Technic Civilization Saga: Covers

See:

Technic History: Volumes And Instalments

The seven Saga covers, reproduced again here, deplorable though Volumes IV-VII are, do present a visual summary of the series:

I Nicholas van Rijn

II David Falkayn

III Ythrians

IV-VII Dominic Flandry, from youth to age

This list omits the pre-League period at the beginning of Volume I and the post-Imperial period in the second half of Vol VII but does nevertheless cover the principal periods of the Technic History.

Poul Anderson's works draw their readers' attention from the remote past to the remote future and back again in multiple timelines. We should return to Conan in the Hyborian Age (a remote past) tomorrow (a near future).

The Centre Of Luxur

Conan The Rebel, XII.

Around a broad plaza:

palace

fane of Set

barracks

parade grounds

archives

offices of councilors and their staff

aristocratic mansions

foreign embassies

the Avenue of Kings

statues of kings with inscriptions

granite buildings painted with symbols of gods

townhouses with flat gardened roofs

Traffic:

lords or ladies in litters

a pedagogue guiding wellborn boys to school

a scribe carrying writing equipment

priests

officials

wealthy merchants

military officers

liveried servants

veiled wives

deliverymen bringing orders

plebeians on errands (maybe)

List Descriptions And Three Senses

Conan The Rebel, XII. 

See previous list descriptions (scroll down).

Traffic into the Stygian capital, Luxur:

foot

cart

litter

chariot

horse

ox

donkey

camel

loinclothed labourers

ragged-tunic-clad drovers

robed desert nomads

colourfully garbed merchants

gossamer-clad courtesans

soldiers

hawkers

strolling performers

housewives

children

foreigners

They:

crowd

jostle

chatter

quarrel

scream curses

yelp laughter

importune

haggle

intrigue

shout

wail

croon

Dirty, littered, cobbled streets smell of:

smoke

grease

dung

roast meat

oils

perfumes

drugs

humanity 

beasts

This is all in Poul Anderson's continuous prose. I have merely extracted lists of nouns and verbs.

Hell Hath No

Conan The Rebel, XI.

People often say the opposite of what they mean. An old revolutionary said, sarcastically, "I'm going to join the (British) Labour Party - because it's full of old people like me!" He meant, of course, that he was not going to join the Labour Party and also that an active party needs young members.

People say, "Hell hath no fury..." They mean, of course, not "Hell hath no fury," but: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Nehekba has easily manipulated Falco and Jehanan and takes for granted her ability to do the same with Conan but he easily turns the tables, earning her enduring enmity. She will, she claims, bring "'...Conan the brute to destruction...'" (p. 116) Meanwhile, Conan doubts his own ability to harm a woman. I guess that either Falco or Jehanan will dispose on Nehekba but I cannot remember what happens. I reread with interest. So many characters interact.

Conan's World View

Conan The Rebel, XII.

Poul Anderson spells out Conan's world view for us. I imagine that this is consistent with the character as presented by Robert E. Howard. Conan cares nothing for fine distinctions between Stygian commoners on the one hand and their "'...overbearing nobles and fanatical priests...'" (p. 119) on the other.

"In his world view, apart from fierce immediate loyalties, the hand of every man was against every other man. At best there was truce, for practical reasons and always fragile. That did not mean that individuals could not share work, trade, enjoyment, liking, respect. He had been sorry to kill certain men in the past, though he lost no sleep afterward. Strife was the natural order of things." (pp. 119-120)

If there is ever any "Judgment" of human actions, then everyone will have to be judged in accordance with the perspectives and values that had made sense to him. Conan's experience teaches him that every man's hand is against every other and that strife is natural but how does he conduct himself within that world view? He is loyal and honourable. Dominic Flandry's mentor, Max Abrams, said that virtues amount to loyalty. See The Wisdom Of Max Abrams. For Flandry's loyalties, see Loyalty.

Conan should heed class conflicts. He might find allies among commoners against nobles and priests. A heroic fantasy novel by Poul Anderson raises such issues.

Soaring Hawk

Conan The Rebel, XI. 

Conan and his three companions are fugitives and Daris suggests that they steal the lightly guarded wingboat. Conan ponders, staring into heaven. And what happens while he does this?

"A hawk soared there." (p. 107)

Not the wind this time but yet another hovering bird of prey. Such birds are another Andersonian motif although not as ubiquitous as the wind. This hawk might represent the troops searching for the fugitives or the freedom of the fugitives if they steal the wingboat. 

We realize that the text has been carefully constructed. Both Daris and Falco have been been transported in the wingboat and have heard the monosyllabic spells spoken by the acolytes to control the motion and speed of the boat. Probably escape by this route will proceed as planned but we will have to read on to find out and, as some of you might now, I turn to other reading at this time of the evening. I will be up early tomorrow morning for an adventure of sorts in another town but should be back to blogging again later in the day.

Crom

Conan The Rebel.

Belit, the heroine of Poul Anderson's Conan novel, was a Robert E. Howard character.

I saw a scene from Conan the Barbarian where Conan played by Arnold Schwarzenegger asked his god, Crom, for help and added "But, if not, to Hell with you!" My attitude to the gods is: "We ask your help but, if not, we'll do it ourselves."

According to Anderson, Crom bestows, on those that he favours, strength and heart but nothing else. We are pleased to learn that Crom Cruach was an Irish pagan god who ran afoul of St. Patrick, of course. 

I was pleased to find Crom in Conan The Rebel because Mitra seems too civilized a god for Conan. With some gods, the message basically is that we are on our own and that it is up to us what we do.

Technic History: Volumes And Instalments

The seven volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga, which is Baen Books' omnibus collection of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, are uniform in length but not in numbers of instalments collected in each volume because the instalments vary so much in length.

I: 11

II: 7

III: 6

IV: 3

V: 6

VI: 4

VII: 6

Volumes I-II average 9 instalments per volume whereas III-VII average 5.

Volumes I-II cover a historical cycle from interplanetary exploration in "The Saturn Game" to the beginning of the end of the Polesotechnic League in "Lodestar." III goes from League to Empire. IV-VII take a long time to get through the life of Dominic Flandry but eventually takes us into a much further future! In any case, it is all the best future history series, in my opinion.

Conan On Civilization Again

Conan The Rebel, IX.

"'You civilized people think that because we barbarians have no cities or books we must be a lot of dumb animals. Hell, we need our wits more than you do!'" (pp. 92-93)

Barbarians are alert and active human beings, not dumb animals. Does Conan speak like a civilized man or am I merely expressing the prejudices of such a man? I think that the answer is partly that Conan has travelled through many civilized realms and has done business with civilized people like, in this volume, Belit, so that he is no longer an unsophisticated barbarian.

He easily sees through the wiles of Nehekba and is overpowering her as my rereading is interrupted. I read this book so long ago that each new plot twist comes as a surprise.

Onward with the Cimmerian.

Conan In Khemi

Conan The Rebel, VII-VIII.

(I am posting during a gap in gardening if anyone out there is interested in keeping up with the minutiae of Lancaster life. It is not all plays and Festivals.)

Four prisoners are allowed to meet and converse in comfort so that their captor, Tothapis, can gather intelligence by remote viewing and eavesdropping. We are familiar with three of the prisoners, Conan, Daris and Jehanan, and have read a reference to the fourth, Falco. Conan The Rebel is a multi-character narrative unlike any other instalments of the series, I believe. 

Capturing Conan and taking him alive is an expensive business. He kills five and wounds nearly everyone else in a Stygian squad before they pummel him into unconsciousness. If there had been fewer of them, then he would have escaped as Manse Everard did in similar circumstances. Next, Nehekba will attempt his corruption. 

Khemi is so haunted that Conan had to overcome his fear of the supernatural to enter it.

Uminankh's Inn

Conan The Rebel, VII.

It is late here and I will be brief.

We appreciate inns in many worlds and times in Poul Anderson's works. I was all set to summarize an account of Uminankh's place in Khemi. However, it is so dreadful that I will leave it to other Poul Anderson enthusiasts to read it for themselves. I mean this, folks. Usually inns sound comfortable. This one does not. The plan is that Conan will spend at least a week holed up there but I am sure that something else will happen although I do not remember what.

I would not be reading a Conan novel if it had not been written by Poul Anderson. This one is good. He turned his hand to anything, also including the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space History. The multiverse is vast.

Conan The Libertarian

Conan The Rebel, VII.

(I googled "Conan the Libertarian" but found only a "Conan the Librarian.")

Do I really want to get back into this argument yet again? No. But the argument is in Poul Anderson's text. I am not importing it. First, I will paraphrase a dialogue between two characters on p. 68.

Conan: If enough serfs cooperated, then they would be able to overthrow the state.

Otanis: But that would end civilization, the heritage of the ages, learning, art and refinement!

Conan: Civilization has much to offer but the price of having a state is too high.

So Conan thinks that it would be better if humanity had remained in the kind of primitive barbarism in which he grew up? I disagree with Conan because I value heritage, learning and art. However, slavery and serfdom are not good.

Could history have proceeded differently with less of the bad and more of the good? It might be difficult to imagine how. But, in any case, we are stuck with how history did happen. But that in turn gives me reason to hope that Conan's preference for a stateless society might be realized in future. This is one theory of how humanity not only has developed but also might continue to develop:

Four Stages

(i) Primitive barbarism. No social surplus of wealth.

(ii) Agriculture. Cities. Slavery. A small surplus necessarily distributed unequally. A state, a body of armed men, necessary to maintain social order, i.e., to ensure the continued rule of the surplus-controlling minority, initially a priesthood, I think.

(iii) Industrial production of a much larger surplus still distributed unequally. Social tensions and conflicts of all kinds. Continued need for a state to prevent theft, looting, rioting etc.

(iv) Advanced technology now socially controlled. An even larger surplus now distributed equally. No ruling group needing a state to maintain its rule.

The fourth stage is arguably possible but evitable. The conflicts inherent in (iii), where we now are, can certainly drive humanity backward instead of forward.

OK. I didn't want to go through all that but, for me, it all comes out of what Conan and Otanis say so that's my take on the issue.

Amidst Sea Wind

Conan The Rebel, VI.

Conan offers "'...shiploads of wealth...'" (pp. 62-63) to a rescued slave if he helps Belit to rescue her brother. 

"'Would those not buy plenty of mercenaries for your cause?' [Conan] pondered a moment, silent amidst the sea wind. 'If you fail us,' he finished bluntly, 'you die.'" (p. 63)

A first-time or one-off blog reader might wonder why I quote Conan's offer and threat. However, regular readers know by now how often the wind punctuates Poul Anderson's dialogues and emphasizes the dramatic pauses. We have got into the habit of noticing and noting this each time it happens which is regularly. We have just been treated to another Anderson action scene as Belit, Conan and their crew capture a Stygian merchant ship. But there are wheels within wheels.

Conan's Absence

Conan The Rebel, IV-V.

I have been using this lap top to follow world events so have not used it to blog for a while.

Conan is absent from Chapters IV and V. We meet several other characters and learn some history, geography and prophecy. There is an Andersonian action scene, a battle, in which Daris, daughter of the Taian rebel leader, is captured. She is transported to Khemi in the magically fast wingboat of Set, the equivalent of a hyperspace spaceship. 

Conan, off-stage for these two chapters, is kin to the Taians and will fulfill one of their prophecies although that destiny is unique to this novel by Poul Anderson and should not affect events in any other volume of the Conan series.

This Hyborian Age literally had good and bad gods and it would have been right to serve the former and to oppose the latter. Maybe this is another timeline or maybe the gods have withdrawn from the human realm since then? Both Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman present explanations of the latter possibility.

Conan will return to the page in VI which we might reread tomoz. Earth Real conflicts also impact consciousness. Parallel narratives: as I heard a hospital porter ask, after grinning when shown a tabloid headline: "Wha'? In real life or int' soap?" We live in two worlds. 

Rip Van Winkle

 

I have just read Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" for the first time in my life. We notice:

the kind of vivid description of the colours of nature that we on this blog appreciate in Poul Anderson's works;

that there is a whole narrative about Van Winkle as a person and about his home life of which we are unaware until we read the story;

that this story must surely count as precursor of later works about suspended animation or futureward time travel.

Some modern fictional characters have become myths. By this I mean that they are universally recognized even by those who have not read the original work. A second criterion might be that the essence of the character can be summarized in a single phrase, e.g.:

he is a great detective;

she entered a mad world through a rabbit hole;

he did not grow up;

he was raised by apes;

he slept for twenty years;

he fights crime dressed as a bat;

he is strong, flies and is "American pie";

he is an alien and logical;

he animated a corpse;

he drinks blood;

he made himself invisible;

he talks to animals.

Once, in a private correspondence, I listed over a hundred. How many sf characters are on this list? Some of Wells'. None of Poul Anderson's. Perhaps Nicholas van Rijn is widely known among sf readers by the description:

he is a flamboyant interstellar trader.

Successful films of Anderson's works would make van Rijn and other characters more widely known but the books have not yet had this effect although they definitely deserve to be more widely circulated.

Hudson And Connecticut

Rip Van Winkle lives in a village near the Hudson. When Poul Anderson's Martin Saunders, in "Flight to Forever," travels into the far future and returns, his departure and return point is a house on a hill near the village of Hudson, New York. A river is visible from the hill.

Robert Heinlein's novel of suspended animation and time travel opens:

"One winter shortly before the Six Weeks War, my tomcat, Petronius the Arbiter, and I lived in an old farmhouse in Connecticut."

-Robert Heinlein, The Door Into Summer (London, 1974), One, p. 7.

I need not explain the significance either of Rip Van Winkle or of Connecticut. But it is worth noting that:

Van Winkle sleeps;

Saunders time travels;

Heinlein's Dan Davis both sleeps and time travels;

Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee both time travels and sleeps.

Twain wrote pre-Wells. Wells coined "Time Machine," "Time Traveller" and "time travelling." Twain used the term, "transposition of epochs." The Yankee returns by suspended animation.

I wanted to post about Rip Van Winkle but these few paragraphs will suffice as a post for now.

Anderson acknowledges Washington Irving and Heinlein acknowledges Twain. Heinlein also references HG Wells' The Sleeper Wakes.

Conan And Many Others

Conan The Rebel.

Poul Anderson clearly did not want to write just about Conan or from Conan's pov. 

In Chapter I, Tothapis converses with Set who gives Tothapis a remote viewing of a conversation between Conan and Belit. Mitra detects and interrupts Set but remains off-stage.

In II, Tothapis converses with Ramwas and Nehekba and gives them a remote viewing of Jehenan and his guards.

In III, Belit tells Conan about Hoiakim, Shaaphi, Jehanan, Aliel, Kedron, Ramwas and three men that she killed. We read not only her dialogue but also some flashbacks.

In IV, Shuat converses with his adjutant, then Ausar addresses his men and converses with his daughter, Daris.

I have not reread any further yet. Clearly, Conan is one of a large cast of characters. There are XX chapters and I am probably going to reread Larry Niven or someone else for the rest of this evening. 

Ivory, Apes, Peacocks And Jealous Gods

Conan The Rebel, III.

"'With what ivory, apes, and peacocks we could muster, I sent back a commission for a warcraft to be built and outfitted.'" (p. 29)

For some history of the phrase, "ivory, and apes, and peacocks," see two previous posts here.

Belit says that Conan and she will have:

"'...a life together. If the jealous gods allow.'" (ibid.)

Probably series editors and authors will not allow but I cannot remember what shape the Conan-Belit relationship is in at the end of this volume and will wait to find out.

We know of one "jealous god" in the Bible but what is the origin of this phrase? Were other gods "jealous"?

Belit's remark reminds us of Manse Everard's realization that the gods are "...a miserly lot." Time travellers who spend a lot of time in the past probably learn to think that way.

I expect to be doing more gardening than blogging tomoz.

Laterz.

Belit And The Wind

Conan The Rebel, III.

Conan is currently with a woman called Belit whose parents, husband and son are dead because of a Stygian raid led by Ramwas. The men were killed. The mother killed herself and Belit killed her young son to save him from slavery. She and her brother were enslaved but she has escaped. She must have revenge so that her dead will have slaves in the hereafter. While she is telling Conan about this, there is a characteristic Andersonian interruption:

"'...I must use my wits, so that Hoiakim, Shaapi, Aliel, and Kedron may have many slaves to attend them.'

"A flaw of wind made the ship lurch and the sail crack.

"'Ramwas had business in Khemi...'" (p. 26)

At the mention of slavery in the hereafter, the ship lurches and the sail cracks because of the wind. It seems to be automatic for Anderson to use the wind to emphasize dramatic moments in the dialogue. By now, regular blog readers have become very familiar with this motif.

Genre Requirements

 

In hard sf, when a spaceship moves faster than light, Poul Anderson has to present a scientific rationale, e.g., in his Technic History, a rapid succession of quantum jumps of the entire ship, whereas, in fantasy, when a sea vessel moves with supernatural speed, magic or the will of a god is a sufficient explanation.

In Virgil's Aeneid, Neptune, favouring one captain in a boat race, reaches up and moves that boat forward by hand! Another captain, realizing what must be happening, rallies his men by declaring that the first place is the gift of the gods and that men must strive for second place.

In Poul Anderson's multiverse, universes with quantum jumps and gods coexist and there is some limited contact between them but never enough to compromise the integrity of the distinct genres.

It is a matter of individual taste which kind of narrative we prefer.

Jehanan And Ramwas

Conan The Rebel, II.

A prisoner, Jehanan, spits on an image of Set in front of his guards. This is unwise. Set is powerful and his worshippers are vengeful. In any case, maybe Set as a deity merits some passive respect although no more than that.

Addressing Ramwas, who is a Stygian military officer, minor nobleman and large landholder, Topathis says:

"'Though the penalty for failure is unbounded, the reward for success can be high.'" (p. 16)

This is a characteristic of evil organizations in fiction and probably also in fact. Failure is punished as if it were deliberate wrong-doing! Knowledge that I was working for such a regime would certainly make me want - and plan - to get out. Ramwas is concerned not about that but only about the dangers of the task that Topathis sets for him.

As in Ian Fleming's From Russia, With Love, the villains assemble before we see much of our hero.

I appreciate Conan The Rebel as one part of Poul Anderson's works but not as an instalment of the Conan series, not having read any other volumes of the latter.

Myth And Fact

 

"'...that which was myth in one world might always be fact in some other.' PERELANDRA"

-CS Lewis, "Forms of Things Unknown" IN Lewis, The Dark Tower and other stories (London, 1983), pp. 124-132 AT p. 124.

(Lewis quotes from his own novel, Perelandra. I have Perelandra upstairs but will not now go to look for that passage in the original.)

Yggdrasil, the World Tree, is a myth to Dominic Flandry (see Yggdrasil And Youth) but a real place to Odin and Loki (see Yggdrasil). Poul Anderson's War Of The Gods is set in a universe where Yggdrasil is real. That universe is visited by Virginia Matuchek from the goetic universe in Anderson's Operation Luna (see Mimir).

Neil Gaiman retells Norse myths and asks whether Ragnorak has happened yet. The ambiguity of the answer to this question makes these myths:

"...seem strangely present and current..."

-Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology (London, 2018), p. xii)

- instead of just past.

Lewis, Anderson and Gaiman are a trinity of the imagination.

Set And Mitra

Conan The Rebel, I.

We are on familiar imaginative territory. Although the magician Tothapis addresses Set as:

"'...lord of the universe...'" (p. 2)

- Set reminds Tothapis:

"'...how many and diverse are the gods of earth, sea, sky, and underworld...'" (p. 3)

Many peoples regard serpentine Set as a devil. His main divine enemy is solar Mitra, worshipped by the Hyborians (not on our map), who would tread him underfoot.

What would we do if we inhabited such a universe? Not worship Set. Tothapis' mattress is:

"...stuffed with the tresses of sacrificial maidens...'" (p. 1)

I would probably pay due respect to Mitra and to local gods while continuing to practice a form of meditation that works just as well in a universe without gods. All kinds of universes coexist in Poul Anderson's multiverse. 

Night In Stygia

See the previous post.

If the fifth dimension is spatial, then we say that the timelines coexist in parallel with each other. If it is temporal, then we say that they succeed each other. If it is something else, then we do not know what to say.

It would be strange to read Poul Anderson's canon in chronological order of fictitious events starting with Conan The Rebel and we would not usually advise anyone to do this. But when we do begin to read the novel, we find Anderson's characteristic detailed descriptiveness:

"Night lay heavy on Stygia. Where the great river emptied into its bay, no whisper of wind came off the ocean beyond. The sky was hazed, so that only a few stars glimmered in sight above Khemi..."

-Poul Anderson, Conan The Rebel (New York, 1981), I, p. 1.

We find Stygia and Khemi on a two-page map after the contents page.

We, editorially speaking, remember almost nothing of previous readings so maybe it is time for another reading at a leisurely pace?

5 Dimensions + 3 BC

Imagine that the events of Poul Anderson's fictional narratives occur in different parts of a single five-dimensional space-time. Each particular sequence of events has the usual three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Additionally, the sequences are separated by a fifth dimension which is either a fourth spatial dimension, a second temporal dimension or a third kind of dimension. The fifth dimension is traversed by multiversal travellers and by guests of the Old Phoenix.

Each sequence of events is a single timeline. Thus, there are multiple pasts and futures. In some cases, we are shown very remote futures. When we say that three of Anderson's novels are set BC, we do not necessarily mean that they are set in the BC period of the same timeline. In fact, they are almost certainly not.

Conan The Rebel is heroic fantasy set in a remote fictional past.

The Dancer From Atlantis is historical sf/time travel fiction set in Atlantis.

The Golden Slave is historical fiction set in 100 BC.

Conan... is the earliest.

The Changes Concluded

Brain Wave, 21.

Archie Brock presides over a community of morons, imbeciles and animals. A chimpanzee and a moron build a charcoal apparatus.

A small silent ovoid with no visible means of propulsion lands and a man steps through its shimmering side. Intellectual mankind will leave Earth not to conquer the many lesser intelligences out there but just to build its own interstellar civilization which might help others now and again. Spacefaring human beings do not:

"'...intend to establish a galactic empire. Conquest is a childishness we've laid aside...'" (p. 187)

These guys know what they are doing in a way that we need to.

Brock's community and any others like it will inherit the Earth. They might be helped now and again but basically they are on their own. Brock would not want to return to the old days. Everyone is making the most of their new reality which, I suddenly realize, is what we have to do every day. 

Future Histories And Poul Anderson

We can look back on future histories as a twentieth century literary tradition with Poul Anderson, I will argue, as a culmination. 

Wells and Stapledon wrote before we were born. Published in 1945 and set loosely after the war, CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength is an imaginative Christian reply to Wellsian/Stapledonian anthropocentric extrapolations. 

American future histories are embedded in our lifetimes if we are old enough. The opening story of Robert Heinlein's Future History is set in 1951. His second volume is set around 2000. Larry Niven's Known Space History opens with:

"...the near future, the exploration of interplanetary space during the next quarter-century."

-Larry Niven, Tales Of Known Space (New York, 1975), p. xii.

That quarter-century is 1975-2000. Niven wrote in 1975 that:

"The Known Space series is now complete." (ibid., p. 223)

It was not. But think about 1975. It is now fifty years ago.

James Blish's Cities In Flight opens with Year 2018!

In Poul Anderson's main future history series, the early twenty-first century is:

"...a violent period of global unrest known as the Chaos."

-Sandra Miesel, CHRONOLOGY OF TECHNIC CIVILIZATION IN Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 795-804 AT p. 795.

We are not out of that yet!

Anderson's Genesis, published in 2000, summarizes past human history, then proceeds through billions of years in a galactic future of post-organic intelligences that will not be superseded either in our lifetimes or for a very long time after that.

Stillness

Brain Wave, 20.

Corinth feels "...the sea wind in his face..." (p. 176)

When Helga tells him that it is he who has become afraid to face life:

"There was a long stillness, only the sea and the wind had voice." (p. 178)

Then he asks for her help. We leave them with sea, stars and a full moon. However, the concluding chapter belongs to those who remain the old kind of human beings, Archie Brock and Sheila. We will reread it shortly.

(Short posts punctuate other activities.)

Known Space And The Earth Book

Tales Of Known Space has the same relationship to Larry Niven's Known Space future history series as The Earth Book Of Stormgate has to the Polesotechnic League period of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. 

Both volumes collect previously uncollected instalments. Tales... collects thirteen. The Earth Book collects twelve.

Tales... has an introduction and interstitial notes by Niven. The Earth Book has the same by Hloch of Stormgate Choth.

Tales... begins with early interplanetary exploration; the Earth Book with early interstellar exploration.

Tales... features the continuing characters, Lucas Garner, Beowulf Shaeffer and Louis Wu. The Earth Book features Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and the other members of the trader team.

Tales... shows the beginning of conflict with the kzinti. The Earth Book shows the origins of conflict with the Merseians.

Each shows some daily life in its history and is a definitive collection of its series.

Glimpse Or Trance

 

Brain Wave, 20.

A Hindu says that, since the change, he has:

"'...lost the feeble glimpse of the ultimate that I once had...'" (p. 173)

Mandelbaum replies that the Hindu's mind has become too strong for:

"'...the kind of trance which was your particular fetalization...'" (ibid.)

What an appalling antithesis!

Contemplation is not a trance. In zazen, we sit in an alert posture with eyes open facing a wall. Contemplation and intelligence are complementary. I expect them to coexist in a better future but we need to build that future to find out.

Sea Wind

Brain Wave, 19. 

When Peter Corinth is told that his wife, Sheila, who had been unable to cope with the change, has given herself unsupervised electroshock treatment which nearly killed her but has instead restored her pre-change personality:

"Corinth was dimly aware of how live and fresh the sea wind felt in his nostrils." (p. 163)

The wind almost always accompanies a pause in the dialogue when the viewpoint character has to absorb what he has just been told. The wind is live and fresh. Sheila has restored her sanity. She has lost the enhanced intelligence which she did not want. She is mentally healthy again although she and he are now irrevocably apart. As if from a distance, he is dimly aware of the fresh wind that signifies her restored wellbeing. Readers often do not analyze how the text conveys its message.

The Change Continues IV (But Nearly Finished)

Brain Wave, 18.

Sensitives make the postal service redundant.

Men's and women's washrooms are no longer separated.

Of necessity, scientists work together for a while to address the change but then become free to follow their own interests. A few recidivists plan to reproduce the inhibitor field and thus to reverse the change but they will be easily detected and stopped by the majority. 

Poul Anderson tries to present the new truncated conversations using italics and brackets as well as quotation marks and the text becomes somewhat disjointed. 

Mankind is advancing beyond the readers' comprehension. The novel approaches its conclusion and as with many other such works, e.g., Starfarers and The Boat Of A Million Years, there will be no sequel. I am a series man, myself.

The Change Continues III

Brain Wave, 18.

The few road vehicles in New York run off the new powercast system. The air is dustless and smokeless. Mid-week feels like Sunday. It is "...like being in the country." (p. 150) The city is dying.

Ten year olds play in an empty shop, then run down the street but do not shout and are no longer like children.

A long noiseless metallic flying shape might mean that gravity has been mastered. An overheard conversation is gibberish to the viewpoint character and to the reader. In the Institute lobby, there is only a blinking, glowing machine. In the building, light is diffused through the air without bulbs.

There is more but it is getting late here. Poul Anderson generates the impression that the changes will continue indefinitely. 

The Inhibitor Field

Brain Wave, 16.

Earth entered the inhibitor field before intelligence had evolved. When intelligence did emerge, it adapted to compensate for the field so that animals and human beings became about as intelligent as they would have done without the field. Then, when Earth left the field, their intelligence quantitatively increased to a qualitatively new level.

The opposite happens for intelligent beings whose planets enter the field. They are suddenly reduced to a sub-moronic level and probably do not survive. Because passage through the field benefits some species, including humanity, Nathan Lewis wonders whether there is a reason for all this but, if there is a reason, then it has to account for the bad effects as well.

At the end of Poul Anderson's There Will Be Time, Robert Anderson wonders whether time travellers from a far future travelled into the past to sow the genes that generated mutant time travellers. That is a better worked out "reason."

Seasons

Some chapters open by marking the passage of the seasons in:

Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys;

Poul Anderson's "Star of the Sea";

Poul Anderson's Brain Wave.

Brain Wave, 15:

"...the late fall of snow..." (p. 131)

17:

"Spring had come late, but now there was warmth in the air and a mist of green on the trees." (p. 143)

18:

"Early summer: the first shy green of leaves has become a fullness enchanted with sunlight, talking with wind; it has rained just an hour ago, and the light cool wind shakes down a fine sparkle of drops, like a ghostly kiss on your uplifted face; a few sparrows dance on the long, empty streets; the clean quiet mass of the buildings is sharp against a luminous blue sky, the thousand windows catch the morning sun and throw it back in one great dazzle." (p. 149)

(It does not surprise regular Anderson readers that the wind talks.)

21 (the closing chapter):

"Autumn again, and winter in the air. The fallen leaves lay in heaps under the bare dark trees and hissed and rattled across the ground with every wind. Only a few splashes of colour remained in the woods, yellow or bronze or scarlet against grayness.

"Overhead the wild geese passed in great flocks, southward bound. There was more life in the sky this year - fewer hunters, Brock supposed. The remote honking drifted down to him, full of wandering and loneliness. It was a clear pale blue up there, the sun wheeled bright and heatless, spilling its coruscant light across a broad and empty land. The wind was strong, flowing around his cheeks and flapping his clothes, the trees were noisy with it." (p. 181)

A full year.

I did not set out to quote at such length but it was difficult to stop, especially since the autumnal passage above culminates with a trademark strong wind.

Autumn is the beginning of an end with the promise of a new beginning if only because there is a cyclical return. This autumn is an end of all the old ways on Earth but much is happening elsewhere and is still happening for Archie Brock on Earth. The season is not dead. The wind flaps his clothes and is noisy in the trees.

The Change Continues II

Brain Wave, 17.

I tried to write that previous post while listening to an on-line interview about current world changes and it became very confusing.

Brian O'Banion, an Irish former New York policeman, now speaks Unitary. In the current local Dukes Playhouse dramatization of The Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy has a language problem on first meeting the Munchkins. One of them asks her, "Kion lingvon vi parolas?" They soon establish that she speaks English and they switch to this although they continue to insert some Esperanto, like "Sekvu la flavan brikan vojon" for "Follow the yellow brick road." During the interval, I approached a Munchkin and said, "Cu vi parolas Esperanton? Gi estas tre facila lingvo," and left him with "Kaj al vi, kamarado!" (Which was about as much as I could manage.) I have gone off the point, haven't I?

O'Banion is an Observer, a role invented by Mendelbaum although probably soon to be adopted by the international government. Administrators need to know what people are thinking and saying so that they can then know what needs to be done. The feeble-minded need to be guided to their new colonies. Someone acting anonymously is buying or at least somehow acquiring scientific equipment and secreting it somewhere. This has to be investigated.

The Change Continues

Brain Wave, 17.

Poul Anderson continues to spell out the implications of his premise until the end.

Gold has become an industrial metal, conductive and inert. A new world-wide man-hour credit standard will replace money. Meanwhile, in New York, New Jersey and New England, the chief administrator, Mandelbaum, issues scrip to be exchanged for goods and services. He and a food-factory superintendent converse in Unitary, made public only a week before, which has maximal logic and minimal redundancy.

Food synthesis plants, when built, will feed everyone without charge. However, it will take time to build robot construction workers. Meanwhile, human workers want to work for less than six hours a day because driving nails, mixing concrete etc are too boring. Mandelbaum suggests beamcasting talks, symphonies etc that they can listen to while working.

Hundreds leave the city every day. When weather-turning force screens are in full production, Mandelbaum will move his office to the country and work outdoors. 

Protean Mind

Brain Wave, 16.

Peter Corinth thinks that somatic control by enhanced intelligence will result in:

an end to psychosomatic diseases;

control by will alone of many organic problems;

an end to pain;

no need for doctors because everyone will learn enough medicine to cope with whatever illnesses remain;

many centuries of lifespan;

no senility.

Corinth discounts immortality because that would involve overloading of experiences and exhaustion of the nervous system although Poul Anderson's own later The Boat Of A Million Years contradicts this.

This is Corinth's "Protean man -" (p. 138) 

Corinth uses the adjective, "protean," one more time when he says that "'...pure logical mind is so protean...'" (p. 141) that hyperintelligent organisms, whether human beings or giant spiders, will discount their physical differences. I think that "giant spiders" is a hopelessly inadequate way to envisage extraterrestrial intelligences. Maybe we will get some data in our lifetimes.

Other Species

Brain Wave, 16.

The Time Traveller has to deduce how mankind devolved into Eloi and Morlocks. Corinth and Lewis, travelling not in a Time Machine but in the first faster than light interstellar spaceship, find a planet of city-dwellers with no signs of warfare. Either these beings outgrew militarism before they industrialized or they have built a universal state but there is no time to find out. 

Corinth and Lewis find other planets where life has developed in ways that we recognize from later works by Anderson:

three intelligent species have evolved on a gas giant;

a planetary civilization has become so inflexibly organized that individual consciousness is atrophying;

a nuclear war is destroying a civilization;

having developed specialized plants to satisfy all their needs, an entire species becomes idle - Eloi again.

Because of the timing of its passage in and out of the inhibitor field, humanity will probably become one of the few most intelligent species in the galaxy and will play a leading role in an unimaginable future. 

There are a few more details in Brain Wave to be highlighted before we move on to - where next?

Proteus

Today has been a day-long birthday celebration (not mine) so I return to the blog late and briefly.

In Poul Anderson's Brain Wave, 16, Peter Corinth's enhanced intelligence now controls his instincts and emotions. He can feel rage but control it instead of being controlled by it:

"Corinth willed the rage and grief out of himself, willed calmness and resolution." (p. 136)

He expects that human life in future will be both healthier and longer. We can look more closely at this prospect tomorrow. 

Corinth thinks:

"Protean man - intellectual man - infinity!" (p. 138)

I notice this phrase first because, in Anderson's Psychotechnic History, human beings are described as their own protean enemy and secondly because we have also referred to Proteus himself, particularly in a poem by Wordsworth.

Weather And Minds

Brain Wave, 15.

The weather matches the characters' states of mind - no surprise - although this time there is no wind - slight surprise:

"Roger Kearnes...shivered a little and jammed his hands into his pockets as the raw wet cold fell over him. There was no wind, no shadow, only the late fall of snow, thick sad snow that tumbled quickly from a low sky and clung to the windowpanes and melted on the ground like tears." (p. 131)

Can snow be sad? It seems so to Kearnes - and it dissolves like tears. The immediately following sentence explicitates Kearnes' frame of mind:

"He wondered despairingly if there would ever again be a springtime." (ibid.)

Of course there will. It is mind, not the climate, that has changed. But Kearnes needs a springtime of the mind.

His psychiatric patient, Sheila Corinth, is schizophrenic but also now intelligent enough to deceive him that she is getting better. When he has left:

"The sea growled and grumbled, and snow fell thicker against the windows." (p. 134)

Sheila has just inwardly grumbled about Kearnes. How does she feel with snow pressing against the window?

"She felt as if the world were closing in on her." (ibid.)

A perfect match between outer and inner.

River And Circle

Brain Wave, 14.

"The Milky Way flowed as a river of radiance..." (p. 121)

"The huge circle of the Milky Way...glimmered..." (p. 126)

Here are two phrases to describe the Milky Way. I must have posted about both phrases before, so I thought. However, I cannot find either phrase by searching the blog.

The search for "river of radiance" had only one result:

Poul Anderson Appreciation: A Beautiful Paragraph

This post contains the words "radiance" and "river" but not the phrase, "river of radiance."

The search for "The huge circle of the Milky Way..." had no result.

This post, "River And Circle," will now be added to The Milky Way Thread which must surely be approaching completion.

In Brain Wave, humanity stands at the threshold of a galactic civilization but it is one that we would not be able to understand. In Poul Anderson's Technic History and many other such works, human beings as we know them go out into the galaxy.

Brain Wave has many covers but we have nearly exhausted the supply.

Prophet And God

 

Brain Wave, 14.

"Wang Kao was hard at work when the prophet came." (p. 119)

We misunderstand "prophet," expecting another Ba'al. Instead, "guru" would have been more appropriate. Realizing that ways of thought have changed, a scholar has sought out the best ways to use these new mental abilities. It makes sense that more than intellect has been affected but also that it will take time to learn all the implications.

From the new spaceship, Peter Corinth looks at the ocean of space and remembers Helga's words:

"'Maybe you need to find God.'" (12, p. 112)

He reflects:

"Well - perhaps he had. He had at least found something more than himself." (p. 122)

Let us suppose for a moment that the ultimate reality is indeed a transcendent person as theists claim. Philosophically, I think that any self-conscious being must be only one relative part of reality. However, in philosophy, we disagree and consider alternatives. On the theistic hypothesis, God is communicating with Corinth by revealing the ocean of space to him. God certainly does not need Corinth to realize at this stage that he is dealing not only with impersonal forces of nature but also with, beyond them, a transcendent person. That, if true, can wait. After publishing this post, I will retire upstairs to meditate.

Back On The Farm

Brain Wave, 13.

Archie Brock looks at a snow-laden landscape as if he had never seen one before:

"And indeed, he thought I never have - not really." (p. 113)

The dog, Joe (we are told) understands most of what Archie says but, of course, cannot respond linguistically. 

The chimpanzee, Mehitabel, wearing specially made clothes and fur cap, repeats the word, "Cold, " in the pidgin dialect devised by her, her mate, Jimmy, and Archie.

Mehitabel works on the farm, e.g., fetching hay and grinding corn, while Jimmy cooks and keeps house. An inarticulate human imbecile, probably escaped from an asylum, helps to milk the cows. Jimmy offers to kill the imbecile but Archie finds a use for him.

Jumbo the elephant breaks ice with her trunk and carries water from the emergency pump to the tank. 

Walls have had to replace mere fences although the sheep have now learned to respect Archie's fences.

Animals have become more sensitive and aware without being able either to express their enhanced awareness or to do much about it. Archie must take one sheep out of sight of the others for Mehitabel to slaughter it. It will seem to them just that one of their number has departed and not returned. Archie can name the sheep for Joe to bring.

New Mental Powers

Brain Wave, 14.

New mental powers:

to keep the blood circulating warmly even in a cold environment;

to stop a wound from hurting and bleeding;

to communicate with and befriend animals;

to remember everything that you have experienced;

to have only feelings and wishes that your mind judges to be good;

to communicate with men without speech;

to think how the world must really be.

In haste to go out.

A Changed World

Brain Wave (originally THE ESCAPE), 12.

In every detail, Poul Anderson demonstrates that his characters live in a changed world. 

Peter Corinth calculates intranuclear stresses in a faster than light drive field simultaneously with the construction of the hull, engine, armour, doors, ports and controls of the first interstellar spaceship, all designed as an unprecedented piece of precision engineering.

The Institute works nonstop because its many liberated minds now have unimaginable horizons. The future belongs to the young, strong, purposeful and balanced technicians whereas Corinth feels exhausted at thirty-three. He and Helga are now so perceptive that they cannot conceal their feelings for each other and do not try. 

Thin, sharp air smells of autumn and sea. Dead leaves swirl. Frost has come. That is not new, of course, although it is standard Andersonian description, but what is new is that New York streets are half empty. Pedestrians and cars are rare. Skyscrapers are dark.

Roger's Cafe is:

"'A new night club for the new man.'" (p. 106)

Inside, there is a blue twilight. Corinth immediately deduces the new fluorescence principle used. Tables are spaced farther apart than formerly and are arranged in a spiral that minimizes distances to be walked by waiters. However, the waiter is a wheeled machine that extends slate and stylus for orders.

An orchestra including some previously famous musicians plays both old and new instruments to a now more appreciative audience. The new ability to see each other more clearly has eliminated former social distinctions. Corinth and Helga communicate with looks, gestures and very few words. 

He remembers liking:

"Ah, Love, could thou and I with Fate conspire -" (p. 110)

- but now sees it as childish.

Some More Lancaster Life

I have more to post about Poul Anderson's Brain Wave but not this evening. It is nearly 11:00 PM. And maybe not much tomoz when there are Viking, Kite and Art Festivals in Morecambe, which is part of Lancaster District - and, additionally and incidentally, is also where Andrea lives above the Old Pier Bookshop.

The Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park is currently the Emerald City. See the attached image. I listed six of its earlier dramatic identities in "Oberon Trod Forth." A footpath through the wood has been painted yellow and we followed the characters along it between scenes.

We can think about the works of Poul Anderson while sitting in Williamson Park, in Market Square or on Morecambe Promenade. Brain Wave, in particular, is so rich in observations on human life that it repays very careful rereading and analysis. We have certainly not finished with it yet. How do its characters live and how should we live now even without their increased intelligence?