Quiz Question

This evening, we attended a garden party where there was a quiz which included the question, "Which was the earliest novel published by Poul Anderson?" I was expected to get this right but didn't or at least not quite. I wrote Brain Wave although Vault Of The Ages also came into the back of my mind. In fact (see Significant Dates):

Vault Of The Ages, which is juvenile sf, was the first novel and the correct quiz answer;

Three Hearts And Three Lions was the first fantasy novel;

Brain Wave was the first adult sf novel;

Brain Wave and The Broken Sword were published in the same year.

That is a complicated situation as I hope you will agree. 

In the 1960's, the two sf scenarios were spaceships in the near or further future (the majority) or post-nuclear war recovery in the near future (the minority). Some works by Poul Anderson, e.g., his Psychotechnic History, combined these scenarios. Vault Of The Ages was post-nuclear war but a few centuries in the future. I do not remember much about it so maybe I should reread it if I can find it where it should be on a shelf upstairs but it is too late to look for it this evening.

Meanwhile, my rereading of Ian Fleming has brought me to a game of golf between James Bond and Auric Goldfinger.

The "Best Of The Technic History"

We do not need a Best Of Poul Anderson's Technic History collection because we have the entire History in a uniform edition and can each make our own judgements as to which are the best instalments. In any case, the series is uniformly good right through.

If there were a collection of about half a dozen "best," which ones would they be? Or, rather, how many versions of such a collection would there be?

My suggestions:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"

"The Season of Forgiveness"

"Lodestar"

The People Of The Wind

"Starfog"

These five are not distributed uniformly through the Technic History.

We have discussed each of these works more than once. "How To Be Ethnic..." is on my list because it introduces Adzel as seen through the eyes of one-off character, James Ching, and also gives us a glimpse of domestic life in the Solar Commonwealth; "The Season of Forgiveness" because it is an excellent Christmas story which also shows us another aspect of the Polesotechnic League without involving any of the continuing characters; "Lodestar" because it introduces Coya Conyon, dramatizes the generation gap between her and her grandfather, Nicholas van Rijn, informs us of the crisis in the League that will be fully developed in Mirkheim and climaxes with a crucial confrontation between van Rijn and Falkayn; The People Of The Wind because of its sense of living in troubled times, because it presents every point of view on war, because of its detailed realization of the environment of the planet, Avalon, and because of its presentation of the biracial society of Avalon; "Starfog" because it is our single glimpse of a remoter future far beyond League or Empire.

Reconciliations

At the end of "The Sharing of Flesh," Evalyth frees the man who had killed her husband, saying:

"'Go home... Remember him.'" (p. 708)

At the end of "Rescue on Avalon," Jack Birnham tells an Ythrian that he is not an enemy, adding:

"'I'll be proud to call you my friend!'"

-Poul Anderson, "Rescue on Avalon" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 307-322 AT p. 322.

Two short stories with neat happy endings. There are others. Poul Anderson's Technic History features several long drawn out and complicated conflicts but is also peppered with several shorter pieces such as these two. What is good about The Technic Civilization Saga is that they are all there together in seven omnibus volumes.

The Benefits Of Technology: The World Made Great

"The Sharing of Flesh."

"'...your wisemen talked of ways to end hunger, sickness, danger, and sorrow.'" (p. 695)

"'Suddenly the world was made great, that had been so narrow.'" (ibid.)

We take hungerlessness, health, safety, satisfaction and knowledge for granted but what would it be like to lose them or never to have had them? And the ending of hunger etc is not yet complete.

Every word of a futuristic sf story can be applied to the time in which it was written and to the changing times in which it continues to be read. There is a reason why the lowland Lokonese fight incessant wars. The Allied Planets can end that reason.

It takes longer in real life but we have the same goals.

Slavery

"The Sharing of Flesh."

The Allied Planets spaceship, New Dawn, has found an isolated human colony planet where there is:

"...a large slave class." (p. 674)

However:

"...none of the space travelers was unduly shocked. They had seen worse elsewhere." (ibid.)

Furthermore, history might inform them that there had been slaves in two previous interstellar civilizations, the Merseian Roidhunate and the Terran Empire. The Domain of Ythri had phased out slavery with the help of technology from Terran Technic civilization.

The text continues:

"Historical data banks described places in olden times called Athens, India, America." (ibid.)

Thus, in this story by an American sf writer, America is remembered not as a land of the free but as a place where there had been slaves.

A local leader tries to convince a Krakener that his people are civilized. They eat only slaves. 

Concluding Phase

"The Sharing of Flesh."

In this concluding phase of Poul Anderson's Technic History, narrative continuity is provided not by continuing characters or even by surnames recognized across the generations but only by the names of planets that had appeared or in some cases just been mentioned in the background in earlier instalments:

Kraken

Atheia

Lochlann

Neuvameruica

Gwydion

Ifri

Freehold

- and by a few very basic future historical references:

ruins or wreck of empire

Long Night

the dead language, Anglic

However, all of these names and references are rich in connotations for consecutive readers. We are still in the same series as when we had been reading about van Rijn, Falkayn or Flandry.

The historical innovation is the Allied Planets which must have grown out of alliances forged in the two previous instalments.

Violence

In Poul Anderson's Technic History:

"Lodestar" begins as natives of the planet, Tametha, attack Polesotechnic League merchants, including the familiar trader team;

in "A Tragedy of Errors," Roan Tom's spaceship is almost immediately attacked when it arrives on the planet, Nike;

"The Sharing of Flesh" begins with the murder of an extra-planetary visitor by a dweller on the planet, Lokon.

Does Poul Anderson write about violence for the sake of violence? No, although we might get that impression if we read no further. In each case, the violence is an expression of a problem and the ensuing story is about finding the solution to that problem.

Fiction is easier to cope with than life. We are not attacked or killed while reading these stories...

Barriers To Understanding

"The Sharing of Flesh" is included in three Technic History collections:

The Long Night

The Night Face and other stories

Flandry's Legacy

Of these, I possess only The Long Night and Flandry's Legacy. This story has no introduction in Flandry's Legacy. The story is set long after Hloch - fictitiously - compiled The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Therefore, it not only does not have but also could not have had any introduction composed by Hloch.

Like Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, The Long Night includes italicized interstitial passages composed not by the author of the stories, Poul Anderson, but by Andersonian scholar, Sandra Miesel. The short paragraph that immediately precedes "The Sharing of Flesh" could serve as an introduction both to The Night Face and to "The Sharing of Flesh."

After referring to "...rediscovery expeditions during the next four centuries...," Miesel comments:

"Time and again, these contact teams would find that simple ignorance was the least of the barriers to mutual understanding."

-Sandra Miesel IN Poul Anderson, The Long Night (New York, 1983), p. 202.

Strangers And Moru

Poul Anderson, "The Sharing of Flesh" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 661-708.

"...the tall strangers..." (p. 663) have demonstrated guns although not audiovisual transmitters to their local guides which implies that the strangers are extra-planetarians and that the guides are either non-humans or inhabitants of a human colony planet cut off from interstellar contact during the Long Night. In fact, they turn out to be the latter. 

This story, like many others, opens with the point of view of a particular character, in this case an individual named "Moru," rather than an exposition by a distanced narrator, e.g.:

"As far as we know - but how much do we really know, in this one corner of this one galaxy which we have somewhat explored? - Avalon was the first planet whereon two different intelligent species founded a joint colony."

-Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 293-306 AT p. 295.

- which raises questions like "Who are 'we'?," "How much time has elapsed between the events narrated and their narration?" etc.

In each of these stories, something matters to someone.

Orion And Kraken

Real people and fictional characters see the stars. Science fictional characters sometimes travel between them. We inhabit the same universe but on different scales. James Bond saw the Milky Way and the North Star, here. Next, in Dr No, Chapter XIV, he sees Orion, a name to conjure with.

Then, in Chapter XVIII, he fights and kills a giant squid which he identifies as:

"...the mythical kraken..."

Dr No, XVIII, p. 163. (See above link.)

See:

"The Giant Squid, The Mythical Kraken"

Kraken

Fighting The Kraken

The Sunken City Of Averorn

Looting Averorn

Thus, Bond connects with a work of fantasy by Poul Anderson.

The problem planet, Gwydion, is referred back to, in authentic future historical style, in the following Technic History instalment but not in any way that continues its history. Do other planets quarantine Gwydion or just avoid contact during Bale time?