Present And Future Cities

As mentioned recently, I will be in London from Thursday to Monday otherwise engaged and without a computer. At least, than is the plan. Two recent one-day trips to London had to be cancelled because of ill health and tiredness. Arriving in London, I feel like Miriam Abrams arriving in Archopolis. The diversity of Birmingham feels like a precursor to the diversity of the Terran Empire - although some of us now see multi-species/FTL futures as old-style sf and more akin to fantasy. A friend said that he preferred the old-style stuff like Poul Anderson's Technic History with its hyperspace and multiple aliens to, e.g., Anderson's later Genesis with STL interstellar travel by post-organic intelligences and no aliens but I have to ask which is now more plausible? The number of exoplanets is a hopeful sign: plenty of life in favourable conditions, at least unicellular? Much more can be learned in our lifetimes, provided that we survive, of course.

Festivals

There are Birthdays of Mithras in The King Of Ys and Christmases in a Time Patrol story, a Technic History instalment and a chapter of A Boat Of A Million Years (XIX, 24). In real life, I have attended Christmas parties, of course, but also Solstice and Wesak (the Buddha's birthday). (In our group's calendar, Wesak is a week after May Day.) (Anderson's "Mayday Orbit.") My friend at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre is preparing a ceremony for Paranirvana (the Buddha's death). One Buddhist tradition celebrates his birth, enlightenment and death all one the same day. Sikhs celebrate the births and deaths of ten Gurus as well as Diwali inherited from Hindus. We all have our New Years. Where am I going with this? Festivals unite us. Human beings in different futures and different timelines celebrate the same or similar festivals as us.

The Boat Of A Million Years makes us wait for physical contact with the Others/Alloi. This is a book that has just about everything: fourteen historical periods; three decades of the twentieth century; the future Earth and Solar System; a long interstellar space journey; contact with another intelligent species. And its climax looks toward a further future.

The New Faith And Others

Referring to the immediately preceding post, Christopher Holm became Arinnian by joining Stormgate Choth and later married Tabitha Falkayn, a direct descendant of David Falkayn, who is also Hrill of Highsky Choth, most of whose members, according to Hrill, are of the Old Faith. If we are reading Poul Anderson's Technic History in chronological order of fictional events, then we remember that a conflict between Christian and New Faith attitudes to death and dying was the crux of Peter Berg's narrative in the earlier story, "The Problem of Pain." My point, as ever, is how rich, detailed and interconnected the Technic History is. Any summary has to be revised more than once to include every internal connection.

Here we can contemplate three galactic monotheisms:

Ythrians of the New Faith see the shadow of God the Hunter across the future;

Peter Berg's church had concluded that Jesus came only to humanity whereas the Jerusalem Catholic Church ordained the Wodenite Axor who seeks for evidence of an extraterrestrial Incarnation;

Merseians of the Roidhunate believed that "the God" had intended galactic hegemony for their race.

Three paradoxically incompatible monotheisms.

If Merseians are as diverse as human beings, then their failure to conquer the galaxy will have multiple consequences. Some will become secularists whereas others might convert to the New Faith or to a Terrestrial religion. Among Wodenites, although Axor became a Christian, Adzel had embraced Mahayana Buddhism.

The galaxy sounds like London or Birmingham. (In Birmingham, there were Christian, Muslim and Krishnaist propagandists on the streets. On visiting the Buddhist Centre, I recognized a Sikh messenger coming out as I went in and was told that people brought up in Jewish and other traditions came to inquire about alternatives.)

What People Read

Question and Answer.

In the spaceship lounge, the Martian Dissenter is reading, this time not the Bible but Milton. I read somewhere that, in English Puritan homes, the Bible and Milton's Paradise Lost were considered the only appropriate Sunday reading. PL can be regarded as a prequel and intervel to the Bible. On the street in Birmingham, a Muslim propagandist gave me a free copy of the Koran. While I was sitting looking at this, a guy walking past told me that I should be reading the Bible because that is the proper book. When I went to practise Zen meditation in a Youth Hostel quiet room, I was joined by a Japanese man who seemed to be reading his Bible. There is a Buddhist story that the true scriptures are written on blank pages but people do not realize this so they are given something to read. In the beginning was the Word or the Deed?

Spaceships And Murder

"Holmgang."

Bo Jonsson and Lundgard fight in the spaceship. This is the kind of sf that I read in comic strips in the 1950s. In the 1960s, I started to buy prose paperbacks addressed to adults but with spacemen and robots on their covers. I did not yet know whether adult concerns would work in spaceships.

Lundgard felt entitled to murder an innocent man, Johnny Malone, to further the cause of the Humanist Revolt. Are there people who think like this? Yes: terrorists. I attended a public meeting about the Birmingham Six. A speaker from the floor said, "Not only are the men who were convicted of planting this bomb innocent. Whoever planted the bomb was also innocent!" He argued that any act was justified for the cause of national liberation. Needless to say, the party that pushed this line did not gain mass support. But it existed for a while.

A Duplicated Biblical Reference

I said here that I had missed a Biblical reference but then checked and found that I had spotted it here. However, the two posts are so different that both can stand. I used to notice that James Blish quoted the Bible quite a lot but Anderson's output was much bigger than Blish's so his Biblical allusions are more numerous. For a variation, Blish begins The Triumph of Time, about the end of the universe, with Koranic verses about the Day of Judgement. This is not always an abstract issue. In Birmingham in Britain right now, we encounter street propagandists for both the Bible and the Koran - and prophecies of an imminent catastrophe resonate. Both scriptures and science fiction address life.

The Intelligent Beings Near The Black Hole

Starfarers, 38.

(Most of tomorrow will be spent in the company of the previously mentioned Buddhist friend from Birmingham so posts will be few.)

The Envoy crew begin to learn the nature of the beings that will later be called Holont:

the vacuum is a sea of virtual particles;

space-time is convoluted and changeable near the black hole;

life is information;

quantum states, like matter, can bear information;

the intelligences are not molecular, atomic, nuclear or material;

the quantum states of the plasma in the accretion disk are neither structured nor complex enough to bear information;

by a process of elimination, the beings are quantum states in the vacuum near the black hole.

Draun

The People Of The Wind, IX.

After Saracoglu, Draun is the other unpleasant character in this novel. Investigating a downed space boat, he hopes to find Terrans to kill:

"'We've many new-made dead tonight. The more Terrans for hell-wind to blow ahead of them, the better.'" (p. 547)

Tabitha realizes that Draun practices Old Faith rites neither from belief in the gods nor from traditionalism but because:

"...he enjoyed those slaughterous sacrifices." (p. 548)

He has challenged and killed in duels even though he has found it difficult to pay winner's gild and he keeps slaves.

Giving two shipwrecked Terrans no chance to surrender, he swoops down and beheads one with a long knife. However, Tabitha protects the second Terran.

I think that my lap top will benefit from some time switched off. Further, the friend from Birmingham, mentioned before, will visit tomorrow so posts might be few for a while.

New Ideas

"The Three-Cornered Wheel."

The Ivanhoan theocracy has had no new ideas for so long that it no longer has any built-in resistance to them. Martin Schuster does not challenge beliefs but does make suggestions and ask questions. He will overthrow the regime.

This is my basic approach to Mormon missionaries. They need to hear new ideas and they at least listen. They are not Evangelical Christians with whom dialogue is impossible. They should at least learn by meeting members of the diverse British and European populations.

A couple of them have advised me to ask God in the name of His Son for the truth about religious matters, so, the next time I get into a conversation, I will be able to tell them that I have now done that. They are active here as are Witnesses, including Polish converts with literature in their own language, but I had to go to Birmingham to meet Muslim street propagandists. All of these groups are different and it would be very wrong to put them all in one bag.

When a gaunt man shouts of an obscure salvation on a street corner in Centauri on Avalon, which group does he belong to or is he trying to found one? (See Exotica And Mirrors.)

This Afternoon And Evening

Hello. I am having lunch before heading over to Morecambe to try to visit Andrea. A more complicated post about Didonians is gestating but will have to wait until this evening. The Indian curry mentioned recently here is postponed because a friend is unwell. Rereading Poul Anderson blends with the rest of life. Sheila will visit her family in Northern Ireland and I might revisit the friend in Birmingham. Because Sheila likes Malta, we might revisit there although I do not want to make a habit of flying in the current climate.

Laters...

(Andrea's brother's Old Pier Bookshop, front and interior. Andrea inhabits the two floors above the shop.)

Torture And Violence

Poul Anderson, Shield, XVI.

Anderson addresses endless issues.

The gloves are off. The Equals use torture with a mixture of justification and enjoyment. I have never met a revolutionary that would use torture but then I have never lived in a country where it was likely to happen either. I would not remain in an organization that tortured even our worst enemy. Such evil means cannot lead to any good end. Unfortunately, some current governments are implicated.

Here is a moral question. If we captured a secret police torturer, would it be legitimate to put him in a cell and give him time to think that he was going to be dealt with as he had dealt with others..? (Meanwhile, he might have to be locked up for his own protection. No government can control what every member of the public might do.)

In Britain, a very small revolutionary organization defended the Birmingham pub bombings. (Many of us supported the six men wrongly convicted of the bombings - a very different proposition.)

One wing of the anti-racist movement favors violence against organized racists. Most of us prefer to counter-mobilize and outnumber them on the streets without violence. That has been enough to demoralize and demobilize them.

Mormons

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 14.

I can never predict what I will find to post about when I read a page of a text by Poul Anderson. Why Mormons?

"'They're Mormons, if that rings a bell in you. The Avantists are particularly hard on their church. The claim is that its premises are antiscientific, but the truth is that its congregations object loudly to the molding of posthuman man.'" (p. 154)

"I hope my Mormon friends won't mind my saying that their church, like our country, has a grand science fiction flavor about it. That ecclesiastical division into stakes and wards is pure Heinlein, isn't it?"
-Poul Anderson, "The Discovery of the Past" IN Anderson, Past Times 182-206 AT p. 199.

Mormons are one of the many religious communities that survive in SM Stirling's Emberverse.

One of our sf writers is a Mormon.

Some people dismiss all religious street propagandists as much the same. In fact, Evangelicals, Mormons, Witnesses and Christadelphians differ considerably. I find Mormons willing to listen. They have been sent out into the world to propagate their beliefs and, in the process, they encounter alternative ideas for the first time. One asked me what was the purpose of life and seemed astonished and interested when I replied that life has no purpose; it evolved. Several Mormons have advised me to find the truth about religious matters by asking God the Father in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, so I have done this.

Incidentally, Christadelphians originated in Birmingham, England, where there is now a Buddhist Center and a Central Mosque. There are both Christian and Muslim street preachers and propagandists. Although I have visited the Buddhist Center, it is convenient to meditate in a church in the city center.

Ancient Mythology

Tomorrow, I expect to be out all day with the Birmingham Buddhist friend who has been mentioned and on Thursday I travel to London so another few days of blog quiescence loom ahead.

In Poul Anderson, The Dancer From Atlantis, Chapter Two, p. 19, the Triple Goddess is:

Britomartis, the Maiden;
Rhea, the Mother;
Dictyana, the Rememberer and Foreseer. (See the link for Britomartis.)

These are genuine names of goddesses although I am not clear from the Wiki articles whether they were Trinitized thus. The Triple Goddess is maiden, mother and crone, whatever names are given to each of the Three.

The sun and Son is Asterion, another authentic name, whatever his role. Anderson is imagining a prehistoric, pre-Homeric stage of the mythology, just as he imagines pre-Eddaic Norse mythology in "Star of the Sea."

The Saint And Tomorrow

Please bear with me while I read one or two Saint stories to find out whether any interesting comparisons are to be made with David Falkayn, Dominic Flandry or anyone else. Leslie Charteris' Introductions are humorous, sometimes hilarious, reflections on life, literature, publishing and change.

Tomorrow I will be with my good Buddhist friend from Birmingham, all day, morning, afternoon and evening, so the number of blog posts is very likely to be zero, like when I have a day trip to London.

Meanwhile, we are - or at least I am - still rereading Anderson's Technic History while awaiting his The Complete Psychotechnic History, Volume III, and Volume I of a new alternative history trilogy by SM Stirling.

So we continue to move backwards, forwards and sideways in time.

The Greatest Adventure

What adventure can be greater than to be alive and to try to understand and respond to the world? We respond to the observable universe, to human society and to works of fiction, including the exotic exploits of Dominic Flandry. Sure, I would like to accompany Flandry on the streets of Archopolis or Zorkagrad. However, I do in fact accompany friends and comrades on the streets of Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London. Flandry and his colleagues exist/subsist (?) - we need a new verb - in their author's and our imaginations. They would not exist without us but we would not be who we are without them and we would not be human if we lacked imagination. Their world is part of ours.

Will future AIs include "emulations" (self-conscious simulations) of Flandry in his universe or even scaled up into ours?

(When discussing Buddhism and theisms, I want to say that Buddhas and gods "co-exist" but, of course, they do not exist as you and I do. But they are major forces, powerful presences, in imagination, art and consciousness, "higher fictions" in Alan Moore's phrase. We need a new terminology. Dominic Flandry is of the same essence as Ares and Indra.)

Imaginative Parallels

(The Borough, Lancaster.)

Yesterday evening, I collected over £50 for refugees from people attending a public meeting in Lancaster Town Hall, then joined members of a teaching union for a drink after their AGM in the Borough, also on Dalton Square.

An sf fan sees such activities in parallel with corresponding fictional events, e.g.:

in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, immigrants to the Solar System colonize Mars, becoming citizens first of the Solar Commonwealth, then of the Terran Empire;

Nicholas van Rijn is unhappy when trade unions gain control of the pension funds of employees who are also Commonwealth citizens;

multicultural Britain, e.g., Lancaster and Birmingham, recalls SM Stirling's multi-ethnic Angrezi Raj and Anderson's multi-species Terran Empire.

A Fantastic World

Do the newspapers show us a world as fantastic as the future societies of Poul Anderson's sf?

In Britain, we have:

not an Empire any more but certainly the relics of one, including current plans for a Royal Wedding;

a Christian Church that has been in place since the sixth century;

not a multi-species civilization but certainly a multicultural society with a majority of non-whites in the City of Birmingham which has two Cathedrals, a Central Mosque and a Buddhist Centre;

international conflicts, including major threats to peace and security;

the world-wide web, including not only financial institutions and news media but also this blog which mainly concerns itself with exotica like a fictional Jupiter and the Terran Empire.

Like the Polesotechnic League, we do not know where we are going but we are on our way.

Routes Through The Blogs

Three posts comprise links to a lot of other posts. They are:

Literary Comparisons;
Great Cities;
The Food Thread.

Thus, I hope that any interested readers will be able to find non-linear routes through this and other blogs. There is also a circular sequence of links that can be entered here although I would have to rediscover the precise sequence by trial and error.

The authors listed in "Literary Comparisons" wrote prose fiction, drama, poetry or graphic fiction.

The cities include the mythical Ys, the Biblical Tyre, the present day Birmingham, the future Archopolis, the alien Ardaig, the small market town historically classified as the City of Lancaster and three versions of York (historical, alternative and "AI emulated").

Another route through the blog is to search, e.g., for Martians, immortality, humour/humor or unemployment. So I trust that readers will be able to find informative or interesting lines of thought during periods when less new posts are being published?

Escape And Education

Fiction writers can not only entertain by offering an escape from reality but also educate by reflecting reality and can even do both simultaneously. Ingenious. We can do some of this for ourselves with help from imaginative authors. My own immediate environment is exotic enough:

in London, a devotee of Krishna offers me free vegetarian food;

in Birmingham, a Muslim propagandist hands me a free Koran while a passerby tells me that I should read the Bible;

in Liverpool, I passed a parish church, a mosque, a Krishna Temple and a Latin Rite Catholic Church before returning to my apartment to meditate -

- and all of this reminds me of Poul Anderson's Technic civilization where:

on Avalon, Tabitha Falkayn says that we are mostly of the Old Faith in Highsky Choth;

on diverse planets, the natives are converted to Terrestrial religions;

in the Patrician system, a revolutionary proclamation claims that the Divine in whatever form It manifests Itself to you is with us! (See here.)

Three powerful statements, from an epic, a play and a traditional story respectively, have gained a universal significance:

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" (I fear Greeks bringing gifts);
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark";
"...appointment in Samara."

Here we discussed the politics of Mongo, Barsoom, Technic civilization, the Emberverse and that other strange mental construct, contemporary Britain. Imagine one Zodangan trying to assassinate the Jeddak of Helium or to sabotage a Heliumite airship while another leads a peaceful protest against Heliumite occupation or imagine similar political differences between Anderson's Braeans. Such is fictional life.

Contact Re-Established (Out Of The Silent City)

I have been in Birmingham for three nights without my laptop. When I try to sign in from a strange PC, Google sends a verification code to my old mobile number so we do not communicate. Any attempt to give them my new number fails. I have much to catch up on so please bear with me.

Poul Anderson and JRR Tolkien based fantasies on Norse mythology but Anderson also wrote in several other genres, mainly hard sf. Birmingham parks have been renamed the Shire Country Park after the Shire in Tolkien's Middle Earth. (Also, a town in Sicily has renamed itself after a fictional one. See here.)

Dwellers In Space
(i) Olaf Stapledon's pre-galactic nebulae.
(ii) Fred Hoyle's intelligent gas clouds.
(iii) CS Lewis' eldila.
(iv) James Blish's Angels.
(v) Poul Anderson's Aurigeans.
(vi) Larry Niven's Outsiders.

(i) and (ii) are gas.
(iii) are "hypersomatic."
(iv) and (v) are energy.
(vi) are solid.

Often, Anderson alone covers every option but sometimes, as here, he does it in cahoots with his illustrious colleagues. What authors' names to conjure with!

In Anderson's First Dominic Flandry Novel And Blish's Second Jack Loftus Novel
(i) Flandry visits Merseia while the Rhoidhunate plots to disarm Terra.
Jack visits Malis just as the Hegemony decides to annex Earth.

(ii) Flandry and his superior meet the Protector of the Roidhun's Council.
Jack and his superior meet the Hegemon of Malis.

(iii) Abrams and Flandry spy on Merseia.
An Angel concealed in the Earth ship spies on the Hegemony.

(iv) Merseians are less rule-bound than human beings.
Malans, even the Hegemon, are entirely ruled by their machine-interpreted laws.

(v) Flandry and one companion flee through hyperspace.
Jack and his two companions flee on the Haertel overdrive.

(vi) Land- and sea-dwelling Starkadians are natural enemies like men and wolves.
Land- and sea-dwelling Terrestrials (men and dolphins) decide to live in amity with each other and thus become able to live in amity with extraterrestrials.

(vii) Blish, like Anderson in other works, discusses the issue of freedom in future high-energy civilizations.

Dig it. Anderson fans, read Blish!

Jack Loftus heard not, as I had thought, the music of the spheres but a "dismal universal hiss," not quite the same thing! This will lead to reflections on:

chaos in Milton, Heinlein, Anderson and Alan Moore;
Milton as quoted by Lewis, Pullman and Blish.

Laters.