Past And Future

Though I say it who shouldn't, I made a good choice of quotes in that immediately preceding post. It is all about how the immediate past and the immediate future form a continuous process. First, Poul Anderson highlighted the mere sixty-six years between Kitty Hawk and the first Moon landing. Secondly, Heinlein contrasted the generation that grew up with air flight and the generation that grew up with rocket travel. Heinlein's first Moon landing was in 1978, nine years after ours. Thirdly, Asimov covered the same kind of theme but this time with the progress in robotics in Susan Calvin's lifetime from the late twentieth to the mid-twenty-first century. Sf reflects real processes but in imaginary forms in parallel timelines.

Change Today And Tomorrow

Living in the second half of the twentieth century, and especially if reading sf then, we became used to the idea that we were experiencing a century of rapid technological advances which, barring a nuclear war, would continue through the twenty first century and beyond.

Poul Anderson summarizes relevant events from the twentieth century:

"We think it extraordinary that just sixty-six years elapsed between the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk and the first manned landing on the moon; yet my mother was around for both of them."

-Poul Anderson, "The Discovery of the Past" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 182-206 AT p. 200.

 

The earlier twentieth century is continuous with Robert Heinlein's Future History. D.D. Harriman says:

 

"'You young fellows have grown up to rocket travel the way I grew up to aviation. I'm a great deal older than you are, at least fifty years older. When I was a kid practically nobody believed that men would ever reach the Moon. You've seen rockets all your lives, and the first to reach the Moon got there before you were a young boy. When I was a boy they laughed at the idea.

"'But I believed - I believed. I read Verne, and Wells, and Smith, and I believed that we could do it - that we would do it.'"

-Robert Heinlein, "Requiem" IN Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon (London, 1963), pp. 222-238 AT p. 226.

 

And finally, for this post, an Isaac Asimov character sums up rapid progress in Asimov's equivalent of The Man Who Sold The Moon:

 

"'And that is all,' said Dr. Calvin, rising. 'I saw it from the beginning, when the poor robots couldn't speak, to the end, when they stand between mankind and destruction. I will see no more. My life is over. You will see what comes next.'

"I never saw Susan Calvin again. She died last month at the age of eighty-two."

-Isaac Asimov, "The Evitable Conflict" IN Asimov, I, Robot (London, 1986), pp. 183-206 AT p. 206. 

Deaths On The Moon

"He was on the Moon!

"He lay back still while a bath of content flowed over him like a tide at flood, and soaked to his very marrow."

-Robert Heinlein, "Requiem" IN Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon (London, 1963), pp. 222-238 AT p. 238.

 

"They found Dagny Beynac on the north rim trail. She had left her car at the shelter and gone afoot, alone, in an hour when no one else was about."

-The Stars Are Also Fire, 38.

 

That is all for this post, folks, but it is plenty. Both the Man Who Sold the Moon and the Mother of the Moon die on the Moon. Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars future history is not as pivotal an sf work as Heinlein's Future History. In fact, it is overshadowed by Anderson's own Technic History and Time Patrol series. Nevertheless, Harvest Of Stars and its sequels are in the Heinlein tradition. Rhysling wrote the song, "The Green Hills of Earth," in the story, "The Green Hills of Earth," in the collection, The Green Hills Of Earth, which is Volume II of the Future History. Verdea wrote a poem including the line, "For the stars are also fire." in The Stars Are Also Fire (34, p. 459) which is Volume II of the Harvest Of Stars future history.

Freedom Fron Want, Freedom To Choose

The Stars Are Also Fire, 35.

"...wherever he went on Earth he saw people free of want, sickness, fear, mind-numbing toil of body or brain, free to live as they chose." (p. 463)

Now that does not sound too bad for a start. While reading, we tend to dismiss this utopian background because Poul Anderson's narrative does. Anderson focuses on individuals who are dissatisfied and there are indeed reasons for dissatisfaction if only because the author has plotted his novel like that. First, mankind needs to retain collective control of its destiny. Secondly, freedoms should include the freedom to travel, explore and live off Earth. Not everyone will want to do this but, if it is technologically possible, then it should be an option.

However, in a technologically advanced society, freedoms should not include the freedoms to employ others who are obliged to work in order to survive, to own the properties in which other live or to enjoy comparative wealth surrounded by comparative poverty. Some kinds of freedom can be consigned to history.

Averting Conflict

The Stars Are Also Fire, 36.

The helium-3 extraction works on the Moon are a Federation government monopoly because of the importance of helium-3 to fusion power. Selenarch Brandir thinks that, if the Lunarians expropriate the extraction works, they can continue to export to Earth and that the Federation will prefer negotiated trade to war. However, the Federation government, already troubled by the Dieback, Avantism and the high-tech-low-tech gap, would not survive politically if it did not resist expropriation. Download Dagny advises Brandir to consider swapping Lunarian ships and robots in the asteroid belt for the helium plants. She works tirelessly to prevent destructive conflict.

Political Factions On The Moon

The Stars Are Also Fire, 36.

Lunarians, led by Selenarchs, resent the equalization program, special facilities, subsidies, hiring quotas and exemptions favoring Terran Moondwellers and want independence from the Federation. They are supported by some Moondwellers who also want freedom from Federation restrictions on their enterprises. Meanwhile, other Moondwellers, in the Human Defense Union, fear Selenarchic rule and propose to form a loyal militia that will, in the event of an emergency, occupy key points until Earth intervenes. A third set of Moondwellers, in the National League, want reforms within a democratic republic with Federation membership.

Download Dagny and Fireball negotiate with Selenarchs to buy out Moondwellers who would prefer to relocate to L-5, the asteroids or elsewhere, thus avoiding Lunar civil war and adding to the Fireball workforce. 

Brotherhood

Anson Guthrie:

"Not all men are brothers."

-see here.

I agree with Schiller:

 

"All men will emerge as brothers..."

-see here.

 

Does Guthrie's comment sound familiar? Remember Max Abrams and Dominic Flandry. See All Beings Are Brothers?

 

We can't speak about all beings yet but I suggest that all men are brothers even if some do not realize it. Mythologically, we are sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Biologically (I think), all Terrestrial organisms are descended from a single self-replicating molecule.

Those who do not recognize brotherhood should not be coerced into brotherly behavior. What could be more alienating? But they can be restrained from the worst kinds of unbrotherliness:

"It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless."

-Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Defense Union?

The Stars Are Also Fire, 36.

"'Please believe me, the Human Defense Union is sincere about "human" meaning everyone. This is not a matter of race prejudice.'

"[Dagny] doubts that." (pp. 474-475)

 

So do I. Lunarians campaign for Lunar independence. Terran Moondwellers organize against them, even threatening to form a militia, and call themselves - the Human Defense Union. Further, the speaker in this dialogue, Stepan Huizinga, describes the Lunarians as "'...alien...'" (p. 474)

 

A while ago, in this country, there was an English Defence League. It was not simply a patriotic organization open to all Englishmen and women...

 

Dagny remembers Guthrie saying:

 

"'Xenophobia isn't pathological in itself. A degree of it is built into our DNA, and is healthy. Not all men are brothers. The trick is keeping it under control, and setting it aside when it isn't needed.'" (p. 475)

 

Here I disagree with Guthrie. The trick indeed! When is xenophobia needed? Unfortunately, in my experience, opposition to anti-immigrant xenophobia is all too frequently needed. On the other hand, I do not find myself experiencing a "degree" of xenophobia and having to keep it under control. 

A Philosophical Basis For SF?

A theory of history is useful when writing a future history series. Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization refers to a cyclical historical theory propounded by John K. Hord.

A theory of human nature is useful when speculating about human capabilities and prospects on a cosmic time-scale. Anderson's Harvest Of Stars future history presupposes that the memories and sense of identity of a human personality can be reproduced either in an artificial neural network or in a newly grown organic body, thus that consciousness is materially based, thus further that personal identity is not dependent on any unique immaterial soul.

Science fiction is about change. An sf writer should not merely project past or future societies into future periods - unless he can present a good reason to do this. And, even then, many details at least should differ.

I think that we can say more about human consciousness than just that it is materially based. Human beings are differentiated as a species by the fact they have changed their environment with hands and brain and have changed themselves in the process and continue to do so. They have changed themselves into homo sapiens through labor, language and abstract thought. This species can either destroy or transform an entire planet. Human beings are dynamic and plastic, not static. "Human nature" means the nature of humanity but should not imply any unchanging essence although it is commonly used to mean the latter.

With technologically produced abundant wealth, there will no longer be any need to accumulate, hoard, compete, fight or steal any more than we currently fight for the air that we breathe whereas, if even air comes to be in short supply, that will be a different matter. At present, poverty and deprivation cause violence which is ideologically rationalized in terms of received beliefs that otherwise would be of merely historical interest.

So what do I expect for the further future? Either extinction or a very different and much better world. However, I am not an sf writer so meanwhile I commend Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars and Genesis.

Addendum: People born into a completely different culture and brought up to live in a completely different way will not be people as we know them now. Those who are used to peace and prosperity have no reason to resort to crime or terrorism. 

Replies To Recent Comments

I am having problems commenting on my own blog and might have to get technical help.

Replying to comment on "Universal Exports":

Sean, Halo lives after the Book was banned.

Replying to comments on "Why Should It?":

Sean, You know from previous discussions how I will reply to this. 

Mr. Stirling, I know religions are more than stamp clubs but I still maintain that people of many different religions can coexist peacefully.

I hope that this post publishes and I might be just posting, not commenting, for a while.

Addendum: I can publish only one-word comments. At most.

Universal Exports

Think of the worst that humanity has to offer, then imagine that exported off-planet:

"...a Pilgrim...Puritan fanatics from the Years of Madness who'd gone to Mars so they could be unhappy in freedom. Rosenberg didn't care what a man's religion was, but nobody on Mars had a right to be so clannish and to deny cooperation as much as New Jerusalem. However, he shook hands politely, relishing the Pilgrim's ill-concealed distaste - they were anti-Semitic too."

-Poul Anderson, "Un-Man" IN The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 31-129 AT III, p. 43.

Even in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, James Blish's John Amalfi has to contend with fundamentalists called Warriors of God.

And Alan Moore's Halo Jones meets the Moabites:

 

"...they all belong to an ancient Terrestrial puritan cult that forbids everything.

"Obviously, the religion on Moab arrived with the colonists. They all carry this black 'Book' thing full of violent, frightening stories, long since banned on Earth."

-Alan Moore, The Complete Ballad Of Halo Jones (London, 1991), Book Three, 9, p. 1, panel 7, p. 2. panel 1.

 

(p. 2, panel 1, shows a "Book" with a cross on the cover.) 

After The Earth Book

"[Dominic Flandry's] chronicles had occupied five novels and two collections of shorter stories, written over a span of thirty-odd years."

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT INTRODUCTION, p. 191.

 

That does not sound like much, does it? Just five novels and two collections. The first of the collected stories was published in Planet Stories in January 1951 and the fifth of the novels in 1979. However, the number is correct:

 

the Young Flandry Trilogy (three novels);

one non-Flandry novel;

one non-Flandry short story (that could be published in the same volume as the novel);

a Captain Flandry trilogy (two collections and one novel);

an Admiral Flandry novel;

The Game Of Empire, "...a sort of coda..." (ibid.);

one post-Flandry collection.

 

Thus, ten volumes after The Earth Book Of Stormgate, if we revert to the pre-Saga reading order.

Why Should It?

 

The Stars Are Also Fire, 33.

"'Earth could send warheads that'd blow the whole asteroid to gravel, if Earth had to.'

"'If Earth had to, 'Kenmuir repeated. 'Why should it?'" (p. 454)

 

Why indeed? With vast technological wealth and unlimited space, what is left to fight about? See here. Civilizations with incompatible philosophies can simply go their own ways. And I suggest that an sf series could be written about peaceful exploration and discovery without any need to manufacture a continued conflict between control freaks and freedom lovers. Populations enjoying from birth the full benefits of material and social freedom will have neither the means nor the motivation to revive the old practice of imposing their will or ideas on others by force. We should not project unchanged attitudes into radically transformed conditions.

Old And Full Of Days

The Stars Are Also Fire, 34.

Dagny Beynac will download her personality so that she can retire from public life while her download continues to advise Moondwellers and Lunarians. Download Guthrie says that Dagny is:

"'Old and full of days.'" (p. 462)

- but does not make clear that this is a quote. (Gen. 25:8)

Then Guthrie says, "'...and lay you down with a will.'" (ibid.)

Thus, he quotes Robert Louis Stevenson's Requiem. Volume I of Robert Heinlein's Future History ends with a short story called "Requiem" that begins by quoting Stevenson's poem in full. So, over breakfast this morning, we contemplate Poul Anderson, Genesis, Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Heinlein.

Scene Setting

"They walked on into the autumn."

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT XIV, p. 188.

 

This concluding sentence reads like an expected or intended culmination of the entire Dominic Flandry series - and almost is. The following novel is a "coda":

 

"This book is a sort of coda to the biography of Dominic Flandry..."

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Flandry's Legacy, pp. 189-453 AT INTRODUCTION, p. 191.

 

This introduction, together with the fact that The Game Of Empire is collected in a volume of The Technic Civilization Saga, informs us, even before we have begun to read its text, that the novel is part of the Technic History. However, any text should be read and assessed without presuppositions. How soon does the novel itself tell its readers how it connects with any other works by the same author?

A young woman called Diana is on a colonized planet called Imhotep where a Pyramid houses Imperial offices and the sun is called Patricius. We appreciate the description of:

"...a brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and out on the tides of space."

-CHAPTER ONE, p. 195.

We recognize this as good sf writing by Poul Anderson but, so far, it could be set in almost any fictional future.

p. 196 refers to the Troubles and the Terran Empire. p. 197 states that the vaz-Siravo have been settled in the Seas of Yang and Yin. Now we know that we are reading a sequel to Ensign Flandry. And when a marine growls, "'Merseian bastards...,'" (p. 198) we feel at home.

The Life And Times Of Dominic Flandry

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes IV-VI, and the first two of the six works collected in Volume VII comprise "The Life and Times of Dominic Flandry," although they are more "Life" than "Times." 

In Volume V, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire, "Outpost of Empire" and The Day Of Their Return recount events occurring elsewhere between Flandry's promotion to Commander and the beginning of his career as a Captain. In Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy, The Game Of Empire recounts the beginning of his daughter, Diana's, career with some input from Admiral Flandry. There is no historical commentary as in the earlier Technic History although historically significant events occur like the usurpation of the Imperial Throne and (I think) the beginning of the decline of the Merseian Roidhunate.

Post-Hloch

It would have been good if Donvar Ayeghen or someone else from the Galactic Archaeological Society had replaced Hloch of Stormgate Choth as a regular commentator on the Technic History but this was not to be. Nor do the post-Earth Book Technic History installments have individual introductions with just two exceptions. First, Hank Davis, Compiler of The Technic Civilization Saga, contributes an introduction to "Sargasso of Lost Starships," fictitiously written by Michael Karageorge, a contemporary of Ayeghen. Is this valid? It does no harm and underlines that the entire series is fiction in any case.

In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume VI, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows is the last Captain Flandry installment. After that, Flandry is an Admiral. A Knight... has an italicized introduction and afterword that are unfortunately unsigned. Their perspective is that of a Dennitzan writing long after the events described in the novel. He tells us that:

the poet Andrei Simich celebrated Dennitzan heroes;

tundra thunder beneath herds of gromatz;

orliks stoop on their prey;

dyavos roar when hunting;

a vilya's call is deadly whereas guslars sing sweetly in spring;

Yovan Matavuly led the colonists through lightless space to Dennitza, their Morning Star;

Toman Obilich killed wild Vladimir on a Glacier;

Gwyth sailed through the storms of the Black Ocean;

Stefan Miyatovich repelled reavers during the Troubles, here called the Night Years;

Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich led a raid (described in the novel);

when Bodin returned in glory, maidens danced and sang and every bell in Zorkagrad pealed;

Kossara was canonized and Dennitza remained at peace while Bodin was Gospodar.

The history of Dennitza stretches away into a remote future beyond our ken.

The Saga, Volume III

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, collects six works, only three falling before the Afterword to the Earth Book and only two of those from the Earth Book itself. "Wingless," about David Falkayn's grandson and set during the colonization of the Hesperian Islands on Avalon, is written by Judith Dalmady/Lundgren whereas "Rescue on Avalon," which features an ancestor of Christopher Holm/Arinnian and is set during the colonization of the Coronan continent, is written by A. A. Craig. These two short stories, concluding the Earth Book, are preceded by Mirkheim, the last van Rijn/Falkayn/trader team novel, which has no introduction.

Hloch's Afterword to the Earth Book is immediately followed by Donvar Ayeghen's Introduction to "The Star Plunderer." Hloch completes the story of the Polesotechnic League. Ayeghen is the President of a much later Galactic Archeological Society. "The Star Plunderer" is about Manuel Argos, the Founder of the Terran Empire, which Ayeghen calls the First Empire. Thus, we have now reached the major turning point of the Technic History. Hloch lives in the period of the Terran Empire but collects stories from pre-Imperial periods. As such, he is a transitional character.

The Saga, Volume II

Of the seven works collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, three have Earth Book introductions written by Hloch. "Day of Burning," about Merseia, and "Lodestar," about Mirkheim, were written by Hloch and Arinnian based on records that van Rijn and Falkayn had left on Hermes. "A Little Knowledge" was written by Arinnian based on a story brought home by the xenologist, Fluoch of Mistwood.

"Territory," about van Rijn, has the most historically authoritative introduction possible because it is no less than a passage about the Polesotechnic League quoted from the first van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit." That story, requiring revision before it could be collected in a Technic History volume, was not included in Trader To The Stars but was nevertheless quoted at the beginning of "Territory." In David Falkayn: Star Trader, this two-page passage is headed "A HISTORICAL REFLECTION."

"The Trouble Twisters," about the trade pioneer crew led by Falkayn, is "introduced" by Urwain the Wide-Faring's account of his encounter with Noah Arkwright. This is simply a separate story. "The Master Key," about van Rin, is preceded by a verse from Shelley and Satan's World, about van Rijn, Falkayn and the trader team, has no introduction.

Concluding The Van Rijn Method

Noah Arkwright, introducing the second David Falkayn story, "A Sun Invisible," discusses the galaxy but not its history. As in Poul Anderson's After Doomsday, there are many intelligent species, many of them similar enough to mankind for communication and interaction.

After "A Sun Invisible," The Van Rijn Method collects three more works from the Earth Book, with introductions by Hloch, and the first of the three van Rijn stories that had previously been collected as Trader To The Stars.

One of the people involved in the events of "The Season of Forgiveness" told the story to Emil Dalmady who relayed it to his daughter who fictionalized it for Morgana. Thus, we read her fiction, not a historically more accurate account.

The Man Who Counts is a historical novel although Hloch believes that it is:

"...reasonably factual..."

-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT INTRODUCTION, p. 337.

"Esau" is the story of Emil Dalmady as told by his daughter. The reading order has changed. Thus, the Introduction to "The Season of Forgiveness" referred to the Dalmadys as if we already knew of them.

"Hiding Place" is introduced by "Le Matelot" who evokes the expansive period of the Polesotechnic League.

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III, beautifully integrate Trader To The Stars, The Trouble Twisters and The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Vance Hall

So far, The Van Rijn Method has presented "The Saturn Game" followed by the first four items in the Earth Book. Next come the first two installments in the career of David Falkayn, originally collected in The Trouble Twisters. Falkayn is an apprentice, then a journeyman.

The first Falkayn story, "The Three-Cornered Wheel," is introduced by someone called Vance Hall who claims to be commenting on the philosophy of Noah Arkwright. Hall summarizes some technological history:

uranium fission disproved the idea that it was impossible to release energy from atoms;

lasers disproved the idea that energy projectors/"ray guns" were impractical;

artificial positive and negative gravity fields disproved the idea that spacefarers must always be subject to acceleration pressure;

the quantum hyperjump disproved Einstein's light speed limit.

The apparent continuity from fission and lasers to gravity control and hyperjump makes this sequence seem very plausible.

James Ching

In the case of the second Ythrian story, "The Problem of Pain," Peter Berg conversed with someone who corresponded with someone whose heirs kept the correspondence and Rennhi found a copy of it. In the case of the first Adzel story, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," James Ching wrote a journal which his descendants kept and made available to Rennhi - a slightly less roundabout route and one that adds Jim Ching to our list of Technic historians. Jim's account of his friendship with the later famous Adzel, mentioned even by Dominic Flandry's daughter, is autobiographical, not fictional.

Jim tells his story and adds to the history as do many other other one-off characters throughout this series. In any future history series, each story has to stand on its own feet and contribute to the totality, a technique developed by Robert Heinlein in his Future History and perfected by Poul Anderson in the Technic History.

A.A. Craig

The fourth work collected in The Van Rijn Method is the first Nicholas van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit." Hloch informs his readers that he has taken this story from Tales of the Great Frontier by A. A. Craig. I take this to mean that "Margin of Profit" is to be understood as a work of historical fiction within the Technic History. 

Hloch's Introduction to his last Earth Book story tells us more about Craig:

"For his last chapter, Hloch returns to A. A. Craig's Tales of the Great Frontier. The author was a Terran who traveled widely, gathering material for his historical narratives, during a pause in the Troubles, several lifetimes after the World-Taking."

-Poul Anderson, "Rescue on Avalon" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 307-322 AT p. 307.

Hloch again summarizes Technic History. The Troubles fell between the Commonwealth/League period and the Terran Empire. (Hloch, living and writing in the Imperial period, knows nothing of the Long Night or the subsequent civilizations.)

 

Although Craig's published works are historical narratives or fictions, the material that he gathered comprises data that could be used by subsequent historians.

Rennhi And Others

 

In Poul Anderson's The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method:

"The Saturn Game" is a third person narrative with no viewpoint character;

"Wings of Victory" is a first person narrative with its narrator mostly off-stage;

"The Problem of Pain" is a third person account of Peter Berg's encounter with Ythrians on Gray/Avalon framed by a first person description by an unnamed character of his subsequent conversations with Berg on Lucifer.

Hloch's Earth Book Introduction to "The Problem of Pain" explains how the Solar Commonwealth had emerged from many Terrestrial nations but also refers to the then current Terran Empire, thus concertinaing centuries of Technic History.

The first person narrator of the framing passages in "The Problem of Pain" had written his account in a private correspondence preserved by the recipient's Terrestrial heirs and copied by a visiting historian. Rennhi, author of The Sky Book Of Stormgate, found that copy in the archives of the University of Fleurville on Esperance and her son, Hloch, included the account in the Earth Book. 

Thus, the list of Technic historians now includes the unnamed author of a private correspondence, the unnamed historian who copied that correspondence and Rennhi.

The Second And Third Technic Historians, Hloch And Maeve Downey

The second story in The Technic Civilization Saga,Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, is "Wings of Victory," which is the first story in The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Therefore, the second historian in The Van Rijn Method is Hloch of Stormgate Choth, compiler of the Earth Book. Hloch introduces seven of the eleven installments of the Technic History in the Saga, Volume I, three of the seven installments in the Saga, Volume II, and two of the six installments in Volume III, signing off with an Afterword at the midpoint of Volume III.

Paradoxically, Hloch's Introduction to "Wings of Victory" refers to the Terran War as to a recent past event although the consecutive reader of the Saga will not learn of this war until the concluding installment in Volume III. "Wings of Victory" is a chapter in Maeve Downey's autobiography, Far Adventure, so she is our third historian.

More Minamoto

In "The Saturn Game," Minamoto, writing in 2057, refers to:

"...the middle twentieth century." (p. 25)

What years are mid-twentieth century? 1945-1955? The opening story of Robert Heinlein's Future History, published in 1939, was set in 1951. The earliest written installment of Poul Anderson's Technic History, published in January 1951, was set over a thousand years in the future. "The Saturn Game," published in 1981, is the earliest Technic History installment in terms of chronological order of fictitious events and Minamoto's comment about the middle twentieth century is the only reference in the entire Technic History to the period when that History began to be written. Thus, it is the only link between those of us who were alive mid-twentieth century and van Rijn, Flandry etc. Minamoto says that:

"In Western civilization [adult psychodrama] first appeared on a noticeable scale during the middle twentieth century." (ibid.)

- so maybe he means some time in the 1960s?

Historians In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III (of VII)

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III, collect twenty four installments of the Technic History, including four novels, whereas Volumes IV-VII collect nineteen installments, including seven novels. Volumes I-IV have seventeen introductions by fictional future historians whereas IV-VII have only one.

Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, begins with "The Saturn Game," which is divided into four parts, numbered I-IV. Each part is introduced by Francis L. Minamoto of Apollo University in Leyburg on Luna, writing in 2057. Minamoto is the first fictional historian although he writes shortly after the events that he discusses.

In his second introduction, Minamoto reviews some recent history. Space-based industries had:

"...offered the hope of rescuing civilization, and Earth, from ruin..."

-Poul Anderson, "The Saturn Game" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 1-73 AT II, p. 6.

 

A large, solar-powered vessel carried a crew of a thousand to Mars orbit from where they studied Mars and launched minerals from Phobos to Earth. Similar craft explored the rest of the Solar System. A Brittanic-American consortium sent the Chronos to Saturn.

This is not only long before the Polesotechnic League but even before Technic civilization and the hyperdrive. However, it is the beginning of the Technic History and the link to that "...violent period of global unrest known as the Chaos..." (Sandra Miesel, p. 663) which we currently experience.

Historical Fictions Within A Future History

In Poul Anderson's Technic History:

The Man Who Counts is a historical novel originally published either on Terra or on Hermes with different authors' names given;

"Margin of Profit" and "Rescue on Avalon" are stories taken from A.A. Craig's Tales of the Great Frontier;

"Esau," The Season of Forgiveness" and "Wingless" are stories written by Judith Dalmady/Lundgren for the Avalonian periodical, Morgana;

"A Little Knowledge" was specially written for the Earth Book by Christopher Holm;

"Day of Burning" and "Lodestar" were specially written by Holm and Hloch;

"The Star Plunderer" is possibly and "Sargasso of Lost Starships" is probably historical fiction.

Most of these accounts are believed to be based on fact but Poul Anderson would have been free to write other accounts contradicting them in their details. Maybe there was not really a John Henry Reeves who had known Manuel Argos - and so on.

Five Future Histories

We have recently mentioned five future history series:

James Blish's Cities In Flight

 

Star Trek

 

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, Technic History and Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy

(This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of future history series. We have done that often enough before.)

Of these five series, three are written by Poul Anderson and in no way exhaust his future historical works. Further, the Technic History continues to strike me as richer and more detailed than any other such series despite its apparent simplicity - van Rijn, Falkayn and League followed by Flandry and Empire. The series is considerably more than that with other installments set before, during, between and after the two main periods. In fact, I was rereading the Harvest Of Stars history but was somehow diverted into reconsidering the Technic History.

We will probably return to The Stars Are Also Fire soon but first I must go out on other business this evening. Real life continues to interrupt fiction.

Future Biographies

  

(That cover looks like a Star Trek film poster.)

David Falkayn's career from apprentice and womanizer to Founder of Avalon and monogamously married man in recounted in The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World, Mirkheim and The Earth Book Of Stormgate although, in the second last story in the Earth Book, David is merely mentioned as the grandfather of the young Avalonian, Nathaniel Falkayn.

Dominic Flandry's career from ensign to Fleet Admiral and informal Imperial advisor is recounted in eight volumes from Ensign Flandry to The Game Of Empire and, in that last novel, he is the father of Diana Crowfeather.

The Technic History is also full of young characters beginning careers that we cannot see: James Ching, Eric Wace, Emil Dalmady, Juan Hernandez, Nat Falkayn, Diana Crowfeather etc.

Hloch, compiler of the Earth Book, comments:

"That [two final tales] are told from youthful hoverpoints is, in his mind, very right."

-Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 293-306 AT p. 294.

By an appropriate contrast, Judith Dalmady/Lundgren wrote "Wingless" for the Avalonian periodical, Morgana, "...in her high old age..." (ibid.)

Greater Treks II

Here it becomes relevant to quote Sandra Miesel's conclusions to Poul Anderson's first two future history series.

The Psychotechnic History

"To Earth there's no returning. She vanished with the childhood of our race. Yet as a poet once said, 'No matter how far we range, the salt and rhythm of her tides will always be in our blood.' One chapter has ended. Humankind's saga flows on."

-Sandra Miesel IN Poul Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3, p. 216.

Humankind's saga flows on. The adventure continues.

The Technic History

"Although Technic Civilization is extinct, another - perhaps better - turn on the Wheel of Time has begun for our galaxy. The Commonalty must inevitably decline just as the League and Empire did before it. But the Wheel will go on turning as long as there are thinking minds to wonder at the stars."

-Sandra Miesel, Chronology of Technic Civilization IN Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 611-619 AT p. 619.

The Wheel will go on turning. The adventure continues.

Technology has not become extinct but "Technic civilization" had become the name of the successor of Western civilization. That successor survived the Time of Troubles but ended with the Long Night following the Fall of the Terran Empire. 

The League, the Empire and the Commonalty are different kinds of organizations. The League is a merchants' alliance transcending planetary governments whereas the Empire is an interstellar government and the Commonalty is a service organization in one spiral arm. Nevertheless, each of these organizations defines one period of Technic, then post-Technic, history.

Greater Treks

Years ago, at a Memorial Evening for James Blish in London, the British publisher, Charles Monteith, described Blish's Cities In Flight future history series as "a higher and greater Star Trek" (quoting from memory). This same description could also be applied to Poul Anderson's Technic History. "Wings of Victory" and "The Sharing of Flesh" could be adapted as Star Trek episodes. The Merseian Roidhunate is a higher and greater Klingon Empire. Aycharaych is like a more substantial Spock although on the wrong side.

One of the early Star Trek films was advertised with the slogan: "The adventure continues..." This phrase certainly applies to the Technic History. The comprehensive The Earth Book Of Stormgate completes an entire historical narrative stretching from the Star Trek-like Grand Survey to the aftermath of the Terran War on Avalon yet this same Earth Book is followed by the nine-volume Flandy period and its one-volume sequel. The Merseians are perhaps finally being worn down by the end of The Game Of Empire. The post-Flandry volume covers no less than four periods, millennia apart, and a new era of unprecedented interstellar wealth is just beginning at the end of the concluding installment when human civilizations have spread through several spiral arms of the galaxy. The adventure continues.

Subtleties And Complexities V

The previous post refers directly or indirectly to eleven of the forty three installments of the Technic History or perhaps to twelve of forty four installments if the Earth Book interstitial passages count as an additional installment. They certainly increase our knowledge and enhance our enjoyment by informing us that:

 James Ching settled in Catawrayannis;

children of Emil Dalmady accompanied Falkayn to Avalon;

Judith Dalmady/Lundgren wrote three of the stories in the Earth Book;

Christopher Holm wrote three of the stories;

van Rijn and Falkayn anticipated the Time of Troubles by moving data units from the Solar System to Falkayn's home planet, Hermes.

These passages also introduce the Avalonian Ythrian characters, Renhi and her son Hloch, thus adding immeasurably to the Technic History.

Subtleties And Complexities IV

The opening installment of The Earth Book Of Stormgate is set during the first Grand Survey (interstellar exploration), therefore long before the founding of the Polesotechnic League. (The opening installment of The Technic Civilization Saga is set even earlier during interplanetary exploration before FTL.)

The concluding two installments of the Earth Book, both set on Avalon, the planet colonized by David Falkayn, are, at least according to Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, also set in the same century as the dissolution of the League, therefore before:

the slave revolt that led to the founding of the Terran Empire, as described in "The Star Plunderer";

the early Terran Empire, as described in "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

the unsuccessful Terran Imperial attempt to annex Avalon, as described in The People Of The Wind.

However, the Earth Book interstitial passages are fictitiously written after the events of The People Of The Wind. Thus, the Earth Book finally completes the first section of the Technic History and paves the way for Dominic Flandry defending the Terran Empire in the Young Flandry Trilogy. (And he mostly defends it against the Merseians who had survived supernova radiation thanks to Falkayn.)

Subtleties And Complexities III

It is the dynamism of that first main section of Poul Anderson's Technic History that makes it endlessly fascinating. Fictional biography becomes fictional history. Generations, then centuries, elapse but the narrative focus moves backwards as well as forwards. The account of the Polesotechnic League period seems to have been completed in four volumes, two collections each with three stories followed by two novels, but then a further six stories and one novel set in that same period are presented in the longer collection, The Earth Book Of Stormgate. That collection is united by an introduction and interstitial passages derived from the background material provided by the novel, The People Of The Wind, set on David Falkayn's colony planet. 

"Lodestar," (1973) about the discovery of Mirkheim, was written and published before Mirkheim, (1977) about the war for Mirkheim. However, in the original book reading order of the Technic History, Mirkheim is the concluding volume of the Polesotechnic League tetralogy whereas "Lodestar" is first read later in the Earth Book where it is presented as if it were a later-written prequel:

"Also in the records left on Hermes was information about an episode which had long been concealed: how Nicholas van Rijn came to the world which today we know as Mirkheim."

-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 631-680 AT p. 631.

 

Falkayn, not van Rijn, discovered Mirkheim but the planet's existence had been kept secret until van Rijn's investigation led him to it. I am able to quote the Earth Book Introduction to "Lodestar" from Volume II of The Technic Civilization Saga because the Saga reproduces the entire contents of the Earth Book although in a different order. It is as if the texts keep moving and will not stay still in a single order.

Subtleties And Complexities II

See Subtleties And Complexities. 

In "The Master Key," the reference to "T'Kela" is a reference to "Territory" and the reference to "Borthu" is a reference to "Margin of Profit."  Thus, "The Master Key" refers to three other works, only one of them in Trader To The Stars. Thus further, while reading this collection, we know that more has gone before.

The pre-Saga book reading order of the first main section of Poul Anderson's Technic History:

(the van Rijn novel in paperback, badly copy-edited and with a "ludicrous title");

a van Rijn collection;

a collection about the early career of van Rijn's protege, David Falkayn;

two novels about both characters and the beginning of the end of the League;

a novel set centuries later on Falkayn's colony planet;

a longer collection nearly completing this section of the History and including the van Rijn novel.

 

The works chronologically preceding "Hiding Place" include those indicated here and the first two of the three Falkayn stories in The Trouble Twisters.

Subtleties And Complexities

 

The immediately preceding post, Flandry And Amalfi, has diverted my attention to yet again contemplating the subtleties and complexities of Poul Anderson's massive future history series, the History of Technic Civilization. A long series of short stories and serialized novels was published in magazines from January 1951 to 1981 with some stories instead appearing in original themed anthologies and two further novels published as books without prior serialization in 1979 and 1985. The order of writing and publication is not the chronological order of fictional events. Anderson wrote not only sequels but also prequels to previously published works. Also, when an sf series has grown to become a future history series, the author later adds installments to earlier periods.

After magazines and anthologies came the publication of volumes written only by Anderson. Stories were republished in collections and novels were republished as single volumes. However, the order of reading was not yet that of fictional events. Finally, Baen Books published the seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga in which every installment can for the first time be read in chronological order.

The original book reading order begins with Trader To The Stars followed by The Trouble Twisters whereas the Saga begins with Volume I, The Van Rijn Method followed by Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader. Since Nicholas van Rijn is the titular character of Trader To The Stars and David Falkayn is the leader of the "Trouble Twisters" team, there is a parallelism between the two reading orders. However, "Hiding Place" is the first of three stories in Trader To The Stars but is the eleventh of eleven stories in The Van Rijn Method so clearly a lot has happened in the history before Trader To The Stars starts.

The second story in Trader To The Stars, "Territory," begins by quoting from "Margin of Profit," the earliest written van Rijn short story, and the third story, "The Master Key," refers to van Rijn as the conqueror of Bothu, Diomedes and T'Kela. "Diomedes" is a reference to the first van Rijn novel.

I am out of here.

Flandry And Amalfi

The Poul Anderson Appreciation blog is bigger than the James Blish Appreciation blog because Anderson's output was much bigger than Blish's. Anderson wrote quickly and easily whereas Blish wrote slowly and with difficulty and accepted Star Trek adaptation work for money reasons. 

Dominic Flandry who repeatedly thwarts the Merseian Roidhunate appears in eight volumes whereas John Amalfi who prevents the Vegan Tyranny from making a comeback appears in only three. (Both Flandry and Amalfi cameo in a novel about a younger character.) This comparison is misleading because Flandry's career consists in defending the Terran Empire against threats like the Merseians whereas Amalfi's career does not consist in defending Earthman civilization against threats like the Vegan orbital fort. Amalfi is the mayor of a flying city that trades with colonized planets, thus he might be described as a "trader to the stars," like Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn or David Falkayn. However, Amalfi's aim is not the accumulation of personal wealth but simply the survival of the city. Thus, he is more akin to the captain of a Nomad ship in Anderson's earlier future history series. The first Nomad captain thinks that there will be:

"...a fleet, a mobile city hurtling from sun to sun."

-Poul Anderson, "Gypsy" IN Anderson, Star Ship (New York, 1982), pp. 12-34 AT p. 32.

 

- and that this fleet will be the bloodstream of an interstellar civilization. Amalfi describes Okie cites as bees pollinating the galaxy.

A Contemporary Parallel

With a starting point in some works by Poul Anderson, we have discussed sf characters for whom interstellar space means escape and freedom from Terrestrial tyrannies and we have also compared these characters with the earliest European settlers of North America.  Perhaps to complete this picture, here is the voice of the black hero of a contemporary thriller:

"'I have no plans to ever return to the U.S. I'm seriously considering renouncing my citizenship and becoming a full-fledged Antiguan, and if I never set foot on U.S. soil again, I'll die a happy man...

"'The Feds nailed me once and almost ruined my life; it's not going to happen again. I'm lucky in that I'm getting a second chance, and for some strange reason I'm a bit hesitant to subject myself to your jurisdiction again.'"

-John Grisham, The Racketeer (London, 2018), CHAPTER 42, p. 364.

Different though the genres are, Grisham's hero reminds me of Anderson's Rinnaldir saying that the Oort Cloud is too close and Blish's former Okies congratulating themselves that their newly colonized Greater Magellanic Cloud is receding from the Milky Way.

Again Anderson And Blish - And Lewis

Both in A Case Of Conscience by James Blish and in "The Problem of Pain" by Poul Anderson, a Christian questions his faith after an encounter with an intelligent species on an extra-solar planet. Apart from this similarity, the two narratives could not be more different. A Case Of Conscience is part of Blish's Haertel Scholium, a branching future historical sequence, and is also Volume III of his multi-genre After Such Knowledge Trilogy whereas "The Problem of Pain" is an installment of Anderson's main future history series, the History of Technic Civilization. Whereas human-Ythrian interactions are a major narrative thread in the Technic History, Blish's Lithians are introduced in A Case Of Conscience and their planet is destroyed at the end of that novel - although it is mentioned as still existing millennia later in Blish's pantropy future history series. (Earth, Mars and other Solar planets exist in different fictional futures so why not also Lithia etc?)

At this point, another author enters the dialogue. CS Lewis:

wrote several works of Christian apologetics, including a volume called The Problem Of Pain;

also wrote some theologically themed sf;

is referenced in Volumes II and III of After Such Knowledge.

Lewis's character, Elwin Ransom, discovers that, within the Solar System at least, only Earth has "Fallen" in the theological sense. By contrast, later in the Technic History, Anderson's Fr. Axor acknowledges that the many intelligent species in the galaxy are prone to sin. Whereas Ransom averts the need for a second Incarnation or some other such divine intervention on Venus, Axor seeks for evidence of a divine incarnation on at least one other planet elsewhere in the galaxy. Anderson's and Lewis's narratives seem to invert each other.

Interstellar Flight And Freedom II

Years ago, my "favorite" sf writer was James Blish because I had read Earthman, Come Home, then other volumes of Cities In Flight, then other works by Blish. I liked his three parallel future histories: Okies, pantropy and Haertel. At that time, Poul Anderson was further down my list of top sf writers. I associated him with (good) space opera: Dominic Flandry.

Interstellar Flight And Freedom addressed the theme of interstellar escape from Terrestrial tyranny in sf novels by Heinlein, Anderson, Blish and Stirling. Blish's Cities In Flight/Okies future history embodies this theme twice. At the end of Volume I, spaceships escape from the Solar System as the Bureaucratic State conquers Earth and bans space flight. At the end of Volume III, former Okies colonize the Greater Magellanic Cloud, which is receding from the Milky Way, while their culture goes under in the home galaxy. However, Volume IV, The Triumph Of Time, expresses a contradictory theme: everything, even the universe, ends.

Poul Anderson's World Without Stars describes interstellar/intergalactic freedom on a vaster scale. Spacemen with indefinitely extended lifespans, in this respect resembling Blish's Okies, can make an instantaneous jump between any two points in space although they must first accelerate to match the velocity of their target galaxy. Anderson also combines intergalactic flight with the end of the universe in Tau Zero.

My perennial conclusion: read Anderson and Blish. 

Religious Discussions

We often discuss religion here because we follow wherever Poul Anderson's texts take us. I have been out of town today but mentally drafted a post for another blog:

Stages Of Development In The Origins Of Buddhism And Christianity

I ask Poul Anderson fans to read this post and maybe to think of it as the agenda for a discussion between Adzel and Axor in the Old Phoenix.

James Blish was a hard sf writer who addressed religious issues even more often than Poul Anderson and next on this blog, either this evening or tomorrow, will be a continuation of our Anderson-Blish comparisons.

Interstellar Flight And Freedom

The Stars Are Also Fire, 33.

In American sf, interstellar travel is the ultimate symbol of freedom both because it implies unlimited flight beyond the constraints of the Solar System and because it can also be presented as the ultimate escape from a repressive regime on Earth:

"...Rinnaldir...said more than once, like when recruiting for the migration, that the Oort Cloud itself is too close to Earth. Nothing less than an interstellar passage could give gap enough to stay free, to keep from being swallowed up eventually by the Federation.'" (p. 453)

The speaker in this passage, Aleka, adds, "'His idea of freedom, not mine.'" (ibid.)

This theme of escape from "the Federation" or an equivalent can also be found in:

Robert Heinlein's Future History, Volume III, Methuselah's Children

Poul Anderson's Rustum History

SM Stirling's Draka History

James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume I, They Shall Have Stars

No Denial

The Stars Are Also Fire, 32.

Lunarians differ from Terrans, psychologically and culturally. When Dagny Beynac deduces that and how her grandson, Erann, has murdered the Governor of Luna, he is neither evasive nor repentant:

"'Investigation can belike find traces of me in the room. Denial can but degrade me, and I will not make it.'" (p. 442)

Spoken like a Vulcan? Erann's response fits what we know of Lunarians and sf writers work hard to imagine alien motivations, as with Anderson's Ythrians, Merseians and others. However, Terran human psychology is extremely variable. We can easily imagine Erann's response coming from representatives of several past or current cultures. But, then again, Lunarians are our fellow hominids.

Philosophy Of Consciousness II

Poul Anderson's science fiction encompasses:

history

future history in the light of past history

cosmogony and cosmology

exobiology

social organization, both economic and political

warfare

quantum mechanics

the material basis of consciousness

etc

 

From Anderson, readers might proceed not only to other sf writers, Wells, Heinlein etc, but also to non-fiction - history, science and philosophy. Thus, their reading might alternate between fictional accounts of conscious AI and philosophical discussions of the nature of consciousness. After reading Anderson's The Stars Are Also Fire and John Searle's The Mystery Of Consciousness, I offer the following observations.

We can fully describe the movements of a clockwork toy soldier without attributing consciousness to the toy. Although we might tell a story, that the soldier is marching to war, we are in no danger of mistaking this fiction for reality. Therefore, we have no reason to attribute consciousness to the toy and indeed take for granted that it is not conscious.

 

We can fully describe electrochemical inter-cellular interactions within a brain without attributing consciousness to the brain. However, the simplest explanation of another human being's social and linguistic interactions is that he is conscious as I know that I am. (Indeed, if I were not conscious, then I would not wonder about anyone else's consciousness.) How can an apparently unconscious brain cause apparently conscious behavior?

 

See also Philosophy Of Consciousness. 

Expansion But Separation?

In Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars future history series, some Terrans want to spread through the Solar System and Lunarians are human beings genetically altered to live comfortably and healthily in Lunar gravity. If it really were the case that Terrans and Lunarians were temperamentally unable to live harmoniously in a single society, then maybe it would be advisable to divide the Solar System between them? -

Terrans on Earth and on some asteroids and outer satellites;

 

Lunarians on the Moon and other asteroids and outer satellites;

 

both species settling different hemispheres on Mars.

 

I would not usually agree to such social separation but we are not used to dealing with two intelligent species either. Each would have to be able to visit the other's territories for many reasons and there would also have to be diplomatic relations between the two different kinds of realms.

 

As it happens, some Terrans settle an extra-solar planet while some Lunarians settle asteroids in the same system. Also, Lunarians rediscover and settle the eccentrically orbiting Solar planetoid, Proserpina.

 

If there is not enough space for everyone, then someone somewhere is getting it very wrong.