China

Tomorrow, Lancaster will celebrate Chinese New Year, complete with street procession and dancing dragon. It is good to live in a multicultural society.

China is a big country that maybe does not get a lot of attention in Poul Anderson's works?

In "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," the large quadrupedal alien, Adzel, performs the Chinese dragon in street parades while he is a student on Earth.

In The Broken Sword, the supernatural beings of different national traditions coexist and (I think that) Chinese beings are mentioned.

In Rogue Sword, Lucas has returned from Cathay.

China is more civilized than Europe here.

In The Boat Of A Million Years, one of the immortals is Chinese. See here. Thus, his introductory chapter is set in China.

In "SOS," Pitar Cheng leads a Great Asian space fleet.

Finally, not to ignore our ever-growing food thread, in exchange for his dragon performances, Adzel:

"...has an unlimited meal ticket at the Silver Dragon Chinese Food and Chop Suey Palace."
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Technic Civilization Saga: The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-197 AT p. 195.

What have I missed? (See comments.)

"...it is enough that we are on our way"

Because I practice zazen, I tread the same path as Adzel and as Kim's lama although approaches differ, to say the least. Dogen, a pivotal figure in the Soto Zen lineage, wrote:

"It is futile to travel to other dusty countries, thus forsaking your own seat."
-Dogen, "Rules for Meditation," recited in Serene Reflection Meditation groups.

Adzel traveled because of his work as a planetologist but then retired to a monastery whereas the lama walks the length and breadth of Hind, supported by a mendicant-respecting culture.

More generally, society moves though it does not know where to:

"We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 556.

I do not know what will happen next with the blog - Anderson's Genesis, Kipling's Kim, Anderson's The Game Of Empire, then what?

See also here.

In The End

Alan Moore wrote:

"All of our best and oldest legends recognize that time passes and that people grow old and die. The legend of Robin Hood would not be complete without the final blind arrow shot to determine the site of his grave. The Norse legends would lose much of their power were it not for the knowledge of an eventual Ragnarok, as would the story of Davy Crockett without the existence of an Alamo." (1)

- and Beowolf, fifty years older, was fatally wounded when he killed a dragon.

A myth does not have the happy ending of a fairy tale or a romantic novel. Imaginative in content but realistic in meaning, it addresses both life and death. Poul Anderson shows well the passage of time when retelling the Norse myth of Hadding in War Of The Gods (New York, 1999):

nearing fifty, Hadding remains straight and broad-shouldered, retains most of his teeth and does not yet seem old although, of course, there are signs of age;

his queen dies in childbirth;

his children grow and have children;

his adult daughter plots against him - like the King of Ys' daughter in the Andersons' tetralogy;

after killing an enemy in single combat, he thinks, " 'Yes...I am old...I wanted one last victory that was wholly mine, as a man among men...' " (p. 258);

when he counsels that it is better to build and trade than to burn and take, men remark, "...how the wild young rover had become the mild old grandfather. But some said, 'It's as though he's bidding us farewell.' " (p. 275)

Maturity can bring wisdom. Hadding had fought to gain his kingdom, had fought to build a peaceful realm, had fought to maintain it... However, he counsels his warlike son that peace and work strengthen the Danes:

" '...I have striven to uphold the law...men should turn to it before they turn to the sword...I'd be foolish to tell men they cannot fight abroad when they stand to gain thereby. But, Frodi, the king's care should always first and foremost be for the kingdom.'" (p. 263)

Life has been lived; lessons learned.

Hadding: I have done what I could. All things end.
Eirik: Memory dies not, the memory of what a man did in his life.

They "...speak of bygone times...all their years..." (p. 291)

(1) Moore, Alan, "The Mark of the Batman: An Introduction" IN Miller, Frank, The Dark Knight Returns, London, 1986.

"Flight To Forever" Timeline, Part I

1953	Martin Saunders visits from 1973 in the time projector.
1973	Saunders, physicist, and Sam Hull, mechanic, leave for 2073.
1993	Saunders visits from 1973.
2008	Saunders and Hull find that this is as far back as they can come from 2073. The energy required approaches infinity. They must seek help in the future.
2013	The automatics, lying in the fire-blackened basement, had struggled a little further back, then stopped, batteries drained.
2023	Charred stumps of the burned house. Energy has drained from the returning projector.
2043	As '63 and '53 but the pit is fresher and the projector is drawing too much energy.
2053	Same as '63 but sun instead of rain.
2063	A stop on the return journey to look for the automatic probes which had neither returned from 2073 to 1973 nor been found in 2073. The pit of the house.
2073	Saunders and Hull arrive from 1973 in the half-filled basement of the 1973 house, take readings and start back.
2200's.	Martian colonists revolt against Terrestrial Directorate. A defeated Directorate army leaps forward in time.
2300's -2600's.	Armageddonists (Fanatics) rule Earth.
2300's.	The Time War. Unsuccessful attack of defeated Directorate army from the 2200's.
2500	Saunders and Hull arrive from 2008, on a hill. Men in black (Fanatics) kill Hull. Saunders flees.
Late 2600's	Planetary League and African Dissenters overthrow Fanatics.
2600's-2800's	Peace and progress. Chronology dating from the ascension of John Mteza I.
2800's	Breakdown. Decay and attacks by barbarians from outer planets.
3000	Saunders, arriving in a besieged city-state, agrees to take the displaced mercenary, Belgotai of Syrtis, with him into the future.
3100	Radioactivity where an atom bomb had destroyed the city.
3200	No radioactivity but a lifeless crater.
3500	A forest.
3600's	Faster than light drive. Interstellar travel.
4100	A dean of the American College informs Saunders and Belgotai by psychophone that it is impossible to return more than 70 years. An atomic engine replaces their batteries and they are given a psychophone.
4300	Nonhuman mercenaries guard Solar mercantile wealth against interstellar raiders and conquerors.
4400	Barbarians sack Earth.

Trader Team

I still cannot re-read Anderson's Technic History without rethinking its subdivisions. It seemed obvious that the Trader Team sub-series comprised: "The Trouble Twisters" "Day of Burning" Satan's World "Lodestar" Mirkheim However, I now regard Mirkheim not as part of but as a sequel to the series as I will explain below. The Trader Team has three periods. The first starts with "The Trouble Twisters" and ends with Satan's World. Only one work, "Lodestar," is set in the second period and no works are set in the third period which we are told lasts for five years. After the third period, the team disperses and is temporarily reassembled for a different purpose only once three years later in Mirkheim. In "The Trouble Twisters," Nicholas van Rijn explains his "trade pioneer crew" idea to his protege David Falkayn and Falkayn leads one such crew on its first mission. The reader might expect the remaining installments of the series to recount further missions of this crew but instead we do not see them on such a mission ever again. They are engaged in different kinds of activities in the next two works: a rescue mission in "Day of Burning" and a different kind of investigation in Satan's World. In "Day of Burning," Falkayn states that he has seen planets devastated by nuclear strikes although visits to such planets would not be a usual activity for a pioneer crew. In Satan's World, their entire civilization is threatened. The team has to be split up and might not survive. Thus, this volume is a potential ending to the series. It ends with the team members rich for life but setting out again as a pioneer crew not because they have to but because they want to. That is why I say it ends their first period. In "Lodestar," the crew takes a few days off on a pleasant planet, then Falkayn seeks out and finds a source of wealth which he gives to the poorer races, not to the wealthy van Rijn: an end of innocence for the team. The story features van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya. In the third period, which we do not see, Coya has married Falkayn and joined the team. This period ends when the Falkayns start a family and stop pioneering and the team disperses. In Mirkheim, van Rijn reassembles the original team not to resume pioneering but to address an emergency which is the beginning of the end of the League period. Thus, Mirkheim is a sequel. I now think that omnibus collections of the League period of the Technic History should be: THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE STAR TRADER TRADER TEAM LATTER DAYS IN THE LEAGUE Volume I would comprise seven stories introducing, apart from the League, the Jerusalem Catholic Church, Ythrians, Avalon, Adzel, van Rijn and Falkayn. Volume II is van Rijn. III is the team. IV would be Mirkheim preceded by two other stories set during the League period.

Introductions and Developments

The opening six stories of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilisation introduce:

two organisations that will be important later, the Jerusalem Catholic Church and the Polesotechnic League;
the version of hyperspace to be used in this series;
two species that will be important later, winged Ythrians and dinosauroid Wodenites;
two less prominent species, inhabitants of Ivanhoe and extra-solar colonists of Mars;
three individuals who will be important later, the Wodenite Adzel and the human beings Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn;
the "Grand Survey" discoverers of other planets that will be re-visited later;
one planet, not yet named Avalon, that will be important later.

Thus, half a dozen short stories introduce a dozen aspects of the series. These six works are followed by:

five about van Rijn of the League;
six in which Falkayn works for van Rijn (in five, he leads a Trader Team including Adzel);
two further stories set during the League period;
two stories about the joint human-Ythrian colony on Avalon founded by Falkayn;
two stories introducing a third important organisation, the Terran Empire, rising from the ruins of the League;
one novel about Avalonian resistance to the Empire;
many volumes about the Empire and its opponents, the Merseians, who were introduced in a Trader Team story;
a last Empire-Merseians novel in which the Wodenite Axor has, like Adzel, converted to a Terrestrial religion, in this case Jerusalem Catholicism;
four works set in three different periods after the Empire.

It is remarkable that the History continues indefinitely, as it seems, through several successive, developing stages. The overall story goes somewhere. Seeds planted earlier grow later and sometimes flower later again. Narratives intersect, eg, Avalon and Empire, but there are others. Every end is a new beginning. However much is told, there is always more that could have been. The very last story potentially initiates a new sequence about a later form of interstellar organisation. The entire series is the longest most substantial single author future history in science fiction.