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.

Contemporary Fantasy And Science Fiction

On this blog, I discuss the works of Poul Anderson and of a few other authors, usually relating the latter to the former. While blogging, I have, on the recommendation of correspondent Sean M Brooks, also begun to read the alternative history novels of SM Stirling. However, there remain many current works of fantasy and sf with which I am still unfamiliar. For example, Sean has also mentioned the novels of John C Wright.

I would welcome any comments or contributions along the lines of:

if you like Anderson, you might like X;
X, like Anderson, writes in the tradition of Wells, Stapledon and Heinlein;
X is completely unlike Anderson but worth reading in any case.

Thus, Anderson's comprehensive canon functions as a lens through which to view the entire range of fantasy and sf. Possible lines of inquiry are:

Are any other space operas as substantial as the Dominic Flandry series?
How does Michael Moorcock's Multiverse compare with Anderson's Old Phoenix sequence?
Apart from Audrey Niffeneger's superb The Time Traveler's Wife, do any recent time travel novels match the contributions of Anderson or of Tim Powers?
How many authors write convincing accounts of remote futures of artificial intelligence and abundant wealth?
Who else writes good military sf?
What other trends is Shackley completely unaware of?

Earth/2B?

SM Stirling, The Domination (New York, 1999).

This blog is currently juggling three cross-time interactions:

The Domination and Ingolfsson Incursion timelines;
the FirstSide and New Virginia timelines;
the Old Phoenix.

On p. 1 of The Domination, the Earth of the Ingolfsson Incursion timeline is designated "Earth/2B." Why not just "Earth/2"? Has there been some further temporal divergence?

Our NYPD detective has become:

"The richest man in the world..." (ibid.)

We are not told whether his girl friend is still around.

IngolfTech, now controlled by homo sapiens, has revolutionized Earth and the Solar System and has joined with Sony to launch an interstellar probe by 2014.

Henry Carmaggio speaks to a Japanese researcher called Nomura Takashi. Is this an echo of Tom Nomura in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol? Stirling's Nomura thinks that the Master Race is "'...a fatuous concept!'" (p. 3) and that:

"'Surely any culture possessed by a concept so illogical would be defeated, as the Nazis were.'" (ibid.)

I agree. However:

Henry warns Nomura not to generalize from too small a sample;
Stirling precisely invites us to imagine such a culture succeeding.

A Lensman In The Old Phoenix

Here (scroll down) is where I have referred to EE Smith's Lensman series before. Here (see Comments) is where correspondent David Birr says that the:

"...large affable blond man in high boots and gray leather with an iridescent jewel on his wrist..." (Midsummer Tempest, p. 228) -

- must be from the Lensman series. So this is the only appearance of a Lensman in Poul Anderson's works and the Old Phoenix is probably the only appropriate setting. This single part of a sentence is better written than the entire seven-volume Lensman series.

Lensmen:

sound like and resemble superheroes;

are as uni-dimensional as all comic strip characters used to be;

specifically, are quite like the comic book superhero group, the Green Lantern Corps.

With superheroes, I have found that what matters is the script writer, not the character. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are able to do new things with old characters, even with Superman. Similarly, Poul Anderson would have been able to write a good Lensman novel even if the Lensmens' creator couldn't. I value that man in gray leather with an iridescent jewel on his wrist as Anderson's prose transmuting a cardboard space opera hero into a colorful and interesting character.

Associative Processes

Blogging processes are allusive and associative, not logical or linear. Thus, discussion of SM Stirling's alternative histories generated speculation as to whether any of Stirling's characters might find their way into Poul Anderson's inter-cosmic inn, the Old Phoenix, but this in turn led to discussion of the historical figures that Anderson does show us in the Phoenix and that discussion proved to be far more fruitful than I had expected, despite my relative familiarity with these texts.

"Losers' Night," if read hastily, merely presents disjointed snatches of diverse conversations. I had enjoyed it even on that level. However, when reread carefully, line by line, it turns out to be a summation of the Old Phoenix sequence because it refers to Holger, Valeria, Rupert and Abelard and also reflects on the roles of several individuals in history. They made their marks so were they really "losers"?

This means that I must finish rereading the Old Phoenix passages of A Midsummer Tempest and will then be free to return to Stirling's Conquistador. But first I hope that there will be a family visit to the Wolfhouse Gallery this afternoon and a historical talk this evening.

Some Details In The Old Phoenix

I described the interior of the Old Phoenix here but there are always more details:

of the two globes on the desk, one is celestial, the other terrestrial showing places like Atlantis and Huy Braseal;

the bookshelves have Sokolnikoff's Introduction to Paratemporal Mathematics and the Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics;

Valeria, who has her own copy of the Handbook, knows theorems that enable her to travel to a particular continuum or one like it;

she even found the Old Phoenix by deducing that there had to be an interuniversal nexus;

by contrast, Holger travels randomly, using a medieval grimoire;

Valeria can teach Holger some of what she knows but he will be unable to use the knowledge unless he can prove and understand the theorems;

meanwhile, one of their fellow guests is a regular called Clodia Pulcher.

In The Taproom Of The Old Phoenix

Entering the Old Phoenix from one version of seventeenth century England, Will Fairweather closes the door against the storm.

"Windows likewise were tightly shuttered."
-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), Chapter xi, "THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX," p. 90.

Will and his companion, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, must think that the windows are shuttered against the storm that they have just evaded whereas, in fact, the next time the door is opened, it may not be onto that storm or even onto that scenery while the windows, if opened, would show the void between the universes or maybe a cross-section of multi-dimensional space.

Their host addresses them in what looks like prose but can be rearranged as verse:

"What may your wishes be? Nay, let me guess.
"Ye've fared through rain, in striving and distress.
"A bath, dry garb, hot food, a cup of cheer,
"A bed, then breakfast , ere ye go from here." (p. 91)

Another guest, Holger, claims that giants existed in his timeline but his example is the seven-foot Harald Hardrada so, on that evidence, his timeline could be ours! His companion, a young woman, remarks that his and her worlds were similar or identical till about 1900 and that Abraham Lincoln might visit the inn. This is the first hint to the reader that time travel or something like it is involved. We are used to the idea by now but it is always worthwhile to check how an author first presented such notions.

Open To Everything

"...keep yourself open to everything, and perhaps, just perhaps, you will have the great luck of joining us in that tavern called the Old Phoenix."
-Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, 1981), pp. 9-20 AT p. 9.

That is good advice: "...keep yourself open to everything..." We do join them in the Old Phoenix by reading these stories. I suspect that this is the only way to join them but - keep yourself open to everything. I recently attended a Spiritualist Church where the medium got my mother's name right and some other details. After the service, her partner asked me whether I was still making up my mind. I replied that I was open. I did not add: philosophically critical and skeptical but open to evidence and experience. (My mother was an Irish Catholic who loathed Spiritualism.)

The food, like the drink, in the Phoenix "...is unearthly superb..." (p. 11) but unfortunately is not described.

In this story, the guests are:

the narrator;
Leonardo da Vinci;
Erik the Red;
Sancho Panza;
Nicholas van Rijn;
shadowy beings full of sparkling lights;
Heloise;
Peter Abelard;
Albert Einstein;
Mrs Hauksbee.

The narrator interprets between da Vinci and Einstein. Taverner must act as the local equivalent of the Time Patrol, interrupting their conversation so that neither da Vinci nor Einstein learns more than he should. But da Vinci shouts that Abelard and Heloise, who have gone upstairs together, "'...will have had their night!'" (p. 20) Limits to scientific knowledge are accepted but human life is affirmed.

In The Old Phoenix

All One Universe, p.111.

These guys have been there:

Theseus (and here)
Scheherazade
Falstaff
Holger Danske (and here)
Huck Finn
Irene Adler (see image)
Red Hanrahan
blind Rhysling
a Zenobia who won free of Rome
an Abelard who remained whole (and here)
a Prince Rupert who defeated Cromwell (and here)
a Tecumtha who preserved his nation

These alternative versions of Abelard and Prince Rupert are in Poul Anderson's canon whereas the alternative Zenobia and Tecumtha are not.

And, if you can find the time to research all these characters in the detail that they deserve, then you are a better man than I am.

Crossovers

(Custer's Last Stand.)

As far as I can see at present, the Draka anthology, Drakas!, incorporates "crossovers," or meetings, between the Draka and five individual characters who had some, real or fictional, existence before the anthology was published:

General Custer;
Gordon of Khartoum;
Anson MacDonald/Robert Heinlein;
Anne Marie Talbott writes a story in which she meets two Draka (I think);
John Barnes' cross-time traveler, Mark Strang.

That is quite a list. There are at least two ways that Poul Anderson's characters could have encountered the Draka:

Manse Everard of the Time Patrol, finding himself in the Domination timeline, would travel pastward to delete that timeline;

Draka cross-time explorers might have found their way into the Old Phoenix but would then learn that they were allowed to recuperate there briefly but not to gain any knowledge that they could use to further their cause back in their own timeline.

Worlds Within Worlds

Two Observations About Alternative Histories

(i) Persons and events that are fictions in one history may be realities in another. Thus, Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest is set in the seventeenth century of an Earth where Shakespeare was the Great Historian, not the Great Dramatist. Figures as diverse as Sherlock Holmes, Huckleberry Finn, Winston Churchill, Nicholas van Rijn and the Prince Rupert of the Rhine from the Shakespearean history congregate in the Old Phoenix, an inn between the worlds.

(ii) Every work of fiction is set in an alternative history, one that did not contain the author imagining its events. For example, SM Stirling imagined one of his Draka:

"...loose in our world. Or at least something very like our timeline; one without an S.M. Stirling, who imagined the Draka." (Drakas!, p. 284)

DC Comics had fun with a multiverse including:

Earth 2, inhabited by the original versions of the superheroes;
Earth 1, inhabited by the current versions of the superheroes;
Earth X, conquered by Nazis resisted by super-powered Freedom Fighters;
other Earths inhabited by superheroes bought from former competitors;
Earth Prime, inhabited by comic book writers mentally tuning in to the other Earths.

In Drakas!, edited by SM Stirling, Anne Marie Talbott contributes a story in which Stirling's Draka character Gwen crosses to an Earth where Drakas are fictions and indeed seems to meet the author of this story.

Alternative History Fiction: Its Origins And A Culmination

My eyes have been opened by reading the Wiki article on Alternative Histories. Alternative history fiction itself has a long history - its earliest origins were historical, even Roman - although HG Wells may have been the first writer to describe travel between alternative histories.

The article rightly states that it is impossible to discuss separately from each other alternative history fiction and time travel fiction in which history is changed. Thus, the article appropriately refers both to Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series (time travelers changing history) and to his Old Phoenix stories (travelers between alternative histories).

However, here is at least one culmination of this sub-genre:

SM Stirling's Draka series recounts an alternative history from 1779 to 2445 and also describes travel between histories;

the series comprises four novels by Stirling and one anthology of twelve stories by other authors, edited by Stirling;

Poul Anderson is quoted on the back cover of the anthology as commenting "...an exciting, evocative [and] horrifying read."

The twelve contributors to the anthology, Drakas! are:

William Sanders, writer of fantasy and sf, including alternative histories;
John Miller, author of graphic novels and of stories set in George RR Martin's Wild Cards alternative history series;
Roland Green who has continued H Beam Piper's Great King's War alternative history;
David Drake, author of the Hammer's Slammers future war series;
Jane Lindskold, a former professor of English;
Lee Allred, author of alternative history fiction;
William Barton, author of When We Were Real;
Harry Turtledove, often called the master of alternative history;
Anne Marie Talbott, published here for the first time;
Markus Baur, a high tech sector worker resident in Vienna;
John Barnes, who introduces his crosstime-travel hero, Mark Strang, to the Draka; 
Severna Park, sf novelist.

Stirling explains the reasoning behind the series:

What were the good and bad consequences of European colonialism?
What if its worst consequence, slavery, had grown until it was unstoppable?

Thus, as I suspected, Draka world domination is part of the premise and has to be accepted as such.

Many Multiverses

There are several fictional multiverses:

Michael Moorcock's, disrupted by the Conjunction of the Million Spheres and adapted for comic books;

DC Comics', ended by the Crisis on Infinite Earths but restored with 52 universes in a later Crisis;

Arnold Schwarzenegger's in The Last Action Hero, doing for feature films what DC Comics does for comics;

Poul Anderson's several universes linked to the Old Phoenix Inn;

SM Stirling's several alternative universes, of which I have so far read three -

Alexander the Great survived into old age and a Gate opened from an Earth almost indistinguishable from ours (one novel);

in 1878, cometary fragments devastated Earth and a psychic senses alternative Earths (one story and one novel);

powerful aliens had terraformed Venus and Mars and later opened Gates to other places (one story and two novels).

Stirling also has two (?) multi-volume alternative history series that I have not tackled yet.

From Wells To Anderson; From One To Many

HG Wells wrote one classic, definitive time travel novel merely hinting at the paradoxes whereas Poul Anderson presents multiple fictions:

in the Old Phoenix sequence, many timelines coexist;

in the Time Patrol series, one mutable timeline exists because time travelers can change past events;

in The Corridors Of Time and There Will Be Time, one immutable timeline exists because time travelers cannot change past events;

in Starfarers, one immutable timeline exists because physical time travel is impossible.

Vast, systematic and comprehensive. And don't forget Wells.

Fiction-Reality Interfaces

I have recently referred to two World Science Fiction Conventions attended by Poul Anderson: one real (I attended it); the other fictional (I read about it). However, the fictional Con was held in a divergent timeline so maybe it is real? Fascinating fiction-reality interfaces have been perfected by various fantasy writers. (Our reality is a dream within Neil Gaiman's The Sandman which is a fiction within our reality which means that our reality is within itself.)

Living within a single universe, we imagine and even postulate other universes and can then turn this situation on its head, i.e., characters in a fictional multiverse might encounter our universe among all the others ("An Earth where not even one person has gained superpowers? Seems unlikely!").

Two short stories by Poul Anderson are set in an inter-universal inn and the first person narrator of these stories seems to come from a world like ours. Is it safe to identify this narrator with the author - as we identify Dante the poet with Dante the day-tripper to the hereafter? Commenting on the two Old Phoenix stories from the memory of having read them, I would say that the narrator could be the author although, if I were to reread the stories closely, I might find some reason why not? But, for the time being, I am content to remember rather than to reread.

Thoughts II

Similarly, a Superman comic strip unaccountably reminded me of a Robert Heinlein novel. On reflection, I realized that the common themes were a lunar setting and parallel universes. It was this precise conceptual combination that, for me, made the graphic work recall the prose work.

Heinlein excelled at lunar settings and Poul Anderson followed in his footsteps. On the other hand, what a mess Heinlein made of the multiverse in his later novels. By contrast, Anderson presented several independently substantial narratives and connected them as parallel universes:

intriguing alternative histories in two short stories;
a Carolingian universe in one novel;
a Shakespearean universe in one novel;
a Heinlein-inspired magical universe in two novels;
the Technic History in many volumes;
characters from these and other universes, including ours, meeting in an inn between the worlds.

Whatever Heinlein does either well or badly, Anderson does as well or better. My advice to anyone starting to read sf is: read both authors but make your own judgments about the later Heinlein. I have met people who liked Lazarus Long's Notebooks but for me the Future History is complete with Orphans Of The Sky.

Multiverse

Poul Anderson's inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix, is the setting for:

"House Rule"
"Losers' Night"
A Midsummer Tempest, xi THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX.
A Midsummer Tempest, xii LATER.
A MidsummerTempest, Epilogue THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX.

In A Midsummer Tempest, the inn is a meeting place for:

Prince Rupert from the Shakespearean universe of the same novel;

Holger Carlsen from the Carolingian universe of Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions;

Valeria Matuchek from the magical universe of Anderson's Operation Chaos and Operation Luna.

In "House Rule," the inn is a meeting place for:

Nicholas van Rijn from the hard sf universe of Anderson's Technic History;
Sancho Panza from Don Quixote;
Erik the Red, possibly from our universe.

Other guests from our universe or nearer ones include:

the first person narrator of the two short stories;
Leonardo da Vinci;
Albert Einstein;
Heloise and Abelard;
Francois Villon;
Winston Churchill;
an unnamed but identifiable Irish political leader.

Anderson wrote that he hoped to return to the Old Phoenix again...

The inn could have provided a framing sequence for a collection of new stories to display each of the different genres that Anderson wrote. Neil Gaiman used his Inn of the Worlds' End as a Chaucerian venue.

Today, I have read in Latin Caesar's and Tacitus' accounts of the Druids and their resistance to Roman rule.

Multiverse And The Old Phoenix

Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois, Editors, Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds (Burton, MI, 2014).

Fellow Earthlings, this post has to be short. I have to turn in and will  have a busy day with little or no blogging tomorrow but here is a night time thought: why no Old Phoenix story in Multiverse and will there be a Multiverse II where this omission can be rectified? The Old Phoenix is a place where many if not all of the series could be tied together, although a mere crowd scene would not do any of them justice.

There almost is an Old Phoenix story because Astrid Anderson Bear writes:

"...it is bitter-sweet to contemplate my Dad's characters hoisting a mug together in the Old Phoenix Tavern..." (p. 184).

- so there is a story waiting to be written although I can't write it because I can't write fiction. All that I can do is read it and say what I think is right or wrong with it and, hopefully, be disagreed with.

Peter And Poul II

The previous post highlighted some parallels between A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson and The Alchemist's Revenge by Peter Cakebread. Both novels can be characterized by saying that the English Civil War of the seventeenth century is being fought in a version of history where magic works. (Such a historical difference presupposes a corresponding cosmological difference but let's not go that far right now.)

One difference between the novels (so I initially thought) was that A Midsummer Tempest also places more recent technology in the seventeenth century. But so does The Alchemists' Revenge! Reading further, I find that not all of the anachronistic mechanisms are alchemically empowered. Some of them are merely ingenious engineering - although still suspected of Satanic influence, of course.

Each of these novels is one part of a vaster fictional universe but the ways in which this is done could not be more different.

A Midsummer Tempest...
...is set in a universe where all of Shakespeare's plays were literally true. Specifically, it is a sequel to A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. Further, this Shakespearean universe coexists with the Carolingian universe of Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions and with the magical universe of his two Operation... volumes. Prince Rupert meets Holger Danske and Valeria Matuchek in the inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix.

The Alchemist's Revenge...
...is the "First Book of the Companie of Reluctant Heroes." Further, this series is set in the universe of the Clockwork & Chivalry Role Playing Game (RPG) by Peter Cakebread and Ken Walton. Since RPG's are interactive dramas, maybe there is some connection with Old Will after all!

In both cases...
...the fiction must be understood in the context of the history:

"...for all the differences, much remains the same as the real history. Traditional society and values are crumbling; religious and political factions vie for supremacy; kin fight kin, in a bitter struggle for England's future; and ordinary folk struggle to get by, in a world turned upside down...
"...if we were going to do history, even alternate history, we needed to get the history right, before going on to change it."
-Peter Cakebread, The Apprentice's Revenge (Swindon, 2013), pp. 214-215.

Right on.

Multiverse

According to the Danellians and their Time Patrol, only one timeline exists at a time. Since each timeline comprises an entire four-dimensional spatio-temporal continuum, the phrase "one...at a time" that I have just used can refer only to a second time axis containing a succession of such continua, each continuum existing at a different time, thus "one at a time," along that second temporal dimension.

According to the proprietor of the inter-cosmic Old Phoenix Inn, many timelines exist at the same time. Thus, the Time Patrol and Old Phoenix series present contradictory cosmologies.

However, could the variable timeline guarded by the Time Patrol itself be one of the many universes that have fleeting access to the Old Phoenix? Thus, could Manson Everard of the Patrol also find his way to the inter-cosmic Inn?

As things stand, the timecycles of the Time Patrol, the time corridors of the Wardens and Rangers, the self-propelling time travelers of the Eyrie and of Jack Havig's rival group and the many doors to the Old Phoenix exist in the alternative realms of Poul Anderson's imagination as expressed in different volumes of his complete works. However, we are free to speculate about connections between various ultimates like:

the Danellians;
the "gods" of the further future in "Flight To Forever";
the literal gods of Anderson's heroic and historical fantasies;
the Elder Races that exist, or are believed to exist, in various timelines;
the cosmic energy accessed by the Black Nebulans and the Chereionites;
cosmic AI in the further future of Anderson's Genesis;
the transtemporally communicating interstellar civilization of Starfarers;
the mysterious licensing authority of the Old Phoenix.

Ideally, each fictional universe could be continued indefinitely while, at the same time, additional volumes or subtle inter-textual cross-references could be used to construct an immense hyper-cosmic unity. Anderson's canon is vast and makes us wish for more.

(Tomorrow: coach from North West to South East of England, depart 6.00 am, return evening, anti-racist march through London (No Nazi parties in the European Parliament!), no time for blogging, plenty of time for creative thinking on the Motorway, fried breakfast and coffee in the Services.)