The Wind Off The Sea

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

When we have read a book before, and particularly when we have read it many times before, we know how it ends and need not hurry forward to learn the ending. We can pause on many unremembered details, the more such pauses the better. I am nearly finished for this evening.

"The compliment was as refreshing as the wind off the sea." (p. 377)

I had not remembered this sentence which presents yet another narrative use of the wind, this time in a comparison.

Diana Crowfeather and Kukulkan Zachary converse. We know how this will end but meanwhile we appreciate the wind off the sea and many other such details.

Saturday approaches its end.

Tomorrow evening: canal-side drink with friends returned from holiday.

Monday evening: Zen group in the historic Friends' Meeting House.

Wednesday: visit to Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop.

June 9; the King visits Lancaster Castle.

Continuations

What I want and cannot have is a longer Technic History. Poul Anderson did not write it and no one else can. Some series are multi-authored from their inceptions. A TV series has a single story editor or small editorial team but multiple script writers. Star Trek: Picard not only is a valid continuation but also is of a much higher quality than Star Trek: The Original Series. But a single-authored prose series like Anderson's Technic History cannot be continued in that way. In the Man-Kzin Wars series, I have read only instalments by authors, notably Anderson, in whom I was already interested anyway. The continuation Millennium volumes are not the novels that Stieg Larsson had projected and are not authentic. Any author who set out to add to CS Lewis' Narnian Chronicles would have to either share or at least fully empathize with Lewis' unique blend of Platonic Christianity. (And, in that case, they would probably agree with Lewis' decision to complete the series in seven volumes.) It cannot be done.

Much as I would like to read a whole series about Diana Crowfeather, I know that it cannot be. Fortunately, such works can be reread a lot.

Times And Ages

A contemporary fiction series can be written on the understanding that all events occur on the fictional Earth at the same time as they are being written on Earth Real. I dislike it when a character remains the same age while the world ages around him although authors can do clever things with their time frames as I think that Ian Fleming does with James Bond. Different rules can apply when a series is set in the past or future.

Some of Poul Anderson's Series

Historical: The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson)

Contemporary (?): The Trygve Yamamura Trilogy

Futuristic: Dominic Flandry

Alternative History: Operation Chaos

Time Travel: the Time Patrol

(As usual with such lists, it grows while being written. Anderson does more than just past, present and future.)

The Time Patrol has a contemporary aspect. Manse Everard, Patrol agent, is based in the twentieth century and his "present" is kept the same as that of Anderson and his readers, thus progressing from 1955 to 1990. Gorbachev is mentioned when he has come to power although the Patrol must have known of him earlier. Everard spends long spells in historical periods but benefits from future medical technology that gives him an indefinitely prolonged lifespan so that it does not matter that physically he is no older in 1990 than in 1955.

Targovi's World-View

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

"[The Zacharians] actually liked the idea of bringing [Targovi's] party to their island. What would come of that, only the gods knew, and maybe not they either. Javak the Fireplayer might once again take a hand in what would otherwise have been the working out of fate." (p. 364)

7 Whence this creation has arisen – perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps he does not know.

-Rig Veda. 

"That god who sees in highest heaven, he alone knows, or perhaps he knows not." (Another translation.)

Targovi's reflection about gods, Javak and fate is a perfect expression of pagan thinking. Some believe in literal gods. Others refer to them as literary characters. They alone know - or might not. I think that what happens is a mixture of Fate and Fortuna. We are responsible for responding to our circumstances and for the consequences of our actions. 

Voices

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"'You should find this house more hospitable when we summon you,' Pele said. Conviviality provides opportunities for the probing of character. 'At present, I have my work to do. Good day.'" (p. 345)

Would you be able to read this passage aloud, making clear which parts are spoken by Pele and which are comments by the narrator? For Pele's dialogue, you would have to imitate her aged female Zacharian voice with its slight accent. For the rest, you would have to adopt a completely different narrator's voice and tone. Easy enough for those who can do it.

In a TV drama about the Abdication of King Edward VIII, an actor with his back to the camera spoke in Churchillian tones so that we knew who he was even when he turned to face us and did not look like him. A 1940's festival in nearby Morecambe was advertised with a photograph of a Churchill look-alike. (See the attached image.) Seeing the guy at the Festival, I approached him and said, "I didn't expect to meet you here, sir!" He replied in an incomprehensible high-pitched whine!

At Christmas one year, a guy I knew performed an abridged public reading of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," with mulled wine, at a local library. He gave the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come a pronounced Scottish accent. No warrant for this in the text but it served to differentiate him from the others. The same guy performed telephone calls to children from Santa Claus. 

Have we gone off the point again? Not really. Read carefully every line written by Poul Anderson for what it means to you. All human and nonhuman life is in there.

Teams And A Pilgrim

The Game Of Empire.

Axor and Diana are a team, a pilgrim and his local guide. Targovi moves them around like chess pieces for his intelligence-gathering purposes although with an outcome that is beneficial to all three and also to many other beings.

A hypothetical sequel might have featured:

Targovi and Diana as an intelligence team, maybe with the same trader cover that Targovi had had, but now operating outside the Patrician System;

Axor continuing his research, now funded by Flandry;

encounters between team and pilgrim, whether accidental or engineered by Targovi for nefarious reasons.

Their researches might overlap. The Ancients/Chereionites are of interest both to religious seekers and to military intelligence - and imagine if Aycharaych has survived Flandry's bombardment of Chereion.

Axor tells Flandry:

"'God bless you , whether you like it or not... What you endow goes beyond space or time.'"

-CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE, p. 453.

Does it? I am interested. Let's see it.

How Targovi moves Axor and Diana around:

they are travelling to the Larboard and Starboard Islands on Imhotep but he diverts them to Daedalus;

they are spending time in the capital, Aurea, but he diverts them to travel down the Highroad River as far as Lulach;

he diverts them away from the river to Zacharia Island and, this time, they hit pay dirt.

Two Questions

I think that the two most important questions are:

What is wrong in the world and what is to be done about it?

What is wrong inside each individual and what is each of us to do about it?

I am not going to give my answers here. This is not a political or spiritual tract! - although we can get into any discussions in the combox.

Poul Anderson's Technic History shows us characters who address at least one of these questions.

The World Question

David Falkayn founds Supermetals which benefits planetary populations left behind by Technic civilization.

Nicholas van Rijn does not understand the question but is persuaded to play along with Supermetals.

Chunderban Desai analyses the causes of civilizational decline in the hope that the decline, when understood, can be reversed.

Dominic Flandry strengthens several planets so that they will survive the post-Imperial Long Night.

The Inner Question

Adzel practices Mahayana Buddhism and spends three years in a monastery after he has retired from trade pioneering.

Some characters believe that "They" will answer both questions for us.

Languages

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"She spoke with a faint accent suggesting that Anglic had not been the principal language in her home when she was a child; the islanders purposely kept several tongues in daily use." (p. 338)

An excellent idea. Facility in other languages is one of the many things that I lack and regret. When I was at secondary school in the Republic of Ireland in the 1960's, we were force fed French, Latin and Irish for several years when we had no interest in them and were taught so badly that we gained no conversational ability in any of them. Later, I learned some Esperanto and would have gained conversational ability with practice but that never happened. I managed this short exchange with a man whom I saw wearing the green star:

Me: Cu vi parolas Esperanton?

Him: Jes, jes, flue. Kaj vi?

Me: Ne, ne flue.

Something is infinitely more than nothing but is still very little.

I once overheard a woman whose accent seemed to my ear to alternate between French and American. She was French Canadian.

We would probably think better if we were able to think in more than one language.

Olaf Magnusson is fluent in three Merseian languages, including Eriau.

The Folkmoot And The Liberation Council

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWELVE.

This chapter exemplifies the "Game." A Merseian force could either have conquered Gorrazan or have overthrown the Folkmoot and installed the Liberation Council as a pro-Roidhunate power on the Sector Alpha Crucis flank of the Terran Empire. Instead, the Merseians weakened the Folkmoot by destroying its main command centre but otherwise allowed the civil war to continue, thus prolonging the suffering of the Gorrazanian population. Therefore, the Terrans disagree among themselves. Some say that it is necessary to invest naval forces in mounting guard over Gorrazan whereas others reply that the Liberation Council has not won yet and in any case would represent progress. There is no need to keep provoking the Roidhunate. Meanwhile, the Imperial pretender, Magnusson, who has the prestige of having defeated the Merseians in battle, also claims that, once in power, he will make a lasting peace with the Roidhunate. And that will solve any problems regarding Gorrazan.

My question is: how often do Great Powers now engage in proxy wars in order not to help our contemporary equivalents of "Liberation Councils" but instead to confuse or weaken their own real enemies? Future history continues to resonate with current affairs.

Reflections And Conspiracies

This blog has two parts:

(i) appreciation of Poul Anderson's works, sometimes putting them in the context of other sf writers (we know who they are by now but remember that the start-point is Mary Shelley, not HG Wells);

(ii) reflections on particular passages, sometimes even on a single phrase.

I am aware that the reflections are very much my own, not anyone else's, but that cannot be helped. Poul Anderson's texts present a very great deal of material for everyone to reflect on and many reflections are bound to differ so - create other blogs if appropriate or comment here, whichever.

Yesterday, the horizonless planet led to a reflection on conspiracy theories which are a different subject although an important one. Conspiracy theories are how some people make sense of a complicated world. Hopefully, greater transparency in public consciousness will extirpate such theories. In Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire, Targovi suspects that there is a conspiracy to promote Olaf Magnusson as a hero who can save the Empire and deal with the Merseians. This being a work of fiction, there is such a conspiracy. It originated with Aycharaych. Magnusson plans to seize the Throne, then to begin the subordination of mankind to the Merseians.

However, our world is controlled by conflict and chaos, not by conspiracies.

Length And Brevity

The two main forms of prose fiction are the novel and the short story. We appreciate both and the difference between them. After reading to the end of a novel - or of a trilogy of novels - it is good to turn to a short story of a few pages that can be begun and ended in a single sitting.

Consider:

Poul Anderson's Young Flandry Trilogy as against one of his short stories like "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" or "Lodestar";

CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy as against his short story, "The Shoddy Lands" (the author appears as a character in the Trilogy and in the short story);

the concluding trilogy of Ian Fleming's James Bond series - On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice and The Man With The Golden Gun - as against Fleming's excellent James Bond short story, "The Living Daylights";

PC Wren's Beau Trilogy as against his two or three short stories featuring the same characters.

In each of these four cases, we appreciate length, then brevity, and also the fact that we can read about familiar characters at either length.

Five Species

The Game Of Empire.

In CHAPTER TEN, human beings, a Wodenite and a disguised Tigery travel in a Cynthian riverboat. In CHAPTER ELEVEN, Merseians attack Gorrazan. Thus, these two chapters feature five nonhuman species, all of which have appeared previously in the Technic History. There are no human beings in CHAPTER ELEVEN. This chapter makes clear that the Technic History is a future history not only of human beings but also of Merseians. Qanryf Bryadan Arrowsmith, Vach Hallen, comes from an arctic shore of the Wilwidh Ocean. We sense that the history and geography of Merseia are as real as those of Terra. At the end of this chapter, in the wake of the Merseian attack, a Gorrazanian female sings a lullaby to her dead child. That is happening on Earth now - not to Gorrazanians, of course.

Future history is here and now.

Diana's Faith And Hope

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TEN.

On the riverboat, Water Blossom, Diana talks with Axor, then with Targovi disguised as a performing animal, then with "...a human male..." (p. 304) In other words, with a man! "...human male..." is a funny way to put it but that is because there are three other intelligent species aboard and we should never forget that they are aliens. Axor gives Diana "...a quizzical glance..." (p. 300) Surely Wodenite body language should not exactly parallel that of a human being?

Diana reinforces my use of "faith" to mean "trust" in the previous post when she reflects that:

"She knew so little thus far. She had in fact, she realized, acted on faith - faith in Targovi - with hope for adventure and accomplishment, but damn small charity." (ibid.)

Targovi's hope to reap ample reward for defeating the Magnusson Rebellion seems hopelessly unrealistic at this stage in the game of empire but we are reading a thriller in which a satisfactory outcome is to be expected. I am not about to defeat Putin or (fill in the blank)... We will start to disagree if we try to identify who the other current bad guys are.

Faith

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TEN.

Axor quotes, "'Now abideth faith, hope, and charity...'" (p. 299) 

Of course we have quoted Axor quoting this before. See "Three Quotations From Fr. Axor," here. Since Axor and Diana are on a riverboat, it is appropriate that that post is illustrated by the Biblical verse superimposed on a river scene.

We can all hope and love. What of "faith," which I prefer to call "trust"? We trust our own experience and that of others whom we respect. Thus, it is possible to persevere with a meditation practice on the basis of experience and testimony and without necessarily accepting the existence of anything supernatural. Trust is important in human affairs and need not be Biblical faith.

The Planet Without A Horizon

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TEN.

Because the light of the set sun is refracted around the surface of Daedalus, Diana, travelling on a riverboat, sees the Highroad River and its valley not disappearing over a horizon but receding to infinity. 

This reminds us of a conspiracy theory here on Earth. A certain Atlantic island is concealed from observers on the shore of the North American continent by the curvature of the Earth. However, it is recorded that the island has sometimes been seen - because of refraction. 

Conspiracy theory:

this island is visible from North America;

therefore, Earth is flat;

therefore, the entire scientific community is engaged in a conspiracy to convince everyone else that Earth is a globe.

People argue logically from premises. The most pernicious are those who conclude that it follows - from their premises - that anyone who holds an honest but nevertheless mistaken interpretation of Christianity is damned. I am hopeful that future resolutions of social alienations will reduce the number of people whose psychologies work like that - but who knows?

You can tell that it is getting late here, can't you?

Human And Nonhuman

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER NINE.

At the waterfront:

"Warehouses bulked behind wharfs where a medley of craft lay tied and a hodgepodge of persons, human and nonhuman, bustled about." (p. 294)

We have become accustomed to interactions between human and nonhuman persons in some kinds of fiction in too many works to list here: aliens with human beings in sf; goblins, elves etc with human beings in works of fantasy by Anderson, Tolkien etc. Does this kind of interaction occur already elsewhere in the universe?

Brian Aldiss argued in an article or introduction that it had been believed that the Terrestrial environment was inhabited by gods, fairies etc but it is not, then it was imagined that the Solar System was populated by Martians, Venerians etc but it is not, then sf writers and readers continued to imagine that extra-solar planets were inhabited - but they are not? It is now known that planets are common but how often does unicellular life emerge, then become multicellular, conscious, intelligent, civilized and technological and, if life does develop through all of those stages, then for how long after doing all of that does it continue to exist?

I (fairly) confidently predict that, if there are intelligences elsewhere and if we come into contact with them, then they will be unlike any aliens that have been imagined so far. I base this prediction partly on past experience: the real Moon landing was very different from the fictional ones etc. Beings that we can communicate with? Maybe. Beings that we can bustle about with on a waterfront? Maybe less likely.

Interstellar Imperialists?

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SIX.

Tachwyr reflects that human beings might regain their:

"...universe-spanning ambitions..." (p. 268)

"Or a different but allied species might, the Cynthians, or the Scothani for example." (ibid.)

  The Scothani, yes. They have already tried to build an interstellar empire although, on that first attempt, they were easily sabotaged by one Terran, Flandry. But the Cynthians! They were introduced as a species only so that Chee Lan could serve as a comical intelligent squirrel in van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew, a counterpoint to Adzel's serene massiveness. Cynthians as interstellar imperialists would strain willing suspension of disbelief beyond its breaking point. But Tachwyr does not know that.

The Cynthian village, Lulach, with its houses under or even in trees, reads like the setting for a completely different kind of narrative. But then we must expect that different kinds of beings and settings would coexist in an interstellar civilization, like the horned, sword-wielding, humanoid Scothani as against the human colonists of Nyanza in two early Flandry stories.

The First Casualty

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER EIGHT.

"The saying is ancient, that the first casualty of any battle is your own battle plan." (p. 282)

Is that the saying? Googling reveals:

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Here.

"Truth is the first casualty in war." Here.

"The first casualty of war is innocence." Here. (More recent.)

We all experience what happens to plans, whether or not in battle.

I have experienced what happens to truth. As soon as a conflict begins, I quote something that I have heard about it and am immediately contradicted by someone who either knows more than I do or who at least has different sources. Some people seem to know everything without consulting any sources! One rule: Do not just uncritically repeat the first thing that you have heard. Learn long term.

Fictions Within The Fiction

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER EIGHT.

"We can imagine Ensign Helen Kittredge on leave - let us say, on Ansa..." (p. 278)

So we do not know that she was on Ansa. This is an unusual way to present a narrative.

"Surely Ensign Kittredge joins in the customary cheers." (p. 280)

Or maybe she doesn't?

"We would like to imagine that Ensign Kittredge is spared [death by thirst or radiation]." (p. 284)

However, the narrator has already told us the little that is known of the fate of the light battleship, Zeta Sagittari, whose crew had included Helen in energy weapons control:

"What we know is simply that she was lost." (p. 283)

Knowing only this, he has nevertheless just, in his own words, postulated the destructive effects of "...a hit astern." (p. 283)

Poul Anderson is summarizing. There could have been a whole sub-series of war stories written and published on Helen's home planet, Vixen.

Personnel Data

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER EIGHT.

"Consider Ensign Helen Kittredge. We pick her name at random out of personnel data. These say little more about her than that..." (p. 276)

Biographical details follow.

Who is this editorial "We" that suddenly appears on our page? When I write "We," on this blog, I mean "I," unless, alternatively, the context makes clear that "We, the readers" is meant.

This "We" who randomly picks Helen Kittredge's name is not the ubiquitous omniscient narrator of much prose fiction because his knowledge of Helen is limited to what he can find in the personnel data which we gather that he is able to consult. (I write "he" but pronouns break down at this point. Maybe "they" would be more appropriate?)

The novel cries out for an Introduction and an Afterword clarifying who this narrator is/these narrators are. When the Nicholas van Rijn short story, "Esau," was collected in The Earth Book Of Stormgate, Hloch, the fictional Earth Book compiler and editor, informed us in a newly written introduction to this particular story that it had been written by Judith Dalmady/Lundgren and published in an Avalonian periodical called Morgana. We would appreciate similar information about the narrator(s) of this chapter who resort(s) to speculation about Helen's experiences and eventual fate. It is someone who lives in Technic civilization and who therefore is part of the story.

Sir Dominic And Mr Bond

Dominic Flandry is knighted very early in Poul Anderson's Captain Flandry series, thus becoming "Sir Dominic." It is necessary for someone to rise very high - in the appropriate kind of society - before they are referred to principally by their first name rather than by their surname. (In our Lancaster constituency, years ago, our Member of Parliament went from being "Mrs. Kellett-Bowman" to "Dame Elaine" and was subsequently referred to as such even by her political opponents.)

James Bond is offered a knighthood in the concluding chapter of Ian Fleming's posthumous novel, The Man With The Golden Gun, but declines it. If he had accepted, then he would have become "Sir James" - but there were to be no more books in any case. Unlike Flandry, Bond does not age or rise through the ranks. His last novel concludes with a perfect epitaph:

"For James Bond, the same view would always pall."

-Ian Fleming, The Man With The Golden Gun (New York, 1965), p. 158.

Sir Dominic - always referred to as "Flandry" in the texts - concludes, before settling some more personal matters, by saying that we play the game of empire or of life never seeing far ahead and not knowing what the score will be.

Those are our last sights of these two memorable characters.

Political Opinions

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SEVEN.

Lieutenant General Cesare Gatto, Imperial Marine Corps, effectively ruling the Patrician System in Admiral Magnusson's absence, says that he:

is an Imperial Navy officer;

obeys orders;

is loyal to the Empire and to Technic civilization;

believes that Magnusson will provide the necessary kind of government;

is not in the business of expressing political opinions.

Of course he has just expressed a political opinion! It is his duty to obey lawful orders. If his immediate superiors rebel, then he needs to contact their superiors. But we know about doubletalk and even about doublethink. 

(Poul Anderson's Technic History is a much pleasanter read than George Orwell's 1984 but the latter is not meant to be pleasant. Dystopias are warnings.)

Miniworlds

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FIVE.

"'Artificial miniworlds are fine...if you don't mind scanty elbow room, strict laws, dependency on outside resources, and vulnerability to attack.'" (pp. 257-258)

Why "mini-"? Surely it is possible to build big in space and for artificial maxi-worlds to maintain self-recycling ecologies? In fact, why live at the bottom of a gravity well as Larry Niven's Belters put it? They colonize the Asteroid Belt, not Mars.

"Vulnerability to attack" can be addressed first by building a civilization where no one is motivated to attack and, secondly, by always maintaining defence systems in case aggressive aliens do arrive from somewhere else. I suppose that this is at least possible.

Wind On Imhotep; Breeze On Daedalus

The Game Of Empire.

When Targovi tells Diana that he suspects that Admiral Magnusson plans to rebel, silence falls except for the sounds of wind, sea and ship but we have quoted this passage before. See Wind Boomed.

When Magnusson's wife, Vida, interrupts his meditation:

"He could barely hear her voice through the cold, whittering breeze, as soft as it was." (CHAPTER FOUR, p. 250)

I do not think that we have quoted this sentence before. The coldness of the breeze matches the coldness of Magnusson's response and it is also appropriate that this particular breeze does not soothe but whitters. Magnusson, planning rebellion, has already been distracted from meditation by many logistical details. When there is peace, different winds and breezes will blow. There are glittering snowflakes and scrittling leaves in the Imhotepan autumn in the concluding chapter.

Alien Sexes

In Poul Anderson's Three Worlds To Conquer

Jovians have three sexes: male, demimale and female.

In Anderson's Technic History

Merseian females are entirely subordinate. We never see them.

Kraokan have male, transmitter and female.

Cynthian females carry the young through the trees and therefore are stronger.

Ythrian males and females both carry their young in flight and are equal.

Tigery infants suck not milk but blood from their mothers' breasts. Terrans speculate that the need for a high blood supply is what makes Tigery females more vigorous and therefore dominant in most Tigery cultures. (The attached Ensign Flandry cover image shows Dominic Flandry standing beside the Tigery female, Dragoika.)

It is good to know that they are not all just human beings with differently shaped heads.

See also here.

Spies And Secret Agents

We become used to reading about the activities of fictional spies and secret agents whether or not they bear any resemblance to the real thing.

In Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire, Targovi suspects that Admiral Magnusson plans to rebel so he returns to Daedalus to gather more intelligence, using Axor and Diana as cover. Dominic Flandry suspects that the pretender, Magnusson, might be a Merseian sleeper agent so he arranges a parley under truce that will enable him to ask some leading questions.

In Ian Fleming's last three novels, James Bond poses first as Sir Hilary Bray in order to confirm that the Comte de Bleuville is Ernst Stavro Blofeld, then as a deaf and dumb Japanese miner in order to assassinate Blofeld, then as security consultant Mark Hazard in order to assassinate Francisco Scaramanga.

I draw these parallels simply because I am simultaneously rereading The Game Of Empire and The Man With The Golden Gun. Magnusson interns Flandry. Scaramanga nearly finishes Bond. These are the last works about Flandry and Bond by their respective creators.

Misdoubt

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWO.

Targovi reports to Captain Ronan Jerrold who has the confidence of Admiral Magnusson. Furthermore, Targovi detects and reports mysterious activities which Jerrold knows are aspects of Magnusson's preparations for rebellion! Targovi is effectively told to stop doing his job and to await further orders.

I am having trouble with the meaning of a sentence. Double and triple negatives can be problematic. If Targovi had said:

"I doubt that this is harmless smuggling..."

- then his meaning would have been clear. He would have meant that he thought that something other than harmless smuggling was going on.

If he had said:

"I doubt that this is not harmless smuggling..."

- then he would have meant that he thought that it was harmless smuggling?

But what he in fact says is:

"'Activity has been going on yonder, sir, and I misdoubt it is not harmless smuggling. Could it be Merseian?" (p. 231)

OK. I have googled "misdoubt" and apparently it just means to doubt, to fear or to have suspicions about something. If Targovi thinks that the activity might be Merseian, then he thinks that it might not be harmless smuggling. This meaning would have been clearer without the "mis-" and the "not."

Targovi

The Game Of Empire.

CHAPTER TWO introduces Targovi. We learn that:

this character is a Tigery, a species that we met on Starkad in Ensign Flandry;

he is an itinerant merchant (a familiar profession);

he is based on Imhotep but travels to Daedalus;

his overt trade is a cover for Intelligence work (an even more familiar profession);

he is canny enough to ferret out who and what are behind the impending emergency;

he hopes for recognition on Terra, just as journeyman Falkayn had hoped for recognition by Old Nick;

he is a son of Dragoika who was introduced, on Starkad, in Ensign Flandry;

he is a friend of Diana Crowfeather who was introduced, on Imhotep, in CHAPTER ONE;

he says in CHAPTER THIRTEEN that he is "'...no Flandry...'" (p. 331) (This is another example of How Leading Characters Are Perceived By Others.) (We would say, "...no James Bond...")

This is a perfect combination of old and new narrative elements.

Olaf Magnusson was born on Kraken and has married a Nyanzan: yet more future historical continuity.

Near Death Experiences

We think that:

Lazarus Long is about to die on a World War I battlefield near the end of Robert Heinlein's Time Enough For Love;

James Bond has been killed by Rosa Klebb at the end of Ian Fleming's From Russia, With Love, has fallen to his death near the end of Fleming's You Only Live Twice and could have died after being shot by Francisco Scaramanga near the end of the posthumous The Man With The Golden Gun;

Hanno is about to die at sea on an extra-solar planet near the end of Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years;

Dominic Flandry and Chives are about to die in space near the end of Anderson's A Stone In Heaven.

All five are rescued, Bond three times.

Observations

Although I do not accept Time Enough For Love as a valid continuation of Heinlein's Future History, Long fits on this list.

Flandry, expecting death, presents an excellent reflection on his life and career as we have read them since Ensign Flandry.

Fleming does it best. M's Times "Obit." for Commander Bond reviews not only Bond's life and career but also the sensationalist and inaccurate accounts of that career written by a former friend and colleague! Then we are told how Kissy Suzuki had rescued Bond. His temporal lobe has been damaged, causing amnesia. Anderson fans (maybe) think of "Temporal," the Time Patrol language, alternative timelines and Bond's alternative life as a Japanese fisherman. But he begins to remember something else...

Names Of Places And Persons

We saw that Cynthians have used "Catawrayannis," at least twice as a place name. I thought that I had found another example of a place-name used twice. However, careful investigation has revealed that there is a Port Lulang on Diris, the innermost moon of Ramnu, and a village of Lulach on the Highroad River on Daedalus. "Lulang" and "Lulach" are recognizably Cynthian and also very similar although not identical.

We develop a feel for words in alien languages. "Eidhafor" is recognizable as a personal name in the Eriau spoken by the Merseians of the dominant Roidhunate culture. This individual's full name, designation and rank has four elements: 

Fodaich: naval/military rank, "Commander";

Eidhafor: personal name;

the Bold: nickname;

Vach Dathyr: his Vach.

Merseian Vachs, like Ythrian choths, have been discussed before and can be found by reading Poul Anderson's Technic History or by searching this blog.

Health And Strength

The Game Of Empire, I-II.

On Imhotep, Diana and Axor drink in Hassan's Sign of the Golden Cockbeetle where there are human miners and joygirls and one Tigery.

On Daedalus, Targovi (Tigery) drinks in Ju Shao (Cynthian)'s inn where there are human naval personnel.

"'Health and strength to you, Janice Combarelles,' [Targovi] said, translating the Toborko formality into Anglic." (II, p. 223)

Checking whether we have quoted this greeting before, we learn that "health and strength" is also part of an Eriau greeting. See Tachwyr.

The same author created Toborko-speaking Tigeries and Eriau-speaking Merseians. It has taken us this long to notice the occurrence of this phrase in both languages.

I think that that is enough of the Technic History for this evening. May you be in health and strength.

Continuity References In The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER ONE

There are quite a lot of these:

the Troubles

the Terran Empire

the vaz-Siravo/Starkadian Seafolk

blasters

a recent Merseian onslaught

Tigeries/Starkadian landfolk

a Donnarian

Irumclagians

Shalmuans

Anglic

Toborko

Woden and Wodenites

Technic civilization

Adzel the Wayfarer

Jerusalem Catholicism

Foredwellers/Ancients/Elders/Others/Old Shen/Builders

Chereionites (=Foredwellers?)

Aeneas

Starkad and the Starkadian resettlement

Dominic Flandry

the Breakup

the Commonwealth

Newly introduced:

the Patrician System, including Daedalus and Imhotep

Admiral Magnusson

Diana Crowfeather

Axor

Atheia

Again, the general rule: Each new instalment of a future history series builds on what has gone before and introduces something new. This process continues in the following chapters.

In Olga's Landing

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER ONE, is one of my favourite scenes in Poul Anderson's Technic History. Sitting on the tower of St. Barbara's, Diana sees blue sky, the small, fierce sun Patricius, two moons, the Pyramid that houses Imperial offices, sunseeker vine climbing the tower, the market square surrounding the tower, life spilling from narrow streets and surging between enclosing walls, shops and booths with multifarious wares, occasional clopperhoof-drawn wagons, muscular Imhotepan colonials, a spaceman and a marine badmouthing "'Merseian bastards,'" (p. 198) Tigeries (land Starkadians), a centauroid Donarrian, Irumclagians, Shalmuans and the first ever Wodenite on Imhotep...

That is where the narrative begins.

We are also informed that:

ice bull herds used to stampede through Olga's Landing when it was only an exploration base;

hot, savoury odours waft from foodstalls and music from taverns;

folk are mostly human but not Terran.

The scene is worthy of a Heinlein Juvenile. Technic civilization is most alive in this moment.

Myth Or Biography

"'If science can show that the gospel account of Christ is not myth but biography; and if it finds that his ministry was in empirical fact, universal - would not you, for example, my dear, would you not decide it was only reasonable to accept him as your Savior?'

"Uncomfortable, Diana tried to shift the subject."

-The Game Of Empire, I, p. 210.

People feel uncomfortable because they lack the knowledge to respond to such claims. The Gospels are not biographies and, if they were, then accepting them would not require an act of faith.

I have just had yet another frustrating exchange with a street Evangelical. He hands me a leaflet full of unsubstantiated statements. I point this out. He responds with more unsubstantiated statements and continues to do this, no matter what is said to him. Is there any point? Axor, who addresses Diana, stands in a tradition such that he would at least heed and respond to reasoned arguments instead of just repeating outrageous statements. The Evangelical was standing in a square (Market Square, mentioned before) where demonstrators and counter-demonstrators were right then protesting about current government policies but none of that mattered to him. All that mattered was the mere statement that I was damned if I did not, without reason, accept his belief. Axor would be better company and it would be possible to discuss the truth claims of the Gospels with him.

How Leading Characters Are Perceived By Others

"Harker grimaced. 'I saw once on a telescreen interview,' he remarked, 'Old Nick van Rijn said he wouldn't shoot that kind of offenders. He'd hang them. A rope is reusable.'"

-Poul Anderson, "A Little Knowledge" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, January 2009), pp. 425-447 AT p. 439.

"...this declaration, here paraphrased, was made by one Cmdr. Dominic Flandry:..."

-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 75-238 AT 9, p. 144.

"'...have you ever perchance heard of Admiral Flandry?'"

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT I, p. 16.

"'Oh, my father's Dominic Flandry. You may have heard of him. He's become an Admiral of the Fleet...'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Flandry's Legacy, pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 212.

"'I have, yes, I have encountered tales of Admiral Flandry's exploits,' said Axor in haste."

-ibid., p. 213.

That is all that I can find.

A Second EARTH BOOK?

At the mid-point of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, Hloch concludes The Earth Book Of Stormgate and Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society, introduces an account of the Founder of the Terran Empire. Ayeghen refers to Manuel's Empire as the First so he writes at least during a Second Empire if not later. Ayeghen might have compiled an Earth Book Of Galactic Archaeology to "span, illuminate and complete" the history of the Terran Empire as Hloch had done for the Polesotechnic League period. I imagine a commentary by Ayeghen introducing a film of The Game Of Empire. See the previous post. Eventually, human civilizations spread through several spiral arms of the galaxy so that a third Earth Book would no longer be comprehensive enough. By that time, civilizations have become "post-Technic" although not post-technological.

From Page To Screen

Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453. 

I am a stickler for accurate screen dramatizations of novels. However, extraordinary measures would be necessary to translate to screen all the information conveyed in CHAPTER ONE of this novel. Maybe a mixture of voice-over and scrolling script to inform us that:

the sun is called Patricius;

Diana's people had come to Imhotep;

the Pyramid houses Imperial offices;

the transient, multiracial population of the old quarter drifts "...in and out on the tides of space..." (p. 195);

"Who holds St. Barbara's holds the planet." (p. 196)

We would be directly shown the Miniature Computers and other wares on sale in the shops and booths of Olga's Landing, all of them.

Characters In Sequels And Series

We are full of appreciation for what fiction writers do. An author creates the plot of a novel and commits it to writing, then plots a sequel. In the second work, the earlier fictional events are mentioned, maybe even summarized, and also become part of the background story for later events which are then imagined with comparable creativity. Thus, in Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire, Dominic Flandry and Miriam Abrams are by this time married and there is also a climate modification project on Ramnu although it is unfortunately suspended at the outbreak of hostilities in a new civil war. Although the background conditions affect what can happen, they are not allowed to delimit future possibilities. Sequels should take us where we had not expected to go.

In Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, Irma Bunt recognizes an intruder in the Castle of Death not only as James Bond but also as the man who had called himself Sir Hilary Bray because that had been the single past occasion on which she and Blofeld had encountered Bond. The books follow their internal logic even if some readers have a looser idea that Bond and Blofeld are old adversaries, long acquainted.

"Praise...?"

A Stone In Heaven, XIII.

"No further changes of trajectory seemed called for, praise fortune." (p. 177)

Never praise fortune! Fortuna must be neither entreated nor thanked, just accepted, although she does favour the brave, which Dominic Flandry is. Audentes fortuna iuvat. Although not, of course, believing in a literal goddess called Fortuna, I nevertheless do think first that luck can only be accepted and secondly that it - not literally "she" - definitely favours those who go out to find it and to meet it half way. This is one of those posts where, instead of discussing a work by Poul Anderson, we take the alternative course of hanging some observations about life on a single phrase, in this case just two words, from one of his works. However, Anderson provides us with so many pertinent phrases that we might wind up commenting on the whole of life. See The Quotable Time Patrol.

Although this is a short post, it has taken me some time to word it as appropriately as possible. I feel thankful for some - not all - aspects of life although there is clearly no one to thank - except maybe metaphorically or hypothetically.

Good luck to you all.

Everard And Flandry

I have quoted Manse Everard of the Time Patrol and Dominic Flandry of the Terran Empire making similar remarks three times already! See here. They both speak about a lot of history. Generalizations about history transcend timelines.

I have just come from a political event and am going to a community one.

Laters.

Banner's And Yewwl's POVs

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

pp. 155-156 are narrated from Banner's pov. When Huang switches off the multi-sensory link, she stares at his face, hears him speak and knows that he regrets interrupting her contact with Yewwl. She cannot see well through tears caused by what is happening to Yewwl. She thinks in the first person in italics, remembers Dominic's warning and runs to escape although running away from Yewwl is the hardest thing that she has ever done and hurts more than her father's death. This passages is entirely about Banner's inner feelings. We are told that Huang is bemused but not what he thinks or feels.

pp. 156-158 are narrated from Yewwl's pov:

"From somewhere down inside herself, Yewwl found speech." (p. 156)

Her companions:

"...saw that her fate was upon her, and departed." (p. 157)

We are told what they saw but this is not their pov. Their perception of Yewwl's fate is sufficiently expressed by their departure. 

"It boomed around Yewwl." (ibid.)

This is her experience. 

Her vanes thrill. Her muscles rejoice. Her blood throbs and glows in the chill. She will make sure that the pilot of a descending flyer sees her. Knowing that she has been torn open, she sees the aircraft and takes aim. Her last strength is used to aim herself at the water where the craft has fallen. 

"Oath-sister, farewell." (p. 158)

That is the end of Yewwl's pov.

Hero-Villain Confrontations

Dominic Flandry converses with Aycharaych perhaps four times in "Honorable Enemies":

when burgling Aycharaych's apartment;

before the hunt;

after the hunt;

at the end.

Twice in "Hunters of the Sky Cave":

in the Solar System;

in the Sky Cave.

Twice in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows:

on Talwin;

on Chereion.

And other times during their careers that we are not told about.

James Bond comes face to face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld just three times:

two interviews over two days when they are both in other identities;

once later in Japan when Bond is recognized as the man who had called himself Sir Hilary Bray.

Holmes and Moriarty once in Baker Street and once at Reichenbach.

Anglic Gibberish

A Stone In Heaven, X.

I had thought that the following passage was in Yewwl's pov in Chapter XI but it is near the end of X so we have to backtrack.

While speaking to Yewwl inaudibly to anyone else, Banner concludes:

"'The bureaucratic mentality.' That last bit was in Anglic, and gibberish to Yewwl." (p. 141)

It would indeed be gibberish. Someone that I met at College thought that even cave-dwellers must have had what he called "their bureaucracy." He could not conceive of a society in which people lived straightforwardly without some behind-the-scenes controllers or manipulators pulling their strings. But these controllers would be crats without bureaus. 

But my main point here is that "bureaucratic," an idea outside of Yewwl's conceptual framework expressed of necessity in a language that she does not know, should sound to her like a meaningless noise. She should not be able to discern the four syllables in it. Thus, the text has momentarily stepped outside of Yewwl's pov. A narrator who shares our knowledge and understanding of bureaucracy informs us that this is what Banner is talking about even though Yewwl does not understand it. Of course, usually we do not pause to reflect on such details.

Yewwl's POV

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

pp. 144-155 are narrated from Yewwl's pov.

"Yewwl sensed..." (p. 144)

We are told not that she seemed to suppress anger or that she was seen to suppress it but simply that she did suppress it and also why she did this. She was prepared to die to avenge her family but had also worked off most of the grief and was finding reasons to live. These statements are made directly about her inner states, not inferred from her behaviour by anyone else. 

"She saw advantages..." (p. 145)

Yewwl's son, Skogda:

"...radiated impatience." (p. 146)

We are told not that he was impatient or felt impatience but only that his body language conveyed impatience to his mother. The pov remains hers, not his.

Yewwl deflects a question from Skogda because:

"She needed silence in which to think, to sort out everything that was bursting upon her." (p. 148)

That she needed silence to think might have been inferable by her companions but that many things are bursting upon her is definitely a subjective statement.

"Yewwl decided." (ibid.)

A third party might have inferred her decision-making from the way that she responds. However, we are immediately told the reason for her decision:

"She had thin choice, anyhow." (ibid.)

This is what she is thinking.

Incidentally, when she replies that one group of star-folk might be preparing to attack another, one of her companions is appalled:

"'Attack!'...'All of them together, like a pack of lopers?'" (p. 149)

What we call "war," a Ramnuan compares to an assault by a pack of wolf-equivalents.

"Fear walked the length of Yewwl's spine." (p. 150)

She might be visibly afraid but only she feels fear as a sensation up her spine.

"She looked around her with eyes that a sense of time blowing past had widened." (p. 151)

She senses time which is again compared to wind, "blowing past..."

She sees a few stars, which she remembers that Banner has told her are suns, and reflects how remote they are.

Through the multi-sensory link, Banner and Yewwl communicate inaudibly to anyone else. Banner uses the words, "'...Fissionable...' '...fission...' and '...warheads...'" (p. 152) We are told that these words are incomprehensible to Yewwl so maybe we should not be told what the words are? Yewwl would not be able to discern the syllables of incomprehensible words. We are in her pov so we should be told only that she heard something that she did not understand.

"A sick feeling swept through her." (p. 153)

A purely subjective statement!

We read her italicized thoughts at the bottom of p. 153 and again on p. 155.

A kind of miscommunication that I have experienced more than once, although not in similar circumstances, occurs. Yewwl tells Skogda that their guide/guard is:

"'...sending for people to take us prisoner -'" (p. 154)

She intends immediately to explain that surrender is advisable but it is too late. Informed of imminent arrest, Skogda instantly attacks although she sees his almost simultaneous regret.

No Peace In Flandry

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

pp. 141-143 are narrated exclusively from Dominic Flandry's pov (point of view), e.g.:

"There was no peace in Flandry." (p. 141)

Walking aft, he feels every step and how he must strain to remain erect.

Three italicized passages convey his inner thoughts:

"Can't get drunk..." (p. 142)

"...getting moral, am I?" (p. 143)

"I sometimes think..." (ibid.)

When we are told that lines were drawn in his face and that his fingers moved while he piloted, these observations could have been made by a third party. However, the quoted passages make it clear that here is Flandry's pov and no one else's.

Here, in my opinion, is the central question both for an author of prose fiction and for a philosopher. Novelists have learned that, usually at least, they should recount either an entire story, or at least each discrete narrative passage of a story, as its successive events are experienced by a single character, in this case Flandry, not Chives, although both are present in the spaceship, Hooligan. (Incidentally, we never do read Chives' pov except when he recounts his experiences to another character.)

And this is what puzzles a philosopher. A physicist would be able to present an objective account of every event that occurs inside Hooligan, including the motions of living bodies: the male human being's legs move as he walks aft etc. However, subjectively, there is something that it is like to be Flandry. Only he directly experiences his peacelessness. Only he feels his steps and the strain that he is under. Only he directly experiences those thoughts about his need to remain sober etc. We understand Anderson's account of Flandry's experiences because we know what it is like for us ourselves to lack peace, to feel our steps, to feel stress and to reflect on our situation. But, nevertheless, each of us directly experiences only our own stress etc, not anyone else's. In Hooligan, there is one objective situation but there are two subjective situations: Flandry's and Chives'. How come? How does the objective generate the subjective? 

Organized Enmity

A Stone In Heaven, IX.

We find it easy to imagine aliens who organize themselves for war and conquest as human beings have often done - HG Wells' Martians, Poul Anderson's Merseians, Larry Nivens kzinti etc. No doubt this is possible. The point of sf is to entertain different possibilities. Guided by Miriam Abrams, Yewwl leads some of her fellow Ramnuans to the human settlement of Dukeston:

"'...to spy out what may be a hostile territory...'" (p. 137)

One of Yewwl's followers complains:

"'I seize no sense...'" (ibid.)

The text, narrated in this passage from Yewwl's pov, continues:

"In truth, the idea of organized enmity was vague..." (ibid.)

Poul Anderson does not stop there but backs up this Ramnuan vagueness with a very tactile analogy:

"...and tricky as wind, and felt as icy." (ibid.)

By now we are alert to any mention of wind! 

Yewwl asks her followers to suppose that a feud - so they do have "feuds" - between the leaders of two groups has set their loyal retainers at odds. But, of course, there need not be any personal enmity or even acquaintance between the commanders of two sides in a military conflict. In fact, how would you explain war to a Ramnuan?