In Poul Anderson's There Will Be Time, the time traveler, Jack Havig, informs Robert Anderson of a future civilization which Robert's relative, Poul, fictionalizes as "the Maurai Federation," making mistakes as often as not when using his imagination to fill in the gaps.
In Anderson's Harvest Of Stars, Jesse Nicol summarizes the future history of Anderson's Harvest Of Stars and The Stars Are Also Fire for the benefit of a virtual reality reconstruction of Jorge Borges who compares the summarized history to a work by Tolkien. Nicol, presenting his account as fiction, reflects that it almost is because it falls so far short of reality.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Now that interests me, how Anderson mentioned JRR Tolkien in the former's HARVEST OF STARS. Aside from one of the "sunjammer" ships in one of the stories collected in TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS being named "Gandalf," we don't see many allusions to Tolkien in Anderson's works. And he was a fan of Tolkien, writing an essay on how the Professor affected him (collected in MEDITATIONS ON MIDDLE EARTH).
Ad astra! Sean
Fiction is necessarily less "dense" than reality; though of course our experience of reality is also necessarily very limited, incomplete and partial.
This is why fiction is always a collaboration between the writer and reader. The writer 'suggests' the parts that aren't shown, and the reader's imagination -- both consciously and subconsciously -- 'fills in' the density of reality.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And you and Poul Anderson have SUCCEEDED in that collaboration between writers and their readers. That's a huge reason why I enjoy both yours and Anderson's stories. And I can list other authors whose works have similarly affected me. Such as Avram Davidson and Jerry Pournelle.
Ad astra! Sean
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