Multiverse And A Roland Trilogy

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

 Poul Anderson's Rustum History is eight stories about the colonization of the extrasolar planet Rustum that could be collected in one volume. "The Queen of Air and Darkness," set on the colony planet Roland, refers to Rustum so is part of the same future history and could, for completeness, be included as a ninth item in the Rustum collection.

Or a one-volume Rustum History could now be followed by a one-volume Roland Trilogy, containing:

"The Queen of Air and Darkness" by Poul Anderson;
"Outmoded Things" by Nancy Kress;
"The Fey of Cloudmoor" by Terry Brooks.

The two sequels are in Multiverse. They perform the role of sequels by logically deducing what might have happened next:

the rescued children need therapy;
some want to return to the wild from which they were rescued;
an electromagnetic screen guards a town against the "Rollies'" telepathy;
some young people are able to accept the telepathically induced images as neither lies nor delusions but  meaningful fictions;
it is not easy to persuade the colonists to give up their superstitions and regard the natives scientifically;
the natives have learned how to defend themselves against armed men in vehicles;
the man who was the rescued boy has not adjusted back into human society and returns to the wild; 
he seems to give his baby daughter to his mother but has given her a changeling;
human society is decaying, maybe to be replaced by a human-native synthesis.

Winners

The five stories collected in Poul Anderson's Winners (New York, 1981) and the eighteen works collected in his Going For Infinity (New York, 2002) overlap by two items: "The Queen of Air and Darkness" and "Goat Song."

The rationale for Winners is that each of its five stories had won the Hugo award from the annual World Science Fiction Convention (sf fans) - and "Goat Song" had also won the Nebula award from the Science Fiction Writers of America (sf professionals). The rationale for Going For Infinity is that it is a retrospective of fifty years of writing so it is appropriate that it includes two of the award winners.

I am rereading another Winner: "The Longest Voyage." This story opens with a reference to a "...Sky Ship..." (p. 97) We may guess that this will turn out to be a spaceship, although not necessarily. The characters in Anderson's "The Sky People" are not space travelers. Initially, "The Longest Voyage" reads like a parallel world story where magic might work. A sailing ship is circumnavigating a world where all the place names are strange and so-called sea monsters are heard to breach at night. An Elizabethan atmosphere is generated when the captain refers to "'...Her Majesty...'" and "'...her most excellent Company of Merchant Adventurers...'" and says that this voyage is "'...to her glory.'" (p. 100)

Before long, the characters, and thus the reader, learn that Tambur, the large stationary celestial body that became visible when the ship entered the other hemisphere, is a planet of which the sailors' own world is a tidally locked satellite. This is hard sf. There is a legend that mankind was "'...hurled...down onto the earth, at the time of the Fall from Heaven.'" (p. 102)

- so are our protagonists descendants of stranded Earthmen and will the "Sky Ship" reestablish interstellar contact? Only further reading will tell.

Hard SF? II

It is in The Armies Of Elfland (New York, 1992) that Poul Anderson introduces "The Queen of Air and Darkness" by saying, first, that it:

"...is not fantasy but science fiction." (p. 1)

- and, secondly, that:

"...it might be considered 'hard' science fiction, for it supposes nothing that a modern scientist would say is outright impossible, such as travel faster than light. (Granted, telepathy is controversial: but if it exists, presumably it operates within the framework of known natural law.)" (ibid.)

This suggests a tripartite distinction between fantasy, hard sf and, by implication, "soft" sf. I suppose it makes sense to say that:

Ray Bradbury wrote fantasy (The October Country) and soft sf (The Martian Chronicles; Fahrenheit 451) but no hard sf;
CS Lewis wrote fantasy (Narnia) and soft sf (Ransom) but no hard sf;
Poul Anderson wrote fantasy (various) and hard sf (also various) but no soft sf?

In fact, does anyone write both kinds of sf? Apart from these two big names, Bradbury and Lewis, all the sf that I have read seems to have been hard, I think.

(Having put Bradbury and Lewis side by side, it becomes possible to discern some remote thematic parallels between their works: an inhabitable, inhabited Mars and a repressive society on Earth - Lewis' version of the latter being the rule of the National Institute for Coordinated Experiment in the third Ransom novel.)

I am still surprised at Anderson's suggestion that faster than light (FTL) travel is not hard sf. Also, telepathy always counts as sf and is certainly hard when scientifically rationalized by Anderson and, several times, by James Blish.

Hard SF?

"This story is 'hard' science fiction, meaning that it assumes nothing a present-day scientist would consider physically impossible. True, in it humans have reached a distant star, but they did not necessarily travel faster than light. Perhaps their ship got close to that speed, giving them the benefit of time dilation, or perhaps they passed a voyage of centuries in some kind of suspended animation..."

(Poul Anderson, Introduction to "Strangers," All One Universe, New York, 1997, p. 2)

And I remember recently reading an Introduction to "The Queen of Air and Darkness" where Anderson said something similar, like this can be hard sf because its interstellar travel is slower than light, but I cannot remember which collection this was in.

(Incidentally, I once attended a talk at the London Planetarium where the speaker thought that, when sf authors wrote about traveling to another star, they meant literally onto the surface of the star, not to a planet of that star.)

I always thought that Larry Niven's Known Space and Anderson's Technic History were hard sf even though they involved FTL. These authors accept that FTL through relativistic space is physically impossible which is why they postulate hyperspace which, in Anderson's case, is a series of instantaneous quantum jumps. A story in which nothing was done that had not already been done would be scientifically based fiction but not "science fiction." An sf premise can be either that people have applied existing scientific knowledge to do something that has not been done yet, like flying to Mars, or that they have made a new scientific discovery, like hyperspace, enabling them to fly FTL to Proxima Centauri.

The Gearch

"In The Shadow" is the odd story out in Poul Anderson's The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (London, 1977) both because it is not about interstellar travel and because its future politics are unique to it. Earth, or perhaps the entire Solar System, is ruled by a "Gearch" called Huang III. (p. 91)

It seems that Huang's rule is hereditary, Oriental and despotic. He denies a Petition of Rights, thus causing riots which become an insurrection, suppresses the latter but then maintains control with measures like:

pardoning most insurgents;
making some reforms;
providing Government care for a dead insurrectionary leader's children;
giving the dead man's son, Karl, a good education as an astronaut;
sending Karl on a deep space mission that will both earn his gratitude and keep him out of the way for a while.

I was pronouncing "Gearch" with a hard "G" and to rhyme with "arch," thus "Ghee-arch." However, on page 101, Karl Rouvaratz refers disrespectfully to "...the Gearchy..." Clearly, then, "Gearch" is a contraction of "Geo-arch," meaning "ruler of the Earth." Even in this odd term, we see Anderson thinking carefully about the details of an imagined future society.

The Gearch's schemes backfire. By discovering and communicating with the scientifically advanced inhabitants of a shadow planet passing through the Solar System, Rouvaratz and his colleagues become able to transmit to Earth information that will cause a scientific and philosophical revolution among the technician class on which the Gearchy depends, thus also causing a social revolution. Thus, what starts as a quaint-sounding phrase, "...the Gearch was Huang III...," becomes a way to make a point about power relationships within society and about mechanisms of social change.

Rouvaratz, staying in the Outer System to communicate with the aliens, "...locked in metal for the rest of your life...," is free because:

"I'm my own man now." (p. 111)

A Future History Or Not?

In "The Queen Of Air And Darkness" by Poul Anderson, human beings in slower than light spaceships have colonised several extrasolar planets, including Rustum, Beowulf and Roland. In "Home" by Anderson, human beings in slower than light spaceships have established but are now terminating scientific bases on several extrasolar planets, including Mithras.

These stories are the last two in Anderson's collection New America and the first two in his The Queen Of Air and Darkness and other stories. Anderson collections include redundancies that would have to be edited out of any Complete Works editions.

In New America, these two stories are preceded by four about the colonisation of Rustum. Those four in turn are sequels to the four Rustum History stories collected as Orbit Unlimited. In The Queen..., the two stories are followed by four others, all but one also featuring slower than light interstellar travel and extrasolar colonies.

Do these thirteen stories form a continuous sequence? Nine are definitely connected by common references to Rustum. Further, slower than light travel, extrasolar colonies and their related economic, political and ecological issues are strong common themes. However, the author's Foreword to The Queen... states that the stories in the book do not project a single future history. An italicised "Publisher's Note" in New America implies that both "The Queen Of Air And Darkness" (agree) and "Home" (disagree) fit into the Rustum History timeline. However:

in the Rustum series:
 there have been Atomic Wars;
Earth is ruled by a Federation;
there are enduring extrasolar colonies.

In "Home":
there has been a Solar War;
Earth is ruled by a Directorate;
there are terminated extrasolar bases.

These are different timelines. "Home" could have been called "Earthman, Come Home," which is the title of a James Blish collection. Anderson's characters reflect on history and argue about whether the terminated Mithran base should be turned into a colony. Would human beings expanding across the planet displace the pacific native Mithrans? In one chilling passage showing a Mithran point of view, we, though not the human characters, learn that if the human beings were to exceed certain limits, then a Mithran:

"...would be forced to kill. But he would continue to love as he did." (1)

Although "Home" is not consistent with Rustum, it might just form a very loose tetralogy with the three other interstellar stories in the collection. In "The Alien Enemy," the Directorate has a failed colony on Sibylla but surviving colonies on Zion, Atlas, Asgard and Lucifer. Did the Directors, after terminating bases, reverse their policy and initiate colonies?

"The Alien Enemy" has a remarkable surprise ending in which Anderson characters succeed against all the odds. Unable, with their limited resources, to survive on the inhospitable Sibylla, the colony's leaders had faked an alien attack in order to be recalled home. On Earth, they are given the challenge of developing the Sahara where, hardened by Sibylla, they succeed and, decades later, when a spaceman has returned from his next voyage, they are making a difference to Earth itself.

"The Faun" is set on Arcadia which could be another of the Directorate's colonies. "Time Lag" involves relativistic travel between Chertkoi and Vaynamo which could also have been colonized by the Directorate. I suggest that the nine Rustum History stories be collected in one volume and the "Home" four in another.

(1) Anderson, Poul, New America, New York, 1982, p. 253.

The Queen Of Air And Darkness V

"The Queen Of Air And Darkness" in The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (London, 1977).

Sherrinford points out that Rolander outwayers have books, telecommunications, power tools, motor vehicles and a scientific education so are not medieval crofters yet William Irons who cultivates native crops is convinced that human beings travel safely in the mountains only because the Queen of Air and Darkness made a pact with a man. Sherrinford later explains this discrepancy but meanwhile Poul Anderson blends elements of fantasy and sf into a single narrative.

Sherrinford speculates that Rolander natives began their science with biology. This makes them sound like the humanoid but alien race that tries to subvert humanity in Anderson's Star Ways/The Peregrine.

Telepathy works the same way here as in Anderson's Technic History. Each organism generates long wave radiation that can be modulated by the nervous system. When outside his screen, Sherrinford thinks in French, a language that the natives cannot have learned because English is the only human language used on Roland.

We know that the Outlings include "wraiths." Sherrinford's instruments detect organisms, including:

"Another...low temperature, diffuse and unstable emission, as if it were more like a...a swarm of cells coordinated somehow...hovering..." (p. 38)

Thus, a scientific analysis of a "wraith." 

Sherrinford tells Barbo that he switched on the screen, blocking the illusion and letting the bewitched human boy Mistherd see the natives not disguised as fairies but as they really were. We should have seen this but that important scene occurs off stage. We are separately told that they were "...lean, scaly, long-tailed, long-beaked..." but this is a mere summary (p. 46). Anderson has not made us see it. (Ray Bradbury's telepathic Martians pulled a similar stunt.)

I value this work more for its contribution to the Rustum History than for its own sf detective story.

The Queen Of Air And Darkness IV

I thought that the printer had omitted a space between sections five and six of "The Queen Of Air And Darkness," in The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (London, 1977), but closer inspection reveals that section five describes an Outling approaching, eavesdropping on, then withdrawing from Barbo and Sherrinford so that this single section incorporates both points of view.

Mistherd, whom we have met, is accompanied by a nicor and a wraith. Wraiths can sense and send thoughts and cast illusions but this wraith reports that an invisible wall protects the car and Sherrinford's overheard conversation confirms that a generator that he keeps running protects "...against so-called telepathic influence..." (p. 26) The mystery is almost solved. Rolandic aborigines kidnap children and hold their allegiance with an illusion based on legends sensed in human minds. Sherrinford, having studied the record, theorizes that, between the departure of the last survey ship and the arrival of the first colonizing ship, the hidden natives had removed all evidence that their planet had been inhabited.

We learn more about Sherrinford who had lived in the "...densely populated, smoothly organized, boringly uniform..." city of Heorot on a planet called "Beowulf" which is surprisingly similar to Rustum in that it too has a "...lowland frontier..." and also has citizens, including Sherrinford, who "...lack the carbon dioxide tolerance level necessary to live healthily down there." (p. 29)

After eight stories about the colonization of a single extrasolar planet, Rustum, we now learn something about an interstellar civilization. Several colonies keep in laser contact. At least one of these, Beowulf, can mount an expedition around a number of planets, especially those, like Roland, that lack lasers. Sherrinford had joined an expedition and had decided to stay on Roland. He had previously told us that data had been received from Rustum. That alone suggests that the events of "The Queen Of Air And Darkness" occur long after those of the last Rustum story, which had mentioned radio contact with Earth but not laser contact with Beowulf or anywhere else. The Rustumites then had not even known whether there were other colonies.

On Beowulf, Sherrinford had been a police detective. His family had had a tradition of such work and had even:

"...claimed collateral descent from one of the first private inquiry agents on record, back on Earth before spaceflight." (p. 29)

Thus, this is at least the second Poul Anderson series in which Sherlock Holmes was a real person. Time Patrolmen can rub shoulders with Holmes but a Beowulfite can only claim descent. This explains something else. Sherrinford does not resemble Holmes accidentally but has modeled himself on him just as the Rolandic natives have modeled themselves on fairies. Sherrinford starts to speak about archetypes but breaks off. If there are telepathic natives, then he does not want to alert them that he is onto their game.

Mistherd, listening, has several more imaginative titles for his Queen:

"...the Fairest..." (p. 25);
"...she who reigned..." (pp. 25, 30);
 "...the Wonderful One..." (p. 26);
"The Garland Bearer..." (p. 29);
"...the Sister of Lyrth..." (p.29).

The Queen Of Air And Darkness III

The fourth section of "The Queen Or Air And Darkness," in The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (London, 1977), returns to Barbo and Sherrinford as viewpoint characters and advances the narrative.

(i) As ever, Anderson celebrates human life and enterprise. Here, he colorfully describes the bustling life of a Rolandic city evocatively called Portolondon.

"The streets were crowded and noisy..." (p. 18)

Trade comes down the Gloria River and across the sea. As in other works, Anderson evokes urban and commercial dynamism by reciting unusually long lists: "...shops, taverns, restaurants..." etc; "...meat and ivory and furs..." etc; "...laughed, blustered, swaggered..." etc. As long as human beings remain active, Anderson and his readers rejoice. (p.18)

(ii) Sherrinford's Holmesian credentials are confirmed when we learn that he had helped the police in a murder case.

(iii) Sherrinford mentions cases where an outwayer family reports glimpses of a disappeared child, "...grown, not really human any longer..." flitting or peering. (p. 21) This should have been developed, with Sherrinford interviewing a distraught parent before the reader had encountered any Outlings.

(iv) A police detective discourages Sherrinford's investigation. The police are recruited from outwayer families who believe in the Old Folk/Outlings. This would have been much more sinister if we had not yet known that the Outlings existed and if we had initially been given some reason to suspect that Barbo's theory of a secret human organization kidnapping children was correct.

(v) When discussing whether a winged creature could have lifted the boy out of the camp, Sherrinford asserts that birds strong enough to do this exist both on Beowulf, where he is from, and on Rustum, of which he has read. Yes, a spearfowl threatened Dan Coffin on Rustum. Here at last is positive confirmation that this story belongs in the Rustum timeline.

The History of Rustum could be collected in one volume divided into three parts:

"From Earth to Rustum," four stories;
"Dan Coffin on Rustum," four stories;
"Other Planets," so far, at least one story.

The Queen Of Air And Darkness II

The third section of  "The Queen Of Air And Darkness", in The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (London, 1977), changes perspective again. An impersonal narrator, directly addressing the reader as "You...," discusses galactic distances and refers to "...stars in our neighborhood..." (p. 16).

This narrator imparts information consistent with the History of Rustum:

slower than light interstellar spaceships;
extrasolar colonists few but determined (indeed, earlier (p. 12), we had been told that such colonists hoped to preserve, e.g., a language, constitutional government or reason and technology - the Rustumites were rational-technological Constitutionalists);
suspended animation;
exogenetics;
an Earth that has confirmed earlier fears by ceasing to launch interstellar craft.

However, there is a difference or, if we are still in the Rustumite timeline, there has been some progress. There are other extrasolar colonies and the oldest can now launch new interstellar craft. On the other hand, the vastness of interstellar distances and the slowness of interstellar travel are still major issues:

a colony might be visited two or three times a century;
colonial modernization and even survival are not guaranteed;
for example, although Roland is hospitable, its colonists cannot afford to construct elaborate machinery and are unable to spread to lower latitudes.

Anderson's description of Rolandic environmental extremes recall those in his Technic History, e.g., the planets Hermes and Vixen.

Each new section of this story warrants analysis so there will be more here.

The Queen Of Air And Darkness

"The Queen Of Air And Darkness" (in The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories, London, 1977), potentially a major story by Poul Anderson, hits the reader with too many mixed messages, I think. The narrative is divided into unnumbered sections.

The first section contains several clues that it is set on another planet, the most obvious being a reference to "...the moons..." (p. 10), although the characters suggest fantasy:

two "...Outlings...," a flute-playing boy called Mistherd and a singing girl called Shadow-of-a-Dream, meet under a dolmen on Wolund's Barrow (p. 9);

a winged "pook" called "...Ayoch...," with a "...half-human face...," carries a stolen human child towards "...Carheddin under the mountains..." (pp. 9-10);

their Queen, variously addressed as "...Starmother...," "...Snowmaker..." and "...Lady Sky...," appears (pp. pp. 10-11).

Ayoch used "...dazedust..." to steal the child but not from "...yeomen...," instead from a camp where there were "...engines..." (p. 10) Thus, technology has somehow entered this (apparent) fantasy setting.

The second section also gives two messages but different ones. A woman called Barbo Cullen, whose son has been kidnapped, consults a high-cheeked, beak-nosed, pipe-smoking, unmarried private investigator living in an untidy, dusty apartment with laboratory equipment against one wall, who surprises her with information about herself which he then explains that he has deduced from her appearance. Thus, this Eric Sherrinford is based on Sherlock Holmes but the setting is science fictional because they are on the planet Roland to which he has traveled from the planet Beowulf.

So the first section presents apparent fantasy in an apparently extraterrestrial environment whereas the second section presents a detective story in an unequivocally extraterrestrial setting. The strands begin to converge when we learn that there are "...stories about the Outlings stealing human children..." and that the boy had disappeared from an exploratory camp where the dogs were drugged. (p.14)

The mystery is that there is no evidence of any present natives on Roland. But the reader has already seen the Outlings so we are already know the solution to the mystery that this literary descendant of Holmes is to solve! Thus, I think that the story fails to be the sf detective story that it could have been. There is more than this in the story so there will be some further posts.

Three Paperbacks I

I am looking at three paperbacks by Poul Anderson:

Orbit Unlimited (Pyramid Books, New York, 1961);

New America (TOR Books, New York, 1982);

The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (NEL Books, London, 1977).

Orbit Unlimited collects four stories set respectively on Earth, in space, in Rustum orbit and on Rustum. The fourth story describes life on the plateau and a rescue expedition to the lowland. This concluding story, and thus also the book, has a positive ending:

a lost child is rescued;

his rescuers, the child's father and another man, are heroes;

the father, a strict puritan, has resolved some personal issues during the rescue;

the mayor had blackmailed the second man to accompany the father in order to counteract the colonists' tendency towards isolated agricultural selfishness - public duties performed freely from a sense of responsibility will minimize the need for coercive laws as the colony grows;

the boy, an exogene formerly bullied by his peers, is now a hero to them;

more importantly, he is a rare individual who can live comfortably in the high air pressure at sea level, thus he and his descendants will colonize the rest of the planet.

This positive ending is well expressed by the concluding sentences as the blackmailed but now happy rescuer recuperates:

"Svoboda didn't return to his book at once. He lay for a while gazing out the window, toward the horizon where the snowpeaks of Hercules upheld the sky." (p. 158)

I am currently rereading New America but can comment now that the title and the blurb are misleading. The latter refers to "...freedom-minded Jeffersonians..." whereas the book features not Jeffersonians in a place called New America but Constitutionalists on a plateau called High America. This book, a sequel to Orbit Unlimited, continues the story of Rustum and introduces other extrasolar colonies.