The Twentieth Century

"The Sensitive Man." 

When one of his captors proposes to fetch a blowtorch, Dalgetty observes that the man's face is entirely impassive. Dalgetty reflects:

"Most of these goons must be moronic... Most of the guards in the twentieth-century extermination camps had been. No inconvenient empathy with the human flesh they broke and flayed and burned." (IV, p. 162)

This is unpleasant to read about. Any more details would be unwelcome. Like Dalgetty, we, the readers, can now look back on the twentieth century. Indeed, we are by now further away from it. Will that century be permanently remembered for its extermination camps and other horrors? My impression, watching the TV news, is that the evils of the twentieth century continue and that none of its lessons have been learned. 

The rest of this evening will be devoted to Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance and to Stieg Larsson. Back here next month.

Education And The FBI

"The Sensitive Man."

"Even the hulking bodyguard was probably a college graduate, Third Class." (II, p. 138)

The three-tier educational system was explained in "Un-Man." The complex post-World War III civilization needs high numbers of specialists trained from an early age to the limit of their capacity. Education, remaining free for those who continue to pass exams, is highly selective so that twenty year old Ph.D.'s look down on Seconds who look down on Thirds. This is the kind of social friction that the system tries to avoid but nevertheless inevitably generates.

We also learn that the FBI has resumed a broader function after American Security was discredited, then abolished, as a result of the events of "Un-Man." But there are no characters in common between these two stories. We are conscious that we are reading a carefully constructed future history series whereas the later Technic History was not pre-conceptualized but grew organically. We appreciate this contrast.

An Age Of Reason

"The Sensitive Man."

The characters lecture each other even in the most unlikely circumstances. Some of what they say is striking. For example, just as the eighteenth century Enlightenment followed a period of conflicting fanaticisms, the present of the story follows three World Wars. Belief in reason, moderation and tolerance grows in the popular mind. (Someone that I was at school with once asked me, "What does 'tolerance' mean? Does it mean that you don't CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK?!'" The answer of course is "No. It means that YOU DON'T GET FURIOUS WITH THEM FOR DISAGREEING WITH YOU!")

"'The present state of affairs should continue for about seventy-five years, we feel at the Institute. In that time, reason can - we hope - be so firmly implanted in the basic structure of society that when the next great wave of passion comes, it won't turn men against each other.'" (IV, p. 158)

That sounds good, if they can do it. Mass social interactions are discussed both comprehensibly and plausibly. Meanwhile, the Psychotechnic Institute has:

developed theories that begin to explain history;

not only gathered data but also invented "'...a rigorous self-correcting symbology...'" (p. 159), paramathematical in nature.

This comes across as a better thought out version of what we read in Second Foundation and also more strongly grounded in actual social processes.

A telepath interrogates and gathers intelligence by asking questions and reading the answers in the other person's mind. In this way, Dalgetty learns that one of his interrogators is an FBI agent.

Know Yourself

"The Sensitive Man."

"Briefly there was sorrow in him, an enormous pity for the bulk of mankind. They did not know themselves, they fought themselves like wild beasts, tied up in knots, locked in nightmare. Man could be so much if he had the chance." (IV, p. 155)

I agree with this diagnosis as far as it goes. Social conditions constraining individuals must also be considered but the Psychotechnic Institute knows that. And it is large numbers of individuals who have built societies. But social interactions take on a life of their own. For example, an employer wanting to pay his staff more cannot if he is to remain competitive. Individual motivations alone do not explain the dynamics of economic competition. Not only individual but also collective interests drive social change.

But we are nearly there. I mean that we are very close to the "so much" that we can be. Human beings are psychophysical organisms, conscious of their environments and of themselves, able to reason and reflect and also to formulate goals like: let us now know ourselves and become what we can be. This is Wellsian sf, offering hope for the future and addressing obstacles to human development.

Dalgetty's Consciousness

"The Sensitive Man."

Although we have not been told any details yet, we do know that, from an early age, Simon Dalgetty has received some kind of intensive psychophysical training that enables him to heighten his sensations and even, apparently, to read thoughts. It also enables him to do this:

"He knew his personal danger would be enormous once he was on the ground. Torture, mutilation, even death.

"Dalgetty closed his eyes again. Almost at once he was asleep." (III, p. 152)

(His enemies are flying him to a secluded island.)

I would be unable to sleep. At most, my Zen practice would enable me to "sit with" apprehension although some circumstances would surely be overwhelming.

Years ago, a Catholic theologian and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi were interviewed together on TV. The theologian said that Christ suffered when crucified whereas the Maharishi thought that Christ would be in a yogic-contemplative state that would mean that he would not suffer. "Supreme enlightenment" (Buddhist terminology) would indeed end psychological causes of suffering and also enable us either to transcend or at least to cope most effectively with physical suffering but most of us are nowhere near that state.

Meanwhile, I have had my fill of fictional villains who try to save the world by torturing someone. The Psychotechnic History has to move on.

The Future And An Old House

"The Sensitive Man."

Much sf is set in the future and quite a lot of that is about people peering further into the future:

"He had grown up among intellects aimed at the future." (III, p. 150)

Wells' Time Traveler flings himself into futurity. The Service in James Blish's The Quincunx Of Time employs a team of scholars trying to write a complete history of the future from fragmentary, barely comprehensible messages.

The futurism contrasts with the setting where Dalgetty grew up:

"Sharp in his mind rose the image of the old house." (ibid.)

"By night you heard the boards creaking and the lonesome sound of wind talking down the chimney. Yes, it had been good." (ibid.)

Wind talks, as often in Poul Anderson's works. Present experience always combines memories and anticipations. Past and future meet now.

History And Individual Life

"The Sensitive Man."

"'I'm fifty years old. I was born during World War Three and grew up with the famines and the mass insanities that followed.'" (II, p. 142)

The Years of Hunger and the Years of Madness yet again although here referred to slightly differently. In the Chronology of the Future, WWIII begins in 1958 and "The Sensitive Man" is set in 2009. As with Robert Heinlein's Future History, a large section of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History has become past. Already two generations have elapsed since the opening story, "Marius," and this fifty year old man has lived through as much technological progress and social change as our parents and then we ourselves did in the earlier twentieth century. The Psychotechnic History is not on a par with Anderson's later Technic History but it is nevertheless a substantial future history series and this is established in these few opening instalments. Meanwhile the action-adventure stuff continues. Our viewpoint character, the sensitive man, is captured by his enemies. Read on.

Darkness And Venus

"The Sensitive Man."

In the underwater settlement, there is:

"...a slow growth outward as men learned how to go deeper into cold and darkness and pressure." (II, pp. 140-141)

That sentence draws us into wanting to read and learn more. The opposite of space exploration: the oceans are not infinite but they are vast, enough to involve lifetimes and generations of explorers and colonists, a potential extra series. There was one short story by Wells, a companion to The First Men In The Moon and The Time Machine: three directions of exploration.

Meanwhile, other planets are also explored:

"Venus was already visible, low and pure on the dusking horizon." (p. 141)

"Pure as yourself, your evenstar shines above the sun-set."

-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 467-640 AT IV, p. 640.

"Ave Stella Maris!" (ibid.)

This is appropriate since Venus is the setting of the next instalment in the Psychotechnic History and we saw something of Mars in "Un-Man": a comprehensive future history series.

Living In The Technic History

Poul Anderson fandom becomes a state of mind. I wonder what Britain will be like in the Terran Empire especially since this island will have a Mayor Palatine in Flandry's time. When Flandry is a guest of the Mayor, it is in his lodge on Catalina so we do not see anything of Britain. Will London have engulfed the entire South? Will the Lake District, Morecambe Bay and Lancaster Castle have been preserved? I expect that country roads will be buried under grass and forest unless someone has kept them clear for recreational purposes. I imagine Flandry visiting Lancaster Priory Church or St. Peter's Church in Heysham - the latter already over one thousand years old - and again wondering about contact with Kossara.

When I see birds, I think of Ythrians. There are birds of prey at Muncaster Castle in Cumbria. Seagulls scavenge along the coast. In Caernarfon, Wales, seagulls swooped down to take food from customers' plates on tables outside cafes. I imagine Ythrians - although not stealing food, of course. If I lived on Avalon, then I would want to join a choth and to participate in Khruaths, not to vote for the Parliament of Man, but it would have to be a new kind of choth that combined what its members regarded as the best aspects of Ythrian and human traditions, e.g., the rule of law as against deathpride or duels. We would participate in Oherran by boycott, not by violence. From Avalon, I would want to visit Hermes and Dennitza.

If I lived on Earth in that timeline, then I would prefer it to be during the Solar Commonwealth, working for a government service or department, not for any of the Home Companies, and a member of the relevant trade union. 

Is time travel possible in the Technic History timeline? As a matter of fact, yes. It is possible to pass from that timeline to the inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix. Therefore, it should be possible to re-enter the timeline at an earlier time. This is probably against the rules for ordinary guests of the inn but it should be feasible for magically propelled travelers like Valeria Matuchek or Holger Danske.

I have recently stopped driving a car. I would not be able to cope with an aircar unless it was 100% self-driving.

There is probably more to be said about living in the Technic History.

Shaping The Future

"The Sensitive Man."

A man called Thomas Bancroft leads a group that has kidnapped a man called Michael Tighe. The sensitive man of the title eavesdrops:

"Bancroft: 'Yes. The issues are too large for a few lives to matter. Still, Michael Tighe is only human. He'll talk.'" (p. 136)

Tighe can be made to reveal the secrets of the Psychotechnic Institute even though Bancroft "'...hates[s] to use extreme measures...'" (ibid.) and "'...won't enjoy it.'" (p. 137)

That's big of him! Not to enjoy it! Some fictional characters automatically put themselves on the wrong side by being prepared to torture prisoners. 

In these opening three stories:

"Marius"

"Un-Man"

"The Sensitive Man"

- opposed groups fight to shape the future and thus fight to shape the contents of the subsequent instalments of this future history series. The psychotechnicians of the Galactic civilization in the concluding instalment depend for their existence on what happens and on what is done in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

POVs In The Mermaid Tavern

"The Sensitive Man."

The opening paragraph is an objective description of the Mermaid Tavern. The second paragraph introduces a viewpoint character:

"The sensitive man paused for a moment in the foyer, sweeping the big circular room with a hurried glance. Half the tables were filled." (p. 131)

This is definitely the sensitive man looking at the room, not anyone else looking at him. This paragraph concludes by telling us his surname:

"Dalgetty typed [the people in the bar] as he watched." (ibid.)

The pov (point of view) stays with Dalgetty except for once briefly while he is in the company of a rec girl:

"A young man, she guessed..." (p. 135)

Poul Anderson did not have full pov control while writing these early instalments of his first future history series.

The Mermaid Tavern In Pacific Colony

Poul Anderson, "The Sensitive Man" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 31-129.

"The Mermaid Tavern had been elaborately decorated..." (p. 131)

And we read a description of the decorations which I am sure that I have summarized before (see here): a colourful beginning to a new story.

This is in Pacific Colony which was mentioned twice in the previous story. The accumulation of future history background details continues but that is all that I have time for this morning because Saturday activities in Lancaster beckon. Yesterday evening at a concert, disco and art auction, we raised nearly £2000 toward a solar-powered well in a deprived part of the world. Onward, Earthlings.

"Un-Man": Conclusion

"Un-Man."

This is not the whole story about the conclusion of "Un-Man," just the points that I wanted to comment on.

Naysmith thinks:

"Psychological troubles are no excuse for losing your appetite. In fact, they should heighten the old reliable pleasures." (XIV, p. 126)

There is no "excuse" or "should" involved. People react differently, that is all. Andrea tells me that he comfort eats whereas, when I have psychological troubles, I lose my appetite and a lot of weight. Maybe a good thing in the long run.

It was easy for Fourre to arrange his secret clone research during the Years of Madness: those "Years" again.

Jeanne Donner to Naysmith:

"'Oh, yes. I understand.' She stood quiet for a while. The wind blew her dress and hair about her, fluttering them against the great clean expanse of sea and forest and sky." (pp. 128-129)

The wind again emphasizes human silence. The world is clean because it has been cleansed of the psychotics in the "gang."

Enemy Headquarters

"Un-Man."

A Synthesis-trained Un-man has deduced with 80% probability that Arnold Besser, chief of international finance, is the head of the clandestine anti-UN gang. If he is, then the capture of four identical Un-men will probably make Besser have these four prisoners sent to his secret headquarters, wherever that is, and will also make him go straight there himself to interrogate them. The UN Secret Service replaces Besser's chauffer-bodyguard with a disguised Un-man who places a radio tracer in Besser's jet. When the attack warning sirens sound in the sea station which is the secret headquarters, the disguised Un-man kills Besser and other gang members in the presence of his four captured Brothers. And the job is a good one. It is as if the men from UNCLE had penetrated THRUSH Central in a single episode.

In The Final Affair by David McDaniel, available online, UNCLE simultaneously closes down all three THRUSH Centrals, each with its Ultimate Computer, then mounts a naval attack, in which Alexander Waverley is killed, on THRUSH Island. In Ian Fleming's novels, James Bond defeats SMERSH, destroys SPECTRE twice, kills Blofeld in the Castle of Death and must then assassinate Scaramanga in order to be reinstated into the Secret Service, but the KGB remains. In "Un-Man," the gang is destroyed but the real enemy remains and will return in a different form in "The Sensitive Man."

Privacy

"Un-Man."

"Naysmith slipped a mantle over his tunic and a conventional half-mask over his face, the latter less from politeness than as a disguise." (V, p. 51)

"No one spoke to anyone else, the custom of privacy was too ingrained. He was just as glad of that." (p. 53)

"'I can't predict Besser's actions very closely, since in spite of his prominence he uses privacy as a cover-up for relevant psychological data.'" (X, p. 98)

Next comes Jeanne Donner's explanation that the privacy notion originated during the Years of Madness which have also been mentioned several times. A seemingly straightforward story, only the second in the series, constructs an intricate edifice of multiple future historical background details.

Wind And Stefan

"Un-Man."

"'[Stefan Rostomily] died five years ago. A cave-in. I buried him there on Mars.'

"The trees about them whispered with wind." (XVII, p. 114)

This wind whispers, of course.

Stef was a superman in two senses: first, a rare individual with every good quality - omnicompetent, inventive, creative, good as a person etc; secondly, he became the template of the apparently unkillable "Un-man."

In haste here. Have a good day.

Rosenberg And Jeanne

"Un-Man."

When Rosenberg and Jeanne Donner sit in silence for a while, he hears:

"...the wind whistling and piping far up the canyon." (XII, p. 110)

Yet again the wind underlines and emphasizes a human interaction, in this case silence.

When Rosenberg mentions that notions of privacy were untenable in Martian living conditions, she replies that such notions are recent on Earth and that they:

"'Go back to the Years of Madness, when there was so much eccentricity of all kinds, a lot of it illegal.'" (p. 111)

Another hint about that elusive and allusive period.

Jeanne discloses that her husband's double, Naysmith:

"'...stayed here overnight -'

"A slow flush crept up her cheeks and she looked away." (ibid.)

If they had sex, then legally that was rape. She had consented to sex with her husband who he was not.

The Sun And The Man

In a church, consecrated bread and wine are the body of a Man who is God. (Here I express a particular world-view, not my own.)

"Overhead he saw a painted roof, where a youth killed a bull, and the Bull was the Sun and the Man."

-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 55-112 AT 7, p. 92.

Manse Everard of the Time Patrol understands the dominant world-view in Persia in 542 A.D. Peasants make offerings not to the Mother of God but:

"...to an Earth Mother who was old in this land when the Aryans came, and that was in a predawn past." (ibid.)

A Time Patrolman is able to travel not only physically but also conceptually. He experiences the past and sees, sometimes even experiences, what the present would have been if the past had been different.

Other Cultural Influences

I get the impression that Poul Anderson respected Zen although he mentions it only briefly and rarely. Indeed, he respected religious traditions and cultural diversity. We have all heard of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. I had not read it but Paul, whom I mentioned recently, lent me the sequel, Lila, and has now lent me the first book so that I am reading the two books out of order if indeed I do read Zen And... all the way through. This is the time of evening for non-Poul-Anderson-related reading or rereading and Pirsig competes with Stieg Larsson and A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine. But it is all one, really. Writers take us into their creative imaginations and I post to express some of our appreciation.

Anderson's Psychotechnic History has hidden depths.

More Future Jobs

"Un-Man."

Prior, secretly working for the UN, is officially:

"...a semantic analyst for a large trading outfit..." (V, p. 53)

Robert Naysmith is officially a cybernetic analyst. His degrees are in epistemology and communications theory and he describes his work as:

"'...basic-theoretical consultant. Trouble-shooter in the realm of ideas.'" (p. 56)

Fourre comments that this also makes him "'...something of a linguist...'" (ibid.)

Naysmith is too old to have received Synthesis training so an epistemologist or semanticist is the closest approach to an integrating synthesist. Naysmith's knowledge of language, psychology and the sciences should enable him to integrate information and derive a larger picture, Fourre hopes. That seems to be asking a lot.

Peter Christian, a younger Brother with Synthesis training, is able to estimate with 80% probability that Besser, chief of international finance, is the head of the secret anti-UN gang. This estimate is based on:

Besser's past history;

his known character;

his country's recent history;

the necessary communications for a planet-wide least-effort anti-UN organization;

other data.

It is also highly probable that Roger Wade, president of Brain Tools, Incorporated, and prominent Americanist Party supporter, is the anti-UN chief for North America.

Assuming that Besser will act logically and on a survival axiom and also taking into account his insufficient understanding of modern socio-theory and his personal bias, Christian calculates the best course of action for his Brothers to apprehend the leaders of the gang.

The Years Of Madness III

"Un-Man."

"'It's too bad that human exogenesis was developed during the Years of Madness...'" (p. 106)

Another reference to this mysterious period and this time we receive a little more information. The text continues:

"'...when moral scruples went to hell and scientists were as fanatical as everyone else.'" (ibid.)

That has to be an exaggeration. Everyone was fanatical and without scruples? How could society have survived and any kind of sanity been restored? 

Sanity has wide bounds but how far can such bounds be stretched? And how could a whole society go beyond anyone's idea of the bounds of sanity? We should also refer to Brian Aldiss' novel, Barefoot In The Head, in which everyone has been affected by hallucinogenic chemical weapons. 

I think that we need to be told more about these Years of Madness. They are not even mentioned in the Psychotechnic History Chronology of the Future. But surely they would have been a turning point with people emerging in very different shape into subsequent periods?

Dawn Like Roses And Points Of View

"Un-Man."

See Dawn Like Roses. 

The dawn is like roses as Naysmith lands his airboat. The omniscient narrator informs us that:

"If Jeanne was alert, she'd have a gun on him now." (p. 98)

This means that Naysmith reflects that, "If Jeanne is alert..." etc. Therefore, he is the viewpoint character. However, when Rosenberg follows Naysmith out of the boat, the former is cold, hungry, tired, has been kept in the dark and remembers sunrise on Mars. Thus, the point of view has shifted to Rosenberg. Despite the comparative gauntness of Mars, he feels homesick for it. But he now appreciates Earth, having returned to it.

Always watch for descriptions of nature and narrative points of view.

I must now go to meet the Paul that I mentioned in the previous post.

Around Lancaster

Short posts like this one suit my life style. If I am back in the house for twenty minutes during the day, then I might be able to write and publish a post of a few sentences and then nothing more for several hours. Meanwhile, real life displays all the issues addressed by Poul Anderson, which we might summarize as: conflict and humanity. Tomorrow I will have coffee with another Paul whose outlook is very different from mine but, for this reason, we should be able to learn. Once, Paul referred to "one of the big leftists in town." I did not know who he meant but then he added "Eugene, I think he's called." A comrade!

Also in Lancaster, I met a black Jehovah's Witness and gave him my interpretation of the New Testament. After a long conversation, we introduced ourselves by name and discovered that we were Simon Peter and Paul. Many of us ask the same questions but find different answers. I have found that Mormons listen because for the first time they are hearing a different worldview. Anderson referred to Mormon friends in "The Discovery of the Past."

Addendum: This post was terminated abruptly last night. There is further discussion of "The Discovery of the Past," here.

Life In The Future

"Un-Man."

Despite its action-adventure plot, this story builds up a picture of people living in a future period.

(i) The narrative opens in a large apartment building, "...a city in its own right...," (I, p. 32) overlooking the Illinois plain, "...green with corn..." (ibid.)

(ii) The action moves to the "...dust and cobwebs..." (II, p. 35) of an uninhabited part of the dying city of Chicago.

(iii) A half underground town and its plantations on Mars. (III)

(iv) Sofie is an engineer on the Pacific Colony project and a member of a free-marriage group. (IV)

(v) People wear masks for privacy. (V)

(vi) Naysmith lands his flying boat on a ramp of the Frisco Unit where he takes an elevator past shops, offices, schools etc, then travels on slideways through a residential area on the 107th level.

(vii) Postwar resettlements are called "colonies." (VI)

(viii) The government regulates giant agricultural combines.

(ix) Local private fruit-raising plantations cooperate to compete against them.

(x) Many people commute by airbus from Brigham City to work in, e.g., the Pacific Colony.

(xi) Jeanne Donner works "...at home as a mail-consultant semantic linguist..." (VI, p. 60)

(xii) Hindu peasants have tiny fields whereas Chinese collectives get powerplants.

(xiii) Complex civilization requires ruthlessly selective education, generating intellectual and social stratification.

(xiv) There are slums around Manhattan Crater but floating oceanic colonies; cities on the Moon, Mars and Venus but Congo natives drumming at rain clouds.

(xv) A generation of Synthesis-trained citizens might make a difference.

(xvi) Geriatrics and birth control generate an older, less flexible population just when originality is needed.

(xvii) "...the change in technology had brought a change in human nature itself which would have deeper effects than any ephemeral transition period." (p. 64)

Amen to (xvii).

Un-Men And Science

"Un-Man."

The Brothers are precocious. One of them is keen to become involved in an operation:

"He was still young enough to find this a glorious cloak-and-dagger adventure. Well, he'd learn, and the learning would be a little death within him." (X, p. 96)

"The logical end-product of scientific warfare was that all data became military secrets - a society without feedback or stability. That was what he fought against." (p. 97)

Don't just win wars but end them.

This is the theme of James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume I, They Shall Have Stars: all scientific discoveries are kept secret so that science itself is stifled. Those who make discoveries that can benefit all of mankind must work against both current power blocs.

Freedom

"Un-Man."

"It had been established that a Brother would accept the truth and keep his secret from the age of twelve, and that he never refused to turn Un-man." (X, p. 95)

Precisely. They have been guided but not brainwashed or indoctrinated. Each acts freely but they are sufficiently well known that their actions are predictable. Someone addicted to alcohol gets drunk. Someone with no taste for alcohol does not. Both act freely. It makes no sense to claim that our first ancestors were created perfect but nevertheless freely acted wrongly. The world, if created perfect, would have developed but would have remained perfect.

The Years Of Madness II

"Un-man."

Imagine a Psychotechnic History instalment set in a period when a large percentage of the population is insane. How do they manage to get out of it? In the Brian Aldiss story whose title I do not remember, everyone was, or was going, mad - as far as I remember. Society was so fragmented that every character was an office holder or committee member in a "Society" that campaigned for a (different) important cause. One character disapproved of this fragmentation of society into Societies and was himself the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Societies. At one point in the text, the omniscient narrator used a descriptive phrase and, shortly after that, one of the characters used this same phrase, preceding it with "As the author says..." The effect on the reader was to make him wonder which level of reality he was on.

Since Poul Anderson mentions these Years of Madness several times, he could have placed one story - maybe one would have been enough - in that period. A lot of what happens in this future history series is presented in what the characters think or say to each other rather in narrative form. We can regard the Psychotechnic History as a good preparation for the Technic History which, in The Earth Book Of Stormgate, reaches the peak of American future history writing, in my opinion.

The Years Of Madness

"Un-Man."

"'I remember the tail-end of the Years of Hunger, and then the Years of Madness, and the Socialist Depression...'" (IV, p. 51)

We understand "Hunger" and "Depression" and indeed "madness" but what are "Years of Madness"?

Robert Heinlein's Future History Time Chart begins with "Crazy Years" which include:

"...mass psychoses in the sixth decade, and the Interregnum."

-Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon (London, 1963), p. 7.

By "the sixth decade," he really does mean the 1960s, not the 2060s or etc! 

So far, Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History continues to have some parallels with its inspiration, the Future History.

Etienne Fourre had fought:

"...with the gendarmerie against the atomists in the Years of Madness..." (V, p. 54)

"Most people looked at the surface of things. They saw that the great upheavals, the World Wars and the Years of Hunger and the Years of Madness and the economic breakdowns had been accompanied by the dissolution of traditional social modes, and they thought that the first was the cause of the second." (VI, p. 64)

"The rising incidence of neurosis and insanity among the intelligent and apathy among the insensitive had to be checked before other Years of Madness came." (X, pp. 94-95)

There is a Brian Aldiss story where everyone is insane.

The American Guard

(I did not want to attach an image displaying EDL slogans but this one is instructive.)

"Un-Man."

Un-man Robert Naysmith confronts Colonel Samsey:

"'Cram it, Samsey,' said Naysmith wearily. 'The American Guard has ranks, uniforms, weapons, and drills. Every member belongs to the Americanist Party. You're a private army, Nazi style, and you've done the murders, robberies, and beatings of the Party for the last five years. As soon as the government is able to prove that in court, you'll all go to the Antarctic mines and you know it. Your hope is that your faction can be in power before there is a case against you.'

"'Libel! We're a patriotic social group -'" (VIII, p. 78)

Poul Anderson projects into this future history the kinds of political movements that we know from past history and from current experience. We are currently familiar with street movements that aspire to become private armies: Proud Boys and a succession of similar outfits in Britain. Most murders are random street violence although there have also recently been the murders of a Labour Member of Parliament by a white supremacist and of a Conservative MP by an Islamist.

Someone whose judgement I usually respect had hoped that the EDL would turn out to be just a patriotic movement...

See also Jack Havig's Pamphlet.

Signals And POVs

"Un-Man."

An occasional feature of superheroes is some way to summon them when they are needed. Superman hears a signal that others cannot. Bruce Wayne sees the Bat-signal. An Un-man hears a sound, then a voice, in his head:

"The shrilling within his head brought Robert Naysmith to full awareness with a savage force." (IV, p. 48)

A voice in his skull tells him where to report and why. Like Clark Kent, he must make an excuse to leave what he is doing.

He must stop painting Sofie on a beach and fly her home and suddenly the narrative shifts to her point of view:

"He looked older than his twenty-five years. And she, thought Sofie with sudden tiredness, looked younger than her forty." (p. 50)

Rather than being told Sofie's thoughts directly, we should instead be informed that Naysmith can easily guess or deduce what she is thinking.

The Rostomily Brotherhood

"Un-Man."

Two Brothers unmask to Barney Rosenberg and intend to tell him that they are identical twins but Rosenberg recognizes Stefan Rostomily. At last we know that the Brothers are clones and whose clones they are. Identical agents provide alibis for each other and create the legend of an unkillable superman. Other Brothers are disguised but all bear Rostomily's superior qualities that had made Fourre have him cloned, a concept that warrants more than a single story - but Poul Anderson always moved on to other ideas. Next, we will have the Sensitive Man (another kind of "superman"), an Un-man overthrowing a dictatorship on Venus and some major social changes on Earth - "into futurity," as the Time Traveller said.

Wind And The Truth

"Un-Man."

We should always look for any contributions by the wind in Poul Anderson's narratives. Naysmith has entered Colonel Samsey's apartment from its balcony and now sets out to interrogate the Colonel quickly, quietly and efficiently. It is appropriate therefore that the apartment is quiet, the only sounds being:

"...the man's labored breathing and the sigh of wind blowing the curtains at the balcony door." (p. 79)

This wind sighs. It does not roar etc.

The narrator explains that truth drugs do not oblige anyone to tell the truth but do induce babbling, especially about what is meant to be kept secret. In The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall, the viewpoint character has enough control to divert his drug-induced babbling away from anything important even when quizzed by a skilled interrogator. Naysmith gets all that he needs from Samsey.

Samsey And Naysmith

"Un-Man."

Colonel Samsey, viewpoint character, is confronted by a masked man whom the omniscient narrator refers to as "Naysmith." However, since the viewpoint character does not know his assailant's name, the narrator should not use it. 

Samsey is rendered unconscious but this narrative section continues so the Colonel can no longer be the viewpoint character. We read a third person account of Naysmith easing Samsey onto the bed, then Naysmith takes over as viewpoint character:

"Naysmith had been through this before, but he grimaced..." (p. 79)

After reviving Samsey, Naysmith confirms Donner's death by unmasking to the Colonel and asking the latter to identify him:

"'Donner - but you're dead. We killed you in Chicago. You died, you're dead.'" (p. 81)

This could have been yet another chapter in the legend of the immortal Un-man. However, Naysmith now fakes Samsey's suicide, regarding this death as an act of war. Samsey could hardly have complained. He had accepted an order to kill a man called Barney Rosenberg without knowing why. Those who live by the sword...

Some Quotations

"Un-Man."

"She bit her lip. Her face was white in the streaming moon-glow. 'This is a terrible world we live in.'

"'No, Jeanne. It's a - potentially lovely world. My job is to keep it that way.'" (pp. 76-77)

In some ways actually lovely; in others, potentially lovely.

Someone else wrote:

"Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

There is beauty to be appreciated now and more to be worked for in future.

Naysmith also says to Jeanne:

"'Good-night, sweet princess.'" (p. 77) 

Thus, he quotes from Hamlet:

"Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to they rest." (Act 5, Scene 2.)

King Charles III quoted "...flights of angels sing thee to thy rest..." when addressing the nation immediately after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Enemies Of The UN

A Mixed Bag

nationalists

militarists

industrialists 

financiers

politicians

labour leaders

religionists

cranks

fanatics

Syndics

Neocommunists

Pilgrims

Hedonists

victims of UN military actions or policy decisions

(If you appeal to enough minorities, then you have a majority!)

Their Plan

They unite temporarily for a common purpose.

Their agents inside the UN take actions that discredit it.

Secessions.

Military revolutions.

Colonial ground troops seizing the Moon bases - which reminds us of Heinlein's "The Long Watch."

The UN

"Un-Man."

"'The Inspectorate is supposed to tell the U.N. Moon bases where to plant their rocket bombs; the Service tries to make bombardment unnecessary by forestalling hostile action.'" (p. 70)

"'Never forget that the U.N. exists first, last and all the time to keep the peace. Everything else is secondary.'" (ibid.)

At this point, Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History thematically parallels Robert Heinlein's Future History on which it had been structurally modelled.

"The League of Nations had folded up; what would keep the United Nations from breaking up, too, and thus lead to another World War?"

-Robert Heinlein, "The Long Watch" IN Heinlein, The Green Hills Of Earth (London, 1967), pp. 36-50 AT p. 37.

In the Psychotechnic History, nationalists conspire to overthrow the UN world government. In "The Long Watch," the Executive Officer of Moon Base tries to lead a military coup:

"...it was not safe (so he said) to leave control of the world in political hands; power must be held by a scientifically selected group. In short - the Patrol."

-Heinlein, (ibid.)

In both cases, the bad guys are rounded up but the issues remain.

The Un-Man, The Shadow And The Phantom

"Un-Man."

Faster and surer than an average human being, Naysmith is able to escape from an attack by six S-men, American Security agents. They will find his recent fingerprints which will match with those of the dead Donner and of several other UN agents around the world. Thus, they will know that they are up against:

"...the Un-man, the hated and feared shadow who could strike in a dozen places at once, swifter and deadlier than flesh had a right to be, who had now risen from his grave to harry them again. He, Naysmith, had just added another chapter to a legend." (p. 67)

He is a "shadow." See The Shadow. One way to create the image of an immortal crime-fighter is to have different men playing the role. The Phantom did this over twenty generations.

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History incorporates a story element usually seen in other genres and media.

The Donners

"Un-Man."

At the beginning of this story, Martin Donner has a picture of his wife, Jeanne, with:

"...children in her arms..." (p. 31)

- whereas, later in this same story, they have only one still very young son, Jimmy.

The Donners' house has:

a stone fireplace probably built by Donner, Naysmith thinks;

on the mantelpiece, an old marble clock, brass candlesticks and a Lunar crystal;

on the walls, an antique hanging musket, animated films, engravings, a Rembrandt rabbi and a Constable landscape;

an anachronistic mahogany desk;

a console with a wide music selection;

bookshelves with microprint rolls and rebound volumes, including a much-used Shakespeare.

Rich details: Naysmith, a Brother of Donner, smiles at the Shakespeare. This quiet scene is very welcome especially since the narrative is about to launch its characters and us, its readers, into a standard fight and chase sequence.

All History At Stake?

"Un-Man."

One of Naysmith's colleagues had:

"'...put the snatch on a certain man and pumped him full of truth drug.' Naysmith didn't ask what had happened to the victim; the struggle was utterly ruthless, with all history at stake." (p. 57)

Do we just read past this? Or do we, while reading, just accept the perspective of the viewpoint character? That character might have objected to the disappearance of a kidnap victim in whatever cause. Can we ever be sure that all history is at stake in any current conflict? And, even if we think that we are sure, do we also think that anything goes? I do not expect to become involved in a movement that involves kidnappings or assassinations but who knows what will happen in future? I can imagine this scenario: I am called to court to give evidence against a political comrade and am pressurized to lie under oath because "all history is at stake." Massive pressures cause massive political splits and disillusionments. Most of the time, I am glad to be on the sidelines.

Fourre

There are biographical details about Etienne Fourre in "Marius" and in "Un-Man." Are they consistent? Does it matter? I have suddenly realized that it does not. If we imagine that the instalments of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History are written by different authors in later periods of that fictional timeline, then any of those authors might have got some of the details wrong or alternatively might have written a fictionalized account in which he was obliged to improvise to some extent because he had not known what all of the details had originally been in any case. Thus, as long as we receive a reasonably consistent account of Fourre as a character, there is scope for some divergence in the accounts.

Fourre is the viewpoint character in "Marius" but is seen from the outside by Naysmith in "Un-Man." This difference alone provides the opportunity to present a more rounded account. Unfortunately, that is the last that we see of Fourre because history moves on. The Technic History presents the best of two worlds: long character-based series and a long future history series. Poul Anderson is unique in that we can move from one of his future history series to another.

Death

"Un-Man."

When a man dies, things happen to his body, his brain and the society from which he has departed. Thus, Naysmith imagines Donner. Physically, the dead man sprawls sightlessly, muscles stiff, body devouring itself. Socially, he leaves a gap in the Brotherhood. (This Brotherhood has not been fully explained yet but we are starting to get the idea.) That leaves Donner's brain:

"...brain darkened, withdrawn into the great night..." (p. 48)

"...darkened..." is an appropriate description of a brain that has ceased to be conscious. It is not an entity in the brain but the brain itself that has entered "...the great night..." of unconscious, inanimate matter. But, of course, even "darkness" and "night" are not fully accurate descriptions of unconsciousness. We can be conscious on a dark night, not seeing but still thinking and using our other senses. Death is the permanent cessation of all that. At least, many of us believe so... Death is not only night but also a permanent dreamless sleep. I felt my consciousness cease under a general anesthetic and remember that now only because I regained consciousness later. 

Sanity

The Psychotechnic Institute aims to bring about sane individuals in a sane society. I agree with these aims. However... Many people will have different objections to the Institute's project.

I think that individual sanity can only be encouraged but not brought about to any sort of schedule or by any kind of manipulation of educational or social institutions. What is sanity? We will formulate this in different ways. One way, influenced by contemplative traditions, is to say that each of us is not a separate self (isolated, vulnerable, defensive, aggressive-defensive, assertive etc) but a member of the universal self, i.e., the universe conscious of itself in each psychophysical organism. If we acted on this realization, then we would cooperate to preserve life instead of contending to destroy it. However, not everyone is going to realize their oneness simultaneously, to say the least. Education and culture can encourage contemplation but that is all that they can do in this respect. (I received an upbringing that intensified the feeling of separate selfhood instead of pointing towards transcendence of it.)

Apart from encouraging contemplative practices, the Institute can work on social and political arrangements and, since we all know how contentious an issue that is, I will end this discussion here.

Mars In "Un-Man"

Hasty breakfast post before a walk along the canal to a fund-raising event at a Hospice.

The Mars in Poul Anderson's "Un-Man" neither has a humanly breathable atmosphere nor is completely lifeless. It is an intermediate case with sparse life and rare natives. Martian organisms survive long cold nights and winters by slowing down their metabolisms to almost zero so it makes sense first that a human researcher of such organisms will find a way to develop suspended animation and secondly that Terrestrial factions will contend to control such a discovery.

We know that a man called Stefan killed Reinach in "Marius" and also that a man called Stefan Rostomily has died on Mars in "Un-Man." We will learn more. Onward.

Un-men

"Un-Man."

As if to confirm the previous post, Donner's captors between them disclose that:

their captive is not American Security so he must be an Un-man, even, as one of them affirms, the Un-man;

but this Un-man, who has made a lot of trouble for the UN's enemies, has been killed several times;

so it seems that the UN has a corps of physically identical "supermen" (p. 37) or, at least, of very able agents who have been disguised to look alike.

(They have not been disguised but that is how it seems to their enemies so far.)

Donner, disclosing nothing to his captors, thinks of the Un-men as "Brothers." (ibid.) We will learn later how they are brothers.

Superhero teams are a major part of superhero mythology so here is a potential sub-series for adaptation to both screen and comic strips. However, within the Psychotechnic History, "Un-Man" remains this single story.  

A Masked Man

"Un-Man."

The title of this story is "(Fill in the blank)-Man." Its viewpoint character wears a mask and camouflaged clothing, carries tools on his belt and descends the side of a building on a cord. We gather that he is not a mere burglar but a clandestine hero who is on the trail of some villains. Thus, he is typical of one kind of comic strip character.

Superman began as sf - he is extraterrestrial - but initiated the new genre of superheroes which equally incorporates fantasy - magically or supernaturally powered characters - and also, paradoxically, non-superpowered characters - masked avengers or costumed adventurers.

Elements of superheroes remain in sf:

"Un-Man" and "The Sensitive Man" in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History;

Gil "the Arm" Hamilton and the protectors in Larry Niven's Known Space future history;

Jack the Bodiless and Diamond Mask in Julian May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy.

Enjoy Un-man and remember that he is a literary cousin of the Batman.

Madness And Sorrow

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

We are impressed by the amount of rebuilding that has been done in the decades since the devastation of World War III. A two mile long, three hundred stories high apartment building, a city in its own right, with landing flanges for individual air boats, looms over the Illinois corn fields of Midwest Agricultural where a few clumps of trees have been planted and old, no longer used, highways are still visible.

We might be disappointed that the plot of this story is not the daily life of the future but good guys versus bad guys: a UN agent spies on and is captured by conspirators. However, there is a deeper point. Already familiar with this story, we are able to skip to a later section where the identity of the enemy is revealed. It is not an equivalent of SMERSH, SPECTRE or Ernst Stavro Blofeld but, in a passage that we have already quoted more than once:

"The enemy was old and strong and crafty, it took a million forms and it could never quite be slain. For it was man himself - the madness and sorrow of the human soul, the revolt of a primitive against the unnatural state called civilization and freedom." (pp. 125-126)

Do we quite agree with this way of putting it? Not necessarily, but it is a powerful statement of a fundamental problem.

See also The Protean Enemy.

Past Futures

The first three instalments of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History are now in our past:

"Marius," 1964;

"Un-Man," 2004;

"The Sensitive Man," 2009.

Much has happened:

World War III in 1958;

UN world government established in 1965;

the Psychotechnic Institute founded in 1975.

Also, colonization of Mars, Venus and Terrestrial seabeds, massive rebuilding and urbanization on Earth and a Second Industrial Revolution.

A completely different world and also a completely impossible one! But we accept each future history series on its own terms while reading it. Following the narrative of this fictional timeline eventually brings us to the interstellar scenario of the Stellar Union, the Coordination Service and the Nomads in later instalments.

Night

In the opening story of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, Etienne Fourre, chief of the Maquisard Brotherhood, therefore French representative in the Supreme Council of United Free Europe, looks past his Commandant into night. 

In Anderson's Technic History, the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire is delayed but not prevented. 

OK. Night is coming. One passage more than any other has directly addressed me in the works of CS Lewis. The author as viewpoint character and first person narrator inadvertently enters the mind of a young woman where he hears:

"...a voice at whose sound my bones turned to water: 'Child, child, child, let me in before the night comes.'

'Before the night comes'..."

-CS Lewis, "The Shoddy Lands" IN Lewis, The Dark Tower and other stories (London, 1983), pp. 104-111 AT p. 110.

Personified reality penetrates the "shoddy lands" of a closed mind. Before meditating each morning, I ask, "Please help me to let you in..."

Meanwhile, for Fourre, for Flandry, for all of us, the night approaches.

Into Night

"Marius."

It is night and Reinach sits with his back to a closed but un-curtained window, showing rain and darkness. He asks Fourre:

"'...what way are we heading?'

"Fourre looked past him into night. 'Toward war,' he said quite softly. 'Another nuclear war, some fifty years hence. It isn't certain the human race can survive that.'

"Rain stammered on the windowpanes, falling hard now, and wind hooted in the empty streets." (p. 20)

Observations

Clearly, Fourre looks into two nights: the darkness outside the window and the Long Night, so to say, for the human race. Fourre is like an Ythrian seeing the shadow of God the Hunter across the future.

I had meant to stop there but the pathetic fallacy continues. Not only does the rain speak - stammers hard - as the human character speaks but also the omnipresent Andersonian wind hoots in the appropriately empty streets. The elements underline and punctuate Poul Anderson's dialogues. Readers who do not consciously reflect on these background sound effects must nevertheless be affected by them.

Disarming And Frisking

"Marius."

Commanders are disarmed before they meet the Chairman because:

"...everyone had grown far too used to settling disputes violently." (p. 17)

I think that that was why there was a Civil War after Partition in Ireland instead of just two massive rival political campaigns.

But also:

"The officer frisked him, and that was a wholly new indignity, which heated Fourre's own skin. He choked his anger, thinking that Valti had predicted as much."  (ibid.)

A British soldier frisked me once in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. I cooperated by moving my arms out so that he could feel beneath them but felt that I was handled like an inanimate object, not acknowledged or respected as a human being. I was neither thanked nor even looked at. When asked later by someone else how I felt about this experience, I said, "OK," but realized that some, perhaps many, would have reacted like Fourre - not that I had read about Fourre back then but the character represents a particular human response.

All human life is here in the future histories.

(Which Poul Anderson work is represented by the attached cover image?)