Sequels By Stapledon And Anderson

Any futuristic sf novel creates a unique future environment that becomes a possible basis for one or more sequels. Thus, in Olaf Stapledon's second Last Men novel, the Sun has been enlarged, Mercury, Venus and Earth have been destroyed and the Eighteenth Human Species inhabits Neptune. Because the Solar System had been transformed in precisely these ways in the first novel, that transformed system necessarily provided the background setting for the framing sequence of the second novel which is mainly about the Last Men's exploration of the past.

Similarly, Poul Anderson's first three Harvest of Stars novels had established major civilizational changes within the Solar System and also some extra-solar colonization. On this basis then, the fourth novel, The Fleet Of Stars, opens on Amaterasu, the colonized fourth planet of Beta Hydri. Beginning to reread this novel without having first reread any of its three predecessors, I rely both on my memory of earlier readings and on Anderson's text to make for comprehensible reading. 

Both Last Men In London and The Fleet Of Stars begin with a man and a woman seeking solitude on a beach but these accounts are in no way parallel or comparable. Stapledon's imagined future is dated in ways that Anderson's is not, yet.

Hugh Valland: Finale

World Without Stars, XVI-XVII.

Naturally and of necessity, the Meteor survivors, including their captain, follow Valland's lead. Captain Argens writes:

"We followed him. And we built our spaceboat and won to the help of the Yonderfolk. The job took four decades." (p. 119)

Argens' daughter, Wenli, was only a few years when last he saw her in City. She will be forty-plus years older the next time that they meet and maybe no longer in City. In the concluding chapter, Argens and Valland are on the quiet Earth where Argens reflects:

""This was Manhome. No matter how far we range, the salt and the rhythm of her tides will always be in our blood." (p. 124)

Sandra Miesel quotes the second sentence at the end of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:

"To Earth there's no returning. She vanished with the childhood of our race. Yet as a poet once said, 'No matter how far we range, the salt and rhythm of her tides will always be in our blood.' One chapter has ended. Humankind's saga flows on."

-Sandra Miesel, interstitial material IN Poul Anderson, Starship (New York, June 1982), p. 282. 

We have quoted this sentence from both works together with other similar passages before. See here. (Scroll down.)

When The Universe Collapses

World Without Stars, XV.

After a battle:

"...I lay in the canoe, vomited, coughed, and wept. It wasn't merely reaction. I was altogether sickened. Galaxy God - any God - must we kill through all time, until time ends when the disgusted universe collapses inward on us?" (pp. 115-116)

I would have said no, nothing will last until the end of time but consider the scenario in this novel. The universe - not just the galaxy - is full of intelligent species at every stage of development and they can all interact thanks to the space jump so, yes, there will be every kind of interaction and some of these interactions will be violent. Every stage of development will always be instantiated somewhere. There will always be violence but there will also be civilizations that move beyond it.

"God Has Not Left You."

World Without Stars, XIV.

Azkashi discouraged by a setback in their struggle against the Ai Chun slink away from the human compound:

"...into the mists. They spoke little, but that little made a mumbling across the land like the first wind-sough before a storm." (p. 100)

This is a good analogical use of the perennial wind. In this case, there is no actual wind but the mumbling is like the sound of a wind. And a retreat by the Azkashi at this stage of the conflict will be followed by the storm of an Ai Chun advance. 

Hugh Valland saves the day. The Azkashi think that God is not with them when the galaxy is not visible overhead. Ya-Valland - the prefix means "male" - tells ya-Kela, the One of his Pack:

"'God has not left you.'" (p. 103)

- and proves it. A screen on a scientific instrument shows the sky above their heads with the sunlight removed. The planets, Oroksh and Ilyakan, are visible and the galaxy blazes brighter than ever before.

"'Fear not the downdevils; God is with you yet.'" (p. 104)

Ya-Valland's new role is that of prophet.

Religion In The World Without Stars

We should say something about religion, then see how this applies to World Without Stars.

See Traditions.

I think that religion is response to transcendence. Theism is personification of transcendence and therefore is one kind of religion. Non-theistic religions are Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism and the Hindu Samkhya system. 

The transcendent is variously conceived as:

many persons;

three persons;

one person;

an impersonal reality;

a transcendent state.

(I go with the fourth and fifth options.)

Religious experience is of an awesome presence or of an inner oneness or of a projected, culturally conditioned, image: Kali, Krishna, Christ, Mary etc.

Of the three groups in the "world without stars," Ai Chun, Niao and Azkashi, only the Azkashi have a religion. Argens comments that:

"Their planet showed few phenomena to inspire awe, like stars or volcanoes or seasons." (p. 76)

He overlooks the galaxy which, when above the horizon, dominates the night sky and is worshiped by the Azkashi.

The Ai Chun recognize nothing as superior to themselves and think that they created the universe but only in the way that they now construct buildings or selectively breed other species. This "creation" was not the act of a transcendent being. The Ai Chun bred the Niao for intelligence and the latter are devoted to the Ai Chun like dogs to masters, not like worshipers to a deity. However, some Niao went feral as the Azkashi, shedding submissiveness but retaining devotion, now expressed as worship of the galaxy and as mutual loyalty. Thus, rebellion generated religion.

With molecular biology, the Ai Chun might have eliminated every wild gene and prevented the Azkashi. However, some other external factor, like the arrival of the Earthmen, would eventually have challenged their rule.

Some Azkashi might be converted to a Terrestrial monotheism by persuading them that the galaxy is only a manifestation of the Creator.

Darkness, Rain, Storm, Wind And Thunder

World Without Stars, XII.

Pathetic fallacy abounds. Tied up below decks in a galley, Argens hears the Herd capture the human camp. Then:

"I heard the Ai Chun wallow past my prison, bound ashore. I sat in darkness and heard the rain begin." (p. 83)

Argens' incarceration in darkness and the beginning of the rain coincide, appropriately, with the subjugation of humanity. This continues. Leaving the galley, Argens and his guard descend:

"...to a canoe, through a lashing blindness of rain and wind to the beach. Day had now come, tinting the driven spears of water as if with blood." (ibid.)

This is all good descriptive and atmospheric stuff: blindness, blood and the wind that is our constant companion in many Andersonian texts. The present text continues:

"My goggles were blinkered with storm; I shoved them onto my forehead and squinted through red murk. I couldn't see our spaceship. The headland where our compound stood was a dim bulk on my left. No one was visible except my giant guard and the half dozen canoe paddlers." (ibid.)

Through the redness that is like blood, Argens sees neither the spaceship nor the compound but only his captors. All is lost...

Well, not everything. Next we read a characteristic Andersonian fight and escape scene. Prodded and enraged, Argens grabs his guard's knife and stabs him with it, then is chased through bawling thunder and hissing rain but rescued by his allies, the Pack.

How many captured Anderson heroes assault a guard and escape?

Late Evening Post

There is a time of the evening when you want to add one more post to the blog but do not want to have to do any more reading to do it. 

On BBC TV, Alice Roberts has just summarized theories about Stonehenge, including both the idea that the stones celebrate summer and life and also the opposite idea that they celebrate winter and death, the latter recently propounded by yet another TV presenter, Neil Oliver.

Poul Anderson's work cover many periods of history and also include two references to Stonehenge. Thus, TV viewing, like other reading, can be blog-relevant.

Domestics: laid up with a cold, although not too incapacitated to blog, I will have to miss a day-trip to London this Saturday.

Brain And Mind

World Without Stars, XI.

The perennial mind-body question comes up again when the telepathic Ai Chun try to control Argens. He experiences images, impulses, terror, anger, bliss, lust, stiffness and sweat although it is comparable only to mild drunkenness. The Ai Chun project scientifically known energies in order:

"...to stimulate corresponding patterns in my brain." (p. 75)

But they are bound to fail because he is of a different species, because his neurons work differently, because it is impossible to be taken over against your will and because:

"You're closer to your own nervous system, and better integrated with it, than anyone else can be." (pp. 75-76)

"You" are a psychophysical organism. You are close to, and integrated with, your nervous system because it is a crucial part of the organism. But how do neuronic patterns cause mental images and feelings? That is the mind-body question.

Unequals

World Without Stars, XI. 

It is extraordinary to read about beings to whom it is axiomatic that any other intelligent species exists only to serve them. The Ai Chun are incapable of conceiving that the newly arrived Earthmen are their equals (at least) with whom they might trade, make treaties, exchange information, share cultures etc. 

"'We dismissed the former visitors, and we shall not let you run free in the world. Have no fear. Your potential usefulness is admitted. While you obey, you shall not be harmed. And when you grow old you will be cared for like any aged, faithful Niao.'" (p. 75)

"'The seed we planted long ago is bearing its fruit... We will occupy your camp and put you to work.'" (p. 78)

They honestly believe that is a fair and reasonable offer! 

The first rule of inter-species diplomacy: find out what the other guys want and whether it is compatible with what we want. Don't just take it for granted that they have no independent wants!

It is easier to write about aliens that do not understand what we understand than the other way around.

Clearly, the Ai Chun cannot survive contact with galactic civilizations.

Seven Names

Einstein

Milne

Dingle

Mach

Nernst

Dirac

Haertel

Have I missed any? These names are cited by Poul Anderson, James Blish or both when presenting science fictional rationalizations for faster-than-light (FTL) interstellar travel. FTL is made to seem plausible when it is presented as an imminent next stage in an already existing scientific tradition.

Einstein in both, obviously. 

Milne in Blish.

Dingle in Blish.

Mach in Anderson and Blish.

Nernst in Blish.

Dirac in Blish.

Those turned out to be mostly "in Blish" but I had to do it to find out. Correct me if I am wrong but I think that the many references to Dirac in Poul Anderson Appreciation are comparisons with Blish's Dirac transmitter, not Andersonian references to Dirac. Blish extends the list by adding the fictional Haertel. Anderson's works do not present any corresponding figure.

Ai Chun

World Without Stars, XI.

"...you don't need hard radiation for mutation to occur; thermal quantum processes will do the same less rapidly." (p. 73)

I didn't know that. But it figures. Change is constant even if slow.

Argens tells the Ai Chun that what thinking animals have in common is more important than any differences in bodily shape. Aristotle: "Man is a rational animal." English law: "Murder is the unlawful killing of a reasonable creature..." (Our laws already protect aliens.)

The Ai Chun disagree. They have existed unchanged with no surviving biological enemies in an apparently unchanging world for over a billion years. They build and stockbreed and have even bred one bipedal species for intelligence. Finally, believing in reincarnation, they think that they themselves had created the whole universe in an earlier life. They do not remember why they had created Yonderfolk or Earthmen but their entire world-view - and self-view - is threatened by any claim either to exist independently of them or to have originated in a vaster and more complicated universe. In particular, the galaxy, seen only at night, is too bright for their eyesight and therefore is their equivalent of the Devil. I detect a contradiction here but world-views of this kind do generate contradictions. 

The Ai Chun remind me of the Party in 1984, wielding absolute power in their own domain and denying anything external to themselves.

Deductions

World Without Stars, X.

Members of the Herd, travelling in a galley, take two Earthmen, Argens and Rorn, to meet their masters, the Ai Chun. En route, Rorn makes some deductions. Cheap boats and wilderness should make for individualism. Instead, the fishing crew that chanced on the human camp did not make contact but immediately reported back to some headquarters and it took time for a delegation to be sent. Also, the language of a group of aliens who had visited once a long time ago has been preserved and carried across the planet. Conclusion:

"'...we're on the marches of a very big and very old empire.'" (p. 66)

Argens agrees that this:

"'Makes a good working hypothesis...'" (ibid.)

- as indeed it does. And it has been deduced from details that many of us would have missed. James Blish's Okies, entering a new planetary system, have to make this kind of deduction very quickly in order to assess what they are dealing with. For them, it is a matter of earning a living.

Relevant Other Reading

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data

"(Conan Doyle, Scandal in Bohemia)"

-quoted in Colin Dexter, Death Is Now My Neighbour (London, 1996), Chapter Twenty, p. 126.

Other reading - Dexter quotes Conan Doyle and we think that Poul Anderson did also so we search the blog and find:

An Old Proverb

Quiz question: which fictional detectives die in their last novel?

This is the fourth and probably the last post on this blog for today but please see also:

Haertel's Significance In Three Timelines II

Scholium Criteria

Haertel's Significance In Three Timelines III

Rain

World Without Stars, IX.

In this chapter, rain plays the usual role of the wind in Poul Anderson's works, accompanying and punctuating the dialogue, particularly at its dramatic points and pauses. 

Argens is on sentry duty when the enemies of the Azkashi arrive at the camp:

"The galaxy was hidden in a slow, hot rain..." (p. 58)

The galaxy is visible only at night. We have already been told that:

"It was not impossible for the Herd to come raiding at night. But it was rare. The downdevils feared God and so their worshipers did too...." (I, p. 6)

But they venture forth when weather hides God.

Next, when the representatives of the Herd have been welcomed into a hut:

"Then I stood, soaked, hearing the rain rumble on our roof, crowded with my men between these narrow walls, and looked upon wonder." (p. 58)

The Herd are very different from the Pack, not free tribes-beings but specially bred slaves.

With a little whisky inside him, Argens is able to forget rain, heat and darkness and to concentrate on communication. 

Gianyi of the Herd and his blind dwarf telepath bow their heads whenever the former mentions their masters, the Ai Chun: a human gesture. Implausibly human?

When two Earthmen discuss their guests:

"'They may mean well in spite of their manners,' Bren said.

"'Sure,' I said. 'They may.' The rain gurgled as it fell onto soaked earth." (p. 62)

That rain seems to comment and does not sound reassuring.

When Valland, who is with the Pack, contacts Argens, some "...ugly noises..." come over the radio:

"'Hugh!' I cried. 'Are you there?'

"The rain had stopped, and silence grew thick in the hut." (p. 63)

Silence always underlines dramatic pauses in the dialogue. Often the wind is heard on such occasions but this time the accompaniment is the rain and it has stopped. Silence reigns until Valland can speak again. Argens advises:

"'Try to explain the idea of neutrality...'" (p. 64)

We know that neutrality is impossible between God and devils. The Pack do not know of any other kind of conflict.

Azkashi

World Without Stars, IX.

Valland wonders whether "Azkashi" means:

hill people

free people

people of the galaxy god

all these things and more

Surely the fourth option? The Packs live in the hills, are free and worship that which Earthmen call the galaxy but which they call God. And they are more likely to use words that are full of meanings rather than narrowly defined. 

We make fine distinctions. Someone wondered whether a Latin text referred to Mars the planet or to Mars the god but surely there was a time before that distinction was made?

When, in CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, a cat goes to sleep in close physical contact with a tame bear, is this friendship or just bodily pleasure? Ransom answers that the interaction between these two animals:

"'...is a single undifferentiated thing in which you can find the germ of what we call friendship and of what we call physical need. But it isn't either at that level. It is one of Barfield's "ancient unities".'"

-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 12, 5, p. 621.

Limitations

World Without Stars, VIII.

Ya-Kela thinks that ya-Valland has:

"...curious weaknesses.'" (p. 52)

He is blind at night, awkward in the marshlands, lacking either tail or webbed feet, and ignorant of dangers like dart bushes. Of course Valland is awkward and ignorant in this environment! That ya-Kela does not understand that is a limitation on his part, not on Valland's. In a city, if he ever visited one, ya-Kela would not know to look both ways before crossing a street.

More seriously, if the stranger is not after all "'...from God...,'" (p. 53) then ya-Kela:

"'...will plunge the first spear into ya-Valland.'" (ibid.)

Many on Earth would regard the Azkashi's devotion "'...to God alone...'" (p. 54) as admirable but we have learned from experience how this can go wrong. In London, an Evangelical preacher went to the assembly point of a demonstration in order to address Muslims with remarks like:

"They say that He is not the Son of God and what a blasphemy that is!"

Not a blasphemy, just a different belief!

(What constitutes respect or disrespect to the Lord is largely a matter of tradition. Someone who entered our meditation hall was shocked to see people sitting for meditation with their backs to the Buddha.) 

Here at Blog Central, we, editorially speaking, are suffering from a mild cold, therefore reading and posting sluggishly. Also, we are still giving some attention to the less-read James Blish Appreciation blog.

Go with God. (As Blish's Jorn the Apostle says.)

Establishing Communication

I have been rereading two sf novels in which space travelers have to establish communication with alien intelligence(s).

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars

The Azkashi are easy to deal with because they have:

"...no obviously alien semantics." (VII, p. 49)

They have individual names, use comprehensible sign language and both accept and bring gifts. When their gifts include an animal that might poison the Earthmen, Valland accepts this gift by burning it. This response is acceptable to the Azkashi.

Caution remains necessary. Valland appears to claim that he has come from the galaxy. To ya-Kela, this implies that Valland has claimed:

"...to be the emissary of God." (VIII, p. 52)

The Azkashi partially resemble kangaroos.

James Blish, Welcome To Mars (London, 1978)

The dune-cat's resting stance is kangaroo-like and he has an abdominal pouch. Each hand has five fingers and a thumb so he counts in twelves.

Communication is difficult. Neither can pronounce the other's language so they develop a pidgin and some information is exchanged by drawing maps and pictures.

Addendum: Only this single post on this blog today. And one more on James Blish Appreciation here.

Life On Mars

This post, occasioned by rereading James Blish's Welcome To Mars, is not comprehensive but does cover successive stages of the fictional treatment of Mars, our point as always being that Poul Anderson makes several alternative contributions.

In works by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and CS Lewis, Mars is humanly habitable. One novel and one short story by Lewis are set on different versions of Mars.

In Larry Niven's Known Space future history, a human protector diverts an ice asteroid onto a collision course with Mars and thus exterminates the Martians although some of their species still survive in the Map of Mars in the Ringworld.

In Anderson's Psychotechnic History, there are native Martians. In his Technic History, there are extra-solar colonists of Mars. In his The Fleet Of Stars, there are human colonists of Mars. In his The Winter Of The World, interplanetary travel has ceased but Mars is green, indicating that it has been terraformed and has now become humanly habitable.

Angels And Planets

World Without Stars.

When ya-Kela looks at the night sky:

"...the last coals of sunset went out, and the sky was empty of everything save God, the angels, and three planets..." (I, p. 6)

I said in God Rising that I did not know what the angels were. I still don't. When Felipe Argens looks at the sky on that same night, he sees only the galaxy ("God") and:

"...three glitters which we now knew were planets." (VII, p. 44)

Can natives see something that human beings cannot? Or are the "angels" those stars that can be discerned as individual points at the ends of the spiral arms? I think that it is more likely that they are divine attendants that are imagined or believed in although not seen. But I remain unsure as to what Poul Anderson was alluding to.

God, The Galaxy

World Without Stars.

"God was rising in the west, and this time the sun was down -..." (I, p. 5)

"This evening the galaxy rose directly after sunset." (VII, p. 43)

This is the same event described twice and from different povs. Later in I, ya-Kela must investigate:

"...strange newcomers..." (p. 6) 

Later in VII, Hugh Valland, on watch, spots:

"'Somethin' out there. Approachin' real slow and careful. But two-legged, and carrying things. Let's not scare 'em off.'" (p. 47)

Ya-Kela and his "...bold followers..." (p. 5) approach and soon there will be yet another First Contact. We have become used to reading about these at least. Has there ever been a First Contact between two intelligent species and, if so, what was it like? Willingness to communicate and learn? Misunderstanding and conflict? There was an Arthur C. Clarke story in which astronauts had been instructed not to retaliate if attacked! Give the other side the opportunity to say, "Our man in the field acted wrongly..." Extreme caution, at least for the First Contact. Thereafter, respond as indicated.

Thousands Of Races

World Without Stars, VI.

On the planet where they are stranded, the Meteor crew glimpse some human-sized bipeds with powerful legs and tails. The first person narrator, Captain Felipe Argens, comments:

"I, who have met thousands of different races, still feel that each one is a new epoch." (p. 42)

Thousands? In that timeline, yes. In our timeline, it seems that multicellularity might be rare.

Argens adds that stars, planets and biologies can be categorized whereas minds cannot:

"...you never know what strangeness will confront you." (ibid.)

But most alien minds in sf are recognizable. 

I am being pulled in another direction because I want to reread more of James Blish's Welcome To Mars and to contrast it with his last Haertel Scholium volume, Midsummer Century. Fortunately, there is time for Anderson, Blish and more, especially when retired. (Later: See Radio, Dirac And Cats.)

Intricacies And Complexities

Following James Blish On Poul Anderson, we have posted:

Versions Of Mars

Haertel Timelines

Regular readers of Poul Anderson Appreciation know that we enjoy analyzing the intricacies of Anderson's Technic History. Contemplation of the complexities of Blish's Haertel Scholium affords a comparable enjoyment but what is remarkable is that, since this morning, we have realized some previously unnoticed discrepancies between Blish's two instalments set on Mars. It pays to reread and compare.

We might return to Anderson's characters stranded in the "world without stars" some time tomorrow when there will also be a talk at the Lancaster City Museum. Living in a historic city, we study future histories.

James Blish On Poul Anderson

Comparing Poul Anderson's works with those of his contemporary and fellow Campbell future historian, James Blish, has refocused my attention on Blish and I will shortly add to the James Blish Appreciation blog.

Blish commended Anderson's Tau Zero and After Doomsday. In particular, he appreciated the passage of the relativistic spaceship through the period of inter-destruction in Tau Zero and also the recounting of the Battle of Brandobar not in the narrative present but in a later-sung ballad in After Doomsday.

Although Blish understood that Anderson particularly liked his flamboyant merchant prince character, Nicholas van Rijn, he also thought that that character was about played out. However, I think that the van Rijn sub-series of Anderson's Technic History had just about come to an end by the time that Blish expressed that opinion. Because I had been a Blish fan long before I became an Anderson fan, I asked Blish's advice on reading Anderson and, as part of this, asked whether I should disregard Dominic Flandry. Blish agreed with this suggestion at the time! I now realize that it was entirely mistaken, of course. The Flandry series became much more than its earliest-written segment, the "Captain Flandry" series, which continues to be worth anyone's attention in any case.

Blish appreciated and made multiple references to CS Lewis. He valued the moral and psychological insights in That Hideous Strength and The Great Divorce and the chilling account of Weston's possession and damnation in Perelandra and, for these reasons, wished that Lewis had written more fiction. 

He also preferred ER Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros and Zimiamvia Trilogy to Tolkien's Middle Earth History. It seems that some readers like Eddison or Tolkien but not both. I could not get into Eddison and have read little Tolkien - The Lord Of The Rings only twice.

All of this is relevant to Poul Anderson. I regard CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy as a Christian response to twentieth century science fiction falling, both chronologically and conceptually, between Wells and Stapledon earlier in the century and Blish and Anderson in later decades. And Anderson was transforming Norse mythology into modern fantasy at the same time as Lewis' friend and colleague, Tolkien - although more people know about The Lord Of The Rings than about The Broken Sword.

Urgency And Strain

World Without Stars, VI.

Captain Argens tells Bren and Galmer to make precise measurements of:

gravity

air pressure

humidity

magnetism

ionization

horizon distance

rotation period

solar spectrum lines

anything else detectable

Information-gathering is as urgent as building a stockade. 

When Rorn bellyaches:

"'What do you propose to do about our troubles?' I asked sharply. A gust of wind made the thin metal walls shake around us." (p. 39)

Wind appropriately underlines dramatic dialogue.

Despite the strains, Argens and Valland hold the men together until Rorn finds a different loyalty.

Food Plant

World Without Stars, VI.

I have been back home for several hours but too busy to post. I said this morning that we would return to the food plant but we find that we have described it in detail already. See Food II. A blog search for "Food Plant" also brought up The Atmosphere Plant which links:

grass equivalents in Poul Anderson's works;

the "atmosphere plant" which is a grass equivalent on SM Stirling's Mars;

the atmosphere planet (different meaning) on ERB's Mars -

- and should also have mentioned Adolph Haertel's extraction of water from Martian vegetation and electrolysis of oxygen from the water in James Blish's Welcome To Mars. (I have just reread several chapters of this novel to find the references.)

Three versions of Mars - by Burroughs, Stirling and Blish, respectively - and one extra-solar planet by Anderson.

Now it is time for us to return to Argens, Valland and co on the "world without stars."

Some Environmental Details

World Without Stars, VI.

Day is "days" long, therefore the (very dark) night will be equally long so the men work hard to make camp.

Colours are difficult to identify in the dim light.

As usual on terrestroid planets in Poul Anderson's works, there is an equivalent of grass:

"...those tussocky growths which seemed to correspond to grass..." (p. 36)

There are no seasons because there is little axial tilt. Also:

"Photosynthesis under a red dwarf star can't use chlorophyll." (ibid.)

Scientific knowledge is crucial in sf.

Local wild life lacks certain amino acids, vitamins etc but the men eat packaged supplies, then get their food plant working. This is described in detail and we will return to it this evening when I have returned from a day trip to Blackpool. Chapter V has presented a plausible explanation of why the food plant at least had survived the wreck of the ship and its two ferries. Poul Anderson sets his characters up for several years on this planet.

Survival

World Without Stars, V.

Asked what is to be done, Hugh Valland replies:

"'We survive,'..." (p. 33)

Assessing their situation and their supplies, he judges:

"'We'll live,'..." (p. 35)

Asked whether they can get off the planet where they have crash-landed, he replies:

"'Got to.'" (ibid.)

Well, he says a little more than that:

"'Sure. Got to. Mary O'Meara's waitin' for me." (ibid.)

A more personal motivation has come into play. On our very first reading of this novel, we accept Valland's statement at face value. It is only at the very end of the novel that we question the sanity of his motivation. (We can only read for the first time once!)

Valland And Smeth

World Without Stars, V.

Valland would have made a good counsellor/clergyman for the dying. Smeth's ribs have pierced his lungs and his spine is broken. Valland asks whether he can remove Smeth's suit:

"'I've only had thirty years,' Smeth shrieked. 'Thirty miserable years! You've had three thousand!'

"'Shut up.' Valland's tone stayed soft, but I've heard less crack in a bullwhip. 'You're a man, aren't you?'

"Smeth gasped for seconds before he replied, 'Go ahead, Hugh.'" (p. 33)

Smeth asks Valland to sing and even specifies a song that is very personal to Valland and, after only a very slight hesitation, the latter complies.

What else could have been done? Smeth receives the best possible send-off in the circumstances. Valland is effortlessly good for everyone that he meets.

(The unfortunate Smeth was created - as a fictional character - only so that he could be painfully killed but authors cannot be compassionate towards their characters. Smeth's death is an important occurrence in World Without Stars.)

Hugh Valland's Competence

World Without Stars, V.

The Meteor crash lands:

"We hit." (p. 30)

When Captain Argens regains consciousness and goes to find his men, he meets Valland who:

gives him a full report on the half-flooded ship with two dead, one mortally injured and the survivors in the saloon;

suggests that the captain joins the rest while he himself looks outside before reporting back.

Definitely the kind of man that you want to have with you in a shipwreck or in any other catastrophe. He remarks:

"'I came through fairly well, myself,'..." (p. 31)

He has been coming through fairly well for three thousand years. We can bet on Valland continuing to survive for quite a while yet. 

Usually, we do not see fictional characters' deaths although James Blish felt obliged to show us his antiagathics-user meeting their ends at nothing less than the end of the universe. 

Big Spaceships

World Without Stars, III.

"We were nine aboard the Meteor, specialists whose skills overlapped. That was not many, to rattle around in so huge a hull. But you need room and privacy on a long trip, and of course as a rule we hauled a lot of cargo." (p. 17)

Spacemen need room on long trips. In other words, they need space in space. However, James Blish imagined a spaceship whose spaciousness was not welcome but overwhelming for its crew:

"The very hugeness of the Argo - a ship now manned by three people but built originally for two thousand - made her a creature of silences."

-James Blish, Mission To The Heart Stars (London, 1980), CHAPTER FIVE, p. 51.

Such a large faster-than-light ship is necessary for a sixty thousand light-years round trip for just three men. Blish conveys the eeriness of the cavernous storage areas:

"...like being cast away in a deserted ocean liner..." (p. 52)

And both authors express the difficulties of interstellar travel even at hypothetical super-light speeds.

Experience And Emergency

World Without Stars.

Quick morning post. Probably more later.

After a space jump, the Meteor is not in orbit above the ecliptic of a planetary system but falling towards a planet. The wrong coordinates have been given. Captain Argens freezes but gunner Valland, the more experienced man, shouts orders which Argens then relays to the crew. Experience and authority cooperate in an emergency as they should do. 

I wanted to record that but now must get out to the bank. I should have time to post this evening.

Poul Anderson's Wars

 

Attached is the back cover blurb of my edition of Poul Anderson's World Without Stars. It summarizes the premises and some of the plot and ends with a reference to "...a world-wide war." We remember Brian Aldiss saying that Anderson tells us a dozen ways to get to another planet but then we find the same kinds of things happening when we get there.

See:

Aldiss, Amis, Anderson, Asimov, Lewis

The crew of the Meteor become involved in the war between Pack and Herd on the planet between galaxies.

Nicholas van Rijn becomes involved in the war between Flock and Fleet on Diomedes.

The crew of the USS Benjamin Franklin become involved in the war between Vorlak and Kandemir in the local civilization-cluster.

So, yes, there was something to what Aldiss said. But Anderson's wars are better than many others. 

Accidents

World Without Stars, V.

We know that, barring accidents, we will die in our beds comparatively soon. I am 77 and a Romany palm-reader told me that I would live to 95. Of course, she might be wrong. I might have a lot less than another 18 years still ahead of me.

Felipe Argens and his crew know something very different:

"...our immortality isn't absolute, because sooner or later some chance combination of circumstances is bound to kill you." (p. 27)

They know that they will die by accident and they have no idea how soon. Their deaths are very different from ours and that makes their lives also very different from ours. 

It is the attempt to imagine what it would be like that makes Poul Anderson's accounts of his characters, Hanno, Argens, Manse Everard, Jack Havig etc, so interesting.

I will retire to Inspector Morse and then to bed.

Immortal Employees

World Without Stars.

"Immortal" spacemen live for centuries or even millennia and spend all that time in paid employment in the same kind of work. Can't they save, invest and retire either to leisure activities or to retraining for other kinds of work? It seems an odd kind of existence. Even odder, they preserve their sanity by periodically editing their memories so that they only ever consciously remember a much shorter period, maybe only a few decades, like the equivalent of what used to be a normal working life. Their previous lives and work are recorded somewhere but not in their own conscious memories. Hugh Valland, three thousand years old, recalls his youth, his most recent few years of work and only a few other selected details. He speaks of revisiting old places and visiting new places but even most of the old places will be experienced anew. And, in any case, there is an infinity of new places because the space jump gives access to every galaxy. This has to be the strangest fictional future ever.

In Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, the small group of mutant immortals have had to solve the memory accumulation problem for themselves and are able to traverse interstellar space at only sub-light speeds so their situation is very different. They propose to part and to reconvene in another million years which I should think is impossible. Will Hugh Valland survive for a million years? Statistically unlikely. But we would have liked to have read some sequels.

In James Blish's Okie cities, unaging policemen, and men in other professions, simply stay in those roles for centuries.

Things That Change Everything

Fiction based on modern scientific cosmology assumes much about the past, e.g., cosmic and biological evolution, even if this is not made explicit, although Poul Anderson's works very often do make this explicit.

Past Events That Changed Everything

The first self-replicating molecule.

Multicellularity.

Central nervous systems.

The first immediate sensation.

Emergence of life from sea onto land.

Manipulation.

The evolution of intelligence.

The agricultural revolution.

Writing.

Printing.

The scientific revolution.

The Industrial Revolution.

Darwinism.

The automobile.

Telegraph and radio.

The discovery of other galaxies and of cosmic expansion. 

Automation.

Modern information and computer technology.

Now imagine that list extended into an indefinite future.

"'Between them, immortality and star travel changed everything. Not necessarily for the worse. I pass no judgments on anybody.'"

-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), IV, p. 26.

Thus speaks a three-thousand-year-old man, Hugh Valland. By "star travel," Valland means instantaneous jumps to other galaxies! By "judgments," he alludes to different lifestyles. His lifestyle remains simultaneously monogamous and celibate. You have to read the novel right to its punchline.

A PC Wren character remains celibate because the one woman that he would have married has married someone else. When I read that in my teens, I thought that it made sense. It certainly takes all sorts.

Ad astra.

The Scientific Context

Science fiction, especially any by Poul Anderson, is written in the context of modern scientific cosmology. Technology based on theories about atoms and nuclei works whereas magic based on beliefs about supernatural beings does not - although Anderson also wrote fantasy. (In James Blish's fantasy, magic is control of demons and demons are fallen angels but maybe eternal life is permanent negative entropy? If hard sf writers write fantasy, then maybe fantasy can become "hard.")

Technology is assumed to work also in contemporary fiction where, however, it is not a major plot element - although Lizbeth Salander's abilities as a hacker are crucial to Stieg Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and would have been sf if hypothesized much earlier in our lifetimes.

(Comprehensiveness: in discussing hard sf, we have also referred to fantasy and to a contemporary thriller.)

However, sf adds that new scientific discoveries will continue to be made the day after tomorrow and into the further future, assuming that there is going to be a further future, although sf narratives also incorporate the opposite assumption. As James Blish argued, sf writers need to remind their readers that new paradigms will be discovered, if not the possibility of faster-than-light (FTL) interstellar travel, then something else as yet unimagined. Every story that does include FTL (as an example) makes that point and therefore serves a purpose. Maybe that is the only purpose of all these FTL stories. To avoid the "hyperspace" cliche, Anderson presented a new scientific rationale for FTL every time that he used the idea.

Roman Numerals

See Numerals

It is assumed that, although Kandemirian and Monwaingi numerals have a different base number, they are otherwise like Arabic numerals with a symbol for zero so that the base number is the numeral for "one" followed by the numeral for "zero." They are not like the cumbersome Roman numerals which we still use for some purposes but not for calculation.

Roman numerals are so complicated that authors can get them wrong. In Colin Dexter, The Daughters Of Cain (London, 1995), Chapter Four, p. 20, Inspector Morse thinks that 1993 requires fourteen characters in Roman numerals:

MDCCCCLXXXXIII

M = 1000

D =   500

CCCC = 400

L = 50

XXXX = 40

III = 3

But he is wrong. It requires eight (which is still a lot):

MCMXCIII

M = 1000

CM = 900

XC = 90

III = 3

There is always some connection, however remote, between whatever we read.

Good night.

God Rising

We stated, accurately, in Beginnings Of Novels, that Poul Anderson's World Without Stars, Chapter I, is set on a planet between galaxies. However, this chapter alone does not tell us that. What it does tell us is that "God" rises above a horizon. The Pack, who worship Him, had:

"...howled when the fingers of God's foremost arm glimmered into view. But he would take long to mount so high that His entire self was revealed." (p. 5)

And will that entire self display not only fingers and arms but also head, torso, legs and feet? (No, but we do not know that yet.)

The Pack have enemies called downdevils who come out of the sea and who might:

"...send a war fleet of the Herd..." (ibid.)

So there is conflict between Pack and Herd. (In Anderson's The Man Who Counts - on another planet in another timeline - there is conflict between Flock and Fleet.)

So far, then, the Pack worships the rising God (in the sky) while its enemies, the Herd, are sent by downdevils (in the sea)... 

But something else:

"...had lately arrived in fire and thunder..." (ibid.)

Sf readers are immediately alerted. That sounds like the arrival of an extra-planetary spacecraft. Will it bear human beings? Indeed, we shortly read that there are:

"...legends...about creatures that had long ago come from the sky and returned..." (p. 6)

When the sunset has ended and when God has risen further, only He, the angels and three planets are in the sky. I do not know what the "angels" are and am noticing them now only because I am analyzing this chapter in more detail than before.

There is one other aspect to the dualism of God and downdevils. Apparently, God is associated with night and his antagonists with day. The Herd rarely attack by night because they worship the downdevils who fear God whereas ya-Kela, the One of the Pack and their leader in worship, addresses God as:

"'...Thou Who casteth out of the sun...'" (ibid.)

- a God Who casts out not darkness but its opposite.

But what is God? We have been told nothing about extragalactic planets as yet but we have been told that God has a "...foremost arm..." and the following chapter reminds us on the following page that galaxies have spiral arms.

Beginnings Of Novels

I prefer a novel that comes straight to the point.

"'Earth is dead."

-After Doomsday, 1, p. 5 -

- comes straight to the point. 

In Poul Anderson's World Without Stars, Chapter I is narrated in the third person from the point of view of an inhabitant of a planetary system between galaxies before the human first person narrator comes on-stage in the opening sentence of Chapter II. We must read on in order to understand much of what we have read in I: God rising in the West, downdevils from the sea depths etc.

In the unentitled opening passage of Anderson's The Rebel Worlds, Didonian Feet, Wings and Hands make oneness before the human action begins in CHAPTER ONE. That opening passage is incomprehensible on first reading.

In the italicized and unentitled opening passage of Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, an unidentified Dennitzan wonders how to tell the tale of Bodin's raid which will not occur until the climax of the novel.

On rereading, we can skip past these introductory passages. 

Numerals

OK. I have returned to being all at sea with the numerals at the climax of After Doomsday, 15.

See Donnan's Second Moment Of Realization And A Solution?

Arabic And Kandemirian Numerals, The Latter Replaced By Roman Letters

0 L

1 A

2 B

3 C

4 D

5 E

6 F

7 G

8 H

9 I

10 J

11 K

12 AL

Arabic And Monwaingi Numerals, The Latter Replaced By Roman Letters

0 R

1 M

2 N

3 O

4 P

5 Q

6 MR

We are told that:

BA=NQ=25

- and that:

ABIJ=MOQMP=2134

How come?

OK. I realize where I am going all wrong again. But I had to write it all out like this again before I realized. Maybe Anderson/Donnan could have explained it in more detail for the benefit of non-mathematicians.

Children And Hearthfires

After Doomsday, 14.

Sigrid Holmen, travelling to a private interview with Carl Donnan, reflects:

"We are together, the two halves of the human race. We know now that man will live; there will be children and hearthfires on another Earth - in the end, on a thousand or a million other Earths." (p. 112)

That is the Andersonian future in any timeline. And hearthfires will outlast civilizations. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Terran Empire will become a fireside legend and, in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys, the sunken city of Ys becomes a hearthside story. For both of these references, see here.

Multiple pasts and futures but one multiverse.

We again approach the conclusion of After Doomsday. Where after that?

Singing In Birth, Living Earth

After Doomsday, 13.

For each repeated line in "The Battle of Brandobar," we should see an appropriate image or hear a corresponding sound-effect. Thus:

"(The stars burn bitterly clear)" (pp. 103, 104, 104, 105, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108)

- the Milky Way seen from space.

"(The stormwinds clamor their grief)" (pp. 103, 104, 104, 105, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108)

- a very loud wind.

"(A bugle: the gods defied!)" (pp. 103, 104, 104, 105, 106, 107, 107, 108)

- a very loud bugle.

"(New centuries scream in birth)" (pp. 104, 104, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108)

- the cry of a new-born baby.

And then, in the concluding quatrain:

"(New centuries sing in birth)" (p. 109)

- a beautiful voice singing;

- which should also accompany the concluding line:

"In the name of living Earth!" (p. 109)

The ballad could be effective on screen.

(Other reading: starting the eleventh Inspector Morse novel.)

The First Uru Work Of Art

After Doomsday, 13.

"The Battle of Brandobar," is an Uru ballad translated, with notes, into English. The Brandobar Cluster is between Vorlak and Mayast. The two sides in the battle were:

an alliance of Vorlak, Monwaing and lesser races;

the Kandemirian Grand Fleet, comprising clan units and non-Kandemirian subjects recruited as auxiliaries. (Numerically stronger than the alliance.)

Uru, one of the interstellar lingua francas, had previously been used for records, scientific treatises and translations from planetary languages but not for original literature.

Will the survivors of Earth be able to preserve the Bible and Shakespeare for translation into Uru? I understand that many people would be able to reproduce these works from memory alone but, in After Doomsday, the human population has been drastically reduced! However, one of the surviving ships will contain at least one Bible.

What can we say about "Brandobar" that we have not said before? Maybe not much but we should certainly reread it. Because the ballad comes immediately after Chapter 12, we understand very clearly what is meant by its second stanza:

"And the proudest king, the Vorlak lord,

"(The stormwinds clamor their grief)

"Had been made the servant in all but name

"Of a planetless wanderer chief." (p. 103)

And, of course, in an Andersonian work, the wind must make itself heard.

Excellence

We are searching this blog and gathering evidence for human uniqueness and/or superiority in Poul Anderson's After Doomsday.

See:

Credible Aliens? II

The Second Civilization-Cluster

Human Superiority

Superiority

If we find anything more, then we will add it either here or in a later post but that is a lot already.

Can human beings excel in as many ways as that? Well, as we point out, Anderson also wrote stories in which other intelligent species excelled. And covering every option is one way in which he himself excelled. Others ways were making other planetary environments real and sympathetic treatment of characters that he disagreed with.

Excelsior! (I am not quite sure what that means but it is certainly appropriate.)