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.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember disapproving of Hloch's dismissal of the problem of who exactly wrote that historical novel about Nicholas van Rijn. A dedicated scholar would have investigated that question thoroughly, even perhaps going to Terra and Hermes to consult first hand sources and then come to a conclusion about the authorship of the book.
I am inclined to accept "The Star Plunderer" as "mostly true" and "Sargasso of Lost Starships" as "very probably historical fiction."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree about Hloch - if he could afford to travel to Hermes or Terra - but I think that this passage was Poul Anderson dismissing the THE WAR OF THE WING-MEN version as unimportant.
Paul.
Note that historical fictions, or the more respectable branches thereof, have to be "more true" the more well-known the period in question is.
Probably in the Technic History Manuel Argos' early life has been very exhaustively researched, while events out on the frontier ("Sargasso of Lost Spaceships") would be much less so, and hence more given to taking liberties.
I'd also be surprised if well-researched biographies of van Rijn, and the founders of Avalon, weren't available.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Correct. GOOD historical novels stay true to what their authors knew, from research, was true or likely to be true. I can easily think of examples from Anderson's own works: such as ROGUE SWORD, THE KING OF YS, or THE LAST VIKING. And a special favorite of mine is William Stearns Davis' THE BEAUTY OF THE PURPLE, a historical novel about the Eastern Roman Emperor Leo III and how he defeated the Muslim siege of Constantinople in 717-18.
I agree, I'm sure the life of the Founder of the Terran Empire was exhaustively and zealously studied during and after his lifetime. AND becoming a person around whom legends accumulated. And we do see mention of Hloch referring his readers to "standard biographies" of David Falkayn. But Hloch also had to urge those readers to pay more attention to Nicholas van Rijn, that he was much more prominent and better known off Avalon than was Falkayn.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
But Hloch's choth was a wealthy one and could easily have paid the expenses of him going to Terra and Hermes for first hand research about his book.
I want to take a closer look at the question of the texts of WAR OF THE WING MEN/THE MAN WHO COUNTS. My copy of the June 1978 Gregg Press edition of that novel includes two Introductions by Charles N. Brown and Sandra Miesel. This is what Brown wrote on pages vii-viii: "The present [Gregg Press] edition has been corrected in several places where Ace made unauthorized changes (bridge paragraph on pp. 29-30, and end of last full paragraph on p. 153." Ace Books allegedly and wrongly removed this text now restored to pages 29-30 (in italics): "So dense is this air that if it held proportionate amounts of oxygen, or even of nitrogen, it would poison me. Luckily, the Diomedean atmosphere is a full 79 percent neon. Oxygen and nitrogen are lesser constituents. Their partial pressures do not amount to very much more than on Earth. Likewise carbon dioxide and water vapor." And on page 153 we see Old Nick saying: "When I am attacked, I turn the OTHER CHEEK" (capitalized by me to show that was the text restored to the Gregg Press edition). Here somebody at Ace Books allegedly bungled and omitted "other cheek."
There might have been other instances where Anderson's preferred text was restored to the Gregg Press version, but these were the ones cited by Brown. However, I have a problem with Brown's comments. I have a copy of the 1958 edition of WAR OF THE WING-MEN by Ace books and this is what I found at exactly the same place on pages 29-30: "So dense is this air that if it held proportionate amounts of oxygen or even of nitrogen, it would poison me. Luckily the Diomedean atmosphere is a full 79 percent neon. Oxygen and nitrogen are lesser constituents. Their partial pressures do not amount to very much more than on Earth. Likewise carbon dioxide and water vapor." And on page 153 the Ace Books text also has "other cheek." So Brown erred in accusing Ace books of removing the texts I quoted from WAR OF THE WING-MEN. If Ace Books mangled the text of THE MAN WHO COUNTS, it was not at the places claimed by Brown.
I checked the same locations for these texts of THE MAN WHO COUNTS in THE EARTH BOOK OF STORGATE, and they were the same as what I have been quoting. So, no problem there!
Ad astra! Sean
Or just the expense of hiring a research firm.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Meaning Hloch could have simply hired a research firm to check the accuracy of texts originating from Terra or Hermes? Including sending him copies with notarized attestations to their accuracy? That is one way of doing it!
But I'm still bothered by the errors I discovered Charles Brown m ade in his comments about the text of WAR OF THE WING-MEN in the introduction he wrote for the Gregg Press edition of that book. I THOUGHT I read somewhere of Anderson criticizing Ace Books for mutilating his text for that story. As seen below for the introduction he wrote for the 1978 Gregg Press edition of THE LONG WAY HOME (page v), that was what Ace Books did for this novel.
THIS is a rather early work of mine. It first appeared in ASTOUNDING
SCIENCE FICTION under its proper title THE LONG WAY HOME. Subsequently
a paperback house dubbed it NO WORLD OF THEIR OWN. Well, I've been
saddled with worse. What was really infuriating was the stupid copy
editing, done without my knowledge or consent, which mangled espec-
ally the latter part of the novel. However, what remained must have
had some durability, for it saw quite a number of reprints and
translations. Nowadays science fiction writers get far more consid-
eration, as evidenced by the eagerness of the Gregg Press editors
to restore the proper text of THE LONG WAY HOME for this edition.
And it was Ace Books which mutilated the first book publication of THE LONG WAY HOME in 1955! Which makes me wonder if protests by Anderson prevented it from mangling those bits of WAR OF THE WING-MEN (1958) at those locations in the story Charles Brown accused it of doing in his introduction for the Gregg Press edition in 1978. All Brown had to do was check his copy of the Ace Books version and he would have seen he was wrong about the examples he chose.
I hope I can find some comments by Anderson about the text of THE MAN WHO COUNTS, to see if he believed Ace Books had damaged his preferred text in 1958. I'm starting to think it was only the ludicrous title chosen by Ace that he objected to.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"After being serialized in ASTOUNDING (today's ANALOG) it had a paperback edition. The latter was badly copy-edited and saddled with the ludicrous title of WAR OF THE WING-MEN. I am happy that now, at last, the proper text and name can be restored."
-AFTERWORD to THE MAN WHO COUNTS in THE VAN RIJN METHOD, pp. 513-514.
This "AFTERWORD" was an Introduction in an edition of the novel after WAR OF THE WING-MEN but before THE TECHNIC CIVILIZATION SAGA.
Paul.
So we now have the proper text of THE MAN WHO COUNTS.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Many thanks! It must have been that Afterword to THE MAN WHO COUNTS I was trying to remember, from a copy I saw of THE VAN RIJN METHOD. So WAR OF THE WING-MEN was mutilated by Ace Books, but not at the locations Charles Brown was commenting on. Obviously, it would take a detailed page by comparison of the restored text with the Ace Books version to find the damaged portions in the latter.
Mr. Stirling: I hope you have not had the troubles Anderson had with bungling editors!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, there was the copy editor that took out every semicolon in a book…
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that surprises me! It would be analogous to a copy editor who hated capitalization and wanted to force writers to use only lower case for everything. Albeit I doubt he would get far!
Ad astra! Sean
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