Might Have Been

Poul Anderson made good contributions to how many sf series created by other authors? I cannot remember right now. Someone will know. The Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space future history series is a major example.

I wish that Anderson had written a Superman novel. Elliot S! Maggin wrote Superman comics for fifteen years and added two prose novels. What is it like to fly at such speeds while wielding such (impossible) physical, visual and mental powers? Maggin knew and Anderson would have known. Novelists at their best are able to give us new perceptions and understandings of familiar legendary and mythical characters. Anderson did this with Odin and others and could also have done it just once with a twentieth century myth.

But there are more might have beens than beens.