I am still rereading Poul Anderson's "The Master Key" but will not extract any more posts from its text this evening. Dornford Yates beckons. Some of his villains are in the same league as Ian Fleming's or SM Stirling's:
"The last was addressed by his companions as 'Rose' - Mansel told us later that he was undoubtedly 'Rose' Noble - a man of some position among thieves -..."
-Dornford Yates, Blind Corner (London, 1947, originally published 1927), CHAP III, p. 92.
(British understatement.)
In his Author's Note at the end of The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), Poul Anderson summarizes Robert Heinlein's Future History, then refers to his own:
"...new future history quite unlike the first." (p. 284)
Here in one Note is what I call the Future History Triad:
(i) the Future History;
(ii) the Psychotechnic History, modelled on (i);
(iii) the Technic History, unplanned, growing organically, but taking a similar form to (i) although on a vaster spatio-temporal scale.
Anderson ends his Note by saying that these stories might "... now evoke pleasant memories of youth..." (p. 285) in readers of his age or be new to readers of his daughter's age and:
"These stories were not seminal like Heinlein's, but they were a noticeable part of the field a generation ago. We've all come a long way since then, but sometimes we do well to look back and see where we have been." (ibid.)
Looking back at early future histories in 1981! Two more generations have passed since then and we have come an even longer way. I am able to express my appreciation with this science fictional device, a laptop computer.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And, unusually, what became the Technic History was all the better for being accidental, unplanned, growing "organically" in unexpected ways. Because Anderson impulsively mentioned "Polesotechnarch van Rijn" in THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS!
One of the things I remembered Old Nick talking about in "The Master Key" was how we, most of us, take our conceptions of God from our prayer books. That He is our Lord, King, and Master (and sometimes, as in the OT and NT, as Father).
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And that was the way rulers were addressed when those Biblical passages were written. How would God be understood by people who had always lived in a classless or anarchist society?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Now you are suggesting what I think is an impossibility for humans. Some kind of social STRATIFICATION seems natural, perhaps even necessary, for humans. The trick would be for any human society to so arrange itself that for those who want to, it would not be impossible to rise in rank, status, power, etc.
The Yildivans of Cain would seem to be a race which is naturally anarchist. Ideas about God, once Yildivans got it thru their heads that other races exist not like them, could well be stunning to them.
Ad astra! Sean
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