"Long afterward..."

My criterion has become that, if my memories of rereading and posting about a work by Poul Anderson have receded sufficiently far into the past, then it is time to revisit that work. However several titles meet this criterion and compete for attention. The present winners are Volumes II and III of the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy.

Since Volume III, The Stars Are Also Fire, has 562 pages, we are likely to be here for some time. An unentitled introductory passage begins:

"Long afterward, there came to Alpha Centauri news of what had happened on Earth and around Sol."
-Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire (New York, 1995), p. 1.

This sentence combines two opposite narrative techniques. First, it evokes a remote past: once upon a time; long ago... Secondly, it locates the narrative in our future at a time when colonists in the Centaurian system look back at Earth and even at the entire Solar System. Poul Anderson moves us backwards and forwards in time in a few words. I did not expect to make these remarks on reopening the book. We must always re-approach Poul Anderson's texts expecting depth and detail.

I am reasonably pleased with recent posts on James Blish Appreciation although that blog continues to receive less page views. Think of Anderson and Blish as two sides of a single coin.