fleeing Ai Chun, then:

"The storm rolled upon us." (p. 116)

Dark clouds hide the sun. There is thunder, lightning and whipping rain. Nature joins the violence. The traitor, Yo Rorn, screams and is killed by one of his guards - who has just seen a god killed.

Valland killed the Ai Chun to demonstrate to both sides that they are mortal. He says:

"'We've got to be ruthless, or surrender right now. I suppose there are limits to what we can decently do, but I don't think we've reached 'em yet.'" (p. 116)

We have heard this on Earth in revolutions and post-revolutionary regimes. Valland leads a planetary revolution.

Companion Volumes

Three hard sf novels by Poul Anderson:

After Doomsday
World Without Stars
Tau Zero

- form not a trilogy but a "triad" (I think).

Each is a stand-alone novel about interstellar travel that develops a distinct, and different, premise:

that an FTL spaceship returns to the Solar System to find that Earth has been sterilized;

that an FTL spaceship visits a planet of a red dwarf star in intergalactic space;

that a relativistic spaceship accelerates uncontrollably.

World Without Stars and Tau Zero have a couple more points in common:

the relativistic ships passes a red dwarf with planets in intergalactic space (see Stars Between Galaxies);

in World Without Stars, Argens asks, "...must we kill through all time, until time ends when the disgusted universe collapses inward on us?" (XV, pp. 115-116)

The crew of the relativistic ship experiences that collapse.

Glades And The Dead

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XV.

In Rain And Words, I did not understand the phrase:

"...wave-splintered glade..."

Sean suggested in the combox that there might be "...a rarely used meaning for 'glade.'" My Chambers Dictionary gives only:

"an open place in a wood."

Anderson uses the word again:

'"...the moon and Jupiter rose together and threw two perfect glades...'" (p. 111)

Valland and Mary are camped by a lake. Are the glades the light on the water?

Valland goes on to tell us something more important than we realize at the time:

"'We swore to each other we'd always remember our dead.'" (ibid.)

That is what Valland is doing: keeping his promise to Mary.

Thunderheads

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XV.

Conflict has ended.

"The weather had cleared for a while..." (p. 106)

Conflict will resume.

"...though fresh thunderheads were piling up in the north, blue-black masses where lightning winked." (ibid.)

A military lesson is common to this novel and to Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth": if the enemy has just gained an advantage and has relaxed and if it is possible to gather enough forces to mount a sudden and unexpected counterattack, then it might be possible to turn the tide of battle.

In my school days, a Rugby team scored and got ahead shortly before the final whistle and thought that they had won. The other team immediately counterattacked, scored and got ahead and then the referee blew the final whistle.

Inner Conflict

In this post, we compare passages in:

Perelandra by CS Lewis;
World Without Stars by Poul Anderson;
"Flight to Forever" by Poul Anderson.

In Perelandra, the scientist, Weston:

"...GAVE UP HIS WILL AND REASON TO THE BENT ELDIL
"WHEN TELLUS WAS MAKING
"THE ONE THOUSANDTH NINE HUNDREDTH AND FORTY-SECOND
"REVOLUTION AFTER THE BIRTH OF MALELDIL
"BLESSED BE HE."
-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT p. 316.

That means that he became demonically possessed in 1942 A.D. There is nothing like sf for giving us alien perspectives. James Blish said in private correspondence that Weston's confused monologue was one of the most chilling passages that he had read in fiction.

In World Without Stars, Yo Rorn, giving up his will and reason to the Ai Chun, receives serenity:

"In the Earth-days since he renounced his species, Rorn had improved his command of Yonder until he could readily use it; so much does the removal of inner conflict do for the mind, and you may decide for yourself whether it's worth the price." (XIII, p. 97)

Obviously that way of ending inner conflict is not worth the price.

In "Flight to Forever," when the Vro-Hi offer to remove a time traveler's neuroses, he says that he likes his neuroses.

Some sf seems to offer two alternatives: men as they are with all their flaws or something worse. Another example: Brave New World. Huxley, later commenting on his own text, proposed a third alternative: working towards something better - self-transcendence of our own inner conflicts.

Ya-Kela And His Men

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XIII.

How often does a text draw you into dialogue with it? At the bottom of p. 94, Anderson writes that ya-Kela and his men attacked the camp. We think, "They are not men." At the top of p. 95, Anderson writes:

"Yes - his men." (p. 95)

In a published letter to a friend, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, "I am afraid that the Devil will come to take me away." I thought, "This is Wittgenstein. He does not mean that literally." Wittgenstein's very next sentence, bracketed, was: "(I mean this quite literally.)" In a TV comedy set in ancient Pompeii, the British comedian, Frankie Howard, asked, "What's a Grecian urn?," replied, "About five bob (shillings) a week." I said, "That's an old one!" Frankie looked straight in to the camera at me and said, "What do you mean, it's an old gag? It was new in these days!" When I told a friend that there was a reality storm in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, he commented, "That sounds like something out of Star Trek." I told him that one of the characters said, "That sounds like something out of Star Trek."

Interests And Inspirations

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars.

"The Ai Chun had no interest in a spaceship as such. Their gangs had been stripping away metal for more prosaic uses." (XIII, p. 92)

That statement alone is sufficient condemnation of Ai Chun culture.

"Where the West had soared from the rock of Earth like a sequoia, the Soviets spread like lichens over the planet, tightening their grip, satisfied to be at the bases of the pillars of sunlight the West had sought to ascend."
-James Blish, Earthman, Come Home IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), pp. 235-465 AT PROLOGUE, p. 238.

Hugh Valland has been more than one kind of engineer, has considerable xenological skill, has soldiered more than once, can work as a gunner, teaches the Azkashi unified command and action under doctrine and inspires them both with bagpipes sounds from his omnisonor and by using a scientific instrument to demonstrate that God, the galaxy, is still overhead even when invisible to normal eyesight. Valland's abilities match van Rijn's. See Van Rijn's Inspirations.

Hunting In The Kazan II

See Hunting In The Kazan.

Before killing the dyavo, Kossara had clear shots at a soaring orlik and a bull yelen poised on a crag but let them live. Indeed, why go out and kill anything? Manse Everard had hunted in the Pleistocene but Wanda Tamberly taught him to take a camera instead of a gun.

Kossara and Trohdwyr make camp:

"...high in the bowl of the Kazan, where that huge crater bit an arc from the Vysochina."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT II, p. 365.

Trohdwyr was born in a fishing village, presumably on the Obala.

Dense purple mahovina, springy to walk on and spicy to smell, is studded by white and gold wildflowers. To the east, the ringwall slopes down to trees and yellow evening light falls on misty forest.

Pinnipeds And Bipeds

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XI.

The Ai Chun, poorly adapted to life on land, bred a biped for intelligence. The resultant Niao are devoted to the Ai Chun not like a man to a god but like a dog to a man. Some Niao went wild. Independence removed submissiveness but left an instinct of devotion, expressed through monotheism and mutual loyalty. Thus, the Azkashi's worship of the galaxy and community ethos derive from their ancestors' devotion to the "downdevils" - "'the evil ones in the depths.'" (IX, p. 63)

Rorn deduces that the Ai Chun run a large, old empire. As readers, we have not yet suspected such a civilization on the planet because the Meteor crew first met the primitive Azkashi.

The environment lacks awesomeness like stars, volcanoes or seasons. There is the galaxy but the Ai Chun fear its brightness. Thus, they believe that they themselves created everything else in a previous incarnation. Currently, they build and breed. Previously, they created. They have remained unchanged in form for over a billion years, exterminated their natural enemies in prehistory, have acquired empirical knowledge but never discovered or invented scientific method, do not overbreed or fight among themselves, divide up the world between them and expect to eliminate the savages after millions of years of slow and careful expansion - rapid expansion would be disruptive.

Human beings must be subjugated in order to confirm that they had been created for some subsequently forgotten purpose. The mere existence of beings who claim to have come from a vast, complex and independently existent universe threatens the ideology and identity of the Ai Chun. Even a steel knife that could not have been made on the planet and that cannot even be copied is a subversive artifact.

This universe-denying culture does not deserve to survive.

In My Mind

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XI.

The telepathic Ai Chun address Argens and Rorn by using a blind dwarf like a ventriloquist's dummy:

"'Through this creature we address you...'" (p. 73)

Then the two men feel the Ai Chun in their minds:

"Unbidden images, impulses, bursts of terror and anger and bliss and lust..." (p. 75)

Where do mental images come from? Most concurrently operating cerebral processes are unconscious. Some such processes control bodily functions whereas others are associated with unconscious mental processes. The light of consciousness moves, apparently at random, between potentially conscious cerebral processes. Thus, an image or memory appears as if from nowhere. Zen meditation is attention to naturally occurring thoughts accompanied by temporary cessation of deliberate thought.

In CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, a demon can insert a thought into the mind of the man whom he is tempting. The man is unaware that this thought has come not from his own brain but from another being. Is this possible? In Lewis' Perelandra, the fictional Lewis, approaching Ransom's remote cottage alone at night, is tormented by thoughts of hauntings and madness. Ransom knew that his visitor would be subjected to some such barrage but expected him to get through it.

Are all our thoughts our own?

Introducing Dennitza III

The conversation between Flandry and his son was in Chapter I. At the beginning of Chapter II, a woman called Kossara, brought by spaceship to Archopolis on Terra to be enslaved, reflects that:

"...on Dennitza we keep no slaves...." (p. 358)

Thus, we immediately connect Kossara with the preceding conversation.

Her slave bracelet has "...a niello of letters and numbers..." (p. 357)

A "psychotech" (p. 359) studies her dossier. Does his profession have as a complete a science of humanity as the Psychotechnic Institute in Poul Anderson's earlier future history? Imagine combining scientific psychology with slavery.

Kossara was hypnoprobed on Diomedes so she is one of the Dennitzans arrested on Diomedes mentioned by Hazeltine. Her soft Dennitzan accent intrigues women prisoners from Terra, Luna and Venus. She remembers dancing and drinking with the deceased Mihail. We learn that she is guilty of treason and the niece of the Gospodar.

Are Hazeltine's suspicions of the Gospodar warranted? We learn a lot very quickly, then, usually, forget how we have learned it.

Introducing Dennitza II

Flandry and Hazeltine continue to discuss Dennitza, thus divulging further details to their readers. Rereading, we put aside our existing knowledge of the planet and appreciate each new datum as if for the first time:

Dennitza is not the most populous, rich or modern colony in its Sector;

but "'...it has a noticeable sphere of influence.'" (p. 350);

it is disproportionately strong because it kept its own military under the annexation treaty;

Dennitzans had despised the corrupt Emperor Josip, whose assessors and agents tended to die in brawls;

during the Imperial civil war, the Dennitzan Gospodar supported the successful usurper, Molitor, not by sending troops but by keeping internal order and the Merseians out;

the Gospodar was rewarded with the governorship of Tauria after Flandry had foiled Duke Alfred's attempted secession;

there are Imperial citizens of Merseian species on Dennitza;

the Dennitzans are resisting an Imperial decree to disband their militia and there is evidence that they are instigating rebellion on Diomedes;

Hazeltine thinks that the Gospodar might be planning either a transference of Dennitza to Merseia or an insurrection to make himself Emperor.

The Ai Chun

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, XI.

The downdevils or "Ai Chun" are:

amphibious;
"...pinnipeds of a sort..." (p. 72);
twice human length;
several times as bulky;
sleek headed;
possessed of luminous chalcedony eyes and fingered flippers;
able to sit up on land;
rare intelligent sea-dwellers, like Terrestrial dolphins or one of the two Starkadian races in the Technic History.

Argens' Evolutionary Speculation
The old planet of a dim sun slowly lost some of its hydrosphere.
The growing dry land was colonized not by modified fish but by organisms already breathing air (how come?), "...with high metabolism and well-developed nervous system." (p. 73);
new conditions and thermal quantum processes stimulated evolution;
the planet lost its satellite;
the Ai Chun's eyes are inadequate for the current long nights;
they hate the galaxy which brightens the sky on alternate nights.

Rain And Words

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, IX-X.

Not only wind but also rain can punctuate the dialogues in Poul Anderson's texts:

"We faced each other, he and I, while the rain came down louder." (IX, p. 61)

"'They may mean well in spite of their manners,' Bren said.
"'Sure,' I said. 'They may.' The rain gurgled as it fell onto soaked earth." (p. 62)

Unfamiliar (to me) words continue:

"...lyophilized food..." (ibid.)

The "knurls" of Argens' gun comfort him. (X, p. 65)

I find the following phrase somewhat obscure:

"Even with goggles, we saw only the galaxy and its wave-splintered glade..." (ibid.) (My emphasis.)

Unlikely Coincidences

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, IX.

During their period of local interplanetary travel, the Yonderfolk would have established a scientific base on the neighboring terrestroid planet, where human spacemen are currently marooned, and Captain Argens reflects that:

"...it would have been an unlikely coincidence if that base happened to have been anywhere near here." (p. 60)

The time projector in Anderson's "Flight to Forever," like the Time Machine in HG Wells' The Time Machine, remains stationary on the Earth's surface while "moving" backwards or forwards in time. Wells' Time Traveler spends several days in 802, 701 A.D. before deducing what has possibly happened to Earth and mankind since the late nineteenth century.

By contrast, Martin Saunders in the time projector experiences a series of unlikely coincidences. Often, when he pauses on his flight into futurity, there is someone on hand to tell him what has happened. Language problems are soon solved by the donation of a "psychophone." In 50,000 A.D., the remnant of the Galactic Empire has relocated not only to a planet in the galactic periphery but even to a fortress in sight of the time projector and Saunders uses time travel technology to restore the Empire.

Cosmically coincidental.

Azkashi And Shkil

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, IX.

Azkashi
"Hill people," "free people," "people of the galaxy god" or all these things and more. (Surely that fourth option is the most likely?)

They are divided into Packs.

The Packs share out inland hunting and lakeside fishing and have a common language and way of life.

Shkil
A different culture, not Packs but Herd, not swimming but traveling in canoes.

Have preyed on the Azkashi and driven them out of land beyond Lake Silence.

Maybe farmers driving out the savages, thus potentially more useful to the stranded spacemen but also potentially hostile.

A large group of autochthones in a galley and some large canoes approaches the camp to confer, one of their number speaking the language of the Yonderfolk on the neighboring planet whom the spacemen had come to contact. 

Even a simple-seeming planet becomes complicated.

Paris, Stockholm, London And Luna

(Paris, 1915.)

Middle Of The Night Blogging: Other Reading And Its Relevance

See Stocholm, London And Luna.

We have seen Poul Anderson's David Falkayn on Luna, John le Carre's Alec Leamas in London and Stieg Larsson's Mikael Blomkvist in Stockholm all evading any hypothetical clandestine followers. Now they are joined by a historical figure who informs us not only of his own antics but also of those of his followers, this time in Paris:

"...I had spent a great deal of energy trying to dodge the sleuths. I would drive away in a solitary taxi, go into a dark cinema theatre, jump into a metro train at the very last moment, jump out of it just as suddenly, and so on. The detectives were on the alert, too, and kept up the chase in every possible fashion. They would snatch taxis under my nose, keep watch at the entrance of the cinema, and would bolt out like a rocket from a trolley-car or from the metro, to the great indignation of passengers and conductor. Properly speaking, it was on my part a case of art for art's sake. My political activity lay open to the eyes of the police, but the pursuit of the detectives irritated me and roused my sporting instincts."
-Leon Trotsky, My Life (New York, 1970), XXI, p. 266.

Experiences that were irritating or worse can be described with humor. And this brings us full circle because events of such historical importance draw the attention of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol. If a detective is about to arrest Trotsky when he didn't, then the Patrol must ensure that he doesn't whereas, on the several occasions when Trotsky was arrested, Patrollers must, if necessary, ensure that he is. It becomes impossible to read history without asking, "What would the Patrol have done?"   

Introducing Dennitza

Dennitza appears only in Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (see here) so, if we are to learn any more about this planet, which may not be possible, we must scrutinize that text.

Dominic Hazeltine tells his father, Dominic Flandry, that the frontier is close to exploding. When Flandry asks why he has not heard about this yet, Hazeltine replies:

"'If the whole word about Dennitza hasn't reached the Emperor - and apparently it's barely starting to - why should it have come to a pampered pet of his?'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 343.

This answer and question tells us that Flandry has risen in the Empire and also introduces Dennitza for the very first time. So far, we know nothing about it. It is always instructive to check back and reread the very first mention of anything important.

On pp. 347-348, we learn that:

Hazeltine claims that "the Gospodar of Dennitza" has become a problem, although we do not yet know what a "Gospodar" is;

Dennitza is in the Taurian Sector of the Terran Empire;

that Sector fronts the Wilderness between the Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate.

Thus, it is important. Thus also, information is introduced in manageable chunks and that is all my rereading for tonight!

God And Downdevils

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, VIII, p. 54.

Ya-Kela instructs ya-Valland. I divide the instruction into discrete propositions:

"God is the Begetter, the One of the World.
"All others are less than Him.
"We pray to God alone, as He has commanded.
"The downdevils are the enemies of God.
"They deny Him, as does the Herd which serves them.
"...we are right to course for God...
"He does not rule our lives.
"He asks only worship and upright conduct of us.
"He lights the night for us...when He is risen after sunset.
"...the Herd...say that the downdevils made the world and rule it.
"...they have powerful things to give.
"But the price is freedom.
"[The Herd] are afraid of God, even when the sun is in the sky at the same time to hide Him;
"and they worship the downdevils."

Observations
A Terrestrial missionary would be able to work on the Azkashi religion to transform it into a pure monotheism, maybe with the image of the galaxy retained as a symbol.

The "downdevils" worshiped by the Herd are not mythical beings but a real, mentally powerful, species.

Important Planets In The Technic History

There are no stories about Woden or Cynthia although there are important Wodenites and Cynthians. There is an even more important Hermetian: Hermes appears in Mirkheim and A Stone In Heaven.

Ythri is visited by an exploratory spaceship in "Wings of Victory" and approached by a hostile space fleet in The People Of The Wind. The Domain of Ythri is significant.

Diomedes is the entire setting of The Man Who Counts and reappears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

Mirkheim is in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim whereas Satan is in Satan's World and The Rebel Worlds.

Three stories and most of The People Of The Wind are set on Avalon.

David Falkayn and his crew visit Merseia in "Day of Burning," Dominic Flandry goes there in Ensign Flandry and there are further scenes on the planet in The Game Of Empire.

Aeneas is seen briefly in The Rebel Worlds and is the entire setting of The Day Of Their Return.

Dennitza and Chereion appear only in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

Twelve planets, all important, and a thirteenth significant world is - Terra.

God And Galaxy

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, VII-VIII.

Ya-Kela, the leader of the group of Azkashi, has:

"...a representation of the galaxy tattooed on his forehead." (VII, p. 49)

Hugh Valland deduces that:

"'...they waited for the galaxy to rise; it's a god or whatnot to them, and then they felt safer against our mana.'" (ibid.)

Omnicompetent Valland uses his omnisonor for Azkashi sounds that human beings cannot utter. (He has also been "'...several kinds of engineer, now and then...'" (VII, p. 47), the best possible man to have in an emergency.)

Meanwhile, ya-Kela reserves judgment. Ya-Valland seems to have claimed "...to be the emissary of God.'" (VIII, p. 52) yet he has "...curious weaknesses." (ibid.)

Is communication really proceeding as well as is hoped?

Dennitza Revisited

I think that Dennitza is my favorite fictional planet in the Poul Anderson canon. See:

search result for The Kazan
In Zorkagrad Old Town
In Zorkagrad
Bodin's Prayers
Imaginative Multiverse
Protective Merseians
The Wind
Retirement In The Technic History
Log Cabin
Fast Action
Constitution Square
A Necessary Causal Link
Mesyatz
Dennitzan Cultural Blending
Kossara Vymezal
Six Dennitzan Heroes And One Saint
At The Moment Of Death
Dennitza And Ys: Their Contrasting Fates
Two Beginnings And Two Endings
Prayers
Conclusion
Flandry's Prayer II
Conclusion II
Kossara Vymezal In St Clement's Cathedral
Explicit Pathetic Fallacy
Dead Leaves
Inter-Species Politics 

First Contact

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, VII.

When the natives approach, Valland says:

"'I was just speakin' of the devil, and what came by? A bigger pair of horns than Othello thought he had!'" (p. 48)

Argens comments:

"I didn't follow his mythological references, but his meaning was plain." (ibid.)

Not only the devil but also a Shakespeare play has become mythological? Was Valland speaking of the devil? What does he mean by horns coming by? His meaning is not plain to me.

The two spacemen are "...relieved to find no obviously alien semantics..." (p. 49) among the Azkashi, led by ya-Kela, who:

have individual names;
use the same kinds of gestures as human beings for sign language;
yelp and dance with delight at presents like a steel knife for their leader;
bring presents of local handicrafts and a big game animal.

Would communication really be so easy?

Mortality, Creativity And Immortality

Aycharaych discusses the human consciousness of mortality with Dominic Flandry:

"'It may be the root of your greatness as a race,' Aycharaych mused. 'Could a St. Matthew Passion have welled from an immortal Bach? Could a Rembrandt who knew naught of sorrow and had no need for steadfastness in it have brought those things alive by a few daubs of paint?  Could a Tu Fu free of loss have been the poet of dead leaves flying amidst snow, cranes departing, or an old parrot shabby in its cage. What depth does the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT IX, p. 460.

I have previously referred to this passage, e.g., here, but not quoted it in full as it deserves.

Questions And Observations
(i) Are other races not mortal?
(ii) Will humanity be regarded as "great" on an interstellar scale?
(iii) Anderson conveys his appreciation of Bach, Rembrandt and Tu Fu.
(iv) Will the immortals in The Boat Of A Million Years and World Without Stars cease to be creative?

(This is yet another post occasioned by rereading World Without Stars.)

Senses On The Intergalactic Planet

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, VII.

In the camp at night:

blackness;
a blue glow from the plankton energizer;
warm, dank, softly booming wind;
swamp odors;
whirring generator;
a beast's distant hoot;
lapping lake water;
rustling reeds;
Valland's omnisonor;
clear sky;
galactic glow, reflected by clouds, sheening on the lake;
the galaxy itself clearing the horizon;
Earth's spiral arm visible;
three other planets in this system;
no other heavenly bodies.

Stranded

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, VII.

When six men are stranded on a terrestroid planet where they have enough food, what will happen to them? They will live until they die? But these men have had the antithanatic.

A different set of answers emerges:

without biogenic apparatus to stimulate regrowth of teeth worn down to the gums, they will make dental plates;

when monotony becomes unendurable, they will occupy themselves by building, exploring etc;

when they have accumulated too many unedited memories, they will gradually go insane.

Their problems are not our problems. Are they still human?

Parsecs

There was a groan in the audience at an sf con when a "parsec" was cited as a unit of speed, not of distance, in Star Wars.

In Poul Anderson's World Without Stars, the spaceship, Meteor, leaves the rim of the galaxy:

"...we were going two hundred and thirty thousand light-years away." (V, p. 28)

Having reached their target planetary system in intergalactic space, the crew sees the galaxy:

"...across seventy thousand parsecs." (VII, p. 43)

So 230,000 light years = 70,000 parsecs?

1 light year = 3.28 or so parsecs?

Live and learn or, at least, read Poul Anderson and learn. I find it impossible to progress reading the book without stopping to post about a detail or going off at a tangent.

Galaxy And Sunset

"God was rising in the west, and this time the sun was down..."
-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, I, p. 5.

Ya-Kela, the One of the Pack, worships before going to investigate the unknown newcomers who have arrived in fire and thunder at Balefire Head.

"This evening the galaxy rose directly after sunset."
-VII, p. 43.

Argens, the narrator of most of the novel, including Chapter VII, and his men have just seen natives in canoes who fled when approached.

Clearly, those natives reported to Ya-Kela. Chapters I and VII begin by describing the same scene from different povs. The spacemen are about to make First Contact.

The Planet Where The Meteor Crash Landed

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, VI.

Diameter 3% greater than Terrestrial;
weight 0.655 standard;
an old system so few heavy elements;
no metallic core;
sima to the center;
solar gravity has prevented satellites;
rotation slowed, then tides reversed it;
sidereal year 9.5 Terrestrial days;
3 weeks dark, 3 light;
mountains have eroded and not been replaced;
most planetary surface shallowly submerged;
solar radiation red and infrared;
steamy heat;
sea level atmosphere equivalent to a Terrestrial mountaintop;
photosynthesis probably based on an enzyme-chain process;
animals less energetic but no less active;
multiple hearts in dissected specimens;
intelligent, tailed bipeds in canoes.

Information-Gathering

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, VI.

Stranded on an extragalactic planet, Captain Argens wants two of his men to find precise values for:

gravity;
air pressure;
humidity;
magnetism;
ionization;
horizon distance;
rotation period;
solar spectrum lines;
whatever can be found with instruments from the ship.

Information-gathering is just as urgent as building a stockade because:

"'The sooner we know what kind of place we're in, the sooner we can lay plans that make sense.'" (p. 38)

He is right. I would not have thought of any of that but I am neither a scientist nor a spaceship captain.

We have reached only p. 38 of a text that that starts on p. 5 and that I began to reread from p. 7 but look how much ground - and space - we have covered already.

Cosmic Conflicts

Sf writer, Larry Niven, helped DC Comics with the background for Green Lantern. See here. For previous references to Green Lantern on this blog, see here.

Green Lantern, an sf superhero, requires:

(i) a very old race that becomes the Guardians;

(ii) many non-humanoid species that can be represented in a single organization;

(iii) a very fast means of interstellar and intergalactic travel;

(iv) "evil" for the organization to fight.

("Evil" is vague. GL eventually asked whether evil was in crime or in the society that he was protecting from crime. Apparently, Niven replaced "evil" with entropy.)

Elements of GL's requirements are present in Poul Anderson's works:

(i) The Danellians in the Time Patrol series and the Others in The Avatar.

(ii) There are many such species. I am currently thinking of the intergalactics in World Without Stars. The Patrol is organized by the Danellians to guard history but has only human membership.

(iii) The space jump in World Without Stars and the T machines in The Avatar.

(iv) Neldorians, Exaltationists and temporal chaos in the Time Patrol series.

The League Of Intergalactics

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars.

Could there be a league of races inhabiting planets orbiting red dwarfs in intergalactic space? They would have to find each other first but they would be able to do that with the space jump, then to maintain contact by space-jumping electron patterns. See the previous post.

They would have common interests, trading among themselves because unable to enter galaxies without elaborate precautions and shielding. Just as human beings can build a civilization within many galaxies, the intergalactics would be able to build a civilization between the galaxies and the two civilizations would be able to communicate: a whole new concept of interstellar travel.

Space-Jumping Electron Patterns

Thank you for your attention. I am nearly finished blogging for this evening but let me put just one more thought in front of you.

James Blish is the master of diverse means of interstellar communication. See:

The Dirac Transmitter
references to the CirCon radio here

Poul Anderson also discusses this subject. In his Technic History, instantaneous hyperwave pulses can be modulated but only for about one light year whereas long range hyper-communication does occur in For Love And Glory.

Anderson's World Without Stars presents one more means: electron patterns can be instantaneously space-jumped. (VI, p. 39)

OK. Be here tomorrow or whenever.

Cosmic Beginnings

A universe begins in each of three works by Poul Anderson:

"Flight to Forever"
Tau Zero
The Avatar

(Anderson also wrote a novel called Genesis in which a post-organic planetary intelligence recreates extinct humanity.)

At the end of James Blish's Cities In Flight, nine characters, ironically called "the Survivors," each create a new universe from his or her own body and spacesuit:

"Creation began."
-James Blish, The Triumph Of Time IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), pp. 466-596 AT p. 596.

These universes will initially be small, fifty light years across, but will be added to by "'...continuous creation...'" (p. 594)

The word "creation" implies a creator. One theological meaning of "creation" is "from nothing." However, Blish's "Survivors" create, although not from nothing, and continuous creation is from nothing but without a creator.

In Tau Zero, when Captain Telander of the relativistic spaceship, the Leonora Christine, sees:

"'The germ of the monobloc...The new beginning.'"
-Poul Anderson, Tau Zero (London, 1973), Chapter 21, p. 181 -

- he kneels in tears and says:

"'Father, I thank Thee...'" (ibid.)

- although what he sees is a cyclical new beginning, arguably not needing a creator.

(The Bible also is cyclical: from the separation of the waters to the Flood is one universe; from the re-emergence of dry land to the Apocalypse is a second universe; at the end of Apocalypse is a new heaven and earth, a third universe.)

We sometimes speak mythologically, knowing that we are doing so. Thus, if I say that the only original thinker was Adam and that everyone else has modified received ideas, I do not mean that I am a Biblical fundamentalist. I think that Blish uses language in this way when he describes the metagalactic center as:

"...that place where the Will had given birth to the Idea, and there had been light."
-Blish, op. cit., p. 577.

(This mixes Hebrew and Platonic ideas.)

Anderson matches Blish's "Creation began...":

"The universe was dead!"
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT p. 284.

"The universe was reforming."
-ibid, p. 285.

"The monobloc had exploded. Creation had begun."
-Tau Zero, p. 183.

Two ultimate sf writers.

Stars Between Galaxies II

See Stars Between Galaxies and World Without Stars.

For comparison, James Blish's The Triumph Of Time states that:

each group of galaxies revolves in spiral arms around a common center of density;

one such group, the "inner metagalaxy," comprises about fifty galaxies, including the Milky Way and the Andromeda;

the metagalaxies form spiral arms curving back towards the cosmic center where the monobloc exploded;

tenuous bridges of stars, discovered in 1953, connect the galaxies like umbilical cords.

Thus, Blish presents a completely different account of stars between galaxies. He said in conversation that he hoped that a story could be written about those star bridges although intergalactic travel by one of the bridges would be no faster than by direct transit across intergalactic space.

On The Planet II

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, Chapter VI.

Both day and night are several standard days long and the nights are extremely dark. The galaxy, "God," is sometimes overhead. Tussocky growths correspond to grass. These growths, the broad leaves on trees and the reed-like plants on the mud beach are bronze or yellow.

"Photosynthesis under a red dwarf star can't use chlorophyll." (p. 36)

Plants conceal many mud holes. Vines with sucker mouths grab passersby. The mouths cannot break human skin but a man has to be cut free.

Axial tilt is slight. Wild life is visible and audible. Web-arctoid giants keep away probably because the new-comers smell inedible but a massive horned beast attacks and keeps crawling forward even after it has been downed by two torch guns.

The stranded spacemen have not only packaged supplies but also a food recycling plant whose output tastes like shrimp but can also be flavoured. It is hard work to establish a camp. The food plant uses a small nuclear generator. I cannot remember any of this from previous readings.

On The Planet

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, Chapter V.

The Meteor is sunk in a lake with its after section flooded but its nose above water. Two men and the main reactor have gone through a hole in the side of the engine compartment. Screens and ventilators are dead. The only light is from dim, green "evershine panels." (p. 30)

Outside:

the huge, red sun is dim enough to look at;
the sky is deep purple;
there is eternal twilight;
the lake sheens crimson;
the land is barely visible;
leathery-winged creatures croak hoarsely as they fly above;
the air is dank and tropical.

Argens is not sure that he wants to live but Valland insists that it should only take them a few years to get off the planet and Mary O'Meara is waiting for him. As Neil Gaiman's Desire says of the Emperor Norton, his madness keeps him sane.

Crash Landing

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, Chapter V.

A spaceship jumps to a point at a considerable distance from the target star and its ecliptic plane in order to minimize the risk of occupying the same space as a solid object. Through some error yet to be determined, the Meteor, not designed to land on a planet, arrives too close to a terrestroid planet, skips through its atmosphere and crash lands. Immortals face mortality.

Would the prospect of an indefinitely prolonged lifespan make many people less inclined to entertain concepts like reincarnation or a hereafter? In this crash, thirty year old Enver Smeth dies whereas three thousand year old Hugh Valland survives. The only deity that seems to be relevant is Fortuna.

Argens plans to erase his memories of their attempts to save Envers. The latter, dying, asks Valland to sing the song about his girl back home. Valland hesitates, then complies. The last line that he sings is:

"'And whisper your name where you lie.'" (p. 34)

The last word is significant.