A Strange Universe

Planet Stories printed "Strange Adventures On Other Worlds."

Poul Anderson's "Witch of the Demon Seas" and "The Virgin of Valkarion" suggest a very strange universe indeed:

there are habitable planets in orbit around different stars - the planet in "Witch..." has a large red sun whereas the planet in "The Virgin..." has two moons;

these planets are inhabited by human beings and possibly also by other intelligent species, e.g., the amphibians in "Witch...";

on each of these planets, there is a kind of animal that has the same name as a mythical being on Earth - erinyes in "Witch..." and garms in "The Virgin...";

these planets seem never to have an industrial revolution - Valkarion is a city on a dying planet where there was an Empire hundreds of thousands of years ago;

everyone fights with swords;

this strange universe is quite different from those in which human and other beings invent technology that enables them to traverse space faster than light and thus to build interstellar empires.

Lord Of A Thousand Suns

I am reading "Lord of a Thousand Suns" in Peter Mansfield's recently created Poul Anderson ebook, which also contains "Sargasso of Lost Starships," "The Star Plunderer" and two early Dominic Flandry stories (see here and here). In 2011, "Sargasso..." was collected, for the very first time, in Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, because, like "The Star Plunderer" and the Flandry series, this story counts as an installment of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization whereas "Lord of a Thousand Suns" does not.

However, "Lord..." and "Sargasso..." have certain features in common: an Imperial Solar Navy and a visit to an ancient, mysterious, powerful planet. To the original readers of Planet Stories, there was not as yet any Technic Civilization future history but there were several space operas set within an interstellar Empire and "Lord..." might have been perceived as just another of those.

For a full listing of Poul Anderson's Planet Stories stories, see here.

Sargasso Of Lost Starships, Continued

(This Planet Stories cover advertises "Sargasso of Lost Starships" (see here) as "a Black Nebula story by Poul Anderson" as though there were a series of this name.)

The Imperials are called "Terrans" more often than "Solarians." Perhaps both English words translate an Anglic term that can be used in either sense?

Helena Jansky, commanding HM Ganymede, is from Valor, one of several inhabited planets that are mentioned only once in Anderson's Technic History. Valor is Sirius A IV, the fourth planet of the brightest star in a binary or multiple system. Exercise: google Sirius.

Ansans:

"'...fought Shalmu when the greenies wanted to take what we'd built, and then we made friends with them.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 383.

Shalmuans as aggressively acquisitive does not fit with what we know of them from a perhaps more reliable source later in the Technic History. However, the Ansans might be more than capable of misrepresenting the cause of a past war?

A nebula thought to be haunted? A whole nebula? But then the whole universe is haunted to those who perceive it as indwelt by a mysterious and awesome presence.

This nebula is a spherical dust cloud a light year in diameter ten parsecs from Ansa towards Sagittari, the least and outermost of the clouds concealing the Galactic Center. Natives of planets on the edge of the Nebula either worship it or regard it as the home of the gods. Natives of Heim sacrifice food, fur, tools etc which their gods come and take...

A Black Nebula Series?

PLANET STORIES covers sent by Sean M Brooks as possible illustrations for his article, "Anderson's PLANET STORIES Tales", have at least three noteworthy features:

(i) female figures in poses common to such covers;

(ii) we recognize AA Craig as one of Hloch's sources for The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

(iii) the left hand cover somewhat dishonestly describes "Sargasso of Lost Starships" as "a Dark Nebula novel" whereas it is the Dark Nebula short story.

Imagine the implications if say three or more Dark Nebula novels were to be incorporated into Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization! What other planets would be in the Nebula? Why is the cosmic energy source more accessible from there than from anywhere else? Would the cosmic energy generate different powers in organisms with different biologies? Did the Chereionites visit there in the galactic past? Might Flandry have to go there on behalf of the Empire?

We can at least imagine Anderson continuing to write his series in some happy realm of the hereafter. In Valhalla, Vikings fight all day and are resurrected to feast every night. For some of my former teaching colleagues, the equivalent would be cricket all day followed by food and beer back at the Punch Bowl Inn every evening. An author might write a new novel each day and discuss it with fellow writers and fans in a Convention bar in the evening?

After speculating about the Resurrection, CS Lewis wrote:

"Guesses, of course, only guesses. If they are not true, something better will be." (Letter To Malcolm: Chiefly On Prayer, London, 1966, p. 124)

I can only say, "Myths, of course, only myths, but ones that express the best that we can conceive or imagine."

From the Black Nebula to Valhalla to the Punch Bowl to a Convention in the Sky to Heaven and back:

"Methinks it is no journey."

Later: In Heaven, presumably an unlimited realm of permanent negative entropy:

we would not read but live novels;
authors would not write fictitious texts but program virtual realities;
we would experience van Rijn's hospitality, the planet Avalon, Flandry's space battles etc;
or, as Lewis wrote, if not this, then something better.

Planet Stories III

Two posts ago, my American correspondent, Sean M Brooks, listed thirteen PLANET STORIES stories by Poul Anderson. We know six, just under half, of them. First, there is:

An Early Terran Empire Tetralogy
"The Star Plunderer"
"Sargasso Of Lost Starships"
"Tiger By The Tail"
"The Ambassadors Of Flesh"

Of course, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we link the two "Solar Empire" stories (the first and second) to the two Dominic Flandry stories (the third and fourth) and re-arrange them into this order. We are impressed and grateful that such a large oak tree of future history grew from the small acorn that was these pulp stories.

"Star Ship" belongs to Anderson's earlier, Psychotechnic, future history and "Captive of the Centaurianess," I think, has the same background as "A Bicycle Built For Brew," although I have yet to reread "Captive..." to confirm this.

Thus, as with James Blish's "Sunken Universe," some early pulp fiction was preserved by incorporation into later, more significant, series.

Anderson's PLANET STORIES Tales by Sean M. Brooks

When Poul Anderson was a young writer who was still, in may ways, learning how to write, he contributed a dozen or so stories to PLANET STORIES.  Here I both list those yarns and offer some comments about those PLANET STORIES tales by both Anderson and me.

"Star Ship," PLANET STORIES, Fall 1950
"Witch of the Demon Seas," PS, January 1951
"Tiger by the Tail," PS, January 1951
"Duel on Syrtis," PS, March 1951
"The Virgin of Valkarion," PS, July 1951
"Lord of a Thousand Suns," PS, September 1951
"Swordsman of Lost Terra," PS, November 1951
"Sargasso of Lost Starships," PS, January 1952
"Captive of the Centaurianess," PS, March 1952
"War Maid of Mars," PS, May 1952
"The Star Plunderer," PS, September 1952
"The Ambassadors of Flesh," PS, Summer 1954
"Out of the Iron Womb," PS, Summer 1955

Most of these stories have been republished in collections including works by other authors or as one author (Anderson) anthologies.  But I have not yet managed to read "Witch of the Demon Seas," "The Virgin of Valkarion," or "War Maid of Mars."

Although best known for his excellent hard SF and fantasies, Poul Anderson also wrote some of the finest and purest quill pen pulp SF to be found.  Two examples being "Lord of a Thousand Suns" and "Swordsman of Lost Terra."  But I wish to let Anderson himself comment on the tales he wrote for PLANET STORIES.  The text quoted below came from his essay "Concerning Future Histories" (BULLETIN OF THE SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA, Fall 1979), quoting from page 8.

   Way back when, I was for a short time a mainstay of PLANET STORIES.  That magazine is today of fond memory, but at the time it was considered trash by many fans because it frankly went in for straight adventure with a science fictional back-ground.  Myself, I saw nothing wrong with that.  The action story has been a legitimate form since Homer, if not before. (It might be remarked, too, that PLANET occasionally ran stuff by such people as Ray Bradbury, Margaret St. Clair, and William Tenn which nobody else dared touch.  And even in the swashbucklers, characters were permitted to have sex lives.)  I was young and poor and wanted money to travel on, I could write derring-do very fast; why not?  Therefore I churned out a total of about a dozen.  That was all.  They caused persons who think in categories to dismiss me as nothing but a blood-and-thunderer, and those folk took a long time to change their minds.  Some never had.  No matter, I don't feel the least apologetic for having thus earned the means to widen my horizons.  Those tales were in no way memorable, but they weren't pretentious either, and if they gave a little diversion to most of their readers, they served their purpose.

It's my view that here Anderson was being too modest about the quality of the tales he wrote for PLANET STORIES.  As I've already said, I believe he wrote some of the finest pulp SF to be found.  Also, the additional text quoted below from "Concerning Future Histories" (also from page 8 of the above mentioned BULLETIN) explains why I believe his PS tales to be much better than average.

   Nevertheless, I quickly grew tired of certain cliches in the genre.  The uniformly noble and Nordic heroes,   the incredibly complete resolutions of all problems. Why not do something a bit more believable?  This was the origin of "Tiger by the Tail," the first story about Dominic Flandry.  In name and temperament, he was Gallic; a Frenchman has actually congratulated me on the characterization.  He was an intelligence officer in the service of a Terran Empire far gone in decay, losing the very will to defend its frontiers, while alien enemies pressed ever harder inward.  He recognized the corruption of his society in his own spirit.  But somebody had to try keep things hanging together somehow, at any rate through his lifetime.  After all, civilization was much more enjoyable than barbarism, or death.  Besides, the work itself was the most interesting activity in sight, in between bouts of sensualism, and he did keep a few fugitive ideals and loyalties.

I agree with what Anderson said about those "cliches in the genre."  What I read in the stories he wrote for PS makes it plain he transcended those shop worn tropes.  I thought of "Captive of the Centaurianess" as one example because of how he used sardonic humor to turn inside out those cliches.  And the same was true of "Tiger by the Tail," with its theme of how noble, honorable barbarians versus a "corrupt" civilized man was shown to be false and the civilized man was wiser and more decent than the barbarians he opposed. A writer who was merely a hack would probably have taken the opposite tack.

What kind of magazine was PLANET STORIES?  To answer that question I'll quote a bit from Malcolm J. Edwards entry for PS on page 937 of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION (1993, ed. by John Clute and Peter Nicholls): "Subtitled in its early years "Strange Adventures on Other Worlds--The Universe of Future Centuries," PS was the epitome of pulp SF.  Its covers were garish in the extreme, and its story titles promised extravagantly melodramatic interplanetary adventures (which the stories themselves frequently provided)."  And Poul Anderson wrote tales for PS which fit this description (and the wonderfully lurid covers) while also improving on or even transcending those cliches he came to dislike. 

Planet Stories II

In this and the previous post, we behold:

War-Maid of Mars;
Warrior-Maid of Mars;
Black Amazon of Mars;
Black Priestess of Varda

- and notice similarities between the cover illustrations.

I would not have mentioned this here but the first title is attributed to Poul Anderson and therefore is of interest to this blog. Anderson excelled at pulp fiction but also at much more.

Planet Stories

I googled "Poul Anderson Planet Stories" hoping to find "Sargasso of Lost Starships" on a cover but instead found this very ERBian title, "War-Maid of Mars," by Poul Anderson. Does anyone know about this story? Is this a sixth Martian race created by Anderson?

What was remarkable about the Planet Stories covers was the very close similarities both between story titles and between cover illustrations. To illustrate this point, I will attach perhaps three more covers to the next post.