(ii) Heinlein, Anderson and Blish also wrote fantasy.
(iii) Anderson and Blish also wrote historical fiction.
(iv) Anderson's Psychotechnic History was modelled on Heinlein's Future History.
(v) Anderson's Operation Chaos was a conceptual development from Heinlein's Magic, Inc.
(vi) Anderson and JRR Tolkien published Norse-based fantasy at the same time.
(vii) CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy, Volume III, That Hideous Strength, quotes a detail from Tolkien's not-yet-published Middle Earth History.
(viii) Blish's After Such Knowledge Trilogy, Volume III, A Case of Conscience, quotes from Lewis' Ransom Trilogy.
(ix) After Such Knowledge, Volume IIa, Black Easter, and IIb, The Day After Judgement, quote from Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.
(x) George MacDonald's Phantastes inspired CS Lewis, Lewis Carroll and others.
(xi) Lewis and MacDonald converse fictitiously in Lewis' The Great Divorce.
(xii) Lewis' Narnia and MacDonald's Lilith influenced Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.
(xiv) Heinlein's description of a gathering of demons in Hell in Magic, Inc. influenced the graphic depiction of such a gathering in The Sandman.
12 comments:
And so on down the generations. Many of the authors listed - Poul particularly - have been major influences on me, and other SF/F authors I know.
Much of Beam Piper's TFH was published in Astounding/Analog, as well, from Omnilingual onwards, so presumably he should be included as well?
Dave,
Right. I am just not familiar with Piper.
Paul.
Well worth reading, as an Anderson contemporary, at least in terms of when each were writing and being published - and in some of the same publications, and after review by the same editors.
Very different universes, but some interesting parallels, both it what they came up with and how Campbell & Co. treated the copy.
Sort of fun point: Asimov posited, IIRC, exactly one non-human intelligent (and "primitive" species in the Milky Way galaxy of the Foundation series; Anderson came up with scores (or more), across the spectrum and including both peers and "elders"; Heinlein and Piper seem to have been in the middle, with some "elders" in Heinlein and some "primitives" in Piper, but not much in the middle.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Dave!
Mr. Stirling: And I like how you sometimes include references to PA and other SF writers in your stories.
Dave: I've read a few, too few, of H. Beam Piper's stories. His tragic death probably prevented his works from becoming better known.
Ad astra! Sean
You all really should read LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN; it's a really classic alternate-history, cross-timelines story. And SPACE VIKING is also really good.
Sean: well, it always struck me as odd that in most author's work, nobody -reads- science fiction or fantasy. Especially considering how it's grown to dominate the popular culture of our time.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I think, but I'm not sure, I did read LORD KALVAN far too many years ago.
I agree! I used to be a big mystery reader and I don't recall any of the mystery authors I read mentioning any of the SF writers of their times. Not by John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Margery Allingham, G.K. Chesterton.
Can't say much about "mainstream" fiction, because it mostly bored me.
Ad astra! Sean
I have read a lot of Piper's stories. I 2nd the recommendation of his work.
SM - The entire TFH is solid entertainment; obviously works of their time and place, but Piper was gifted in that along with the space opera of Viking, - or time opera in the Kalvan-verse - he could plot and write stories and novels that did not depend on thud and blunder.
Omnilingual is a nice bit of SF archaeology (with a foundational scenario which was a stretch even in its day, but fun to read) and with a strong female protagonist who "rescues" herself, and which passes the Bechdel test quite clearly in the first conversation in the story - not bad for 1957.
Little Fuzzy, of course, is an equally nice bit of SF anthropology (especially for 1962) combined with a reasonably solid courtroom drama.
And he did not pioneer the "multi-ethnic SF name" trope, but he used it and had enough fun with it that it doesn't really break the flow of the stories.
Kaor, Dave!
That bit about "thud and blunder" reminded me of Anderson's very interesting and useful essay about the mistakes many writers made writing fantasies called "On Thud and Blunder." And how to avoid those thudding blunders!
Ad astra! Sean
DS: action is not a detrimental thing.
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