Inter-Species Communication II

See Inter-Species Communication.

Poul Anderson
The relevant quotes are:

"The nonhuman remains nonhuman. He can only show us those facets of himself which we can understand. Thus he often seems to be a two-dimensional, even comic personality. But remember, we have the corresponding effect on him."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), pp. 264-265.

"'[Nonhumans] are too unlike us. You probably know better than I how vastly their psychologies, instincts, drives, capabilities differ from ours, and from each other's...I think we interact with them, and they with us, only on a rather superficial level. Partnership is possible between human and alien, yes. Sometimes even what the human feels as friendship. But how does the alien feel it? That may be ultimately unknowable, on either side.'"
-Poul Anderson, For Love And Glory (New York, 2003), Chapter IX, p. 53.

Bob Shaw
Bob told me that he never had conversations between human beings and aliens but there was some conversation with hyper-dimensional beings in the Orbitsville Trilogy and maybe between souls of different species in the scientifically rationalized hereafter of The Palace Of Eternity? In old age, we try to remember works read literally decades ago.

Carl Sagan
Sagan suggests a means of communication. See here.

Niven and Pournelle
When, in Anderson's A Circus Of Hells, an alien on her own planet shakes her head in disbelief, we ask, "Would she do this?" whereas, when one of Niven's and Pournelle's Moties nods her head, we soon realize that this is because she is trying to converse with human beings and is learning fast.

I am definitely signing off till next month. Excelsior.

Leadership

Poul Anderson, For Love And Glory (New York, 2003), Chapter XIV.

Here, we compared Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn and SM Stirling's John Rolfe as different kinds of leaders. Now we find a third example. Lissa Davysdaughter Windholm thinks:

"'I'm only a planetarist. And even that title is a fake. I don't do geology, oceanography, atmospherics, chemistry, biology, ethology, or xenology. I dabble in them all, and then dare call myself a scientist." (p. 85)

So what is her contribution?

"I help get the specialists together, and keep them together, and sometimes keep them alive. That's my work. That justifies me being here..." (ibid.)

It does indeed. So that work must be generally acknowledged and respected? No:

"...though I had to force it every centimeter of the way." (ibid.)

Leadership indeed.

I googled "planetarist" but found a different meaning for it.

Poetry And Science Fiction

Mercatores tui auroram mari persequntur.

How often do poetry and sf interact?

James Elroy Flecker wrote a speculative poem about the future. See here.

Poul Anderson, Neil Gaiman, SM Stirling and Michael Scott Rohan quote Flecker.

Until David Birr pointed it out, I had completely overlooked Anderson's character, David Falkayn, quoting the same line from Flecker that concludes Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers:

"He murmured, as best he could in Latin, 'Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea...'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 314.

But what is the Latin translation? This post begins with my attempt. Brian from our Latin class suggests:

tui mercatores mane ad ipse mare persequuntur.

Addendum: Andrew, our Latin Tutor, says:

mercatores meridiem trans mare persequuntur.

Later: We have established that "meridies" is "midday," not "morning."

Two days later: Mercatores mane trans mare... gives us alliteration but "aurora" is a poetic word for morning. In my first attempt at translation, I miss-spelt the verb and got the ablative case of mare wrong.

Sciences In Science Fiction

In The First Nine Installments Of Poul Anderson's History Of Technic Civilization:

human psychology in "The Saturn Game"
Ythrian biology in "Wings Of Victory"
Ythrian theology in "The Problem Of Pain"
cultural exchange in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"
economics in "Margin Of Profit"
geometry in "The Three-Cornered Wheel"
astronomy in "A Sun Invisible"
Ivanhoan theology in "The Season Of Forgiveness"
Diomedean biology in The Man Who Counts

And, in my opinion, those nine works should comprise Volume I of the History of Technic Civilization. Merseians and Ythrians are what the Technic History has instead of Klingons and Vulcans - or maybe Chereionites are closer to Vulcans? Star Trek is sometimes good but the Technic History is always better.

Blog readers might detect that I am currently preoccupied with other activities. Thus, posts are fewer and shorter. But there is no intention for the blog to slow to a halt.

In The Angrezi Raj

SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003).

As expected, the text continues to be full of (to me) unfamiliar terms like "Dogras..." (p. 18) but I have stopped googling every one because this would slow the reading to a snail's pace. In fact, encountering the word, "...Deniers..." (p. 20), I thought this was another such term until I realized that, despite the capital letter, it simply meant "deniers," in other words "those who '...refused the Truth...' (p. 21), i.e., unbelievers, infidels, heretics etc. (What I would call "disagreers.")

Yasmini, contemplating her extra-temporal visions, uses the terms "...time lines..." (p. 27) and "...world lines..." (p. 38). As readers of hard sf, we are familiar with such phrases but would they be in her vocabulary?

Since history diverged in 1878, Rudyard Kipling lived into the alternative history and therefore wrote alternative poetry. For example, in the Exodus Cantos of his epic Lament For The Lost Homeland, he described the burning dome of St Paul's:

"'...stark flame against a sleet-filled August sky...'" (p. 25)

Neat.

Not only that but the artist Leighton, inspired by Kipling's epic, included the burning dome in the background of his painting, Martyrdom of St. Disraeli (p. 24). (That's Benjamin Disraeli to you and me.)

Even neater. Alternative history incorporates alternative politics, poetry and painting, a notion worthy of Poul Anderson. In fact, we have definitely found a successor of Anderson. (I write "a successor," not "the successor," because I am not sufficiently familiar with more recent sf. And, of course, a worthy successor is an original, not a mere imitator.)

The Appendices summarize information about:

the Fall;
the Exodus;
the New Empire;
Languages;
Technology and Economy.

Such appendices could have been presented as written in the alternative history which they describe or as written by an observer of alternative histories. Instead, in this case, they are simply the author addressing his readers as we realize when we read that 10,000 rupees is approximately equivalent to $125, 000 US dollars in 2000 values. (p. 473) That's our 2000, not theirs.

SM Stirling writes in his own distinctive style but I think that this paragraph reads a bit like Anderson:

"By the late twentieth century an exuberant mercantile and industrial capitalism was reemerging, wheeling and dealing, disrupting ancient patterns as men and women began to trickle from the countryside into the growing cities. Knowledge increased, in a civilization where the sciences and their practical application had high respect and much official support." (p. 480)

Dynamic economies, social change and respect for knowledge are recognizable aspects of fictional societies described by Anderson. In particular:

"Under such conditions, an exuberant capitalism was bound to arise."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 146.

Volumes And Collections

I am glad to have a copy of that milestone volume, Poul Anderson's The Earth Book of Stormgate, even though its entire contents are faithfully reproduced in Baen Books' later The Technic Civilization Saga. Right now I am looking at two volumes of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. Neither is or could have been the entire History. However, The Van Rijn Method is Volume I of the seven volume complete edition, the Saga, whereas the Earth Book was an omnibus collection of previously uncollected works with new fictional introductions.

The Van Rijn Method collects eleven works, including the first van Rijn novel, The Man Who Counts. The Earth Book collects twelve works, including that same novel. So are they almost the same volume? No, but they are closely related. The Van Rijn Method comprises:

one previously uncollected work;
six of the twelve works from the Earth Book;
two of the three works from the David Falkayn collection, The Trouble Twisters;
two of the three works from the Nicholas van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars.

The rest of the Earth Book and of van Rijn's and Falkayns careers, together with other relevant material, are in Volumes II and III and then there are four more volumes of the History! This is the ultimate future history series, building on the model created by Robert Heinlein but going far beyond Heinlein's Future History in both scale and depth.

A Detail And Democracy

A Detail

Only by closely studying the text of Poul Anderson's intricately constructed "Hiding Place" have I discovered what might be a minor discrepancy that could if necessary be explained as an error by one of the characters. The chief engineer says that the tentacle centaurs live at "'...triple gravity...'" (The Van Rijn Method, p. 579) whereas the captain later says that they "'...live under...about half again Earth's gravity.'" (p. 596) In this second conversation, it is the caterpiggles that live "'...under three Gs...'" (ibid.) and their high gravity environment is a reason for eliminating them as the zoo keepers. See previous post.

Democracy
Nicholas van Rijn treats his employees only according to their merits. Fighting Captain Torrance over a woman, he knocks out one of Torrance's teeth but then cradles the head of the fallen captain, offering brandy, and says that "'...we get [the tooth] fixed...'" (p. 602) at the next port. Shortly afterwards, he whispers:

"'Don't tell anyone or I have too many fights, but I like a brass-bound nerve like you got. When we get home, I think you transfer off this yacht to command of a training squadron. How you like that, ha?'" (pp. 602-603)

Say what you want, do what you want, punch him in the stomach (there is muscle under the fat) but, as long as you work right, you get promoted. Captain Bahadur Torrance of the planet Ramanujan is yet another character whose later career we would have followed with interest.

Eliminations

How a process of elimination identified the zoo keepers (see recent posts and here):

Eliminated
The gorilloids (tested with a specially devised instrument):
color blind;
unable to focus on the ship's instruments;
brain small;
most brain activity controlling animal functions;
canine intelligence level.

The lone elephantoid (this and the rest considered logically):
too big;
one individual not enough to pilot and land the ship, then collect and care for specimens etc.

The tiger apes:
reverting to quadrupedalism;
not specialized enough.

The caterpiggles:
the emergency acceleration switch fell too easily, thus not suitable in high gravity;
such light shelves would not be built in high gravity.

The tentacle centaurs...
...breathe hydrogen, therefore would not use copper oxide rectifiers exposed to their atmosphere.

The helmet beasts:
too small and slow;
not enough room for real brains.

Solution
The cabins have big and small cubbyholes. A zoo keeper is a helmet beast symbiotically attached to a gorilloid. Flandry informs us that the planet of the Togru-Kon-Tanakh came to be named "Vanrijn."

Alien Zoo Ship III

Nicholas van Rijn's current female companion tells Captain Torrance:

"'I'm coming to Earth with you...Freeman Van Rijn has promised me a very good job.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 567.

Torrance thinks, "He always does..." (ibid.)

Van Rijn would neither give a good job to anyone who was incompetent nor make a promise that he was unable to keep but would also be confident of his ability to resolve any contradiction that he had talked himself into. So how would he resolve this one? I do not know, not being van Rijn.

Some covers of Trader To The Stars incorrectly show an elephant. See recent posts. The organism in question is:

a quadruped;
the size of an elephant;
slenderer, indicating a lower gravity;
green and faintly scaled with hair along its back;
armed with a powerful trunk that ends in a ring of strong pseudodactyls but no horns.

Torrance speculates that a one-armed race could accomplish as much as humanity although not as easily. But the elephantoids are not the zoo keepers either...

And, of course, sf writers need to imagine alien animals that cannot be described as looking like Terrestrial organisms.

Alien Zoo Ship II

Occasionally, I comment on the fearsome appearance of some of Poul Anderson's aliens, even though his characters, like Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn, regularly do business with such exotic intelligences as readily as they would with fellow human beings.

Here is one of the species in the captured zoo ship:

restless black creatures in dim red light;
stumpy-legged;
quadrupedal;
faceless heads armored in bony material (!);
two sets of three thick, rope-like arms;
two of the arms ending in three boneless fingers/tentacles;
breathing hydrogen under high pressure in triple gravity at seventy below.

These "octopus horses" or "tentacle centaurs" turn out not to be intelligent but suppose they had done? Would you, wearing an armored, heated spacesuit, of course, walk up to such a creature, shake his hand and offer him a business deal? Well, you would not necessarily shake his hand. First, you would have to research which kind of gesture would be expected or appropriate and indeed safe...

The captain asks:

"'Are they the only ones who like that kind of weather?'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2011), p. 579 -

- to which the chief engineer, giving him "...a sharp look...," responds:

"'I see what you are getting at, skipper.'" (ibid.)

I do not see what he is getting at. Anderson's texts do not have many such moments when we have to guess or deduce what his characters are driving at. The chief engineer has found three other cubicles with the same kind of environment but their occupants are obvious animals like snakes. Van Rijn's current female companion suggests that the crew would not take animals from home with them but van Rijn replies that his yacht has a cat and parrots, also that many planets have similar conditions.

The plot thickens.

Alien Zoo Ship

Nicholas van Rijn's men have captured an alien zoo ship and want to communicate with its crew who, however, have destroyed all evidence of their identity and are hiding in plain sight among their exhibits. When it is realized that the ship synthesizes food even for the crew, van Rijn comments:

"'...maybe here we find a good new market. And until they learn the situation, we can charge them triple prices.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 578.

Are triple prices, even just temporary ones, ethical? I am not an expert in capitalist "morality." (Despite my sneer quotes, van Rijn, unlike some merchants of the Polesotechnic League, does have morality. He regards nuclear bombardment of a hostile planet as not only economically wasteful but also morally wrong, a guilt that would kill the League.)

Even more interesting are the technicalities of the zoo ship. The crew has emptied the ship of its air although, of course, each "cage" has an internal atmosphere. But is the air in the reserve tanks similar to that in any of the cages? There are no reserve tanks. Instead, an adjustable catalytic manifold renews air and chemosynthesizes losses from a store of inorganic matter. When, as the hiding zoo keepers must hope, van Rijn's men give up and depart, they will open their cage to let out some of its air so that the chemosynthesizer will then fill the ship with their preferred atmosphere. Pretty smart stuff.

Some of the exhibits are clearly just animals, incapable of building a spaceship. For the suspects, the chief engineer has constructed equipment to assess gravity, temperature, illumination, atmospheric composition and pressure etc in each cage but it takes time to translate dial readings into data. Each cage is metered but of course the meters are incomprehensible. Meanwhile, can pure detective work identify the zoo keepers? Van Rijn, who seems merely to eat, drink and idle, also thinks very hard.

Habeas Corpus

"He was a huge man, two meters in height and more than broad enough to match."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 139 (my emphasis).

That is our first sight of Nicholas van Rijn. Although he is a merchant prince to whom it is fitting to bow, his employees may occasionally refer to his girth:

"'...I admire your courage - nobody can say you lack guts -' van Rijn gave him a hard look..." (p. 159)

"'Suppose they got brains in their bellies,' said Van Rijn.
"'Well, some people do,' murmured Torrance. As the merchant choked, he added in haste, 'No, actually, sir, that's hardly believable.'" (p. 582)

- as can colleagues:

"'I don't make a god of my stomach.'
"'You think I do, ha? No, by damn, I make my stomach work for me, like a slave it works. My palate, that is what I pay attention to.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 136.

There follows a statement of the van Rijn philosophy of life:

what is wrong with attention to palate?;
Our Lord's first miracle was water into wine;
it was a select vintage;
God's gifts are "'...good food, drink, music, women, profit...'" (ibid.);
the troublemakers are not content with these;
they cause misery by playing God and trying to save us.

I agree with some of this and would love to discuss it with van Rijn - over dinner, of course.

Two Series

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series is complete in two volumes, Time Patrol and The Shield Of Time. The former collects ten stories of different lengths, including one short novel, "Star of the Sea," which was originally published not as a separate volume but in the first edition of this collection, then entitled The Time Patrol (see image). That edition included only nine works but Time Patrol also includes the later short story, "Death and the Knight."

However, since the events of "Death and the Knight" occur immediately after the events of The Shield Of Time, I think that "Death..." should, in future editions, be republished at the end of The Shield..., not of Time Patrol. Then, since The Shield... is a tripartite novel, the complete series would comprise nine installments in the first volume and four in the second.

This makes for an interesting comparison with Anderson's Technic History series, which has been collected in seven volumes by Baen Books. Volume I is The Van Rijn Method although I suggest that a more appropriate title would be Rise Of The Polesotechnic League. This Volume collects eleven works although I think that the last two would be better placed in Volume II. In that case, Volume I would collect nine works, including one novel.

Differences Between The Proposed Time Patrol And The Proposed Rise Of The Polesotechnic League

(i) Manson Everard is in every Time Patrol story whereas Nicholas van Rijn is in only two of the nine works to be collected in Rise... (Despite Everard's ubiquity, his series also features in greater or lesser roles many other Time Patrollers.)

(ii) Time Patrol would be followed by four installments in one further volume whereas Rise... would be followed by thirty four installments in six further volumes.

Length is the most obvious difference. The Time Patrol is long but the Technic History is longer. But both are important. Two other substantial series are the Harvest of Stars tetralogy and the King of Ys tetralogy, the latter co-written with Karen Anderson. Any one of these series would have made Poul Anderson significant but, of course, his total output is vaster than the four combined.

Introductory Details

What a slow, steady build-up of rich background details in a future history! In Volume I of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis -

on p. 30: There is a Jerusalem Catholic Church, which will not be mentioned again until the last installment in Vol III.

p. 81: Captain Gray commands a ship of the Grand Survey;

p. 83: There are trade-route cultures on the planet Cynthia.

p. 86: Human colonists farm on Hermes.

p. 93: On Woden, intelligent beings are quadrupeds.

p. 100: Communication is established with Ythrians.

p. 109: There is a University of Nova Roma on Aeneas.

p. 115: Ythrians and human beings explore a planet provisionally named after Gray.

p. 138: Captain Torres is a Lodgemaster in the Federated Brotherhood of Spacefarers; Nicholas van Rijn runs the Solar Spice & Liquors Company (SSL).

p. 177: James Ching has a friend called Adzel; the Brotherhood limits applications to the Academy.

p. 181: Adzel is from Woden.

p. 183: There are treetop highways on Cynthia; the inhabitants of Gorzun are four-armed.

p. 184: Inhabitants of Alfzar are blue; his Brotherhood badge identifies a spacehand.

p. 204: David Falkayn is from Hermes.

p. 276: Falkayn has become a factor for SSL.

p. 348: Lady Sandra Tamarin is from Hermes.

p. 523: SSL sells Suleimanite bluejack to Babur.

p. 542: The SSL factor on Suleiman is from Altai; a Cynthian spaceship regularly calls at Suleiman.

p. 557: Captain Bahadur Torrance is a Lodgemaster in the Brotherhood.

In subsequent volumes:

Gorzuni will enslave Terrestrials and work as mercenaries;
van Rijn will employ Falkayn, Adzel and a Cynthian as a trader team;
government legislation will give trade unions control of pension funds;
Lady Sandra will bear van Rijn's son and become Grand Duchess of Hermes;
Babur will invade Hermes;
Falkayn will lead joint human-Ythrian colonization of Gray, renamed Avalon;
the main city on Avalon will be called "Gray;"
Alfzar will be neutral between Terra and Merseia and a Covenant will be signed there;
Dominic Flandry will visit Altai;
Flandry will defeat a revolution centered on Aeneas;
a Wodenite will be ordained in the Jerusalem Catholic Church -

- and, of course, a great deal more than this will happen as well.

It was the very early references to Cynthia, Hermes, Woden and Aeneas that I found most impressive. The complexities of Technic civilization start to come into focus from the very beginning of the series.

Foundations Of The Technic History

On careful examination, each detail of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization turns out to be just right, exactly appropriate. The eleven installments collected in Volume I of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, plant solid foundations for the pyramidally-structured future history that reaches its apex in "Starfog" at the end of Volume VII.

I have listed some of these foundations before but by no means all:

the transition from current affairs (references to mid-twentieth century psychiatry and television) to near future history;
the Jerusalem Catholic Church;
first contact with Ythri;
Captain Gray, after whom an Avalonian city will be named;
early references to Cynthian trade-routes, Wodenite hexapods, a Hermetian farm, the University of Nova Roma on Aeneas and the steppes and rings of Altai;
early exploration of Avalon;
the Ythrian Faiths, Old and New;
the League;
Adzel;
van Rijn;
David Falkayn's early career;
the planet Ivanhoe that will later join Falkayn's Supermetals Company together with Woden, some of the Cynthian trade-routes and many other planets;
the planet Diomedes that will be a source of unrest in Flandry's time;
van Rijn's relationship with the future Duchess of Falkayn's home planet, Hermes;
Emil Dalmady, some of whose children will move to Avalon with Falkayn;
the planet Babur that will wage war against Technic civilization;
bipartite intelligences, discovered by van Rijn, comparable to the tripartite intelligences studied by the Aeneans and later encountered by Flandry.

The Man Who Counts, Chapter X

Nicholas van Rijn's machinations are endless. We already knew that he had engineered a civil war between Grand Admiral Syranax and Chief Executive Officer Delp, realizing that Delp would lose, merely to give himself cover to release a prisoner who would return with help. But, before that, he had given Delp's wife, Rodonis, the means to poison Syranax. Rodonis not only poisons the Admiral but also threatens Syranax's heir, T'heonax, with the all too plausible accusation that he had poisoned his father, thus blackmailing T'heonax to release the condemned Delp, who would otherwise have become a wing-clipped slave. Thus, divisive conflict continues in the Fleet long after van Rijn's departure.

Fleet religion

(i) "...primitive bloody sacrifices to Aeak'ha-in-the-Deeps..."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 403.

(ii) Worship of the two Moons, She Who Waits and He Who Pursues, seen as marrying when their paths cross.

(iii) "...an educated person knew there was only the Lodestar..." (ibid.), who has "...holy books..." (p. 404) and whose Leader in Sacrifice and Oracle is the Admiral - aristocracy and priesthood combined.

Emil Dalmady

Emil Dalmady:

"...had been born and raised on Altai."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 524.

His parents sent him to:

"...managerial school offplanet..." (p. 526).

Solar Spice and Liquor employed him as their factor on Suleiman, where he outwitted the Baburites who later invaded Hermes and Mirkheim. Nicholas van Rijn, the owner of SSL, backed Dalmady as an entrepreneur. Some of Dalmady's children, including Judith Dalmady/Lundgren, accompanied David Falkayn (see also here) to Avalon (see also here).

Judith wrote accounts of:

her father's experience on Suleiman;
an incident on Ivanhoe (where Falkayn had been as an apprentice) of which Dalmady had heard when he was an entrepreneur;
an incident involving Falkayn's grandson on Avalon (see here).

These accounts were included in The Earth Book Of Stormgate. See also here.

Thus, the Dalmadys are an important family in the History of Technic Civilization.

Introductions VI

Sometimes an introductory passage is clearly the opening section of a fictitious text and would have appeared as such in the original magazine publication of a short story or of an installment of a novel. Example: the passage attributed to the fictitious Francis L Minamoto at the beginning of section I of "The Saturn Game" by Poul Anderson. Minamoto re-appears at the beginnings of sections II, III and IV so it is then clear, if it was not already, that he is an integral part of the text.

It is equally obvious that the introductions and conclusion to the stories collected as The Earth Book Of Stormgate were specifically written for that edition where they add an extra layer and perspective, including even a new character, to the fiction. I think that the Introduction to the van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars, and the Introductions to the individual stories in the Falkayn collection, The Trouble Twisters, are in the Earth Book category, not in the "Saturn Game" category. But, in any case, Anderson presents us with an intricate network of fictitious characters commenting on his fictitious texts:

Minamoto;
Le Matelot;
Vance Hall, commenting on Noah Arkwright;
Noah Arkwright;
Urwain the Wide-Faring, reminiscing about Noah Arkwright;
Hloch of the Stormgate Choth on Avalon;
Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society;
(Michael Karageorge);
a Didonian composite intelligence;
a Dennitzan.

Have I missed any? (Karageorge is bracketed because he is not a creation of Anderson but a joke, albeit a welcome one, by Baen Books Editor, Hank Davis.)

With one exception, these Andersonian commentators are closely involved with the periods on which they comment. The single exception is Ayeghen who writes a long time later but who was also created by Anderson a long time before most of the History was written. This is shown by some slightly discordant elements in what he, Ayeghen, writes.

Imagine if Anderson, using Ayeghen, had written some overall commentary on the Imperial period and the Long Night similar to Hloch's commentary on the League and the Troubles.

Introductions II

Of the eleven works collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, by Poul Anderson (New York, 2009):

one is introduced by an extract from Francis L Minamoto's contribution to a report for Apollo University, Luna, in 2057;

seven are introduced by Hloch of the Stormgate Choth in his Earthbook Of Stormgate;

one is introduced by an extract from Vance Hall's Commentaries on the Philosophy of Noah Arkwright;

one is introduced by an extract from Noah Arkwright's An Introduction to Sophontology;

one is introduced by (an extract from?) "Le Matelot."

Thus, there is a very elaborate background universe that we can miss if we heed only the contents of the individual stories. In a much earlier post, I listed the several sources referenced by Hloch throughout his Earth Book. Hloch and Arkwright become characters in their own rights.

Three Saints And A God

Reading Poul Anderson necessitates the use of a dictionary. Recently, I thought to google the title "Thalassocrat" applied to a ruler on a subjovian planet in "Esau." This is not an alien word because it ends in "-ocrat." (1)

I also suddenly wondered about St Dismas who is continually invoked by Anderson's merchant character, Nicholas van Rijn. Was Dismas, like the Jerusalem Catholic Church and the Galilean Order, a religious fiction by Anderson or was there "really" such a saint? Yes, there was. "Dismas" is a name given to the "good thief" crucified beside Jesus but pardoned by him in Luke's Gospel, thus appropriate for van Rijn.

In "Margin of Profit," van Rijn as usual invokes Dismas whereas his companion prefers:

"...St Nicholas, patron of travelers...In spite of his being your namesake." (2)

(Although, is the patron saint of travelers not St Christopher?)

Thirdly, van Rijn, catching an attacking ship on an energy beam, exclaims:

"Ha, like a fish we play him! Good St Peter the Fisherman, help us not let him get away!" (3)

Finally, having calculatingly used his ship, the Mercury, to capture the pirate, van Rijn reveals that Mercury was the Roman god of commerce, gambling and thieves. Thus, the good thief and the god of thieves meet in a van Rijn story.

(1) Anderson, Poul, The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis, Riverdale, NY, 2009, p. 526.
(2) ibid., p. 159.
(3) ibid., p. 166.