Basia, Fanden, Holger And Valeria

We will be away from Lancaster, and I will be away from this computer, from early on Saturday, 23 May, until late on Wednesday 27 May. That will be a welcome break.

Blogwise, the discussion of a single phrase, "strange dimensions," has diverted us from Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword into several multidimensional narratives. But that is what happens when we follow lines of enquiry on the blog. As Le Matelot says in Trader To The Stars, "We are on our way." (But we don't know where we're going.)

Combining this with our interest in languages, we find that, in the Old Phoenix, a woman says:

"'Da mi basia mille.'"

-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), xi. p. 94.

She means: "Give me a thousand kisses."

The man whom she addresses responds:

"'Det var som Fanden!'" (ibid.)

He means: "It was like damn" or "I'll be damned."

He continues:

"'I've forgotten practically all the Latin I ever had, except for church.' Slowly: 'However, is language required?'" (ibid.)

However, another woman with whom he has been conversing reminds him that they have serious matters to discuss. He addresses her as "Valeria" and she has already addressed him as "Holger." Thus, they have identified themselves as characters from other novels by Poul Anderson.

The plot thickens.

"Territory"

Slim paperbacks are preferable to omnibus volumes for carrying in a gym bag. Today, I carried War Of The Wing-Men and Trader To The Stars instead of The Earth Book Of Stormgate and The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume II! 

Next, we might reread "Territory," which is:

the second of the three van Rijn stories comprising Trader To The Stars;

not included in the Earth Book;

the first of the seven Technic History instalments collected as the Saga, Volume II.

It makes some difference whether a particular story comes at the beginning, in the middle or at the end. "Hiding Place," also not in the Earth Book, is the first of three in Trader To The Stars and the last of eleven in the Saga, Volume I! Thus, the Technic History in its original book publication order had certainly not started at its chronological beginning and there are now two orders in which it can be read.

Each of the three stories in Trader... has an excellent introduction. All three introductions convey the sense of adventure in the early days of the Polesotechnic League.

Le Matelot, really introducing the whole volume, not just the first story, quotes Shelley to proclaim:

"The world's great age begins anew..."

-Poul Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1966), p. 5.

An extract from the first van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit," describes the League as:

"...sprawling from Canopus to Polaris..." (p. 54)

The third introduction is simply a verse from Shelley beginning:

"A loftier Argo cleaves the main..." (p. 115)

The first two introductions acknowledge problems as well as adventure:

"...on the darker side, greed, callousness, disregard of the morrow, violence, often outright banditry have returned. Such is the nature of societies possessed of, and by, a frontier." (p. 5)

A pretext or an excuse? We are on a frontier so we can be as greedy, callous and violent as we like?

"The powerful companies joined together to squeeze out competition, jack up prices, and generally make the best of a good thing." (p. 53)

We see the results of this three volumes later.

"...it had its troubles." (p. 54)

"...it..." being the League.

Le Matelot ends by saying that we do not know or care where we are going but:

"...we are on our way." (p. 5)

Later generations cannot afford to be so carefree when they see where they have wound up. 

Three Introductions

Hloch's introduction to "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" says that this story shows the Polesotechnic League in its glory whereas his introduction to "Esau" says that, by the time of this story, League philosophy and practice were becoming archaic, even obsolete. In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, "Esau" is immediately followed by "Hiding Place" whose introduction by Le Matelot presents the League as just beginning. However, "Le Matelot" had been written as an introduction not to "Hiding Place" but to Trader To The Stars in which "Hiding Place" happened to be the opening story. "Le Matelot" should be moved to before the first League story, "Margin of Profit," in the Saga. 

Quick breakfast post.

Continuing Characters And Series II

See Continuing Characters And Series.

As we saw, Falkayn begins to edge towards a meeting with van Rijn but that does not happen immediately. First there is "The Season of Forgiveness," a second story set on Ivanhoe although without Falkayn. Then van Rijn really takes off as a continuing character. The last three installments in Saga, Volume I, and the first installment in Volume II are all about him. Or rather, the second last installment in Volume I, "Esau," is mainly about Emil Dalmady but Dalmady has to confront van Rijn to prove his worth. And here the complexity of the Technic History is made manifest by the fact that, whereas Hloch, having collected "The Season of Forgiveness," The Man Who Counts and "Esau" in his Earth Book, introduces those three installments, the very last story in Volume I, "Hiding Place," is introduced by someone else, signing off as "-Le Matelot."

It is almost as complicated as real history or at least feels as if it is. Blog readers who are familiar with the Technic History already know how it proceeds after this with increasing interactions between already-introduced characters before history moves away from the Polesotechnic League and we then read about other sets of characters including a direct descendant of David Falkayn on Avalon in the sixth and last installment to be collected in Volume III (of VII).

Episodic Narrative

Conan: Blood Of The Serpent.

The text is episodic, I think. At the end of Part Three (of Four), Conan has resolved, or at least for the time being seems to have resolved, a particular conflict. Now he continues his pursuit of Valeria after yet another change of horse. The novel reads as though it could have originally been published as a serial or even as a series of reasonably discrete instalments. Many genre novels were first published in that format so a new novel in the same genre can be constructed with a recognizably similar structure. Conan is moving on. He is not going back. As Poul Anderson's Le Matelot says, "We are on our way."

Back In 2012

While writing the previous post, Fictional Futures, I had temporarily forgotten that, back in 2012, when I had just begun to blog, I presented and discussed some "notes towards a future history":

"A SPECTRE Is Haunting Europa"

Influences On "SPECTRE"

There is no way that I can write any of that. Furthermore, any competent writer who did try to construct any parts of this proposed series would have to share, or at least to have some inner resonance with, certain political ideas and sympathies. It is not going to happen. Nevertheless, the proposed series visibly parallels Robert Heinlein's Future History and later works by Poul Anderson.

In 2012, I believed, mainly following some later works by Anderson, that extra-solar life was probably rare. Nowadays, exoplanets are known to abound. Anyone beginning to write a future history series at this late stage is able to start with a completely different set of premises. But I have not kept up with twenty-first century sf so I do not really know what speculative writers are doing nowadays. Meanwhile, real history remains dynamic and chaotic and contemporary novels featuring regular use of smartphones, comsats and the Internet would have been sf if published a few decades ago.

"We do not know where we are going..."

-Le Matelot.

Introductions To Books And A Book Of Introductions?

An introduction to a book can be written by the author or by someone else. There can be introductions to different editions. An introduction can outline the factual background to the text or can address the issues that it raises. Alternatively, an introduction can be an additional layer of the fiction as when Le Matelot, otherwise unknown but clearly identifying himself as a participant in Technic civilization, introduces Poul Anderson's Trader To The Stars or when Hloch of Stormgate Choth on Avalon introduces Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate as well as each individual instalment collected in the Earth Book.

Thus, in the Earth Book, Hloch introduces "Lodestar." The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, includes Hloch's introduction but also reproduces Anderon's own earlier introduction as an afterword.

Poul Anderson's introduction to Vault Of The Ages is a factual account of archaeology and time capsules whereas Brian Aldiss' introduction to a later edition of Brain Wave addresses the issues that the novel raises.

A collection of introductions to major works as a lead in to reading some of the works themselves?

The Future And The Past

Future histories should refer to past history.

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History begins with a story named after the Roman general, Marius.

In Anderson's Technic History:

Minamoto describes the mid-twentieth century as an unhappy period and also refers to its passive entertainment like television;

Le Matelot compares early interstellar travelers to Greeks in the Mediterranean and to Europeans in America and also compares the Polesotechnic League to medieval mercantile guilds;

Manuel Argos consciously models his Terran Empire on the Roman Empire, for example by allowing non-humans to become citizens;

Chunderban Desai analyses Technic civilization in the light of his studies of the rise and fall of Terrestrial civilizations;

"A Tragedy of Errors" begins by referring to Christopher Wren.

The Technic History is in the same historical territory as Anderson's Time Patrol series.

Preparations For War

The People Of The Wind.

This is nothing that we haven't said before but preparations for war will affect many individuals throughout society and on both sides:

Second Marchwarden of the Lauran System Daniel Holm and his son, Christopher;

Arinnian and Eyath of Stormgate Choth (Arinnian is Christopher Holm);

Daniel Holm and First Marchwarden Ferune;

Arinnian and Hrill of Highsky Choth who is also Tabitha Falkayn;

Eyath and Vodan, the chothmate to whom Eyath will be betrothed;

the Imperial governor and the Admiral's daughter;

Lieutenant Rochefort and his crew.

And, since this novel is an instalment of a future history series, there are multiple references to previous instalments:

Tabitha refers to Manuel I;

the governor refers to the Antoanite-Kraokans around Beta Centauri, to the Troubles, to the Merseians and to the colonization of Avalon;

one of Rochefort's crew is a Cynthian, male this time;

Rochefort's mother ship is called Ansa.

(All of these references are relevant.)

As Le Matelot said in the Introduction to Trader To The Stars, we do not know where we are going but we are on our way.

On Our Way

"We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way.

-Le Matelot."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION HIDING PLACE IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, December 2009), pp. 555-556 AT p. 556.

"Where would an Okie go? They were going, that was all. If there was a destination, no one could know what it was."

-reference here.

The first book publication of "Hiding Place" was in Trader To The Stars, a collection of three stories about Nicholas van Rijn, a Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League. The first book publication of the quoted James Blish story was in Earthman, Come Home, a collection of three Okie stories and one post-Okie story. Okies are itinerant interstellar workers. Their role is similar to that of the Polesotechnic League.

Trader To The Stars was Volume I of Poul Anderson's Technic History. As such, it is superseded by The Van Rijn Method which is Volume I of The Technic Civilization Saga. Earthman, Come Home became Volume III of Cities In Flight because Blish added a pre-Okie prequel, a post-Okie sequel and an Okie juvenile novel. (Future history series are complicated.)

By reading the Technic History and Cities In Flight in their entireties, we learn where the League and the Okies were going.

Many Informants

What a wealth of fictional historical informants in recent posts:

Minamoto

Hloch

Vance Hall

Noah Arkwright

Urwain

Le Matelot

- but there are many more such Technic Historians, e.g.:

an unnamed narrator is present when van Rijn solves the problem of the planet Cain which is recounted to him by the narrator's friend's son and the son's ensign;

Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society, introduces Admiral John Henry Reeves' account of Manuel Argos, Founder of the Terran Empire.

The following examples are all in Hloch's Earth Book Of Stormgate:

Maeve Downey's autobiography, Far Adventure, describes Aram Turekian's discovery on Ythri;

Peter Berg meets an unnamed narrator/letter writer on Lucifer and confides in him about his experience with Ythrians on Gray/Avalon;

James Ching's journal includes an early account of Adzel;

two chapters of AA Craig's Tales Of The Great Frontier inform us about van Rijn on Earth and in space and about Jack Birnam on Avalon;

three of Judith Dalmady/Lundgren's stories originally published in the Avalonian periodical, Morgana, inform us about her father's interview with his employer, van Rijn, concerning his work on Suleiman, about Falkayn's grandson's experience with Ythrians on Avaloin and about other merchants on Ivanhoe;

a historical novelist describes van Rijn's struggle to survive on Diomedes;

three narratives specially written for the Earth Book by Christopher Holm/Arinnian, including one co-written by Hloch, inform us about van Rijn's first trader team (Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan) on Merseia and Tametha, about van Rijn and the team at Mirkheim and about unscrupulous traders on Trillia and Paradox.

Introductions III

(I) Minamoto states that the crew of the Chronos, en route to Saturn, crossed an experiential threshold, i.e., eight years in an isolated environment - only the first such threshold to be crossed while moving further out into space.

(II) Minamoto describes how space industries saved Earth, a necessary condition for the emergence of Technic civilization.

(III) Hloch is interested in Technic civilization insofar as it impacts on Ythrians and has led to the founding of his choth on Avalon.

(IV) Hloch tries to explain Terran nations and the Solar Commonwealth as a nation of nations to his fellow Ythrians.

(V) Vance Halls makes progress from uranium fusion and lasers to artificial gravity and the quantum hyperjump seem perfectly reasonable.

(VI) Noah Arkwright explains that there are so many sophont species that many of them can partially communicate with human beings.

(VII) Arkwright doubts whether Technic civilization has entered a neo-Elizabethan age except for some analogies.

(VIII) Le Matelot compares:

his generation to Europeans in America or to Greeks in the Mediterranean;

the Polesotechnic League to medieval mercantile guilds.-

- but also differentiates Technic from Classical or Western civilization.

The two remaining passages require further elucidation.

Introductions II

There are perhaps ten introductions to various aspects of Technic civilization, seven in Volume I and three in Volume II of The Technic Civilization Saga.

In "The Saturn Game":

(I), (II) the first two of four passages signed by Francis L. Minamoto, dated 2057.

In The Earth Book Of Stormgate:

(III) the editor, Hloch's, general introduction;

(IV) his introduction to the second story, "The Problem of Pain."

In The Trouble Twisters:

(V) an extract from Vance Hall, Commentaries on the Philosophy of Noah Arkwright, used to introduce "The Three-Cornered Wheel";

(VI) an extract from Noah Arkwright, An Introduction to Sophontology, used to introduce "A Sun Invisible";

(VII) a recording of Noah Arkwright included in the diary of Urwain the Wide-Faring and used to introduce "The Trouble Twisters."

In Trader To The Stars:

(VIII) Le Matelot;

(IX) an extract from "Margin of Profit" used to introduce "Territory";

(X) a verse by Shelley used to introduce "The Master Key."

We will say something about each of these passages.

Introductions

The "Le Matelot" passage at the beginning of Poul Anderson's Trader To The Stars is an introduction not just to the first story in the collection and not just to the collection but also to the whole of Technic civilization. Therefore, in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, this passage should precede not "Hiding Place" but "Margin of Profit" even though the latter story already has an Earth Book introduction. If, in addition, as has already been suggested, "Esau" were to be relocated to after "The Master Key," then these alterations would resolve a current anomaly. In The Technic Civilization Saga as it stands, "Esau" precedes "Hiding Place" even though the Earth Book introduction to "Esau," reproduced in the Saga, describes League philosophy and practices as already archaic or even obsolete whereas "Le Matelot" celebrates the beginning of a new age.

We will have more to say about introductions to Technic civilization.

Companion Volume

The TOR Poul Anderson paperback collection inaccurately entitled The Long Night is really a companion volume to the earlier The Earth Book Of Stormgate (1978) in that, like the Earth Book, this 1983 volume collects previously uncollected stories from different periods of the Technic History, not just from any single period:

Periods Covered

The post-League Time of Troubles (1)

The Terran Empire (1)

The post-Empire Long Night (1)

Two post-Long Night civilizations (2)

This list demonstrates the inappropriateness of the title. The Prologue and interstitial passages are written not by any fictional successor of Hloch of Stormgate Choth, like Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society, who does introduce "The Star Plunderer," the opening story set during the Troubles, but by Poul Anderson expert, Sandra Miesel.

Miesel's Prologue, like Le Matelot's introduction to Trader To The Stars, praises the expansionism of the Polesotechnic League but then proceeds further into the future to:

"...the sack of Earth by the Baldic League..." (p. 10)

- the crux period of the entire Technic History.

Women In Parallel Reading

God-Emperor of Dune 

A woman called Siona, whose role I do not fully understand, is being prepared to breed with Duncan Idaho. 

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy

Lisbeth Salander drives to a showdown with her father, Zala, a worthy successor of Blofeld, but I remember that outcome, as who would not? Death and resurrection, no less.

Fire Time, X

Jill Conway has a date (?) with Yuri Dejerine and wonders whether the married Ian Sparling is in love with her. By glancing ahead, I have ascertained that Jill will end this chapter by throwing Dejerine out, then weeping. Something to do with him not supporting Ishtar. 

However, I am getting to the switching off the blog and retiring to other reading time of the evening. Lisbeth calls. But Poul Anderson's characters are always with us as we have just seen when we were pulled back into "The Master Key."

"We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. It is enough that we are on our way.

"-Le Matelot."

-Poul Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1966), p. 5.

Three Introductions

Each of the three stories collected in Poul Anderson's Trader To The Stars is preceded by a different kind of introduction:

(i) a passage specifically written for this volume that begins by quoting the opening line of Percy Shelley's "Hellas: Chorus" and ends with the fictional signature, "Le Matelot";

(ii) a passage quoted from Anderson's own "Margin of Profit";

(iii) the third stanza of "Hellas: Chorus."

Thus, an almost equal Shelley-Anderson mix.

The three introductions convey the sense of adventure and achievement that is the spirit of the Polesotechnic League. Thus, they, together with the stories introduced, pave the way for the four subsequent volumes that chart both the glory and the decline of the League. Anyone expecting endless stories about the League in its heyday learns that this series is about historical processes, not just about a single historical period.

Multiple Beginnings

Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization has multiple beginnings. One of the best of them is the unentitled introduction to Trader To The Stars which, without any explanation, is signed "Le Matelot." It begins:

"'The world's great age begins anew...'"

-Poul Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1966), p. 5.

Trader To The Stars was Technic History, Volume I, in the original book publication order. Le Matelot introduces not only the opening story, "Hiding Place," but also the entire Polesotechnic League period and, by extension, beyond that, the entire Technic History. However, when the Technic History was collected in chronological order of fictional events in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, Le Matelot, now treated as introducing just a single story, appears very near the end of Volume I, The Van Rijn Method. "Hiding Place," although the first story in Trader To The Stars, is the eleventh and last story in The Van Rijn Method! In any case, the first published van Rijn story was not "Hiding Place" but "Margin of Profit" which became the fourth story in The Van Rijn Method. In The Earth Book of Stormgate, which, according to its entirely accurate front cover blurb, "spans, illuminates and completes the magnificent future history of the Polesotechnic League," the opening story is "Wings of Victory" and, for nine years, that was the first story in the Technic History although, in The Van Rijn Method, it is displaced by the later-written "The Saturn Game." The earliest published Technic History instalment was the first Captain Flandry story, "Tiger By The Tail," although the later-written "Young Flandry" novels are set earlier. Multiple beginnings.

In The Van Rijn Method, Le Matelot should precede not "Hiding Place" but "Margin of Profit."

Multi-Layered Narratives

In The Van Rijn Method:

Francis L. Minamoto introduces "The Saturn Game";

Hloch introduces seven stories that had previously been collected in The Earth Book of Stormgate;

Vance Hall and Noah Arkwright, respectively, introduce two stories that had previously been collected in The Trouble Twisters;

Le Matelot introduces one story that had previously been collected in Trader To The Stars.

Hloch informs us about the fictional authors of the Earth Book works. Thus, a daughter of the hero of "Esau" wrote both "Esau" and "The Season of Forgiveness" and both these stories had been published in the Avalonian periodical, Morgana, before Hloch collected them in the Earth Book. The main action of "Esau" is framed by a conversation between its hero and Nicholas van Rijn. Thus, throughout The Van Rijn Method, we experience multiple layers of narrative and historiography. In the case of "Esau":

Emil Dalmady in action

Dalmady in conversation with van Rijn

Judith Dalmady/Lundgren writing for Morgana

Hloch compiling the Earth Book

Or again, in the case of "The Problem of Pain":

Peter Berg on Gray/Avalon

the unnamed narrator in conversation with Berg

that narrator in private correspondence on Earth

a historian obtaining a copy of the correspondence

a transcription kept on Esperance

Hloch's mother, Rennhi, finding the transcription

Hloch explaining all this to his Avalonian readers

Two First Volumes

I am looking at and contrasting two completely different "first" volumes of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. Both titles refer to the same character. 

The original "first" volume, Trader To The Stars, collects three stories about Nicholas van Rijn, Master Merchant Polesotechnic League:

"Hiding Place"

"Territory"

"The Master Key"

"Territory" is introduced by an extract from an earlier van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit." There is no indication that the van Rijn series is a sub-series of a future history series. The volume is fictitiously introduced by "Le Matelot," who writes at the time of the Polesotechnic League and who does not know what will come next in history.

The second "first" volume, The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, collects the first eleven instalments of the Technic History including one full-length novel about van Rijn, The Man Who Counts, another title referring to the same character. The opening thee stories precede the League and have no common character. The fourth is "Margin of Profit." Seven of the instalments are fictitiously introduced by Hloch who writes long after the League and who refers to events recounted in The Technic Civiliztion Saga, Volumes II and III. The eleventh instalment in The Van Rijn Method is "Hiding Place," preceded by the "Le Matelot" introduction.