A Multi-Problem Story

Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), pp. 55-70.

p. 54 is Hloch's introduction to the story as collected in the Earth Book and therefore is an additional page of text.

Although Adzel's name is the first word to appear under the story title on p. 55, the Wodenite does not come on-stage until near the top of p. 64. Before then, on pp. 55-63, the first person narrator, James Ching:

converses by holovid phone with his principal counselor, Freeman Simon Snyder, who hands him the problem of how to devise a Chinese contribution to the Festival of Man without thereby flunking his preliminary tests for the space Academy;

calls Betty Riefenstahl, only to be told by her phone that she will not be available until the evening;

consults Library Central about the historic San Francisco Chinatown;

eats dinner with his well-meaning but insular parents;

flies to the Riefenstahl place in his own aircar, passing en route a bus carrying a Lunarian, an Alfzarian, a spacehand wearing a Brotherhood badge and a League journeyman;

sees the lights and hears the sounds of the round-the-clock replication of the Golden Gate bridge;

learns from Betty that her father, Freeman Riefenstahl, has been handed the problem of organizing a spectacular live operatic contribution to the Festival of Man;

agrees with Betty to visit Adzel who has the problem of keeping his giant body well nourished while studying on Earth.

The three problems - four if we include Jim's problem of how to get into space - will have a single solution. 

Ambiguity

"Death And The Knight."

Historical Fiction

"...he gripped a small crucifix that hung about his neck, symbol and source of help from beyond this world." (p. 746)

Symbol, yes. Source? Ambiguity.

Science Fiction

"'...Marlow has a miniature radiophone in a crucifix he always carries.'" (p. 750)

Now we understand that "source." But the tenses are scrambled. Marlow, discussed in 1990, had a radiophone in a crucifix in 1307. However, Manse Everard, in 1990, proposes to travel to 1307 to respond to the SOS call that Marlow had made on his radiophone to the fourteenth century Time Patrol milieu base which must then have sent a message capsule to the 1850-2000 milieu HQ in London, 1890-1910, which in turn would have messaged the San Francisco second hand bookshop in 1990 from where we already know that the Time Patrol agent/bookseller, Nick, telephoned Everard in his hotel overlooking the Golden Gate.

That Everard in 1990 can plan to intervene in 1307 partly legitimizes him in speaking of Paris, 1307, and San Francisco, 1990, as if they were two places coexisting at the same time provided that this is not misinterpreted literally. Half an hour elapsed in one century does not equate to half an hour elapsed in the other century and so on. Everard will take several days of his own lifespan to prepare his rescue of Marlow but that much time will not elapse for Marlow between his sending of his SOS message and his being rescued. Analyzing the implications becomes a fine science.

Advantages Of Time Travel

Poul Anderson, "Death And The Knight" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, September 2010), pp. 737-765.

From their hotel suite, Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly are able to see:

light streaming through the Golden Gate;

cable cars;

the waterfront;

the bay;

sails;

islands;

the farther shore.

"They had hoped to be out there themselves." (p. 746)

They can be. After spending, e.g., a day in their suite, they can time travel a day into the past and have the same day on the bay.

When Everard is in Harfleur, France, in 1307, he reflects that:

"From harbors like this, a few lifetimes hence, men would set sail for the New World." (p. 754)

Only time travellers in Harfleur know that, a few generations hence, trans-Atlantic travel begins. History is full of beginnings and endings. Time travellers can knowingly visit, revisit and appreciate any such periods. It is hard to imagine how that would affect their perception of time and change.

The Story Continues...

Any story must reach its conclusion. However, if the story is an instalment of a series, then the ensuing instalment might pick up a plot thread from its predecessor. Thus:

in Poul Anderson's Technic History, a climate reclamation project is to be begun on the planet Ramnu at the end of A Stone In Heaven but that project has to be suspended because of the Magnusson Rebellion in the sequel, The Game Of Empire;

Anderson's The Shield Of Time concludes as Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly begin a holiday on the West Coast in early January 1990 AD and we might wish that we could see more of them but we do because the second section of "Death And The Knight," headed:

SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, 8 MARCH 1990

- opens as Everard rejoins Wanda in their suite overlooking the Golden Gate. He had received a phone call from Nick whom both met in The Shield... so this story is very much a sequel to that novel. We see just a little more of these characters before the series unfortunately ends.

Encroaching Brush And Whittering Wind

1989beta A. D. IN Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), pp. 369-373.

Civilization has reached further west in North America in the beta timeline than in the alpha timeline but also seems to be in retreat. Over the Golden Gate, there is still white fog. Nature has not changed. There are also:

shining bay;

summer-tawny earth;

ruined walls, towers and strongholds;

brush reclaiming crumbled adobe buildings;

a village where Sausalito should be;

a few fishing smacks at sea;

where timecycles hover at eagle height, "...whittering wind." (p. 369)

That Andersonian wind has its say. "Whittering" seems appropriate for crumbling buildings. Something has happened here but what? The Patrol agents do not risk descent but go to look elsewhere.

Poul Anderson's strengths include detailed descriptions even of briefly glimpsed scenes that will never be seen again. Now on its guard, the Patrol will avoid any entanglements on the ground in the beta twentieth century.

Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Timeline

1989alpha A. D.

We learn that the Time Patrol second hand bookshop in San Francisco is in the Cow Hollow district.

The instruments on Wanda Tamberly's timecycle tell her that she is there although she is surrounded by wilderness. She recognizes Nob Hill and Russian Hill but they are covered by brush, not by buildings. Twin Peaks lacks the television tower. She has materialized on the surface instead of underground.

There is no:

San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

Bay Bridge

Eastbay cities

ships

aircraft

Oakland

Berkeley

Albany

Richmond

Golden Gate Park

What there is is:

"...the wind and the world." (p. 307)

The world without the works of man and, of course, the wind.

Wanda continues to think that she has arrived at the wrong time, not in the wrong timeline. But she will begin to suspect otherwise when she has flown east before the end of this chapter.

Scrolls And Stars

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson."

In Adzel's shack:

"Two scrolls hung on the walls, one showing a landscape and one the Compassionate Buddha." (p. 65)

In a question and answer session, the Chinese postgraduate student who attends our meditation group asked, "Why do you have scrolls showing Bodhidharma and Kanzeon behind your altar? Those two figures are not usually associated in China."

What a question! One that I would not have known to ask. The answer was, first, that they are associated in our tradition and, secondly, that, when the group started, someone gave us two scrolls and they happened to be of Bodhidharma and Kanzeon. I could see that he liked that second answer. This is a domestic detail in the Solar Commonwealth that resonates with my current experience: scrolls.

The Riefenstahl's apartment overlooks the Golden Gate where crews work to replicate the bridge. In the living room, Betty punches for coffee while a full-wall transparency shows city lights, the Moon with cities visible on its dark side and a few stars. More welcome domestic details although too few.

Earlier sf writers took the trouble to get to the Moon. In later future history series, cities on the dark side are part of the background. Stars, of course, mean not just lights in the sky but somewhere that Jimmy wants to go. He contrasts the no-longer-existent San Francisco Chinatown which was probably regarded as picturesque with:

"(Oh, treetop highways under the golden-red sun of Cynthia! Four-armed drummers who sound the mating call of Gorzun's twin moons! Wild wings above Ythri!)" (pp. 60-61)

That reflection summarizes quite a lot of the Technic History.

Death And Sincerity

The Star Fox, Part Two, V.

Gunnar Heim:

"'There are worse ways to die than in battle for something that matters.'" (p. 111)

Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the gate:

‘To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods,

-copied from here here.

See also:

A Happy Ending Or A Good End

The Golden Road And The Bridge

An Ancient Triad

Heim again:

"Maybe I was too rough on him, Heim thought. He's sincere....Fout on that. Sincerity is the most overrated virtue in the catalogue." (ibid.)

Who else said this or something like it? Dominic Flandry? Manse Everard? Someone else? 

Earth In The Solar Commonwealth

"How To Be Ethnic..."

As we turn the page, this story becomes richer and richer in information about Earth in that future period. There are "...many-armed..." (p. 184) towers, ecocentres and an endless machine murmur. Traffic Control passes Jim's aircar so near a bus that he sees its passengers:

a dandified Lunarian;

a blue Alfzarian;

a spacehand wearing his Brotherhood badge;

a League journeyman.

Jim visits the Riefenstahls whose apartment overlooks the Golden Gate where crews restore the ancient bridge. In the living room, Betty merely punches for coffee. A transparent wall shows the city and the Moon with cities visible on its dark side. Betty's father, director of the San Francisco Opera, has revived live opera as against holographs and computer-generated works.

This is the daily life of the future as in Robert Heinlein's Future History.

Constantinople

There Will Be Time, IX, p. 95.

We remember Ys.

From the flat roof of a house on a hill in the middle of Constantinople in 1195, Jack Havig sees:

vast towered walls enclosing the city;

a maze of thoroughfares;

countless dwellings;

soaring church domes;

the grand avenue called the Mese;

flowering countryside beyond the Gate of Charisius;

statues on columns;

monasteries;

museums;

libraries with lost works by Aeschylus and Sappho;

pulsing forums;

the Hippodrome;

the Imperial Palace;

the glittering blue Sea of Marmora;

masts crowding the Golden Horn;

smargadine heights beyond rich suburbs; 

a river of traffic.

He hears a blend of:

wheels;

hoofs;

feet;

talk;

song;

laughter;

sobbing;

cursing;

praying.

 

The breeze carries odors of:

 

sea;

woodsmoke;

food;

animals;

humanity.

On Highway One

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

Leaving the anachronistic St Francis Hotel, Everard and Wanda cross the Golden Gate Bridge and drive north on Highway One, stopping in Olema to buy takeout sandwiches and beer.

"At Point Reyes Station [Everard] turned into the national seashore." (p. 431)

Beyond Inverness, he parks and they walk on the beach where they will meet a Danellian.

See also On The Beach.

 

Beaches are places of arrival, departure, realization and revelation.

Manse's Memories

Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 173-228, 2.

Everard's memories of his home timeline when he seems to have lost it:

broad plains
tall mountains
prideful cities
his parents
his father lifting him high
a girl at college
Bernie Aaronson, beer, smoke, talk
Phil Brackney, machine guns in France
the Whitcombs, high tea in Victorian London
the Denisons, chrome eyrie above New York
Jack Sandoval, Arizona crags
a dog
Dante's austere cantos
Shakespeare's ringing thunder
York Minster
the Golden Gate Bridge
a man's life
billions of human beings

He is in a timeline where all that had never been. We recognize the Whitcombs, the Denisons and Sandoval from earlier Time Patrol stories. We remember York Minster, the Golden Gate Bridge and a Shakespearean timeline from other works by Anderson.

There is also the question of whether there ever will be a scientific revolution in the Carthaginian timeline.

This World

Finding themselves in another world, some characters remember and appreciate this world.

Manse Everard recalls his friends, including characters from previous stories, and:

"...the austere cantos of Dante and the ringing thunder of Shakespeare; the glory which was York Minster and the Golden Gate Bridge..."
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 173-228 AT 2, p. 184.

In Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER THREE, Holger Carlsen recalls (I will rewrite them as a list):

the graceful spires of Copenhagen;
moors, beaches and wide horizons in Jutland;
ancient towns in green dales on the islands;
the skyward arrogance of New York;
the mist on San Francisco Bay made gold by the sunset.

While he is riding into Faerie, Holger remembers what reads like an even more fabulous realm.

The Golden Slave, Chapter VII

The Golden Slave, VII.

Eodan and Phryne enter Rome by the Esquiline Gate. Flavius' house is on Viminal Hill. The two escaped slaves are taken for Cisalpine Gauls. Roman coins include the sesterce and the as.

They approached Roman along the Latin Way. (See image.) Before that, they had killed the horses on which they escaped and sacrificed them to Hermes. See also Hermes Trismegitus and a recent post.

Eodan says:

"The night winds take you..." (p. 86)

- so he continues to regard the wind as an intervening force or "Power."

The Contemporary In The Cosmic IV

This time, "contemporary" = 1990.

"Light streamed through the Golden Gate. From their suite [Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly] saw cable cars go clanging down toward the waterfront, islands and the farther shore rising steep from a silver-blue bay, sails like wings of some wandering flock."
-Poul Anderson, "Death And The Knight" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2006), pp. 737-765 AT SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, 8 MARCH 1990, p. 746.

But all is not as it seems. Everard must travel to France in October 1307 just before the suppression of the Knights Templar, a historically pivotal event. Anderson is restrained in his treatment of the Templars. They revere Abraham's jawbone and are not a front for the Patrol or for any esoteric magical or mystical tradition. Nevertheless, Anderson describes contemporary San Francisco, the setting of his three detective novels, before plunging Everard into yet another dangerous temporal mission, unfortunately his last to be written by Anderson. In Paris in 1307:

"'Let's go,' Everard said, and led them away." (p. 765)

He returns to his holiday with Wanda in 1990 but when after that?

Whodunnit?

Murder Bound, xx.

Yamamura assembles the suspects and tells them that none of them is guilty. That was a surprise. Just one example:

"'Monday night Torvald was at the - at his friend's place till eight. Lauring was attacked in Golden Gate Park about nine, after walking aimlessly for close to two hours. So Torvald could not have shadowed him for those two hours, as the killer must have done.'" (p. 179)

Such reasoning continues for several pages. No way would I have deduced any of it. Nor do I get a big kick out of reading a novel that climaxes with such deductions. Not putting the book down. Just saying that mysteries are not my thing and I read this one because it was by Poul Anderson.

I did wonder why Lauring's attacker was so consistently unsuccessful.

An aside. Torvald:

"'...damn it, why do you reactionaries have to be such decent people?'" (p.182)

Come of it, Arne. I share some, not all, of your politics. And the "reactionaries" are as human as you and I.

The chapter ends without the revelation although I am beginning to glimpse a light in the darkness. While Yamamura fusses with his pipe, keeping his audience in suspense:

"...the wind blew and the sea ramped." (p. 182)

The wind as Greek chorus approaches the status of a continuing character in Poul Anderson's works.

Just one chapter still to be reread but right now I must go out. When the time comes, should I respect the conventions of mystery fiction by commenting on the conclusion of the novel without naming the murderer?

Murder Bound, Chapter iii

Murder Bound.

Yamamura investigates not as yet a murder but a man overboard. However, Chapter iii follows:

Conrad Lauring, who had been the single passenger on the Valborg;
Oddvar Finsen, the radioman;
Diana Lestrange, a girlfriend of Finsen;
Judith Mendel, Diana's roommate, introduced to Lauring.

Someone has tried to contact Lauring:

"Probably the detective whom [Captain] Matthiesen had expected the company would hire..." (p. 26)

- so Yamamura is decidedly off-stage for the time being.

Finsen's pre-date advice to Lauring:

"'Hint that if she really wants, you'll also show her the knife scar you got fighting that hashish-crazed lascar in mysterious Oojasquong. Works like magic.'" (p. 27)

I have googled "lascar" because we might need to know what it is and "hashish" because we might want to know more about it. "Oojasquong" is too mysterious for Google!

Evocative place names abound:

Marseilles (Finsen pretends to be American when there)
North Beach (Finsen describes it as the Bohemian quarter)
Ocean Beach
Golden Gate Park
Lincoln Park
Geary Street
40th

Piet Van Rijn

In Murder Bound, the Valborg crew include Piet van Rijn from Holland! Poul Anderson fans are bound to ask: ancestor of Nicholas? But surely I have posted about this before? Searching the blog for "Piet van Rijn," I found only WORLDWEEK, which refers to:

Admiral Piet van Rinnekom;
van Rijn -

- but not to "Piet van Rijn."

I probably did notice Piet van Rijn on a previous reading but did not then think to post about him. And now I come across his name as if for the first time. We do not know a text if we have read it only once.

Predictably, violence occurs in Chapter i, and our series detective character, Trygve Yamamura, is called in at the beginning of Chapter ii. The opening paragraphs of ii resound with significant place names:

the Bay
San Francisco
Treasure Island
Alcatraz
the Golden Gate

We are on our way.

On The San Francisco Bay Bridge

Perish By The Sword, 7.

Mike Stefanik:

"...nosed his MG onto the freeway, over the Bay Bridge and south. Air streamed about him. He could look up at the Detroit cars as if from a boat, shudder at a rear end like two Al Jolsons, scoot around and leave an equally horrible grille dwindling in his wake. Traffic grew thicker and noisier as he went, but that spiced the exhilaration." (p. 67)

Observations
(i) Stefanik looks up from one level of the Bridge to the other. See image.
(ii) I do not know what two Al Jolsons look like.
(iii) Thick, noisy traffic freaks me out big time.
(iv) I am learning the difference between the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge.
(v) I have caught up with my notes and can now progress rereading the remaining six chapters and fifty pages of the novel.

On The Beach

Perish By The Sword, 7.

A passage in this detective novel by Poul Anderson reminded me of passages in two of Anderson's sf novels.

Mike Stefanik drives over the Bay Bridge en route to Stanford. From there, he drives into Palo Alto (scroll down), then to the coast and south to Pescadero Bay where he is alone under the cliffs. The ocean is quicksilver, green and gray. Stefanik hears and feels roaring waves, feels and smells sharp wind and sees flying gulls, their wings like sword blades, appropriately.

"When he left, toward evening, he felt much eased. Whatever became of him, the sea would always follow the moon around this planet, and shout on lonely beaches. Let man burn himself off the earth, the sea would bring forth life again." (p. 71)

the oceans rush on the moon's trail around the globe
-copied from here.

Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. Then they drive along Highway One and through Olema but turn onto the national seashore at Point Reyes Station. Beyond Inverness, they are alone and walk on the beach where they meet a Danellian and learn the meaning of the Time Patrol.

Stefanik learns that Earth abides. Everard and Wanda learn that the Patrol is the stabilizing element.