Some Parallels

"Delta v" is a concept relevant to subliminal space travel but it crops up several times in Poul Anderson's "Inconstant Star" and I now have a layman's understanding of its meaning. See Comments here.

Poul Anderson describes "...popping in and out of hyperspace..." as "...transition between relativistic and quantum modes..." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 265) but this makes Known Space hyperspace sound like Technic History hyperspace. The latter is original: not another space but a succession of instantaneous quantum jumps within relativistic space.

In Anderson's Technic History, a Merseian says that "'...the highest end...'" is:

"'...absolute freedom for our race, to make of the galaxy what they will.'" (Young Flandry, p. 27)

- and tells his latest grandcub:

"'You shall have stars for toys...'" (p. 28)

One of Larry Niven's kzinti, written by Anderson, bares fangs at the stars and tells them:

"...we shall do with you what we will." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 261)

Merseians and kzinti are comparable to SM Stirling's Draka who say, "Glory to the Race!" but do not mean by this the entire human race and in fact succeed in making themselves a distinct species.

Pseudo-Teleportation?

See Teleportation, "Beam Me Up" and here.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Children's Hour," transfer booths are described as "...instantaneous transportation..." (Man-Kzin Wars II, p. 215) whereas, in the same authors' "The Asteroid Queen," the booths are referred to as "...lightspeed pseudo-teleporation." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 80)

Travel via the booths is subjectively instantaneous but objectively lightspeed but how is the teleportation "pseudo-"? I think that any kind of teleportation represents a much higher level of technology than is evidenced elsewhere in this period of the Known Space future history. Does Poul Anderson rationalize it in any way in his contributions to the series?

At present, I am regarding two Man-Kzin Wars trilogies, the first by Pournelle and Stirling and the second by Anderson, as a single sub-series to be analyzed as a unit. Anything said in one of these six works might reverberate in any of the others. The transfer booths are an obvious point to ask questions about. If Anderson had introduced the idea, then he would have devised an appropriate rationalization but how does he respond to transfer booths when they are already present in a shared scenario?

Seeing Far

Who wrote this?

A time traveler visits the far future;
men traverse interplanetary space;
Martians invade Earth;
there will be wars and revolutions;
an alternative history unfolds on a parallel Earth.

I have just summarized five major sf works by HG Wells - and also by Poul Anderson.

Moving on from Wells:

Stapledon gave us cosmic sf;

Capek gave us robots;

de Camp gave us a time traveler changing history;

Heinlein gave us a future history series, a generation ship, science fictional treatment of immortality, juvenile sf, elaborate circular causality and magic as technology;

Asimov gave us robotics and a predictive science of society;

Anderson developed all of these themes.

The blog has entered territory where we are comparing future histories, including several by Anderson, and assessing collaborative future histories. Thus:

Niven created a future history series that includes a period of wars between men and kzinti;
Pournalle and Stirling wrote stories set in this period;
Anderson wrote sequels to Pournelle's and Stirling's Man-Kzin Wars stories.

We have come a long way from Wells' Martians invading Earth but are clearly in the same literary tradition. We find Anderson seeing far because he stands on the shoulders of:

Wells
Stapledon
Capek
de Camp
Heinlein
Asimov
Niven
Pournelle
Stirling -

- and we have not yet mentioned Mary Shelley, creator of science fiction and of the Frankenstein theme developed further by Capek, Asimov and Anderson.

A Multiversal Wavefront

Poul Anderson refers to Old Wilwidh on Merseia. Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling refer to Old Kzin. We think of Old England. Evocative language. The use of this adjective with a capital initial conveys that its hearers or readers are aware of history, time and change.

One pocket universe comprises the Old Phoenix. Another might be a control room where an observer monitoring screens and instruments detects a multiversal wavefront with details manifesting alternately as Martians, Merseians, Moties, kzinti etc. Multi-dimensional patterns emerge. A Solar Commonwealth morphs into a CoDominium, each succeeded by a different First Empire:

"'Those two worlds - and many more, for all I know - are in some way the same. The same fight was being waged, here the Nazis and there the Middle World, but in both places, Chaos against Law, something old and wild and blind at war with man and the works of man. In both worlds it was the time of need for Denmark and France. So Ogier came forth in both of them, as he must.'"
-Poul Anderson, Three Hearts And Three Lions (London, 1977), p. 155.

The observer in my hypothetical control room must dispatch agents to crucial moments where they intervene to prevent inter-cosmic chaos. Although the observer knows of a single timeline protected by a Time Patrol, he oversees multiple timelines.

"'Once the crisis was past in both worlds, the job done...well, equilibrium had been re-established. There was no unbalanced force to send me across space-time. So I stayed.'" (ibid.)

Our history does not record Ogier opposing the Nazis - or the Merseians, kzinti etc - but what might occur without our knowledge?

Parallel Histories

Future histories were not written to be read in parallel but can be. Larry Niven's kzinti are, under different aspects, comparable to:

Wells' Martians;

Anderson's Merseians, Ythrians and Imperial Terrans;

Stirling's Draka.

Slavery in different forms is common to these six cultures. Kzinti and Ythrians are intelligent carnivorous hunters, motivated by blood odors in their warships. Kzinti enslave human beings and eat some whereas the Martians would have enslaved human beings and drained the blood from some. Kzinti and Draka plan to spend generations taming enslaved populations. Merseians and kzinti are aggressive interstellar imperialists.

We can imagine a narrative in which these timelines are discussed in the Old Phoenix and another in which characters in a quantum ship jump between timelines trying to influence the outcomes of space battles described in the various future histories.

Slasher And Meteor

"His grandparents had considered emigrating to the Wunderland system...If they'd done it, he might have ended up as a conscript technician with the Fourth Fleet."
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Children's Hour" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars II (London, 1991), pp. 133-306 AT p. 184.

No, if his paternal (or maternal) grandparents' children had grown up in a different planetary system, then they would have had different children and he would not exist. Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series shows that the world would now be populated by different individuals if history had gone differently.

"The Slasher-class armed scout held three crewkzin in its delta-shaped control chamber, the commander forward and the Sensor and Weapons Operators behind..." (p. 184)

So the Slasher sounds like a Terran Imperial Meteor with its commander, fire control officer and engineer-computerman (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 478). Authors of military sf write with apparent familiarity about combat vehicles that do not exist yet and that, hopefully, will not have to exist.

A Bar With Food

A Bar With Food

Harold's Terran Bar. A World On Its Own. humans only -

- is in Munchen on the human colony planet of Wunderland in the Alpha Centauri System during the kzinti occupation of that system. It is a known underworld hangout with strictly human service. Human labor, displaced from kzinti estates, is cheap.

Food served includes dark green, many-eyed, translucent-shelled, grilled grumblies. You break off the head with your fingers and dip it in sauce.

We have documented hostelries and meals and might hear more from Harald's.

Three Master Races

Shwylt Shipsbane remarks, "'I suspect you actually like [Terrans].'" Brechdan Ironrede replies, "'Why, that's no secret...They were magnificent once. They could be again. I would love to see them our willing subjects...Unlikely, of course. They're not that kind of species. We might be forced to exterminate.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 92.

Forced, indeed! You might be forced to reconsider, Brechdan.

Djana (human) is horrified when she overhears Ydwyr (Merseian) discussing her as if she were an animal:

"'A reconditioning. It improved her both physically and mentally.'" (p. 351)

Under Ydwyr's tutelage, she had begun to see him as her father and to imagine a Merseian Christ or even that the Merseians did not need redemption... A reconditioning.

Chuut-Riit (kzin) thinks:

"With a fully-domesticated human species at their disposal, his son's son's sons could even aspire to...no, unthinkable"
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Children's Hour" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars II (New York, 1991), pp. 133-306 AT p. 155.

I would have preferred if Chuut-Riit had completed that sentence, though. Finally, he sounds exactly like one of Stirling's Draka looking forward to the subordination of the rest of the human race.

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!

The Arrival Of The Prince

This blog is currently juggling with three future histories:

Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization;

Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium History;

the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space History (this period is a shorter history within the longer history).

Poul Anderson wrote the first and contributed to the second and third.

The purpose as always is to appreciate whichever work is currently under discussion while sooner or later returning to Andersonian themes or comparisons.

My copy of The Prince (CoDominium) has arrived. I hope that the image conveys some impression of its size. It has 1151 pages and collects four volumes but one of those was originally two volumes.

Meanwhile, however, I have become interested in Pournelle's and Stirling's contributions to Man-Kzin Wars, which connect with Anderson's, so I am not sure how soon I will return to the CoDominium.

"Witless Hordes"

In several of Poul Anderson's fictional futures, high technology maintains a large human population in comfort but raises questions about the meaning of life. This is a basic question addressed by science fiction.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Children's Hour," Captain Jonah Matthieson, a Belter, thinks that flatlanders have nothing useful to do for most of their lives. Matthieson does something useful. In his small Dart spaceship, the UNSN Catskinner, he fights Kzinti Vengeful Slashers. (UN Darts sound like Terran Imperial Meteors.)

Matthieson thinks:

"Earth's witless hordes were of little help to Sol's military effort. Most of them were a mere drain on resources - not even useful as cannon fodder in a conflict largely fought in space." (Man-Kzin Wars II, p. 143)

It is understandable that a military man thinks like this. My response to Matthieson would be:

not all of the hordes are witless;
even the witless are human beings and can lead meaningful lives;
they are the people whom you are defending.

I think that a species like Larry Niven's kzinti or Poul Anderson's Merseians is highly implausible - aliens will be alien - but I certainly agree that mankind will have to be on its guard when there is First Contact. I CAN BE WRONG! (That needed to be written in capitals.) Questions about mass unemployment and the meaning of life have been discussed here before and will be again. In fact, I need to read more opinions differing from my own. Thank you to regular contributors. You know who you are.

Time Travel, Dilation And Stasis

We have learned three ways to:

"...survive the re-contraction of the primal monobloc and its explosion into a new cosmic cycle..."
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Children's Hour" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars II (London, 1991), pp. 133-306 AT p. 149 -

- by (i) time travel, (ii) time dilation and (iii) temporal stasis.

(i) In Poul Anderson's "Flight to Forever," one man in a "time projector," i.e., a kind of time machine, circumnavigates space-time. We owe the idea of a temporal vehicle or "time machine" to HG Wells and it is because of Wells that we retain such archaic terminology. I remember that, in the 1960s, a friend's grandfather used the phrase, "flying machine."

(ii) In Anderson's Tau Zero, the crew of an exponentially accelerating Bussard ramjet survives cosmic contraction and explosion. We owe the idea of an interstellar ramjet to Robert Bussard.

(iii) In "The Children's Hour," it is merely stated that a Slaver stasis field "...would probably survive..." (op. cit., p. 149) Stasis fields are an sf prop but we owe two very unpleasant species, the Slavers and the kzinti, to Larry Niven. Thank you, Mr Niven!

However, the current cosmological model is not cyclical. Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy and Genesis ask whether consciousness can survive the heat death of a universe that does not re-contract and re-explode.

Interstellar Warfare

Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars is a war series with an interstellar setting. Thus, at least two kinds of contributions to this series are possible:

cosmological speculations;
stories based on an understanding of military history.

Poul Anderson's contributions (see here) feature the kind of scientific extrapolation about cosmic conditions that Anderson displays in "Pride" and "Starfog" whereas Jerry Pournelle's & SM Stirling's first Man-Kzin Wars story begins with a former bureaucrat, now a general, who had taught military history before first contact with the kzinti. The ratcats are not used to encountering military resistance but are learning from it and one of their commanders has written two works on strategy.

Thus, we expect Pournelle and Stirling, both specialists in military fiction, to emphasize this aspect of the series. Their approach and Anderson's are complementary and should generate a better rounded series than any single author would have been able to write. 

Collaborative Fiction

Science fiction is collaborative. James Blish said that sf writers practice what would be called plagiarism in any other genre. An author publishes a story with a new idea and a logical deduction from it. A second author publishes a story with an alternative consequence of the same idea. The second author is not condemned for plagiarizing the idea but commended for his new interpretation of it.

Thus, when Robert Heinlein had written about a "generation ship" (a slower than light multi-generation interstellar spaceship), then so did Poul Anderson, Brian Aldiss and Clifford Simak. Aldiss even said, in a conversation at Eastercon 1970, "I thought I could do it better!"

Much later, collaboration was institutionalized:

"The franchise universe lives!"
-Larry Niven, Man-Kzin Wars II (London, 1991), p. vii.

Now, Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, SM Stirling and others were able not only to write about militaristic, carnivorous, feline aliens but also to call them kzinti. Anderson's Man-Kzin Wars stories are:

"Iron" (also here, here and here)
"Inconstant Star" (also here, here, here, here and here);
"Pele" (also here).

We have been following Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling as to some extent successors of Poul Anderson so we might be interested in rereading their co-written Man-Kzin Wars stories. Since the first of these, "The Children's Hour," is 171 pages long, I regard it as a novel.

A Spiritual Spectrum

We encounter not only alternative histories but also alternative metaphysics:

in Poul Anderson's fantasies, gods are real;

in Anderson's hard sf, as in our experience, supernatural beings are believed in by some though not by others and theological issues are addressed;

in SM Stirling's Angrezi Raj, Christian and Hindu theologies are synthesized and offerings are made to a fictional goddess created for a cinema film (so what is the status of "belief"?);

in CS Lewis' uniquely theological sf -

- hnau are rational animals like Terrestrials, three Martian species and Venerians;
eldila are immortal inorganic intelligences inhabiting space, not planets, and resembling beams of light;
Maleldil is a mysterious being who:

created the universe;
commands all eldila except the rebels confined to the Terrestrial atmosphere;
was born as a hnau in Thulcandra (Earth);
speaks to Elwin Ransom when the latter is in Perelandra (Venus).

To summarize:

pagan deities as a fictional premise;
deities believed to exist by some, i.e., our experience;
a fiction-faith blend;
Christianity imaginatively restated.

Alternative Pasts, Presents And Futures

Whereas a future history becomes an alternative history as it recedes into the past, an alternative history becomes a future history if it is extended into the future. Thus, SM Stirling's Protracted Struggle between the Alliance for Democracy and the Domination of the Draka parallels the various UN/US-USSR/Cold War/World War III scenarios that we listed recently. In Stirling's The Stone Dogs, as in James Blish's They Shall Have Stars, Earth becomes a dictatorship but a few political refugees escape from the Solar System.

In fact, various other discontented groups also leave the Solar System in:

Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children;
the Breakup period of Poul Anderson's Technic History;
Anderson's Rustum History, The Boat Of A Million Years and Harvest Of Stars;
the Great Exodus period of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium History.

Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers is an alternative history novel set in 2025 but does not feature space travel because, like Anderson's Maurai History, it recounts recovery from a global disaster.

The Ransom Trilogy, CS Lewis' reply to Wells' and Stapledon's future histories, also addresses the history of the future. Issues concerning the future of mankind on Earth are resolved in Volume III. In Volume II, the future is prophesied. Ten thousand years hence, Maleldil, Malacandra, Tor-Oyarsa-Perelendri and many hnau and eldila will descend, destroy the Moon and liberate Thulcandra (Earth) from its present hidden rulers -

- and you cannot get any more alternative than that.

Three Princes

Max Abrams recommends that Dominic Flandry read some Machiavelli (see here):

Machiavelli wrote The Prince;
Gramsci wrote The Modern Prince;
Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling wrote The Prince.

Gramsci and Pournelle & Stirling based their titles on Machiavelli's. Thus, here we have two works of science fiction linked to two works of political theory. Pretty smart stuff, as I wrote recently about something else. See here.

I will be interested to compare Pournelle's and Stirling's political thinking in their The Prince with Abrams' advice to young Dominic.

SM Stirling

See here and here.

We discuss SM Stirling's works on this blog because:

aspects of Stirling's and Poul Anderson's works are comparable (see the above links);

Stirling contributed to Anderson's Time Patrol series;

like Anderson, Stirling has contributed to Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history, one of several such series that in some ways parallel Anderson's Technic History;

Stirling has developed alternative histories further than Anderson did.

I expect shortly to begin reading the first of the two CoDominium novels co-written by Pournelle and Stirling. While discussing such works, it is usually possible to keep touching base with Poul Anderson and other future historians.

I should also track down Anderson's single contribution to the CoDominium History.

Single Or Multiple Authorship

Poul Anderson's future histories are written entirely by Poul Anderson whereas Star Trek is written by many script writers. These are two ways to generate fiction: basically, quality as against quantity. Anderson's output is enormous for a single author but, of course, he did not confine his attention to just one series and, in any case, could not have matched the sheer volume produced by multiple authorship.

The few Superman stories written by Alan Moore are part of the vast Superman canon but are also part of Moore's complete works and have been collected as such. Needless to say, they are way ahead of most other superhero fiction.

There is an intermediate position. Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history is additionally written or co-written by:

Larry Niven;
SM Stirling;
Jennifer Pournelle;
the contributors to the War World series, including Anderson.

This probably makes for unevenness in the quality of writing. There is unevenness in Anderson's Technic History because it was written over such a long period but multiple authorship almost certainly increases unevenness. However, I have yet to read the War World volumes. SM Stirling managed to pull together a consistently high quality for the Drakas! anthology.

Themes And Issues

If someone has enjoyed reading Poul Anderson's works, what should he read next? The question becomes: which relevant predecessors, contemporaries and successors have you already read? When I thought about this, I began listing titles and authors that have already been discussed many times on the blog. However, it is worth listing Anderson's themes and issues. This shows the range of his works and each blog reader will be able to think of other relevant writers.

Would it be right to use scientific knowledge to create life?
Will AI supersede humanity?
How might it be possible to travel faster than light?
The experience of time traveling.
Circular causality.
Changing the past.
Alternative histories.
Historical fiction.
Heroic fantasy.
Norse mythology.
Detective fiction.
Juvenile sf.
Humor in sf.
How easy would it be to colonize other planets?
The reasons for the rise and fall of civilizations.
Military sf.
Cosmological sf.
How should society be organized?
Alien physiology and psychology.
The theological status of aliens.
Hard fantasy, i.e., magic as technology.
Future histories.
Interstellar empires.
Historical sf.
Longevity or immortality.
Elder Races.

Right now, I say:

for alternative histories, read SM Stirling;
for military sf, read Jerry Pournelle;
for cosmological sf, check out John C Wright.

I have to say "check out" because I have not yet read Wright. However, I am reliably advised that he is worth checking out. This means that he is worth checking out.