Saturday 13 February 2021

Welcome And We Claim; To Mars And These Stars

I wrote in three previous posts:

- that sometimes one work of fiction reminds us of another but that it is not always obvious why. Why does We Claim These Stars by Poul Anderson remind me, if no one else, of Welcome To Mars by James Blish? Because of the similarities between the titles.

Of course, there are other similarities. We Claim These Stars is an installment of a linear future history series whereas Welcome To Mars is the introduction to a branching future historical sequence. Anderson's hero, Flandry, and Blish's hero, Haertel, both later become important in their respective fictional universes.

Fans of Anderson's future histories should also read Blish's.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Not that long ago, I tried to reread Blish's Flying Cities books. Alas, I got bogged down lost interest by the third book. I fear my tastes and inclinations in such things had changed in the years after I first read the Okies books.

Besides Anderson's works, my preferences in "future histories" lies more with Pournelle's Co-Dominium series (with contributions by other writers, including Anderson), Drake/Stirling's THE GENERAL books, and Stirling's own solo stories. And I would include Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind tales.

A more "retro" example would be the stories Avram Davidson wrote about the learned Dr. Engelbert Eszterhazy, set in the wonderfully named Triune Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania, in an alternate early 20th century Europe.

Ad astra! Sean