"Eve Times Four" II

Poul Anderson's "Eve Times Four" in NESFA Vol 3:

is yet another Holmesian story ("Time Patrol" and "The Martian Crown Jewels" are in NESFA Vol 1 and "The Queen of Air and Darkness" is the title story of NESFA Vol 2);

makes the interesting point that, on a planet with longer days and nights, organisms active at night and those active by day will be more specialized and differentiated;

presents clues that we, or at least I, did not recognize as such (e.g., why is planetary rotation so slow when there is no large satellite to retard it?);

presents an odd mixture of castaways - one young man, three young women, one older woman, two extraterrestrial quadrupeds of different species - but then explains the oddity;

nevertheless, remains an example of a kind of rather flippant humor that does not appeal to me.

NESFA Vol 1 contains the three Wing Alak stories.

NESFA Vols 1-3 contain the first three Time Patrol stories although these are collected in Time Patrol.

NESFA Vols 2-3 contain the first two of the three Gunnar Heim stories although these are collected with the third in The Star Fox.

 

NESFA Vol 2 contains two Flying Mountains stories and Vol 3 has another two although these are all collected in Tales of the Flying Mountains.

The second Rustum story is in NESFA Vol 2 and the first is in NESFA Vol 3 although these are collected in Orbit Unlimited.

The Humorous/Serious Fiction Interface

See here and Comments here.

I plan soon to post more on the contents of the NESFA collections before returning to Poul Anderson's Starfarers, then reading more of SM Stirling's Lords of Creation series. However, to post any more right now would cause me to be late for a small local sf fans gathering.

But expect a second post on Anderson's "Eve Times Four" maybe tomorrow.

"Eve Times Four"

I am struggling with Poul Anderson's "Eve Times Four" in the third NESFA collection because it is sf humor of a kind that does not appeal to me. Since it was originally published in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, April 1960, I googled the title of this magazine, hoping to find an image of its cover to illustrate the post (see image). Blow me down if I didn't also find a review of the issue. The review states that the twist in the story is easily guessed but I will confirm or disconfirm this for myself in due course.

The fact that the story is a comedy means that:

the characters converse in amusing - or at least in exaggerated -  ways;
unlikely events occur;
we need not take seriously details like one of the characters being a "Lord High Gongbeater" (p. 474) etc;
nothing really unpleasant will happen to any of the characters;
there will be no tragic or unhappy ending to the story.

Would it be possible to write a story set in a parallel universes or alternative timelines scenario such that comedic and serious universes coexisted and people could travel between them? The arrival of a serious character in a comedic universe might produce some genuine humor whereas the reverse scenario would be harder to write, I suspect.

Other parallel universes do not bear thinking about:

the musical universe whose inhabitants burst into song and dance around in the street;
the commercials universe where anyone who uses a commodity spontaneously sings its praises;
the cartoon universe of anthropomorphic animals that can endure any kind or amount of violence without suffering any permanent harm. (Alan Moore shows us this one in Pictopia.)