Not Only Times But Also Places

A future history series should feature places where some of the characters live, work or spend time so that the reader vicariously experiences not only the passage of time, biographical, generational, historical - even geological and cosmological - but also a number of fully realized physical locations. History is temporal but historical events are spatiotemporal and sometimes contemporaneous. John Ridenour is on Freehold and Chunderban Desai is on Aeneas while Dominic Flandry pursues his career in Intelligence. Earlier, some Polesotechnic League stories had overlapped.

The Rebel Worlds introduces some locations on Aeneas, then most of The Day Of Their Return is set on that planet. Nicholas van Rijn has a penthouse in Chicago Integrate and Dominic Flandry has an apartment in Archopolis. However, these characters move around so much that what we get is a quick succession of places and planets although each of these is realized in detail. We see Flandry in his office at Intelligence Headquarters only once in his entire series.

In the Man-Kzin Wars series, Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling take the trouble to establish the setting of Harold's Terran Bar which Anderson reuses. In one scene, we see this nightspot when it is empty in daylight. Only the proprietor and the bribe-accepting police chief meet and eat:

wurst;
egg and potato salad;
breads;
shrimp-on-rye;
gulyas soup -

- although the police chief has only a croissant and espresso. More for our food thread.

Subordination

We see human beings subordinated to:

Martians in The War Of The Worlds;

extrasolar aliens in Martian-like machines in John Christopher's Tripods Trilogy;

Borthudians in the van Rijn period of Poul Anderson's Technic History;

green Merseians in the Flandry period of the Technic History;

feline kzinti in Larry Niven's Know Space History;

green Treens in Dan Dare;

Daleks in Doctor Who;

fellow human beings who make themselves biologically superior in SM Stirling's Draka History.

(That is another of those lists that grew in the writing.)

I was reminded of Draka and serfs when reading about a kzin and his human secretary. Like a Draka, the kzin promises to attend the secretary's offspring's naming-day celebration.

Subordination can be one way to survival. In a novel by Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle, workers asked what they thought about the prospect of an alien invasion, said that, under the aliens, they would still have to work. In one of Aesop's fable, a donkey carrying a heavy burden is advised to run away from an invading army but, when told that they are unlikely to make him carry anything heavier because he is already at his limit, says that he will stay where he is.

Having said all that, slavery is definitely worse than paid work and should be resisted at all costs!

Ten Near Futures

When I reflected that several American future histories are interconnected, I knew that Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series was part of the mix but did not expect to get into it in any detail but it is worth the effort. After reading about -

Robert Heinlein's World Federation,
Isaac Asimov's economy- and ecology-controlling positronic Brains,
James Blish's spaceflight-banning Bureaucratic State, Port Authority and two alternative UN governments (four scenarios here),
Poul Anderson's Solar Union and Solar Commonwealth (in his first two future histories),
Larry Niven's UN and Belt governments (in his single future history) -

- we now read about Pournelle's CoDominium of the United States and the Sovier Union.

Here are ten parallel near future regimes each preceding later historical developments. Try to fit all that into a single multiverse. Starting point: we are told that Heinlein's Rhysling and Anderson's van Rijn both visit Anderson's Old Phoenix inn - but please disregard Heinlein's The Number Of The Beast.

Pournelle's John Falkenberg is a substantial character in and of himself and in recent posts I found that, for me, he faintly echoed a couple of Anderson's characters. Onward.

Succession And Simultaneity

Future histories sometimes convey not only succession but also simultaneity, not only events occurring successively over historical periods of time but also some events occurring in different places simultaneously:

in Robert Heinlein's Future History, "Gentlemen, Be Seated" is a background event in "The Black Pits of Luna";

in Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Poul Anderson's Technic History, stories featuring van Rijn, Falkayn and others overlap in the 2420s and 2430s;

in Jerry Pournelle's King David's Spaceship, characters on Prince Samual's World know that something important is happening in the Trans-Coalsack...and, if we read Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye, we know what.

Succession, or chronological linearity, generates series whereas simultaneity adds three dimensionality. Their combination confers narrative substantiality.

Important People

Structurally, a future history has an earlier period and a later period and the earlier period has a pivotal character or characters who are builders of the future:

in HG Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come, Gustave de Windt, author of Social Nucleation (1942);

in Robert Heinlein's Future History, DD Harriman, "The Man Who Sold The Moon";

in Isaac Asimov's future history, Susan Calvin, robopsychologist;

in James Blish's Cities in Flight, Senator Bliss Wagoner, secretly behind the spindizzy and the antiagathics;

in Blish's The Seedling Stars, Jacob Rullman, inventor of pantropy, the science of human adaptation to extraterrestrial environments;

in Blish's Haertel Scholium, Adolph Haertel and also Thor Wald, inventor of the Dirac transmitter;

in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, Valti and Fourre;

in Anderson's Technic History, Nicholas van Rijn, leader of the independents in the Polesotechnic League, and David Falkayn, discoverer of Mirkheim and Founder of Avalon;

in Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history, John Christian Falkenberg, mercenary.

Wells' Philip Raven dreams an "Outline of the Future" whereas Asimov's Hari "Raven" Seldon predicts the future. Raven's dreamed text includes a chapter on Karl Marx and Henry George.

Dilemma?

Poul Anderson's many fictional characters face moral issues, e.g., Nicholas van Rijn as a merchant and Dominic Flandry as an Intelligence officer. Anderson knew better than to treat such issues simplistically and there is one hypothetical moral dilemma that I do not think that he ever posed.

The dilemma goes: either you kill a lot of people now or you do nothing in which case many more people, maybe even including those that you would have killed, are instead killed by someone else. What do you do? I responded to one fictional example here.

How often does anyone face such a dilemma? How could anyone be sufficiently certain either that there were only two choices or that these were those two choices? In Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye, Admiral Kutuzov sterilizes a planet in order to prevent a sector rebellion. Although the Imperial Parliament and Navy approve his action, surely Kutuzov is guilty of war crime and genocide by any civilized standard? What value is there in a peace bought entirely through force and intimidation? The Empire has surely forfeited its right to any loyalty from the population of that sector?

Conquistador: Any Loose Ends?

SM Stirling, Conquistador (New York, 2004), Epilogue.

(i) A saber-tooth is the perfect symbol for an ancient, uncivilized world.

(ii) We want to see the Commonwealth expand onto ThirdSide and what they find there.

(iii) Segei Lermontov came to the Commonwealth to open Gates for the Imperialist rebels but now instead opens one for the Founder.

(iv) Good-hearted Ralph Barnes helps with the Gate because Rolfe has threatened to kill Lermontov. Barnes openly calls Rolfe a "'Blackmailer...'" (p. 581) while the latter smiles slightly and sardonically in reply. It is good to see these two characters remain in character.

(v) "Sergei prayed to a God in whom he'd never believed..." (ibid.) This is an excellent example of the agnostic prayer that I mentioned here.

(vi) Rolfe does not want to be bothered with technical details:

"'I'm also content to let you experts handle these matters. Leaders motivate their subordinates, and the subordinates act. A division of labor.'" (ibid.)

That sounds like Nicholas van Rijn in Poul Anderson's The Man Who Counts, although Rolfe and van Rijn are different kinds of leaders. Rolfe is a head of state, according to Barnes a fascist bastard, whereas van Rijn is an employer, trader and negotiator, according to his detractors an exploiter, Machiavellian manipulator etc.

Different writers, different characters, equally enjoyable and even instructive.

Who To Pray To?

Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn offers to St Dismas.

Before military action, SM Stirling's Tom Christiansen thinks about praying to:

Jesus;
Old Scratch;
the Lutheran God;
Odhinn One-Eye.
-Conquistador, pp. 540-541.

I have read that Odin was sometimes called the False or Faithless because men went into battle expecting victory and did not get it.

Does it make sense to pray? I think that:

there are two kinds of spiritual practice, prayer for theists, meditation for non-theists;

however, there are also two kinds of prayer - the prayer of monotheist faith as against the pagan/agnostic appeal to "whatever gods may be"/an unknown god/to whom it may concern etc.

We can all utter the second kind of prayer now and again, while meanwhile relying on our own best efforts in case we really are on our own. My practice is meditation, not prayer, but I do ask for help in case there is anyone able to give it.

Legends In Their Own Lunchtimes

Some fictitious characters become celebrities and even legends in their fictional worlds. Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn is quoted as a public figure while he is alive. Further, stories are still being told not only about van Rijn but also about his protege, David Falkayn, centuries after their deaths. Some of the stories about van Rijn are told by Dominic Flandry and, when the latter is getting old, a wandering Wodenite says that he has "'...encountered tales of Admiral Flandry's exploits...'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 213)

In SM Stirling's Conquistador (New York, 2004), John Rolfe founds the Commonwealth of New Virginia in the North America of a parallel Earth and has a granddaughter called Adrienne. When Adrienne introduces herself to an Indian chief, the chief exclaims:

"'You're Johnny Deathwalker's kin?'" (p. 532) -

- then, after taking a closer look:

"'Yeah, that's what the legends say. Hair like an angry sunset, and eyes green like river rocks and colder than glacier ice.'" (ibid.)

A former colleague of James Bond wrote popular accounts of some of Bond's exploits but was not prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act because his accounts were so inaccurate.

Among James Blish's works:

The Night Shapes combines two Edgar Rice Burroughs themes: African adventure and living dinosaurs (Tarzan and The Land That Time Forgot). Its central character, Kit Kennedy, has a strange affinity not with apes but with snakes and is a living legend: Ktendi, Son of Wisdom, King of the Wassabi, Master of Serpents. One officious European, unaware that he is addressing the source of the legend, says:

“There’s no such thing as Ktendi…And, as for you, Mr Kennedy, why don’t you mind your own business?” <sup>2
- copied from here.</sup>

Esperance

Nicholas van Rijn works with an Esperancian on the planet t'Kela in "Territory" and Philippe Rochefort visits Esperance in The People Of The Wind. Instead of maintaining armed forces, the utopian Esperancians in van Rijn's time helped other races in order to gain their goodwill. Unfortunately for this optimistic view, the t'Kelans understand profit but not charity.

Van Rijn can induce this race to become civilized by giving them opportunities to make profits in ways that are also profitable to himself, of course, but, on this planet, no other approach is practicable - and, indeed, the Esperancians are able to accept that this is the case.

Rochefort informs us that goodwill generated by Esperancian good works did not outlast the Troubles. However, a strong pacifist tradition remains and there are demonstrations against the planned attack on the Domain of Ythri. Esperance, like Avalon, Hermes, Dennitza etc is a well realized colony planet in the Technic History. Bells ring from the cathedral and from other churches in Fleurville when it is thought that the war is ended.

Many Transitions

Baen Books' Poul Anderson The Technic Civilization Saga, Vol III, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011; compiled by Hank Davis) is a paradigmatic transitional volume. It collects:

the end of the van Rijn series;
the end of The Earth Book Of Stormgate;
two early pulp stories introducing the Terran Empire;
the novel that provides the background for the Earth Book.

In that latter novel, the Terran Empire has grown to its maximum volume whereas its future antagonist, the Merseian Roidhunate, is still small but growing... We await only the debut of Dominic Flandry in Vol IV.

Tabitha Falkayn/Hrill of Highsky Choth says of herself and her chothmates:

"'Most of us keep to the Old Faith...'" (p. 502)

but also:

"'God stoop on me if I ever make use of him...'" (p. 600)

The Old Faith is polytheistic whereas the New Faith is of God the Hunter. But religious phrases permeate language whatever individuals believe. Avalonians are in long-term transition to a single biracial culture:

"'...this thing of ours, winged and wingless together...'" (p. 662)

Even Daniel Holm, who opposed his son joining a choth, invokes "'Deathpride...'" (p. 566), draws strength from a New Faith funeral rite and describes Admiral Cajal contemptuously as "'...that Terran...'" (p. 560)

One cultural difference is discernible during negotiations. Cajal notices that Holm is:

"...haggard, unkempt, stubbly, grimy, no hint of Imperial neatness about him..." (p. 552)

Holm bluntly tells the Admiral that he does not believe anything he says whereas the Admiral preserves the diplomatic niceties while learning that the colony on Avalon has indeed become an alien culture.

Companion Volumes

Before Baen Books collected Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization as The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis:

the van Rijn series ended with Mirkheim and the Flandry series began with Ensign Flandry;

between Mirkheim and Ensign Flandry were two companion volumes, The People Of The Wind and The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

the Earth Book contained twelve previously published works with twelve newly written introductions and one newly written conclusion;

the twelve previously published works are set earlier than The People Of The Wind whereas the thirteen newly published passages are a sequel to that novel;

eight of the twelve previously published works complete the history of the van Rijn period;

of the remaining four, two are set earlier than van Rijn and two later.

The Technic Civilization Saga presents the entire Technic History in chronological order of fictitious events although this means that twelve later written introductions and one later written conclusion are presented before the novel to which they are an extended sequel. The best way to read the History is to refer to the seven volumes of the Saga together with the Earth Book as a separate volume. The compilation and publication of the Earth Book by Hloch on Avalon is itself an event in the History occurring after the Terran War described in The People Of The Wind. Thus, "Margin of Profit," the earliest van Rijn story, can be read both as an earlier installment of the Technic History series and as a later disclosure presented by Hloch centuries after van Rijn's death.

Strong Central Characters

Poul Anderson wrote strong central characters who make a difference in their respective historical milieus:

Manse Everard defends the Danellian timeline;
Dominic Flandry defends the Terran Empire and makes what provision he can for the Long Night;
Gunnhild defends her and Eirik Blood-ax's bloodline.

In this sequence, there is a progressive narrowing of focus from an entire history to a single Empire to a single family. Constrained by Viking views and values, Gunnhild learns what she can of shamanism and Christendom but, of course, lacks the scientific knowledge of either the Danellian future or the Terran Empire.

Let us consider three other strong central characters:

Gratillonius defends the Roman Empire and tries to preserve civilization after Imperial withdrawal;
Nicholas van Rijn founds Solar Spice & Liquor and enriches himself;
David Falkayn makes a career in Solar Spice & Liquor but also founds both Supermetals and Avalon.

Thus, Falkayn builds something for others instead of merely defending a status quo.

The six characters represent three timelines:

the Danellians;
Technic Civilization;
a fantasy history of Europe.

Cartels And Chaos

The Polesotechnic League
Nicholas van Rijn's protege, David Falkayn, is a series character in his own right, with one story set before he works for van Rijn's company, another before he meets van Rijn, four about the trader team led by Falkayn and a grand conclusion.

The Terran Empire
Dominic Flandry acquires a protege, his own daughter, Diana Crowfeather, who stars in what I call a "proto-series," i.e., a single work that was potentially the opening installment of a new series.

The Time Patrol
Manse Everard's protege, Wanda Tamberly, becomes a new continuing character in The Shield Of Time.

League, Empire and Patrol each confront their external opponents, most notably:

the Merseian Roidhunate aims to destroy the Terran Empire;
Neldorians and Exaltationists try to change the history guarded by the Time Patrol.

However, civilizations face not only external threats to their continued existence but also internal causes of their own decline. Chunderban Desai tells Dominic Flandry that:

"'...wrong decisions bring breakdown...Technic civilization started on that road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels. Tonight we are far along the way.'"
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), pp. 388-389.

We last saw van Rijn and Falkayn trying to hold the League together for a while after the fatal wound inflicted by cartelization. What had seemed to be an external threat had really been engineered by one cartel.

The most fundamental threat to the Patrol is internal not merely to the time-traveling civilization but to the cosmos: quantum chaos changes history unpredictably. We last see Everard and Wanda shortly after they have counteracted one accidental quirk in the temporal flux.

Authentic Characters

Poul Anderson's leading characters are genuinely and authentically different from each other. If there are scales for hedonism and flamboyance, then Nicholas van Rijn is at the very top of both scales and Manse Everard is at the other ends with Dominic Flandry somewhere between but nearer to van Rijn.

It makes more sense to compare Everard with Flandry because van Rijn is an independent operator whereas Flandry works for a government and Everard works for - can we call the Danellians an inter-temporal government? Through their agency, the Time Patrol, they impose laws on time travelers and they are also the covert power behind all temporal governments for as long as those governments hold power. Always on the side of history, they must protect Hitler until 1945.

Traveling through space, not time, Flandry preserves the Terran Empire for as long as possible, not until any already known date. The worst thing that we see him do is his participation in the forcible annexation of Brae. Doing what he does, Everard has worked out how to cope with guilt. He has no qualms about killing rapists but tries to minimize harm to bystanders. His job is harder than Flandry's. Consider some of the regimes that he must protect.

Wanda Tamberly And Nicholas Van Rijn

(Thank you for 284 page views so far today despite no posts until this one today.)

Wanda Tamberly reads Analog so she must have read about Nicholas van Rijn, for example in "Hiding Place," although not about the Time Patrol. That series was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Fictional characters are usually, though not always, fictions to each other.

In a "multiverse" (multiple universes) scenario, a character who is fictional in one universe may be real in another. However, Time Patrolmen inhabit not one universe in a greater multiverse but a single universe with a mutable timeline. Thus, van Rijn has access to the inter-universal Old Phoenix Inn whereas Patrol agents do not. The Sherlock Holmes who is seen in the Old Phoenix cannot be the same as the one who is real to the Time Patrol. Can there be different versions of Sherlock Holmes? Sure there are. We see them on screen all the time.

Neil Gaiman's equivalents of the Old Phoenix are "...the free houses that owe no allegiance to any one time or dominion," including the Inn of the Worlds' End and The Toad-Stone (The Wake, see below, p. 29, panel 2). One of the cleverest fiction-reality interfaces that I have read is this dialogue in panel 1, p. 62, of Gaiman's The Sandman: The Wake (New York, 1997):

Clark Kent: The one I hate is where I'm just an actor on a strange television version of my life. Have you ever had that dream?
The Batman: Doesn't everyone?
The Martian Manhunter: I don't.

However, the Manhunter has since appeared in the Smallville TV series. Alternative realities proliferate. All that an author needs is a blank sheet of paper or a computer screen as Poul Anderson continued to demonstrate until the end of a long career.

An Eerie And Chilling Text

Poul and Karen Anderson's Gratillonius and Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry defend civilization because it enables populations and generations to live in peace. Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn defends civilization because it is profitable but also shows that he wants peace not only because it is profitable. He has a conscience as well as a profit motive.

However, there are antithetical reasons to value an ordered society. In SM Stirling's Marching Through Georgia (New York, 1991), the American journalist, William Dreiser, refers to:

"...the eerie and chilling Meditations of Elvira Naldorssen." (p. 64)

Later, we are able to judge for ourselves because p. 230 comprises a three paragraph quotation from Meditations: Colder than the Moon by Evira Naldorssen. (I do not yet know which is the correct spelling of Naldorssen's first name.)

Having promised us an eerie and chilling text, Stirling delivers. The Draka do not violate the Golden Rule or utilitarianism. They reject them. They conquer to conquer and dominate in order to dominate. "The purpose of Power is Power." (p. 230)

(James Blish once said that sf has to be about something and that 1984 worked because it was about the proposition that the purpose of power is power.)

"...power is the ability to compel others to do your will, against theirs. It is end, not means." (ibid.)

I most disrespectfully disagree. Naldorssen goes on to present a chilling vision of "...the Final Society, a new humanity without weakness or mercy, hard and pure." (ibid.)

An inhumanity.... Remembering Count Ignatieff, we must commend Stirling for creating villains who are not just our heroes' honorable enemies but thoroughly evil.

What does Naldorssen need? An extended period in a society where every new acquaintance treats her as an equal and a friend, where no one imposes their will on her and where she has no means of imposing her will on anyone else. After a while, she would either be unexpectedly happy or deeply depressed. If the latter, then all we would be able to offer her would be an island hermitage!

What Van Rijn Eats During Business Meetings

Continuing the food theme -

"He took a large bite from a limburger-and-onion sandwich and looked enquiringly at the rest."
-The Van Rijn Method, p. 148.

"One girl played on a shiverharp, one fanned him with peacock feathers, and one sat on an arm of the seat, giggling and dropping chilled grapes into his mouth."
- ibid., pp. 169-170.

"...taking up a tiny sandwich of smoked eel upon cold scrambled egg."
-Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 67.

"Van Rijn swallowed a confection of Limburger cheese and onion on pumpernickel..."
- ibid., p. 70. 

This is by no means a complete list. However, since I am pressed for time, and also am about to eat, I trust that it will satisfy us for the time being.

Dinner At The Winged Cross And In An Airship

An unexpected pleasure in SM Stirling's fiction has been descriptions of food. I returned to Poul Anderson's works in search of similar passages. One likely prospect was Nicholas van Rijn's "...small, strictly private farewell dinner..." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 12) for David and Coya Falkayn. However, this meal is alluded to rather than described in loving detail. We are told that:

such a dinner would last for a couple of hours from caviar to cheese;
in this case, the meal is preceded by beer, cold akvavit and various smoked seafoods;
other senses are also addressed - Mozart and incense in the air, iridescent vest and plum-colored trousers on the Falkayns' host.

Back in Stirling's Angrezi Raj, Cassandra King, traveling in an airship, dines on:

"...baffla wheat cakes rich with ghee..." (The Peshawar Lancers, p. 24);
"...pungent lentil dal soup..." (ibid.);
"...sweet laddoos dumplings..." (ibid.);
"...spicy rogan josh..." (ibid.);
shami-kebab;
sheermal bread;
skewered iced mango and watermelon;
Assamese tea.

(For me, coffee would complete the meal.) I have deliberately quoted Stirling's evocative adjectives: rich; pungent; sweet; spicy! Descriptions of food are one kind of narrative in which I think that Stirling surpasses Anderson.

Descriptive Passages

I do not set out to write about food. However, for my subject matter, I am entirely in the hands of the excellent authors on whom I comment! There may be one or two descriptions of Nicholas van Rijn's Brobdingnagian feasts somewhere on the blog although a bit difficult to track down? More recently, a sequence of intra-blog links has given us:

a breakfast
a free lunch
a harvesters' lunch
a harvest supper
an evening picnic
curry and naan in the Angrezi Raj
Balti in Lancaster
authentic Indian food in Birmingham

Meanwhile, if we might return our attention to a descriptive passage addressing another sense, I count seven colors in what the evening picnickers see:

blue sky and sea
green coast
white foam
red and gold sunset
blue and green flames

Blue and green are counted twice because these colors in flames will not be the same shade as in sky, sea or coast. I suggest that the colors of flames caused by salts dried into the wood are well observed.

Why do I linger on these details instead of racing ahead to the next action scene? Because this attention to detail is what good writing is about.