Cycles

Poul Anderson, "Science Fiction and History" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 125-135.

Anderson refers to those philosophers of history whose theories of historical cycles imply:

"...that we will make the same old mistakes over and over again, with the same old consequences, though at the time these will always be called new and progressive. As I have remarked elsewhere, the lessons of history aren't really hard to learn; the trouble is that hardly anyone wants to learn them." (p. 133)

The most powerful expression of such a theory in science fiction is Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, in particular its novel, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, and in particular that passage in which Chunderban Desai in conversation with Dominic Flandry spells out the stages and time scales of (just barely) avoidable decline. Desai's account rings true, resonates now and refers back to the events of the earlier pivotal novel, Mirkheim, thus binding the Technic History into a fictional chronological and historical unity. Nicholas van Rijn, last seen in Mirkheim, is a historical figure to Flandry. The History climaxes at a time when Flandry is long forgotten and when van Rijn's and Flandry's Anglic language is long dead. For the most comprehensive future history series in sf, read Poul Anderson's Technic History.

More About Diversity And Freedom On An Interstellar Scale

"'The universe is too big for any one pattern. No man can understand or control it, let alone a government...

"'If man is going to live throughout the galaxy, he's got to be free to take his own roads, the ones his direct experience shows him are best for his circumstances. And that way, won't the race realize all its potential? Is there any other way we can, than by trying everything out, everywhere?...

"'Let's find how many kinds of society, human and nonhuman, can get along without a policeman's gun pointed at them. I don't think there's any limit...

"'We're laying the foundation of ' - he hunted for words - 'admiralty. Man's, throughout the universe.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Star Fox (London, 1968), CHAPTER TEN, pp. 201-203.

I have had to select in order to quote. Please read or reread the entire novel. There is potential conflict here. If people try everything everywhere, then some of the societies built will be oppressive but they will have to liberate themselves, not rely on "...a policeman's gun..." from outside.

And freedom should always return:

"...a slave is not bred or trained to think for himself. This may be one reason why freedom, unstable, inefficient, stamped to oblivion again and again, still rises new throughout all history."

-Poul Anderson, The Long Way Home (Frogmore, St Albans, Herts, 1975), CHAPTER TWENTY, pp. 178-179.

Every Possibility

Every possibility: that phrase applies both to the hypothetical multiverse and to Poul Anderson's works. A pessimistic ending to a particular work, e.g., "The House of Sorrows," need not imply that the author himself was pessimistic or indeed that he adopted any single attitude toward future possibilities. In The Shield of Time, the possibilities include an endless cycle of rising and falling empires never relieved by any scientific or industrial revolutions but what the Patrol instead preserves is a history that:

"...does at last take us beyond what our animal selves could have imagined."

-Poul Anderson, The Shield of Time (New York, 1991), PART SIX, 1990 A. D., p. 435.

While the Danellian explains, the wind of course comments although with an underlying note of menace:

"The wind cried, the sea growled nearer." (p. 434)

(In the Bible, the sea is the pre-cosmic chaos always threatening to return.)

"The Voortrekkers" also has an unexpected utopian ending. See here. 

Anderson's two most basic values are diversity and freedom:

"'...we've always had variety, always had the rebel and the heretic. We need them!'"

-Poul Anderson, Planet Of No Return (London, 1971), Chapter 18, p. 126.

"'Men ought to be free.'"

-ibid., p. 127.

And this might be more practicable on an interstellar scale:

"'And if things go wrong somewhere in the Galaxy, there may well be other places where they go right, more right than you or anyone else could predict.'"

-ibid., p. 126.

The House Of Sorrows And The Old Phoenix

"...perhaps further study will show that there is in fact a boundless array of worlds, all of them as tangible as ours, in which events have taken as many different courses."

-"The House of Sorrows," introduction, p. 70.

"A few of my stories take place in the Old Phoenix, that inn outside all universes whose guests come from every world of might-have-been and imagination."

-Poul Anderson, "Losers' Night," introduction, IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), p. 106.

It is appropriate that these two stories are collected together. In his introduction to "Losers' Night," Anderson acknowledges that:

alternative universes have not been proved and might someday be disproved;

in any case, travel between them seems to be out of the question.

However, he also observes that there will probably be more revolutionary transformations in our understanding of reality. Although I expect more such transformations, I would also comment that, when events that have been imagined do happen, they do not happen in the way that they had been imagined. Thus, the Apollo Moon landings were very different from The First Men In The Moon.

The conclusion of "The House of Sorrows" has a dual significance. On the one hand, the rumbling, crashing Saxonian cannon are coming to the rescue of the protagonists. On the other hand, their rumbling and crashing signifies that there is no end in sight to the millennia-long wars between nations.

As It Is

"The House of Sorrows."

Boran Taki, votary of Isis, tells the narrator:

"'You know the world well, Ro Esbernsson...'" (p. 81)

Later, Boran's father is horrified when the Irishman that has joined their company is able to joke and laugh after being directly involved in violence and bloodshed. Ro tells him:

"'It is nothing uncommon, you know...

"'Few lives are like yours. Today you have glimpsed the world as it is.'" (p. 96)

The father is a scholar. But scholarship should involve knowing the world as it is! I grew up in an ivory tower, completely cut off from "the world as it is." There is way too big a gap between academic life and the rest of life. I now realize that we should at least understand the way the world works even if we want no part of some of it.

The legion of world views in this alternative timeline is evident in some of the dialogue:

"'The gods be with you,' he sighed. 'Or, in my philosophy, may you gain by the principles of righteousness.'

"'Mithras be with us both,' I said, and left." (p. 93) 

Complicated

"The House of Sorrows."

Poul Anderson can present complicated politics even in a short story. The Shahdom of Persia rules the city of Mirzabad which turns out to have been called Jerusalem a long time ago, back when Hebrew was a living language. The Shahdom is weak and the Ispanyans have established a wardership but that too is shaky. Persia is Zarathustran but the Prophet Khusrev from the Zagros Mountains has proclaimed that his New Revelation will cleanse Zarathustranism of its current corruption and idolatry. Led by Zigad Moussavi, the Puritans, followers of the Prophet, have seized Mirzabad. The Ispanyans, taken by surprise, have withdrawn into their stronghold, the Moon Tower. In the harbour town of Sicamino, the Saxonian consul, Konrad von Heidenheim, had instructed the viewpoint character, Ro Esbernnson, to enter Mirzabad, there to inform Otto Gneisberg, factor of the Bremer Handelsbund, that, in the event of trouble from the Puritans, Saxonian traders should not flee but should send carrier pigeons with requests for help to Sicamino. The consulate will then dispatch troops that have already been marshalled for this purpose. Saxonia must take this action to prevent the Russians, ruled from Kiev, from moving in. If that were to happen, then Saxonia would be caught between Russia and Frankland. When Ro has entered Mirzabad, the Saxonian traders of the Bremer Handelsbund are no longer in their premises on the Street of the Magi because, like other foreigners, they have sought refuge with the Ispanyans in the Moon Tower which is now surrounded by Puritans who prevent anyone else from entering the Tower. However, Ro argues that they need not prevent anyone from leaving the Tower, adding that the traders must return to the Street of the Magi to take charge of newly arrived perishable goods. Mission accomplished.

Nothing New?

"The House of Sorrows."

"The Zarathustrans study their holy writ but add nothing new." (p. 86)

Religious and ideological groups can try to read only their own authoritative texts but no one lives in a hermetically sealed universe. To study any text thoroughly, it is necessary to write about it. That is already to add something new. Some scholars will write with more imagination and originality than others. There will be disagreements. Some will write about how to apply their received teachings to new situations. Some will try to refute false and heretical beliefs and thus will write about those beliefs. (I once heard Catholic doctrines in a televised Free Presbyterian sermon.) To conserve a tradition is to conserve (an understanding of) that tradition but in change conditions. To reform a tradition is to reject a conservative interpretation. To reject a tradition is to be influenced by what is rejected. Thus, all responses involve both change and continuity.

There are times when children are taught to read only so that they can read the Bible. However, as soon as they can read the Bible, they can also read anything else: Darwin, Marx, Freud etc. Writing both preserves and subverts traditions.

Alternative Geography II

"The House of Sorrows."

In the Danish that is used in England, Ro Esbernnson tells a Gaelic sailor that he recognizes him as a man of Eirinn. The sailor, Ailill Mac Cerbaill, is from Condacht although he has travelled through Markland, China and elsewhere, and recognises Ro as of the Lochlannach. Ailill refers to the Morrigan and to Lug Long-Arm. The nationalities tend to invoke different deities which turns out to be the point of this story. The Saxonians, whose cannon are heard to rumble and crash in the concluding sentence, have yet another pantheon and:

"...never had a higher religion..." (p. 83)

- according to Ro.

What is higher? Muslims claim to be pure monotheists. Monotheists claim to be higher than polytheists. Mithraists, including Ro, claim to be higher than other polytheists although Ro momentarily envies Ailill his gods:

"...that to a Gael are still real beings." (ibid.)

While at University, I coined the term, "theography," meaning religion based solely on the believer's place of birth.

I regard non-theistic religions like Buddhism as highest.

Alternative Geography

"The House of Sorrows."

We must find our way through an altered political and religious geography. The narrator, Ro Esbernsson, is a Marklander from New Denmark but Markland is no European country because the red-domed Mithraeum and blue-domed Shrine of the Good Mother in the city of Mirzabad are said to be:

"...taller than any in Europe or Markland..." (p. 76) (my emphasis)

(Mithraeum and Shrine must correspond roughly to church and Lady Chapel.)

From his boyhood, Ro remembers Ivarsthorp near the Connecticut River, also Lake Winnepesaukee and Merrimack Haven, this last sounding from its description like an Atlantic harbour. Apparently, it was the Trekfolk who came and cultivated Markland. North Markland is said to be:

"'Across the Western Sea...'" (p. 79)

Mithraists have their divisions. The Ispanyans:

"...look on our Northern godword as heretical. Asiatic Mithraists are at odds with both, but hold that different roads may lead to the same truth. In this, if in naught else, the East is wiser than the West." (pp. 75-76)

If, within our received traditions, we are free to practice as seems best to us without harassment or worse by "heresy" police, then we are more likely to find our way to some measure of truth. At least, there are fewer impediments. The East is indeed wiser.

However:

"Even the orthodox Zarathustrans have always looked on Mithraists as fallen halfway back into heathenism, the more so after our cult linked itself to that of the Good Mother. To the Puritans, we are worse than that, worse than infidels, the very creatures of Angra Mainyu." (p. 79)

We meet again "...lion-headed Aeon..." (p. 76) (Scroll down.) Accusations of heresy must dwindle to insignificance before Aeon.

Coffee And Rifles

"The House of Sorrows."

The first person narrator travels on horseback through a dusty Middle Eastern countryside where kaftan-wearing men emerge from brick houses and speak Aramaic or Edomite. He eats pitta and cheese and drinks water although:

"It's hard for a Marklander to be without his morning coffee..." (p. 71)

See previous blog discussions of tea and coffee here.

At the gate of Mirzabad, Persian soldiers:

"...bore old-time muzzle-loading rifles and curved short-swords." (p. 72)

The narrator himself bears "...pistol and broadsword." (ibid.)

Poul Anderson conveys the sense of an ancient past but with some elements of a more recent past. History has diverged at some point. Will the narrator encounter a displaced time traveller? Not in this narrative but we must read on to learn the score.

Lost And Last

"The House of Sorrows."

This story ends when its first person narrator reads a fragment of a lost scripture. See Lamentation. History would have been different if that scripture, indeed that entire tradition, had not been lost. In fact, it would have been our history. But what has been lost in our history? I recommend The Last Testament by Sam Bourne. Someone finds a tablet inscribed in cuneiform with the last will and testament of the first patriarch. This could change everything. But I have not yet read far enough to know either what the patriarch's will is or what the outcome is going to be. I try to reserve evenings for "other," non-blog-related, reading but sometimes there is overlap. Lost scriptures can have multiple implications.

Reality Branches

Poul Anderson, "The House of Sorrows" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 69-98.

This is the story that I think should definitely open a Poul Anderson collection. To reiterate:

Proposed title: The Old Phoenix and other universes

Proposed contents:

"The House of Sorrows"

"Eutopia"

"House Rule"

"Losers' Night"

The developing theme:

a single alternative history

travel between many histories

an inn between the histories

the culmination of the inn sequence

The inter-historical inn, the Old Phoenix, comprises a "sequence" because it also features in Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, xi, xii and Epilogue. 

A Midsummer Tempest follows Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions and Operation Otherworld.

Operation Otherworld collects Operation Chaos and Operation Luna. 

Operation Chaos collects "Operation Afreet," "Operation Salamander," "Operation Incubus" and "Operation Changeling."

"House Rule," as we have repeatedly said, crosses over with Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

To return to "The House of Sorrows" after all that seems like an anti-climax but it is an individual story by Poul Anderson and we should appreciate its reflection on history. Ancient history viewed in a distorting mirror helps us to reflect on our origins.

Lie Like Judas

"Fortune Hunter."

"...I lie like Judas." (p. 212)

Another Biblical reference. Or is it really a Biblical reference? "Judas" (scroll down) has become part of the language. If you call anyone Judas, he both gets the point and doesn't like it. No one says, "That's in the Bible. I don't believe that stuff!"

I have read this story at least once before but had completely forgotten what happens in it. It is emotionally unpleasant and the word "Judas" is appropriate. In order to stay in the wilderness, the narrator, Pete, wants to marry Jo so he tells her that he has split up from Marie although he has not - yet. Jo wants to phone Marie which, of course, would have exposed Pete's lie so he does wind up going back to Marie who does not know what has happened. Several of Anderson's short stories have emotionally unpleasant endings and this is one of them. The meaning of the title becomes clear at the end. I hope to return to something more cheerful but might not succeed: "The House of Sorrows"?

Living In The City

"Fortune Hunter."

Jo is reluctant to visit the narrator in the city. He assures her that:

his apartment is a reasonable size;

it is soundproofed;

the air is filtered and conditioned;

the conurb is both screened and policed;

armoured vehicles can accompany them when they go out;

in his city at least, dust, monoxide and carcinogens are down to a level where a mask need not be worn over nose or mouth.

She still thinks that the smells and tastes would be unacceptable.

The author hopes that this story is a warning, not a prediction.

Some Descriptive Details

"Fortune Hunter."

"...a splendidly antlered wapiti..." (p. 203)

An elk but I never heard it called a wapiti before.

"...an eagle hovered. He caught on his wings the sunlight..." (p. 204)

Another hovering bird of prey.

"I heard an owl hoot to his love. In royal blue, Venus kindled. The air sharpened..." (p. 207)

Three senses in quick succession.

"...the Milky Way would be a white cataract..." (ibid.)

"...when Jupiter rose there would be a perfect glade across the water." (ibid.)

Readers might be able to recognize Poul Anderson's style even without being told the author's name.

Good Eating?

Escapers from Heinlein's generation ship land on a terrestroid moon of a Jovoid planet. One knifes a native animal and says:

"'Good eating!'"

-Orphans of the Sky, p. 111.

The narrative ends with the affirmation:

"'From now on...always Good Eating.'" (ibid.)

Not necessarily. In fact, probably not. We have read Poul Anderson. Local food might be poisonous or might not be nourishing or might need dietary supplements. That last consideration, at least. Heinlein wrote an implausible conclusion to his generation ship story. Brian Aldiss thought that he "could do it better" (his own words) and wrote Non-Stop. Anderson imagined an Asimovian science of society used to prevent generation ship mutinies from getting out of hand. Clifford Simak imagined revivalist religion used to keep a spaceship crew performing necessary tasks. There have been a lot of other generation ship stories, apparently. See here.

Threat To The Environment

 

Poul Anderson, "Fortune Hunter" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 201-212.

Anderson's introduction to this story acknowledges the current threat to the environment:

"[Johannes V. Jensen], who so loved the living world, did not live to see it menaced as we do - menaced and corrupted by ourselves." (p. 202)

"He knew better than to believe in a nice, harmonious 'ecology' presided over by a politically correct Mother Goddess. No such thing ever existed." (ibid.)

Does the word "ecology" merit sneer quotes? It looks like an appropriate combination of "economy" and "biology."

Anderson goes on to say that the wilderness was once both our home and our enemy and is now our victim:

"...because of technology misused and science misunderstood. This has not been inevitable, and the hour is not yet too late. Through research, thought, and action, we can still save and restore that which is, after all, a part of our souls, and surely unique in the universe. I hope that this tale is not predictive but only cautionary." (ibid.)

I have yet to reread the story but I suspect that it is predictive and that the hour is by now too late.

Ominously, the story ends:

"Her voice was like a wind across the snows of upland winter." (p. 212)

Yet again, in a work by Anderson, the wind comments on human action.

Two Skycars

"At night, out above the ocean in my car, away from city glow, I'd look upward and be ripped apart by longing."

-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 175-197 AT p. 178.

By rereading Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky from the beginning, I have found the passage that I was looking for:

"A fourteen-year-old child may safely be entrusted with a family skycar and be allowed to make thousand-mile jaunts overnight unaccompanied; it is much more probable that he will injure himself on the trip by overeating than by finding some way to mismanage or damage the vehicle."

-Orphans of the Sky, PART TWO, p. 86.

When I first read Orphans of the Sky in the 1960s, I did not know that it was the fifth and concluding volume of a future history series or indeed that there were such things as future history series. This detail about skycars was an odd datum from a high tech future Earth about which we are told nothing else in this volume.

Another detail about the two generation ships:

Heinlein's Vanguard was expected to take sixty years to reach "Far Centaurus" whereas Anderson's Pioneer was expected to take a hundred and twenty three years to reach Alpha Centauri. Dig the details.

What Galileo Said

Poul Anderson fans are familiar with the following dialogue:

Manse Everard: "E pur si muove."

Wanda Tamberly: "Huh? Oh, yeah. What Galileo muttered, after they made him agree the earth sits still. 'Nevertheless, it moves.' Right?"

-Poul Anderson, The Shield of Time (New York, 1991), PART ONE, 1987 A. D., p. 27.

Later:

Everard: "Actually, Galileo never said what I quoted, under his breath or aloud. It's a myth." (p. 28)

Anderson's text then gives us what cannot be so easily conveyed in a dramatic dialogue, Everard's inner comment:

"The kind of myth humans live by, more than they do by facts." (ibid.)

Rereading Robert Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, we find Hugh Hoyland condemned for heresy when he claims that the Ship is not the entire universe. He responds:

"'Nevertheless - Nevertheless - it still moves!'"

-Orphans of the Sky, p. 43.

Heinlein maybe expects his readers to recognize the reference whereas Anderson's characters explain it.

Two Generation Ships

 

In 20th century sf, the future of the 21st century included mobile phones and aircars (also here). I expected cars in sf novels to fly and was surprised when one in a later novel stayed on the road.

Although Robert Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky is set mostly inside a single "generation ship" (slower than light, multi-generation, interstellar spaceship), its narrator makes some reference to young people on Earth being able to drive flying cars. I might have to reread this whole short volume to find this particular reference but I decided that, after all this time, it was a good idea to reread Orphans..., in any case. It is the precursor of Poul Anderson's "The Troublemakers." Orphans... is part of Heinlein's Future History just as "The Troublemakers" is part of Anderson's Psychotechnic History which was directly modelled on the Future History.

"The Troublemakers" begins with a quotation from Starward! by Enrico Yamatsu. Orphans of the Sky, PART ONE, UNIVERSE, begins with a quotation from:

"The Romance of Modern Astrography by Franklin Buck, published by Lux Transcriptions Ltd., 3.50cr."

-Robert Heinlein, Orphans of the Sky (London, 1965), p. 7.

Buck informs us that the Proxima Centauri Expedition was sponsored by the Jordan Foundation in 2119 whereas Yamatsu informs us that the Pioneer was launched in 2126. Thus, we read two closely parallel future history series.

ALL ONE UNIVERSE, Introduction

Poul Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), Introduction, pp. xi-xii.

"It's all one universe." (p. xi)

Everything that we can observe is part of a single universe. That sounds tautologous. But it is helpful to remember that everything is interconnected and is part of a single system.

Anderson refers to "...the primordial fireball..." (ibid.)

Is this phrase accurate? The initial state was one of high density and temperature. (See Big Bang.) So maybe that was a "fireball"? However, according to the same Wikipedia article, the Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving out through already existing but empty space - it is not an explosion in space but an expansion of space and is continuing now.

I passed an Evangelical preacher who said, "In my experience, an explosion just makes a big mess!" Of course, he just wanted to ridicule the Big Bang, not to understand it. But it seems that it is not an explosion. My problem is that I do not understand the science.

Seeing Mars II

 

"Neptune Diary."

Back and and forth between the timelines. Having just reread the Prologue to SM Stirling's In The Courts of the Crimson Kings, we find in Poul Anderson's "Neptune Diary":

"Virginia Heinlein is looking great." (p. 30)

"Fred Pohl and his wife..." (ibid.)

"...Jack Williamson over there, damn near immune to time." (ibid.)

There are others but these are the ones that are present both for the real world Neptune mission and for the alternative world Mars mission. And I have some real world responsibilities so I must stop lingering over late breakfast posts.

Seeing Mars

"Neptune Diary."

Sometimes parallel timelines and alternative histories almost meet:

"Here we sat thirteen years ago, among our sort, throughout a long night until that first picture from Mars unrolled, line by line, before the eyes of Robert Heinlein...." (p. 27)

The Mars in Heinlein's Future History has a traditional Grand Canal.

In the Prologue of SM Stirling, In The Courts of the Crimson Kings (New York, 2008), a Russia probe has shown:

"Dinosaurs and Neanderthals and beautiful blond cave-princesses in fur bikinis..." (p. 11)

- on Venus. Now an American lander approaches Mars where there is already evidence of free oxygen, structures and cities. At the 1962 Chicago Worldcon, a bunch of people in a hotel suite see pictures and hear sounds from Mars:

the viewpoint character, Fred, dislikes advertisers;

Bob wrote a Mars book in the early '50s where oxygen-mask-wearing colonists skated on the canals and he later considered another Mars book about an orphan adopted by Martians;

the screen shows a Martian landship and Poul, who likes "...messing about in boats...," murmurs "...about pointing into the wind..." (p. 16);

Poul reminds Arthur that he, Arthur, had predicted TV relay satellites fifteen years previously;

Sprague comments that the Martian language, when heard, sounds "Tonal and monosyllabic...like Chinese..." (p. 19);

Beam, a crack shot, comments on the Martian guns;

Ray reminds everyone that Martian seasons are twice as long as Terrestrial;

Ted is Guest of Honour;

Jack had "...sold his first story to Gernsback in the '20s..." (p. 12);

the editor of Astounding insists that Terrestrials are "...the most advanced species in the solar system." (p. 17)

Also present are Isaac, Larry, Frank, Leigh, Catherine, Carol and Bob's red-haired wife.

That is what it would be like in a nearby universe. 

The Future Of Mankind

Poul Anderson, "Neptune Diary" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 23-32.

The text of this "Diary" fills just over seven pages because p. 23 is an internal title page and p. 24 is an introduction. The Diary covers seven days from Monday 21 August 1989 to the following Sunday. On the Monday, there is "...a panel of science fiction writers...," including Poul Anderson and Larry Niven:

"Our topic is supposed to be the future of science fiction, but of course, like every such panel, we wander over the whole map, mainly wondering aloud about the future of humanity itself." (p. 25)

The future of humanity is a major issue in science fiction and also a much more important issue than the future of science fiction. By comparison, the future of sf fades into insignificance. I would be glad to see global issues resolved even if no more sf came to be written. I think of Anderson's Genesis as an ultimate work of futuristic sf speculation but have not kept up with more recent authors.

Revisiting "Requiem For A Universe"

"Requiem for a Universe."

For previous discussions, see here.

We recognize features of a particular kind of fictional future. There is a "'...Peace Command.'" (p. 36) This is an equivalent of the Space Patrol in Robert Heinlein's Adult and Juvenile Future Histories. There is also a "...World Union...," (p. 37) This is an equivalent of Heinlein's World Federation.

"The compound occupies a hill with a view over the medieval city, the river, green countryside, distant Alpine snowpeaks. Even stronger than seeing Earth from space, a scene like this brings to me the sense of home, that here is where we belong." (p. 38)

We remember other sf titles:

The Green Hills of Earth by Robert Heinlein

Earthman, Come Home by James Blish

Earth looks different to those who have left it and returned.

Truth

Poul Anderson, "Requiem for a Universe" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 33-46.

 The first person narrator informs us that we are forever haunted by the question: "What is truth?" (p. 35) Some of us are. This is a Biblical question that we have considered before in relation to Poul Anderson's works. See here. He lists different kinds of truth:

empirical facts;

mathematical theorems;

"...truths uttered by poetry and by music." (ibid.)

Does music express truth? At Lancaster University, an Aesthetics lecturer told us that sometimes people hear music and comment, "How true!" Then he asked us what kind of truth this could be. My response was: "Do some people say that? I don't. If they didn't say it, then we wouldn't have to ask what they meant by it." Poetry is an intermediate case because it consists of words which can be true or false but also does something more or other than this, like music.

Authenticity is a kind of truth. See Oscar Wilde.

Assessing "The Voortrekkers"

"The Voortrekkers." 

Only twenty pages.

Reads like a summary of a long future history series.

Although the story is about interstellar exploration, four and a half of its nine narrative passages recount the consequences on Earth.

Poul Anderson shows that he can present a utopian future. Increased peace on Earth is attributed to knowledge of manifold reality but the vast growth in wealth must also be a factor.

This story belongs in the same category of futuristic speculations as Anderson's novel, Genesis, and his tetralogy, Harvest of Stars. Faster than light space travel and humanoid extra-terrestrials do not exist. We feel that these three later works present more credible futures.

At 82 Eridani And Beyond

"The Voortrekkers."

The eighth narrative passage, on pp. 264-270, is five and a half pages in length and is a third person account. Organic Joel and Korene cannot survive on a planet of 82 Eridani and receive a terminal injection from robot Korene.

The ninth and concluding narrative passage, on p. 270, is less than a page in length and is a first person plural account by ship Joel and robot Korene. Because of their scientific discoveries in space, organic human beings become able to cross interstellar distances with short transit times and to colonize uninhabited planets. Joel and Korene also bring cultural contact with many other intelligent species and:

material wealth for each individual greater than that of former nations;

growing calm and wisdom learned from manifold reality;

decreasing strife on Earth.

They visit Earth, are greeted graciously and return to space:

"Two in the deeps, two and two on the worlds, we alone remember those who lived, and those who died, and Olaf and Mary." (p. 270)

The two in the deeps are ship Joel and robot Korene. Do they leave a robot Joel and Korene and an organic Joel and Korene on each planet? Olaf and Mary are remembered. Most of the names used in the story are resonant.

On 36 Ophiuchi B 2 And On Earth

"The Voortrekkers."

The sixth narrative passage, on pp. 262-263, is about a page and a half in length, is set on 36 Ophiuchi B 2 and is narrated by organic Korene. She and organic Joel marry with the blessing of ship Joel and robot Korene. When the ship moves on, it must leave the organics behind - maybe helped by some auxiliaries?

The planet has cool, springy turf that is neither grass nor moss. This is a recurrent Andersonian theme: terrestroid planets will have a ground cover that will not be identical with grass. This should be shown in any screen adaptations.

The seventh narrative passage, on pp. 263-264, is less than a page in length and is a third person account of a priest denouncing the interstellar project. His Biblical references are the First Commandment, the second great commandment, Babel and the Flood. (The Curse of Babel returns to Earth in CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength.) The priest also refers to Ulysses in Homer and Dante. He expresses concern for "'...the wretched of Earth...'" (p. 264) but will not help them by spreading lies and bigotry about interstellar exploration.

On Earth And In Space

"The Voortrekkers."

("Voortrekker" means "fore-trekker.")

The fourth narrative passage, on pp. 259-260, is just one page in length and is a third person account of a conversation between Joel and Mary. She initially opposes his volunteering for the interstellar project and she herself will not volunteer.

Backtrack: Back in the first narrative passage, Joel suggested that the reason why astronauts have been criticized as "prosaic" is that they:

"...grow tongue-tied in the presence of the Absolute." (p. 253)

That statement requires some analysis. The relative, that which exists because of its external relationships, contrasts with the Absolute, which is independent of external relationships. Therefore, the Absolute can only be all, everything, the totality. Joel, in space and experiencing enhanced perception of innumerable stars in every direction, is immersed in that totality. Thus, he has one kind of experience of the Absolute.

The fifth narrative passage, on pp. 260-261, is just over a page. The ship, in orbit around a planet of Sigma Draconis, communicates with friendly intelligent life which has beautiful art. Organic Joel awakes to be addressed by robot Korene and ship Joel.

The sixth narrative passage, on pp. 261-262, is less than a page in length. Korene fails to persuade Olaf to volunteer.

"The Voortrekkers" is a template for a novel.

At Tau Ceti

"The Voortrekkers."

The third narrative passage, on pp. 255-259, is four and a third pages in length, is narrated by Korene and begins while the ship orbits the second planet of Tau Ceti. Since this planet has humanly breathable air, therefore life, it will be explored with organic bodies.

For two pages, Korene remembers a television interview in which a spokesman for the interstellar project explained that small spaceships cannot carry human beings but exploration needs human intelligence so human psychoneural patterns would be mapped into computer-sensor-effector systems which can be switched off in transit. Organic bodies would be used to test the habitability of planets. Such bodies are self-healing, therefore, in some ways, more durable than robots. The same psychoneural patterns would be used to economise on data banks.

Korene says that sending themselves into the sleeping bodies will be a "...climax outcrying the seven thunders..." (p. 259) Another Biblical reference. See Revelation 10: 1-7.

Before Sirius

"The Voortrekkers."

The second narrative passage, on pp. 253-254, is just over a page in length and is a third person account of earlier events back in the Solar System. The original Joel, American, and Korene, European, were astronauts. An alliance of every country on Earth launched an interstellar exploration project: unmanned probes; interplanetary studies; generation-long research and development for the necessary hardware. Korene married Olaf who continued to work on the Lunar shuttle while she retired to desk and laboratory work and started a family. Then they worked together on an engineering team of the interstellar group.

Joel, pilot on many major expeditions, was divorced, then made do with mistresses. Retired from piloting, he worked on control and navigation for the interstellar project and married Mary who test-piloted experimental vehicles. Joel, forty-eight, and Korene, sixty, volunteered when the interstellar hardware had been developed. They themselves would never leave the Solar System.

At Sirius

"The Voortrekkers."

Rereading this story after many years, we realize that its text is extremely condensed and that many details have been completely forgotten.

The opening narrative passage, on pp. 251-253, is about two and a half pages in length. It is a first person account and the narrator seems to be a conscious spaceship. He (it becomes clear that the masculine pronoun is appropriate) begins by quoting:

"-And he shall see old planets change and alien stars arise-" (p. 251)

Since he refers to "...the poet...," (ibid.) I googled and found The Voortrekker by Rudyard Kipling.

The narrator sees light everywhere so that, for him:

"...space is not dark." (ibid.)

Stars of every colour crowd around. There are also nebulae, the Milky Way and, when the narrator magnifies his vision, the Andromeda galaxy. Sol is on the edge of Hercules. Sirius is close enough to cast shadows on the narrator's hull. He detects Sirius' dwarf companion by its X-rays and neutrinos while he swims among interacting force-fields. He has just been resurrected and Kipling's words are in his mind because they were there when he died. He has been dead for forty-three years and just under nine light-years.

His single passenger, Korene, addresses him as Joel. Her principal body housing her principal brain has several arms and a "...dragonfly head..." (p. 252) She converses not through any of her auxiliary bodies but by joining a communication circuit to one of Joel's auxiliary bodies. Each remembers a human life on Earth. He energizes one of his auxiliary bodies, "...a control-module maintainer..." (p. 253) Because they are confirming that Sirius has no planets, they will not need organic bodies to explore the Sirian System.

I think that Sirius does have planets in Isaac Asimov's Robot novels but I am not about to look that up.

Milky Way, Andromeda And Sirius

Poul Anderson, "The Voortrekkers" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 249-270.

For previous summaries, see:

The Voortrekkers

"Life After Life, Death After Death"

On the opening page of the text, there is a description of the Milky Way that we seem to have missed before:

"The Milky Way was a cool torrent, here cloven by the thunderstorm masses of galactic center, there open a-glint toward endlessness." (p. 251)

The main point to note here is the phrase, "cool torrent," to be compared with "argent cataract," "argent torrent," "quicksilver river," "ghost-road," "spilling silver," "torrent of silver," "glittering belt," "ghostly bridge," "shining belt" and uncountably more.

The text informs us that the Andromeda galaxy is:

"...a million and a half light-years hence..." (ibid.)

I have read two million light-years. The Wikipedia article says "(2.5 million light-years)"

The first person narrator seems to be a conscious spaceship arriving at Sirius, nine light-years from Sol.

The Ground Of Science

Poul Anderson, "Wellsprings of Dream" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 235-247.

Anderson concludes this article by observing that, just as ballet springs:

"...from the everyday dynamics of walking or myth from everyday birth, life, love, death, mystery..." (p. 247)

- in the same way, "...some grand science fiction..." (ibid.) can spring from "...the ground of science..." (ibid.) as imaginatively extrapolated in works like The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986) by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler. 

My problem with this proposition is that, having read Anderson's summaries of this and some similar works, I am far more interested in contemplating their philosophical implications than in just reading some more science fiction! For previous relevant blog discussion, see here. I stated in a post in 2016 that I had yet to read Darrow's and Tipler's book. I still have yet to read it. What happened? Did I try to get hold of a copy and not succeed or just not try? I will re-address this issue tomorrow when the Public Library opens.

We observe a universe that allows the existence of conscious life because, if the universe did not allow the existence of conscious life, then there would be no one here to observe it but does the universe just happen to be like this or are there many universes of which just a few allow conscious life?

The existence of the universe is necessary for observation of the universe but is observation of the universe also necessary for its existence? How could this be? The observer-observed relationship in quantum mechanics is indeed odd but could it imply the dependence of existence on observation? Do some theoreticians confuse information about reality with reality?

Alan Moore points out that fictional characters "exist" (this word is wrong but I do not think that there is a right one) only because we imagine them but that we exist as human beings only because we exercise our imaginations. Is this relationship similar to the existence-observation relationship?

Philosophically, I am convinced of materialism, that being preceded consciousness, not vice versa. Do philosophers of science stray back into idealism, the primacy of consciousness, through lack of philosophical clarity or because the evidence leads them in that direction? This is only the beginning.

"Even The Dead..."

"Losers' Night."

On Losers' Night in the Old Phoenix, Francois Villon composes a song. The second stanza runs:

"At Stamford Bridge did Harald the tall

"Win him a grave as long as he.

"Dick Crookback's hissed from a theater stall.

"Lionheart beggared his monarchy.

"Athenian men fared valiantly

"To die in the quarries of Syracuse.

"Bolivar cried he had plowed the sea.

"Even the dead have much to lose." (p. 115)

Poul Anderson wrote a historical trilogy about Harald Hardrada. In Anderson's Time Patrol story, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks," Manse Everard quotes Bolivar as having said that he had ploughed the sea. Anderson's multiverse is vast but also internally interconnected. How does Richard III's grave hiss and why from a theatre stall? He was buried in a church. What can the dead lose? These are people who have lost and then have died.

Further philosophical reflections:

"You don't see anything new by looking in the mirror, but by looking out the window."

-Poul Anderson, "Wellsprings of Dream" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 235-247 AT p. 238.

We need to look through (literal) windows and in (metaphorical) mirrors. We can indeed realize important facts about ourselves through meditation. "Know thyself." Knowledge of motor mechanics helps drivers. Knowledge of self must help selves. Let's not counterpose windows and "mirrors." Anderson argues that the universe is more complex than our minds. Is it? Our brains are the most complex part of the universe. The external universe and our minds are "one universe."

Plato: Philosophy is preparation for death.

Aycharaych: Death is completion of life.

Synthesis: Philosophy is preparation for completion of life.

Comment: Yes. But add meditation to philosophy.

Aycharych is an Andersonian alien but I make no apology for synthesizing his insight with Plato's.

"[Hans Moravec] sees artificial intelligence fully equal to the human in another 40 years or so. This optimism has its doubters, including me..."

-ibid., p. 242.

"Wellsprings of Dream" was published 30 years ago. Another 10 years? Anderson describes Moravec's Mind Children (1988) as authoritative history followed by "...enthusiastic forecasting." (ibid.) We need enthusiasm but not always in forecasting.

Who They Are

See Who Are They? and its combox.

After I wrote that post, I wondered if Anderson had created some characters who were obscure precisely because they were not in the historical record. There will be some (many) losers/failures whose names are not known precisely because they did lose/fail. There are also many people who would have been in the historical record if history had gone differently. There was a superhero team comic where the time traveling heroes had to prevent the childhood assassinations of US Presidents. There was one name on the list that we did not recognize. That was the one case in which they failed. Poul Anderson's Time Patrol has records of time gone awry.

However, blog reader Jim Baerg has identified the mysterious Frenchman and Muslim:

Lamarck

Ibn Kaldun

A cursory glance down these Wikipedia articles shows how these two men precursed later, better known, thinkers. Poul Anderson packs a lot of history into a short text that reads like random fragments from several tavern conversations.

Who Are They?

"Losers' Night."

The answer to the following question might be somewhere on this blog but, if so, I can't find it. Who are these two historical characters?

A Frenchman from around 1820 converses with an Arabic-speaking North African Muslim. The latter says that, when desert nomads enter a civilization, they revitalize it with their "'...spirit of fellowship and obligation...'" (p. 113) but eventually are corrupted and enfeebled. The Frenchman replies that entire species can become extinct because they change either too well or too slowly to fit their environments but adds that societies must be as capable as species "'...of successful evolution...'" (p. 114)

Francois Villon tells the narrator:

that these two guys are among the greatest ever natural philosophers (we now call "natural philosophy" empirical science);

that the Frenchman wants to understand biology and the Muslim to understand humanity;

that both need information that will not be discovered until after their deaths;

that, therefore, they achieve nothing.

The Frenchman sounds as if he is discussing Darwinian evolution by natural selection but he can't be. The Muslim sounds as if he is making shrewd observations about social interactions but maybe he does not fully understand underlying economic or other factors? But, ok, I admit to a lamentable ignorance as to their identities.

(Charles Darwin and Adam Smith came later.)

A Culmination

"Losers' Night" is the culmination of the whole Old Phoenix sequence and indeed of a vaster multiversal/hypercosmic perspective. It mentions:

Gunnhild (Anderson's Mother of Kings)

Valeria Mautchek (his two Operation... novels; Three Hearts and Three Lions)

Holger Danske (Three Hearts...)

Huck Finn (in A Midsummer Tempest, Epilogue)

Irene Adler (Holmes and Watson are in ...Tempest, Epilogue)

blind Rhysling (Heinlein's Future History)

"...an Abelard who remained a whole man..." (Anderson's "House Rule")

"...a Rupert of the Rhine who outfought Cromwell..." (Three Hearts...)

and a number of others

Valeria Matuchek, the emergent heroine, is:

born and exists as an infant in Operation Chaos;

a teenager in Operation Luna;

on a field trip for her master's thesis in Three Hearts...;

the final name in a list of great women in "Losers' Night"

- and is not among the "losers" in that last story.

That Narrator And His Mood

"Losers' Night."

"'Three score and ten summers, the Book says.'" (pp. 109-110)

Yet another Biblical reference that I think we have missed before. (Psalm 90: 10)

Mrs Taverner, quoting this, goes on to say:

"'I should think yer couldn't afford to waste none.'" (p. 110)

And she says this because the  narrator acknowledges that he had not been noticing the weather back home. This is another reference to the mood that he was in on that long, solitary walk. There is more. When an Irishman (Charles Stewart Parnell) asks him:

"'Woman trouble?'" (ibid.)

- he responds:

"'In a way... Not as simple as I wish it were.'" (ibid.)

So we learn something more but by no means all.

How effective is "'Losers' Night"? Major historical conflicts are alluded to:

the attempt to restore the Republic after a battle at Philippi;

Parnell winning Kitty but losing everything else that he had lived for;

etc.

The text relies on its readers' historical knowledge. Nowadays we can google, of course.

Narrator And Loser

Poul Anderson, "Loser's Night" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 105-123.

We seek information about the narrator of this story but should first backtrack to the previous story, "House Rule." There, this same narrator found the entrance to the Old Phoenix when he was trying to enter the saloon of a ship at sea. In "Losers' Night," he finds it on:

"...a country road after dark." (p. 107)

Thus, we know, for what it is worth, that he has travelled at sea. The second story adds something more:

"I was on the walk that most men take at least once in their lives..." (ibid.)

Do we? What walk is this?

"...until sunrise, and no wish was in me for any society other than that of the stars." (ibid.)

I am not sure that most men do take such a walk but it tells us something about the narrator that he did and that he thinks that most men do. He is in a mood that he would like to be shaken out of. That is all that we are told. We are expected to understand. As the title tells us, on this occasion, the inn is full of "losers."

"I had sometimes wondered whether my limited abilities as an interpreter were what gave me entry. They would not be required tonight. I was invited because of my need." (p. 108)

The narrator did interpret in "House Rule." That will not be necessary this time because, for once, everyone understands everyone else, no matter what language they speak. The Curse of Babel has been lifted, so to say. The host, Taverner, "...who knows all languages...," (ibid.) explains:

"'You'll find the rules are a little different this evening. Folks need to talk freely with each other, whomever they feel like.'" (ibid.)

Losers have been assembled to learn from each other and, at the end, Winston Churchill steps back into our world - but that takes us away from the narrator. I do not think that we learn anything more about him.

Something more about the Old Phoenix itself:

"The taproom is changeless..." (p. 108)

That differentiates this inn from Neil Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End which suddenly opens out into a wide tented area as some of the guests look at it.

We should also notice some terminological richness. What I call "a multiverse," the narrator calls "...a hypercosmos..." ("House Rule," p. 11)

He also refers to "...countless dimensional sheaves..." ("House Rule," p. 9) and suspects:

"...that beside being at a nexus of universes, the hostel exists on several different space-time levels of its own." ("House Rule," p. 10)

We want more but, nevertheless, we get a lot.

Narrator And Author

Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, 1981), pp. 9-20.

Occasionally, the first person narrator of a work of fiction is explicitly identified with its author, e.g., Somerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge and CS Lewis in the Ransom Trilogy. Is the narrator of Poul Anderson's two Old Phoenix stories likely to be identical with Anderson?

The landlord of the Old Phoenix says that his guests:

"...are those who have good stories wherewith to pay him..." (p. 9)

- yet this narrator is "...not quite sure why..." (ibid,) he is invited. Maybe "stories" means life experiences rather than invented yarns although I should think that Anderson was rich in the former as well.

The narrator speaks Italian. Did Anderson? I don't know. I am merely listing data about the narrator.

He also speaks some medieval French but adds that his visits to the Old Phoenix have encouraged "...such studies." (p. 11)

Even if the narrator is Anderson, he does not express any surprise at meeting one of his characters, Nicholas van Rijn.

He was on a flight that was forced down somewhere in the Arctic and received local help.

There might be some more information in the other story, "Losers' Night," which I will reread shortly.

For the "shadowy beings" in the Old Phoenix, see here. 

Neil Gaiman offers an explanation of his Inn of the Worlds' End and maybe by extension of other such Free Houses:

Chiron: ...we will be safe in this place. The tavern itself cannot be harmed; that is the way of things. It is being continually created; after all, worlds are ending all the time.

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Worlds' End (New York, 1994), p. 146, panel 2.

Authors As Characters

OK. I should reread Poul Anderson's two Old Phoenix short stories to address the identity of the first person narrator. First, let us consider three other imaginative authors that we appreciate here on this issue. 

In Surprised By Joy, CS Lewis makes the points that:

Shakespeare could appear as Author in a play in dialogue with Hamlet;

the "Shakespeare" character would be both Shakespeare and one of his creatures;

this would be analogous to Incarnation.

It would indeed but Lewis does not mention that he wrote himself very effectively into his Ransom Trilogy.

Andrea Camilleri converses with his character, Inspector Montalbano, in two works.

Not only did Alan Moore see his character, John Constantine, in the real world but I think that Moore incarnated himself as V in V for Vendetta. See here.

But we will return to Poul Anderson and the Old Phoenix some time tomorrow. (And will continue to read To Kill The President this evening.)