Two Black Holes At The Fringe Of The Galaxy

For Love And Glory, XIX.

Here is a by now familiar thought:

"...explorers were still ranging only this one tiny segment of a thinly populated outer fringe of the galaxy." (p. 111) (See here.)

"...thinly populated..." probably refers to star density.

Interesting facts about black holes:

an event horizon is asteroid-sized, sometimes, though not always, visible like a small blot;

matter pulled in, e.g., from a companion star, forms an accelerating, spiraling accretion disc emitting "...a blaze of energy..." (ibid.);

there are billions of black holes;

Hawking radiation and quantum tunneling are interesting phenomena, except that I cannot make sense of the latter and it seems not to mean what it sounds like;

"...space and time interchangeably distorted..." (p. 112);

the Monster, a giant black hole at the galactic center, is hidden by dust clouds and its released energy would destroy any approaching organism or mechanism.

Does interchangeability of space and time mean that what has been experienced as a temporal interval can come to be perceived instead as a spatial distance? (See here.) Imagine...

That's all till next month.

Solar Races

The link to Tommy Tomorrow here highlighted the early sf assumption that other solar planets are inhabited. This assumption continued as a literary convention even when no longer scientifically viable. Robert Heinlein's Future History describes Martians and Venerians and mentions several other races.

Poul Anderson's works include "Sister Planet," about Venerians, "Life Cycle," about Mercurians, and several stories featuring different versions of Martians.

There are Martians in Anderson's first future history series and also in his first Nicholas van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit." However, when "Margin of Profit" was revised for inclusion in Anderson's second future history, its "Martians" became colonists from outside the Solar System. Also, in the Technic History, Jupiter is inhabited not by native Jovians but by colonists from Ymir.

The same process occurs on a vaster scale as the future histories continue. The galaxy is full of intelligent species in the Technic History but almost empty of life in the Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy and Genesis.

Brian Aldiss wrote that, just as non-human intelligences have been banished first from the Terrestrial environment, then from the Solar System, he expects them also to be banished from the rest of the universe.

Of Or Pertaining To Planets

I have corrected an error in a recent post:

"In the Technic History, a 'planetarist' is a 'planetographer.'"

- has been changed to:

"In the Technic History, a 'planetarist' is a 'planetologist.'"

An SSL trade pioneer crew comprises a Master Merchant, a planetologist and a xenobiologist of different species. A planetographer would map planets whereas a planetologist would have knowledge of planets.

In popular sf, there are also two sets of "Planeteers":

Tommy Tomorrow of the Planeteers
Captain Planet and the Planeteers

I have just had a good night out and this is what I do between coming home and going to bed.

The Galactic Belt And Yet Another Mirkheim!

For Love And Glory.

A Susaian calls the Milky Way "'...the Galactic Belt...'" (XIV, p. 82) How many alien descriptions of the galaxy have we read? See Ghost Road and the Ghost Bridge here.

"'Somebody finds it worthwhile to mine the cluster. The ancient supernovae must have plated certain smaller bodies with a rich layer of rare isotopes. I daresay it's a Skleron enterprise.'" (XV, p. 93)

See Mirkheim and An Inhabited Mirkheim!

Poul Anderson not only presents many original ideas but also re-presents several such ideas in different ways. Each fictional future is rich not only in internal content but also in indirect references to other probabilities possibly realized in divergent or parallel timelines. Indeed, David Falkayn finds the same source of wealth as the Sklerons.

Specialists And Generalists

For Love And Glory, XIV.

Lissa thinks:

"What's waiting in space for me? I'm only a planetarist. And even that title is a fake. I don't do geology, oceanography, atmospherics, chemistry, biology, ethology, or xenology. I dabble in them all, and then dare call myself a scientist." (p. 85)

Anderson has stopped rendering inner thoughts in italics. In the Technic History, a "planetarist" is a "planetologist."

"I help get the specialists together, and keep them together, and sometimes keep them alive. That's my work." (ibid.)

The growth of knowledge makes specialists necessary. The need for integration makes generalists necessary. But generalism must be deep, not superficial.

Decades ago, the Head of the Philosophy Department at Lancaster University thought that teams of philosophers needed to specialize in very specific questions but then asked who could possibly bring it all together.

I heard of a guy who inherited a mine and wanted to know just enough Mining Engineering and just enough Business Management to enable him to run the mine as a business so a University put together just enough modules of both subjects to construct a Degree course specifically for him - a kind of specific generalist.

(Un-)Reachable Sister Galaxies

The preceding post ended by referring to the Andersonian theme of unreachable sister galaxies but, as we have also observed, Anderson addresses every option and other galaxies are reached in his:

Tau Zero
The Avatar
World Without Stars
Genesis

- as also in James Blish's:

Cities In Flight
The Quincunx Of Time
the two Jack Loftus novels (by the "Angels")

Although I know of and have referred to other intergalactic sf, I respectfully suggest that Anderson and Blish do it better than anyone else.

Meanwhile, FLAG will keep us occupied for quite a while yet.

Galactic Vastness And The Milky Way

For Love And Glory.

"...the galaxy was too vast. Even this fragment of its outer reaches that humans and their fellow spacefarers had some slight knowledge of was." (XIII, p. 79)

A recurrent reflection. See here.

An earlier sentence:

"The galaxy's so huge, so various, and always so mysterious." (I, p. 13)

- had suggested that explorers had by now traversed the entire galaxy rather than just a fragment of it. This ambiguity - are we dealing with the whole galaxy or just with a much smaller volume of space? - is present in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History (see Coordinators) and in James Blish's Cities In Flight (see Earthman, Come Home).

"Forward and everywhere around, night glittered with stars, the Milky Way was a white torrent of them, nebulae glowed or reared dark across brilliance, sister galaxies beckoned from across gulfs that imagination itself could not bridge." (XIV, p. 82)

Three regular themes:

a description of the Milky Way;
objects, in this case nebulae, seen across the Milky Way;
unreachable sister galaxies.

Hyperspace

For Love And Glory.

"...Dagmar ran from Gargantua toward a point high enough in the gravitational well to allow a hyperjump across light-years..." (VIII, p. 42)

"The ship accelerated outward, seeking free space for her leap across light-years." (XIV, p. 82)

As mentioned here, there is a tacit assumption in sf that hyperdrives cannot function safely inside planetary systems - although Dominic Flandry's Hooligan is fine-tuned enough to go hyper within the Solar System, thus transiting in mere minutes from Jovian orbit to Earth.

The tacit assumption that "flat" space is safer for hyperjumps sounds right intuitively but who knows?

Among The First

For Love And Glory, XIII.

See also Forest And Ruins.

In World Without Stars, Hugh Valland is among the first to use the antithanatic. In FLAG, Torben Hebo is among the first to rejuvenated. After nine hundred years of life, Hebo, revisiting Earth, thinks that he can discern the foundation of the church in which he was married. The names on the few remaining gravestones have weathered away. We know that this happens to buildings but do not expect to live to see it. Cities have ceased to exist on Earth between Hebo's visits. The climate-control satellites that he had helped to construct are no longer either needed or still in orbit.

All this makes it sound as if Hebo was born much closer to our present than I had thought. Maybe the novel is set just one millennium into the future.

Windholm

On Aeneas in Poul Anderson's Technic History: a hereditary seat called Windhome.

On Asborg in Anderson's For Love And Glory: a House of Windholm (scroll down) -

"They were at the original family home, on Windholm itself. A stronghold as much as a dwelling, Ernhurst offered few of the comforts, none of the sensualities in mansions and apartments everywhere else." (XII, p. 70)

Points of interest:

the dwelling is called Ernhurst, not Windholm;

Ernhurst is not yet ancestral or hereditary because Davy, Head of the House, has lived in it for the two hundred years since the colonization of Asborg;

"...on Windholm..." tells us that Windholm is an island, I think. I thought of a continent but we do not say "on North America" or "on Eurasia."

To the south, Lissa sees the sea on the horizon but to the north are forested hills and to the west are a power station, a synthesis plant and a village. So Windholm is a big island.

Wind ripples not grass but "...herbage..." (ibid.) It also booms, bites and bears odors, thus addressing four senses in total.

Chereionites And Susaians

For Love And Glory, XI.

The implausible proposition that a Chereionite can understand the surface thoughts of any nearby intelligent being of any species was a premise of one sf pulp short story and thus became incorporated into an otherwise serious future history series.

The Susaians can read the emotional states of each other, to a lesser extent of human beings and maybe of other species. Do they detect pheromones or brain radiation?

A currently male Susaian whose name is translated as "Orichalc" knows that:

the Dominance of the Great Confederacy has sent several secret expeditions to an unknown location;

returned key personnel are sequestered;

crewfolk may not discuss the expeditions with nestmates, clones or each other;

but they detect feelings of awe in the scientists who use instruments and probes at the expeditions' destination and of demonic pride or hope in the Dominators who have received the scientific reports.

A Chereionite would know the content of the reports whereas a Susaian knows only that they describe something monstrous. This information is worth selling to human beings.

Times And Dates

For Love And Glory, XI.

Stardate...

"The image showed date and time in one corner." (p. 62)

"The screen blinked, the time indicated was half an hour later..." (ibid.)

"The screen blinked. The time displayed was two and a half standard days later." (p. 65)

Poul Anderson does not tell us any of these dates. We gather that, in FLAG, human interstellar civilization uses standard days and hours. If these scenes in FLAG were to be dramatized, then the screen on the screen would have to display some changing dates and times. They might be expressed in post-Arabic numerals although that is unlikely a mere thousand years in our future. In fact, if anyone can think of a way to improve on Arabic numerals, then I would be very interested to hear about it.

Lissa's Sister And The Milky Way

For Love And Glory, XI.

In X, Lissa is about to tell Valen a secret but first they discuss preliminaries and the chapter ends with him serving her coffee. Thus, it seems that we will not learn the secret until later. However, XI continues their conversation.

Lissa shows Valen a recorded message from Evana Davysdaughter Windholm. Same House, same father, different personal name. Thus, Lissa's sister, in fact eighty years older but looking younger because of a recent rejuvenation. After two hundred years, Asborg remains underpopulated despite longevity so these guys must practice a lot of birth control.

Evana uses the adjective, "Asborgan," so I have corrected "Asborgian" wherever it appeared on the blog.

"The scene cut to a magnified image of the outsider vessel, a black blade athwart stars and Milky Way." (p. 63)

Objects can be seen against, across or athwart the Milky Way.

Asborg II

For Love And Glory, X.

See Asborg.

Asborg is on the "...far fringe of human settlement." (p. 58)

- although, in this timeline, hyperjumps eliminate distance. Interstellar jumps are instantaneous, as in World Without Stars.

The planet has been settled for two hundred years and Davy, Head of House Windholm, has been on the World Council for nearly that long.

Houses, run by the ruling families of Asborg, also include client families bound by oaths of fealty. Gerward Valen, a resident foreigner not owing any fealty, is a mate on an ore freighter of the Comet line owned by House Eastland whose Head, Arnus Eastland, is a religious fanatic according to Lissa Davysdaughter Windholm who also describes another House, Seafell, as "...reckless commercialists..." (p. 60)

As ever, societies are more complicated than they appear on the surface.

Rigid Furniture

For Love And Glory, X.

It has been established that Gerward Valen's apartment in Inga on Asborg lacks books. See Public Database. Furthermore, it is small and sparse with rigid chairs. We have become used to reading about self-adjusting furniture. See here.

"Well, maybe he'd picked these quarters because a transparency offered what must be a spectacular daylight view of bay, headlands, and ocean." (p. 57)

In this respect at least, Valen's small sparse space matches the roomy rich residences of Nicholas van Rijn and Dominic Flandry in another timeline. Valen is "...a Comet line officer." (p. 56)

Asborgan society is organized around "Houses" - like Ythrian choths, Merseian Vachs, Hermetian domains or Monwaingi Societies? So what business does Lissa's House of Windholm have with a Comet line officer? Read on.

Public Database

For Love And Glory, X.

"While she had gathered he was an omnivorous reader, it seemed he owned nothing printed but drew entirely on the public database." (p. 57)

Exactly. Privately owned printed books become redundant with instant screen access to any published work. All literature can become as free as air as also can every other necessity of life. Tangible copies of texts can still be printed out if wanted.

Sf writers sometimes envisage such an apotheosis but nevertheless continue to describe their characters as earning a living or making a buck as if still at an earlier stage of socioeconomic/technological development.

Change And Progress

Because Poul Anderson's For Love And Glory is set millennia in our future and one character, Hebo, has lived for nine hundred years, the author has to show us social change and technological progress as between the time of writing and the time of the novel and also within Hebo's lifetime.

There is faster than light interstellar travel and contact with other intelligent species and most human beings live outside the Solar System. Within Hebo's lifetime:

cities have disappeared from Earth;

the Terrestrial population has shrunk to less than that of Britain now;

a routine health check of Hebo when he enters the Solar System now takes seconds instead of hours.

See Earth In FLAG.

It is to be hoped that we continue to progress instead of to retrogress.

What Hebo Does Not Understand

For Love And Glory, IX, p. 50.

Hebo lists:

women;
affine geometry;
Arzethian politics.

Googling discloses the adjective, "Arzethian," (also here) although in what I take to be a different context.

I had never heard of Affine geometry which is Euclidean geometry without distance or angles and applies to parallel lines although I would have thought that the concept of different distances applies to three or more parallel lines. This sounds interesting up to a point although complicated-sounding propositions are formulated about simple-seeming concepts like lines and points. All that I can say here is that anyone who, having encountered affine geometry for the first time in this blog post, would like to pursue the subject further would be able to make a start with the linked Wikipedia article.

However, like Socrates, I prefer philosophical abstractions and generalizations to technical complications. 

Two Problems

For Love And Glory, VII.

The problem that was dramatized by "...a wall of water..." (see here) at the end of Chapter V is spelt out in VII:

"'I have fared enough in space to realize that every new world is a snarefield of surprises. But I was likewise impatient.'" (p. 40)

Every new world has got to be full of surprises but here is someone who knows this from experience.

Short chapters make it easier to pause and post:

VI = pp. 37-38;
VII = pp. 39-41 (little more than two pages of text).

There are LIV (54) chapters in 290 pages of text.

Hebo's ability to cope with the unexpected is hampered because his brain is overwhelmed by nine hundred years of memories. It is time not only for rejuvenation but also for editing: two different, and almost opposite, processes. Rejuvenation refreshes memories in a finite brain...

Just Sitting

Ythrians perch.
Wodenites sprawl.
Merseians squat on their tails.
Gargantuans balance on their tails.
Rikhans sit on their haunches.
Human beings sit on (preferably adjustable) furniture.
Rax and Smokesmith stand on their four legs.
An unnamed hulk ripples in his kennel.

There may be other examples.

Two Surprises Or The Same Surprise In Two Timelines

For Love And Glory, VI.

When Hebo has been rescued from the tidal river, he prays, to Lissa's surprise:

"'Holy Mother of God...
"'I, I thank you for your mercy. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you -'" (p. 38)

Lissa remembers the prayer from historical documentaries. Hebo is nine hundred years old.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, Djana prays:

"'Hail Mary, full of grace -'"
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER FOUR, p. 225.

Like Lissa with Hebo, Dominic Flandry is surprised:

"Her? And he'd thought he'd gotten to know her!" (ibid.)

Finally, for now, we recently quoted this same prayer in Russian. See Raduysya Mariye. 

A Few Details On An Extra-Solar Planet

For Love And Glory, V.

"The wind blew stronger and cooler, with a salty tang. It sent russet waves over the crowns of the forest on the hills." (p. 33)

The wind is felt and tasted; its effects are seen. The extra-solar forest is "russet," not green.

"Her species slept too, but ordinarily in brief naps around the clock." (p. 35)

This would be safer than lying unconscious for a third of a day. Do they remember brief dreams? Imagine the alien psychology that would result from such a sleep pattern. Poul Anderson spells out one physical consequence:

"Which made it a lot easier for them to adapt to other planets than it was for humans with their long circadian rhythms..." (ibid.)

One frequent Andersonian theme is the unpredictable dangers of unknown environments. Although these explorers know that the tide is rising and that its "'...force is eleven or twelve times Terran maximum...'" (p. 34), they do not anticipate any danger until:

"Noise rolled, crashed and deafened. Eastward up the river, glinting green and foam-white, raced a wall of water." (p. 36)

And thus ends Chapter V...

Machiavelli Etc

(Niccolo Machiavelli.)

For Love And Glory, IV, p. 28.

Hebo speaks of historical figures unknown to Lissa, including:

Machiavelli (scroll down)
Hiroshige
Buxtehude

I usually expect the last figure in such a list, in this case "Buxtehude," to be in our future and thus not to be found by googling but this time I was mistaken. We always learn by reading Poul Anderson.

A while back, I discussed the plot and themes of For Love And Glory. Currently, this late novel by Poul Anderson is proving to be a fertile source for short miscellaneous posts.

Until tomorrow.

The Universal Currency

"'Information's really the only universal currency.'"
-For Love And Glory, III, p. 26.

Compare:

Blish on Knowledge

Although Blish addressed the question whether the desire for secular knowledge is evil, there is no doubt about his answer to it, as expressed through other characters.

In another work, an alien says:

“This organism dies now. It dies in confidence of knowledge, as an intelligent creature dies. Man has taught us this. There is nothing. That knowledge. Cannot do. With it…men…have crossed…have crossed space…” ³⁵

Blish’s major character, Amalfi, says:

“That’s the priceless coin, gentlemen, the universal coin: human knowledge.” ³⁶

When the universe ends, a scientist pronounces the:

“…epitaph for Man: We did not have time to learn everything that we wanted to know.” ³⁷

And that is a fitting epitaph for James Blish.
-copied from here.

A Cloud And A Scream

Poul Anderson, For Love And Glory (New York, 2003), III.

Lissa and the Gargantuan, Karl, discuss a large, newly discovered, Forerunner artifact with Hebo and the Rikhan, Dzesi. (I have to reread to get the names right.)

When Hebo suggests that the artifact is still working, maybe collecting data, Lissa leaps up spilling her drink and angrily stating that he has no right to keep this a secret. Of course, the others react, Dzesi with hand on knife etc, and, of course, nature also responds:

"A cloud passed over the sun, blown from the west. A wild creature screamed." (p. 25)

Precisely at this dramatic moment, the day darkens - momentarily - and an animal screams.  In Anderson's works, natural phenomena - often the wind or the thunder of an approaching storm - punctuate the characters' conversations just as surely as the commas and the full stops. Readers probably do not notice - except that I have become alerted to every nuance of Anderson's prose. And please tell me of anything that you see that I miss.

Rain Laughed

It is blog policy to leave no stone unturned in analyzing Poul Anderson's texts. However, it occurred to me that I had missed a pathetic fallacy near the end of The People Of The Wind, something about rain laughing but who or what might it have laughed at?

First, I searched the blog to check whether I had already quoted this phrase. I found A Dark Rushing, in which the rain is louder than a raucous laugh, and Ythrians And The Weather, in which the sea laughs.

However, the phrase in question is here:

"She did not answer at once. Startled not to receive the immediate yea he had expected, Arinnian lifted his eyes to her silence. He dared not interrupt her thought. Waves boomed, rain laughed." (XIX, p. 653)

Arinnian has asked whether he is able to be what Hrill, his fiancee, deserves so, of course, he expects or at least hopes for a positive answer. Waves and rain underline Eyath's silence. Waves merely boom but rain laughs. At Arinnian? At all human aspirations? At me for asking such questions?

(According to James Blish's Cities In Flight, when St Augustine was asked what God was doing before the Creation, he replied that He was creating a Hell for people blasphemous enough to ask such questions - and that thought has taken us a long way from rain laughing.)

Beer

It is getting late here so this will not be a long post. In Literary Writing in the 1930s, I quoted two passages that were remarkably similar to many that we have admired in Poul Anderson's works. Now here is an easy quiz question. Which passage in a Poul Anderson novel does the following quotation resemble?

"'And what about drinks?'
"Her husband stared.
"'Well, what's the beer done?' he said.
"'The beer hasn't come,' said Adele.
"'Not come?' screamed Berry. 'Not come? Oh, don't be blasphemous.'"
-Dornford Yates, Adele And Co. (Cornwall, 2001), 2, p. 22.

Technological Nomads

"'Ghazu is largely steppe. Its inhabitants are the only known beings who, nomadic, independently developed high technology.'"
-Poul Anderson, For Love And Glory (New York, 2003), I, p. 18.

That sounded familiar. See:

Interstellar Relations In The Local Civilization-Cluster

Kandemir: A Merseian-Terran Synthesis In Another Timeline

Kamdemirian nomads became spacefarers while remaining nomads because they were contacted by spacefarers. I think that there is more to Kandemirian society than that but I will have to check by rereading the relevant chapter of After Doomsday. Most references to nomads (scroll down) on this blog are to the interstellar Nomads in the Psychotechnic History.

On second thoughts, searching the blog for "Kandemir" brought up:

Civilization-Clusters

- which explains how, on Kandemir, technological nomads were able to dominate the cities.

Literary Writing In The 1930s

(Image from a not very accurate TV dramatization of Dornford Yates' She Fell Among Thieves but the characters look good.)

As you know, I cannot subsist on nothing but a diet of Poul Anderson rereading and am currently rereading elsewhere. However, Anderson has taught me to look out both for pathetic fallacies and for descriptive passages appealing to at least three of the senses. Thus, in Dornford Yates' She Fell Among Thieves (London, 1935), a storm has been building. Then, Chandos and Virginia find that they have been locked in his room:

"'...Every one of these doors has a bolt - on the other side.'
"As though to attest the saying, a sullen grumble of thunder came rolling over the hills.
"The storm had begun." (p. 205)

Thus ends CHAPTER VII. Soon after that:

"The storm was fast approaching. I could see the flicker of the lightning, and the heavy roll of the thunder was louder with every flash. As I glanced at the open window, I heard the forests shiver at the touch of the running footman that goes before : and the air was definitely cooler - I could smell the rain that was falling some two miles off." (p. 208)

Reading this, I think of Poul Anderson who has helped me toward a finer appreciation of Dornford Yates' prose. In fact, I have stopped reading during a suspenseful action sequence in order to post.

Original Stories Or Shared Universes

In the 1950s, Poul Anderson wrote original stories for particular magazine markets. Thus, e.g., "Tiger By The Tail" and "Margin Of Profit," which became the bases of his Dominic Flandry and Nicholas van Rijn series and thus also of his major future history series.

Much later, he was invited to contribute to other authors' shared universes. Thus, e.g.:

three Man-Kzin Wars stories (two were collected in a single volume and the third could be added to a later edition);

two installments of Isaac's Universe, which were adapted to become the bases of an independent novel, For Love And Glory.

I used to speculate about shared universes before they existed, thinking that multiple authorship would add substance to a future history series. Now, however, I prefer single author future histories like Heinlein's and Anderson's.

James Blish argued that it would be too constricting if an author were to confine his entire output to a single series, especially since scientific advances overtake any sf premises. Tolkien made a life-long work out of Middle Earth but that was set in the past, not the future, and Blish was not a Tolkien fan, preferring ER Eddison. It would be even more constricting if a team of authors were to confine all or a major part of their output to a single shared series.

Anderson's entirely original series are far more significant and substantial than any of his contributions to shared universes.

Thrillers

Poul Anderson wrote sf thrillers, the Dominic Flandry series, and we compare them with non-sf thrillers by Ian Fleming and others. Perhaps all that happens in a thriller is that some armed good guys defeat some armed bad guys? - although John le Carre and others demonstrate that suspense can be generated without overt violence.

However, a well-written thriller makes us feel that more than this is happening. First, usually, the stakes being fought for are very high. Secondly, death is always a matter of ultimate concern to those whom it affects.

Manse Everard says - where? - that cinema violence obscures the fact that each death is the end of an individual consciousness. We need to remember that every time it happens.

Truth And Fiction

I have said this before but it bears repetition. Indeed, some aspects of fiction seem to be always new and fresh however often contemplated. Sometimes, a text exists not only in our world but also in the fictional world that it describes. For example, in our world, The Strand Magazine published short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle whereas, in Sherlock Holmes' world, it published (identical) memoirs by Dr. John Watson - which became alternative history fiction in SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers!

Any first person narrative raises questions like: Whom is the narrator addressing? Are we to understand that this fictional character is writing an account for publication in his world? Sometimes the question is answered. In Poul Anderson's"How To Be Ethnic In One Lesson," James Ching tells whoever reads his account how he gained a Polesotechnic League apprenticeship. In Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate, Hloch tells his Avalonian readers first that Ching kept a private journal and secondly that this extract from that journal is to be reproduced in the Earth Book.

Anderson's Steve Matuchek telepathically broadcasts Operation Chaos between universes, so that it is mentally received and written down as fiction, whereas he buries Operation Luna in a bank vault. In Anderson's There Will Be Time, Poul Anderson's Maurai future history is a fictionalized account of a future society described by a time traveling acquaintance of a relative of Anderson's.

The human author of Last And First Men thinks that he is writing fiction and indeed he is distorting most of what the Neptunian narrator transmits to him. CS Lewis wrote a true account of Weston's and Ransom's journey to Mars but fictionalized their names! A personal friend and former colleague of James Bond wrote inaccurate accounts of his exploits! Dornford Yates' Richard Chandos narrates nine novels, sometimes implying that his accounts are to be published but also disclosing confidential information that could not possibly be published. It makes no sense to tell the public that two people kept the secret of their feelings towards one another! Ambiguous.

Examples proliferate.

Isaac's Universe

I read and posted about Poul Anderson's For Love And Glory (FLAG) but not recently. See here.

I need to read for the first time the two ISAAC'S UNIVERSE volumes, The Diplomacy Guild (1990) and Phases In Chaos (1991), which contain contributions by Anderson, especially since, when he incorporated these two stories into the independent novel, FLAG, Anderson altered:

the history;
the several intelligent species;
the characters;
most place names;
the course of events.

So what did he not change? The premise that FTL space travelers find relics of unknown predecessors as in Anderson's Technic History although, in that series, the Ancients are the focus of one novel but not of the entire history.

Anderson would possibly have written more FLAG volumes. I would have liked to have read maybe one more although I would have been much more interested in a lot more of the Technic History.

Signing Off On The People Of The Wind For The Time Being

The People Of The Wind, XIX.

When peace is declared, Chris and Tabitha fly to an uninhabited area where imported plants have taken root. Grass and pine are Terrestrial. Trefoil is native. Sword-of-sorrow is native, I think.

A red and gold sunset over the sea signals the approaching end of the novel. The horizon loses itself:

"...in a sky deepening from violet to crystalline black." (p. 660)

Then:

"The evening star stood as a candle among the wakening constellations." (ibid.)

How many evening stars have we seen on how many planets?

The forest is dark, pine odors are sweet, the breeze is warm, harp vines ring and jewlleafs twinkle brightly. Only the sense of taste is absent.

But I like to end with an earlier scene:

"...the strewn and begardened city, the huge curve of uprising shoreline, the glitter on Falkayn Bay. Small cottony clouds sauntered before the wind, which murmured and smelled of livewell." (XIX, p. 647)

Last Words Or Thoughts

The People Of The Wind.

Philippe Rochefort
"He recalled a girl in Fleurville and hoped he would be transferred to an Esperancian hospital when or if the cease-fire became a peace." (XVIII, p. 646)

Peace will come. A Philippe Rochefort series, if it had been written, would have told us where Rochefort went next.

Admiral Cajal
"'The peace treaty remains to be formulated,' said the drained voice. 'I can tell you in strict confidence, Governor Saracoglu has sent to the Imperium his strongest recommendation that Avalon not be annexed.'" (XVIII, p. 651)

Cajal will resign and return to Nuevo Mexico, accompanied by Luisa.

Daniel Holm
"His immediate happiness, quiet and deep, was at knowing that tonight he could go home to Rowena." (XVIII, p. 652)

Luisa Cajal to Ekrem Saracoglu
"'No doubt I'll be getting married. I think, if you don't mind, I think I'd like to name a boy for you.'" (XIX, p. 658)

Ekrem Saracoglu
"Tomorrow I must investigate the local possibilities with respect to bouncy and obliging ladies. After all, we are only middle-aged once." (XIX, p. 659)

Arinnian and Hrill
"'And we do have peace for a while,' she whispered.
"'Can't we be happy in that?' he asked.
"Then she smiled through moonlit tears and said, 'Yes, Arinnian, Chris, dearest of all,' and sought him." (XIX, p. 662)

They will marry. He will contribute "A Little Knowledge," "Day of Burning" and "Lodestar" to The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Eyath
"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of light.
"High is heaven and holy." (XIX, p. 662)

That is the end of the novel.

Good Old Days And Brave New Worlds

Some authors celebrate the aristocratic past when life was good not only for the few at the top but also apparently for their faithful servants. Dornford Yates idealizes not only his heroines but also his heroes' silent, efficient, loyal-to-the-death, - almost Asimovian-robot-like - servants, whose first names are never spoken. "Carson" drives and services Jonathan Mansel's Rolls Royce and says, "Very good, sir."

Poul Anderson imagines both neo-aristocratic and post-organic futures. His future histories either regress to the individual accumulation of immense wealth or progress to the technological transcendence of organic intelligence with several intermediate utopian/dystopian options.

The metamorphosis of an apparent utopia into an actual dystopia is as old as The Time Machine, where devolved proletarians eat devolved aristocrats. "Not a utopia but instead a dystopia" is also an Andersonian theme. Will abundant wealth erode all dynamism, initiative, inquiry and creativity? I think not but let's find out.

I get a big charge out of reading authors as antithetical as Anderson and Yates because they resemble opposite sides of a single coin. Between them, Wells, Yates, Asimov and Anderson (and many others) present human life in the past and future, including some speculative retro-futures. (And the title of this post quotes an Aldous Huxley title that is a Shakespeare quote.) 

Characters And Conclusions

The People Of The Wind, XVIII-XIX.

After the Terran War, Poul Anderson has to wind up the stories of eight different characters:

Daniel Holm;
Christopher Holm;
Tabitha Falkayn;
Eyath;
Philippe Rochefort;
Admiral Cajal;
Luisa Cajal;
Governor Saracoglu.

The two human women are the most interactive:

Tabitha must finish with Rochefort, put Chris right about Eyath and marry Chris;

Luisa must support her father after his defeat by Daniel Holm and disappoint Saracoglu.

The novel ends with Eyath in flight:

"High is heaven and holy." (XIX, p. 662)

Chapters One to Four of the following Volume in the Technic History series introduce four new characters:

Lord Markus Hauksberg;
Commander Max Abrams;
Brechdan Ironrede, the Hand of the Vach Ynvory;
Ensign Dominic Flandry.

Although Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and Dominic Flandry stand out as prominent historical figures, they also share the History with a large and diverse cast.

Scorpulena

The People Of The Wind,  XVII.

The Terrans have landed on the Scorpulenan plateau where they soon learn that every group leaving camp needs aerial support against attacks by packs of dog-sized hexapods that keep coming even when mutilated. Nights are gnawingly cold although the days are horribly hot while both are damnably dry. Everyone who goes outdoors suffers bellyache, diarrhea, muscle pains, thirst, tremors and fuzziness. There are also swarming kakkelaks and Avalonian attacks.

For all of this, Poul Anderson presents an appropriate double pathetic fallacy. There is:

"...an unnaturally swift sunset which a dust storm made the color of clotted blood." (p. 634)

We know that Avalon rotates fast, hence its unpredictably changeable weather. But fast rotation also means an "unnatural"-seeming swift sunset which in turn symbolizes a quick end to the Terrans' hopes of an easy conquest. Secondly, this inhospitable environment generates dust storms which, of course, give a highly appropriate color to the sunset.

"...the color of clotted blood..." probably affects sf fans subliminally as they read with interest how the Avalonians manage to turn the tables on their would-be conquerors. Chapter XVII begins with the englobement of Avalon and ends with the Terrans' surrender as Anderson hastens to the conclusion of this excellent pivotal installment in his Technic future history series.

Terran Conquerors

(i) I used to be in the British Interplanetary Society and remember a Russian guest speaker quoting Tsiolkovsky as referring to mankind conquering the universe.

In fact:

THE LUNAR PROJECT WAS OBLIGATORY WORK, BUT KOROLEV WAS DREAMING OF MARS, VENUS, AND JUPITER
Now that new aspects of the Soviet rocket and spacecraft chief designer’s biography are being uncovered, it is becoming increasingly clear that Korolev was the staunchest supporter of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s dictum: “Humankind will not stay on Earth forever but, in pursuit of light and space, it will first timidly go beyond the bounds of the atmosphere and then will conquer the entire solar system.”
-copied from here. (An article entitled: "We will conquer the universe.")

(ii) Flash Gordon "conquered the universe" in a cinema serial. See here.

(iii) CS Lewis wrote that:

"[Weston] was a man obsessed with the idea which is at this moment circulating all over our planet in obscure works of 'scientification', in little Interplanetary Societies and Rocketry Clubs, and between the covers of monstrous magazines, ignored or mocked by the intellectuals, but ready, if ever the power is put into its hands, to open a new chapter of misery for the universe. It is the idea that humanity, having now sufficiently corrupted the planet where it arose, must at all costs contrive to seed itself over a wider area: that the vast astronomical distances, which are God's quarantine regulations, must somehow be overcome. This for a start. But beyond this lies the sweet poison of the false infinite - the wild dream that planet after planet, system after system, in the end galaxy after galaxy, can be forced to sustain, everywhere and for ever, the sort of life which is contained in the loins of our own species - a dream begotten by the hatred of death upon the fear of true immortality, fondled in secret by thousands of ignorant men and hundreds who are not ignorant. The destruction or enslavement of other species in the universe, if such there are, is to these minds a welcome corollary."
-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT 6, p. 216.

(Get a grip, Lewis!)

(iv) "...the Imperials everywhere refrained from offensive action. They worked at digging in where they were and at building up their conquest until it could not merely defend itself, it could lift an irresistible fist above all Avalon."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT XVII, p. 632.

(v) "...[Flandry] was lonesome among his fellow conquerors..."
-Poul Anderson, "The Game of Glory" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 303-339 AT I, p. 306.

"Scientifiction" (not "scientification") features interplanetary conquerors who are sometimes Terrestrial. Do I have a point here? Just that the word, "conquer," has different meanings.

Different Descriptions

Poul Anderson often:

describes natural scenery;

does so by appealing to at least three of the senses;

describes the Milky Way, usually as seen from space but sometimes also as seen from a planetary surface.

Other authors might:

describe scenery in completely different terms from Anderson, appealing only to sight;

describe the night sky again in completely different terms and without referring to or naming the Milky Way.

"The Milky Way" meant a patch of light in the night sky. Then it was learned first that our sun is one star in a galaxy and secondly that that patch of light is the disc of our galaxy as seen from some parts of the Earth's surface. Thus, "the Milky Way" became the name of our galaxy.

Since other galaxies were recognized as such only in 1925, the year before Poul Anderson's birth (see Significant Dates), literary references to the Milky Way understood as a galaxy are very recent and form part of the perspective of modern sf writers even when they appear in non-sf works.

Real Life

I am rereading Poul Anderson and Dornford Yates but, pulling back from the page, real life reveals:

today, the fifth school strike about the climate;

tomorrow, the Pride march through Lancaster;

on Sunday, some of the Lancaster Canal Bicentenary celebration events, including a photo competition that Aileen and Yossi will enter.

In haste.

Reduction Of A Planet

The People of The Wind, XVII.

When the Imperial armada englobes and attacks Avalon, fireballs in space hurt eyes and cast shadows on the surface. The wrecked and abandoned artificial planetoid, Hell Rock, detects and fires on the enemy but is weak enough to be bypassed. The remnant Avalonian navy gathers and skulks one or two a.u.s away.

The armada systematically reduces orbital fortresses in hundreds of orbits at hundreds of angles. Continually resupplied from the surface, the fortresses are mostly automated and some have remained undetected. Squadrons repeatedly attack at high acceleration and recede at unpredictable vectors. Missiles rising through atmosphere against gravity "...from zero initial speed..." (p. 626) cannot hit such ships and stop trying. On the moon, Morgana, mountains crumble and valleys become molten.

The armada focuses on those fortresses that would threaten the intended landing force and also on those surface defenses that start to destroy ships as they approach the atmosphere.

Yet again, Poul Anderson writes like a veteran of space combat.

Esne?

Whereas JRR Tolkien invented fictional languages, CS Lewis and Poul Anderson merely referred to them -

Lewis: Solar;
Anderson: Planha, Eriau, Temporal etc.

We do not read a single word of the Time Patrol language, Temporal, although another time traveler speaks one sentence in Latin:

"Es tu peregrinator temporis?"
-see here.

Blog Central Analysis Of That Sentence
(i) Because "es" is a second person singular verb, it already means "thou art" and need not be preceded by the pronoun except possibly for emphasis.

(ii) A question would be asked not by changing the word order but by adding "-ne" to the verb. Thus:

"Esne Peregrinator temporis?"

However, an English-speaking time traveler might follow the English language practice of changing the word order.

Later: In fact, Anderson has:

"'Loquerisne latine?'"
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 173-228 AT p. 183.

("Do you speak Latin?")

Sympathetic Treatment Of Disagreeable Characters

Poul Anderson gives sympathetic treatment to characters that he disagrees with. Some other good writers do not:

Dennis Wheatley, writing thrillers as propaganda during World War II, proved that Germans were inferior from the shapes of their heads;

Frederick Forsyth expresses open contempt for his left wing characters;

Dornford Yates' Mansel and Chandos agree with each other that the Germans are a filthy race.

Anderson does not use such unpleasant language even of his invented Merseians or Gorzuni. His writing is refreshing after the prejudices of the three British thriller writers listed above.

History And Future History

Reading novels set in successive decades of the twentieth century, then rereading Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization underlines how well this series projects world history into the future:

there are major conflicts;
enemies become allies;
eras come and go;
events experienced as the end of everything are perceived very differently by later generations.

"'Sir, the League, the troubles, the Empire, the fall, the Long Night...every such thing - behind us. In space and time alike. The people of the Commonalty don't get into wars.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 722.

"There had been a fight. The reasons - personal, familial, national, ideological, economic, whatever they were - had dropped into the bottom of the millennia between then and now. (A commentary on the importance of any such reasons.)"
-op. cit., p. 728.

And, in a novel whose protagonists receive messages from many periods of their future:

"'If an Englishman of around 1600 had found out about the American Revolution, he probably would have thought it a tragedy; an Englishman of 1950 would have had a very different view of it. We're in the same spot. The messages we get from the really far future have no contexts yet.'"
-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1973), AN EPILOGUE, p. 127.

Futuristic sf presents an excellent perspective on history.

Behind Enemy Lines

See:

An Occupied Planet
Flandry On Vixen

Dominic Flandry goes behind enemy lines on the occupied planet of Vixen in We Claim These Stars!/"Hunters of the Sky Cave"/"A Handful of Stars." Thus, there are similarities to occupied France during World War II.

Flandry reflects that hunting skills are transferable to resistance fighting. Another set of skills is even more appropriate. Some fictional heroes, operating outside the law, wage secret wars, whether plausible or not, against the criminal underworld. Then Dornford Yates' Richard Chandos tells us that:

"During the war I had paid flying visits to France - by sea and by night."
-Dornford Yates, Ne'er Do Well (Cornwall, 2001), p. 2.

And the Germans put a price on his head. Our heroes are known to their enemies' high commands:

Chandos to the Germans;
Bond to SMERSH;
Flandry to the Merseians;
etc.

Real And Fictional Changes

Technic civilization lasts from the end of the Chaos until the Fall of the Terran Empire. Thus, it encompasses the periods of the Solar Commonwealth, the Troubles and the Empire. Mirkheim describes sociopolitical changes on Earth and Hermes toward the end of the Commonwealth period. After Mirkheim, Falkayn, having assessed what is happening in human space, leads a group of colonists into Ythrian space.

How do these fictional changes connect or compare with the real global changes that occurred during the twentieth century when Poul Anderson was writing the Technic History series? Regular blog correspondent, Sean, thinks that the Chaos began at Sarajevo in 1914. It culminates in major upheavals in the early twenty first century.

We have seen in recent posts that some people who lived comfortably before 1914 thought that civilization was coming to an end after 1945. (See also here.) In this sense, their predicament was that of David Falkayn except that they were not able to emigrate to another planet. Big changes can be unpalatable but life continues until it stops.

In the Lake District just north from here, large buildings that were built as private residences are now appreciated and enjoyed by larger numbers of people because they are preserved by the National Trust or adapted as outdoor sports centers etc. I hope that we will solve current problems but also that we will not restore the social values that prevailed before 1914.

Opposite Legacies

Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and Dominic Flandry do not all marry but do all have children. Future history implies future generations.

Of Dornford Yates' leading characters:

Jonathan Mansel neither marries nor has children;
Berry Pleydell marries but does not have children;
Boy Pleydell marries twice but does not have children;
Richard Chandos marries twice but does not have children.

Does this seem improbable? I suspect that Yates, writing nostalgically about the end of an era, did not want to show a later generation struggling to make ends meet while having to survive without being able to afford domestic servants after the sale of their ancestral home.

Whatever happens, Anderson's characters look to the future, not to the past.

Times And Places

Any novel or short story collection is to us a visible, tangible artifact with a receding publication date whereas, to its characters, a fictional narrative happens in a world that may be very like or very unlike ours and that has its own chronology. A contemporary novel is assumed to be set in the year of writing or of publication and, if it diverges too far from that, then it is not contemporary.

Poul Anderson writes:

"London, 1944."
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-53 AT p. 44.

That place and that year are enough to tell us in general what is happening. However, Anderson goes on to describe it:

"The early winter night had fallen, and a thin cold wind blew down the streets which were gulfs of darkness. Somewhere came the crump of an explosion, and a fire was burning, great red banners flapping above the roofs." (ibid.)

(Another sf reader remarked that authors of time travel fiction usually state that a character is at a particular time and place whereas Anderson tells us what it is like.)

"Time Patrol" has a history, originally published in a magazine in 1955, then collected and recollected in subsequent decades, culminating in 2010, if not by now more recently.

1984 is the title of a 1949 novel by George Orwell whereas 1984 is the publication date of Past Times by Poul Anderson and the date of fictional events in Anderson's 1990 novel, The Shield Of Time. See 1984.

CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength was published in 1945 but its Preface, dated Christmas Eve, 1943, tells us that:

"The period of this story is vaguely 'after the war'."
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT p. 354.

In 1943, Lewis did not know that the War would end in 1945.

Of my recent Dornford Yates acquisitions, some are copies printed before or during World War II and one, Red In The Morning (Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, London and Melbourne), is a first edition presenting this interesting information:

"First published     1946
"BOOK
"PRODUCTION
"WAR ECONOMY
"STANDARD
"THE TYPOGRAPHY OF THIS BOOK CONFORMS TO THE AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARD" (p. 4)

What I have typed as lines 2, 3, 4 and 5 are printed inside an image of an open book with a lion lying sideways on top.

Second hand books are artifacts from past times.