ERBianism

Poul Anderson did not write any Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches unless we count that single recently referenced passage. See:

Two Virtual Realities

- although it would have been well within his abilities to do so. 

The ingredients are present for all to see. The most basic is that another planet must harbour both a fully human race into which our hero can marry and also savage beast-men whom he must fight. A second ingredient is a gallimaufry of dangerous wild animals including, in the Land that Time Forgot and the Earth's Core and on SM Stirling's Venus, dinosaurs coexisting with human beings. Stirling has done what Anderson could have done, including a scientific rationalization for the retro-Solar System.

At the end of The Sky People, there is a two-tier transition to the alternative Mars which we will reread next.

Any ERBian cast of characters includes an obvious villain/traitor/saboteur etc. Stirling, like Anderson, is considerably subtler in his characterization. (Not difficult.) Marc dislikes the pompous British guy, Blair, so we expect a major conflict between them but that does not happen but something does happen about Blair...

Introducing the wheelbarrow works as well on this Venus as it does in ancient Rome.

The Others In Two Timelines

In Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire, Axor's quest for the Universal Incarnation was initially inspired by Foredweller remains/relics/remnants on his home planet, Woden. We know from Anderson's The Day Of Their Return that remnant walls and indeed entire structures also exist on the planet Aeneas. Diana has heard that the Builders were "the Chereionites" and an Aenean spaceman referred to them as the Old Shen. Other names are Ancients, Elders and Others. That the Chereionites were the Ancients is indeed what Aycharaych, a Chereionite, told Erannath, an Ythrian, on Aeneas in The Day Of Their Return but who knows?

What does Axor expect? An eventual multi-species religion acknowledging two Incarnations, Terrestrial and Chereionite? (Or whichever species the Forerunners turn out to be?)

It turns out that "They" are not about to "Return." That was a deception fostered by Aycharaych. However, Marc Vitrac and his companions in SM Stirling's The Sky People are in a more perilous predicament because they have learned not only that the inhabitants of Venus are human but also that the language spoken there is Indo-European! It follows that the superior technology that terraformed Venus and Mars and seeded those planets with Terrestrial organisms was still active comparatively recently and therefore might still be around - unlike Anderson's long-gone Ancients.

Who Did It?

Even in my early days at University, I still did not understand natural selection. I remember thinking and saying that, if a part of an organism performed a function, then it must have been designed to perform that function.

Hard sf is based in a scientific understanding of cosmogony, cosmology and evolution. Poul Anderson imagines the evolution of:

Diomedeans

Starkadians

Ythrians

Didonians

Talwinians

t'Kelans

Throrans

See Speculution (Speculative Evolution).

This issues hits characters in SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation series when they find Terrestrial organisms almost (or exactly?) duplicated on Mars and Venus. Dr Feldman, paleontologist and ethnologist, loathes:

"'...the God-did-it crowd...'"

-SM Stirling, The Sky People (October 2007), CHAPTER TWO, p. 26.

But Marc Vitrac and his companions begin to find evidence for:

"'...the aliens-did-it stuff...'"

-CHAPTER NINE, p. 201.

Yes. Feldman, Marc etc inhabit a hard sf universe.

In Olga's Landing II

Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), CHAPTER ONE.

See In Olga's Landing.

We try to convey the feel of Anderson's descriptive passages and have come close in the above linked post although we omitted some details:

the sky is not just blue but "...clear, deep blue..." (p. 195);

the breeze is cool although -

"It would have been deadly cold before [Diana's] people came to Imhotep" (ibid.);

Mount Horn is twelve kilometers above sea level;

the city holds not only the Pyramid but also the Institute, industries, shops, hotels, apartments and spaceport;

Diana is in the old quarter whose description we have quoted several times before (search the blog for "old quarter" although at least one other such quarter will come up!);

pioneers built in brick and low because of Imhotepan gravity;

in the market, videos show Terran sleaze and a vaz-Siravo dance from the Seas of Yang and Yin;

a gun dealer sells rifles, stunners and illegal Merseian blasters.

Every scene in Anderson's works reads as if the place exists and has not just been created at the stroke of a pen - or on a typewriter or a computer screen. We want to read more but can gain immensely just by rereading.

World Con, '62

Poul Anderson is a minor character in SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation series. We will come back to that. 

No wonder I could not remember whether:

"World Science Fiction Convention

"Chicago, Earth

"Labor Day, 1962"

- was in Lords Of Creation, Volume I, The Sky People, or in Volume II, In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings. It is at the end of Vol. I as a preview and at the beginning of Vol. II as the PROLOGUE (although maybe not still present as a preview in later editions of Vol. I?). 

We are still rereading The Sky People, rediscovering obscure ERBian references like "Vepaja," but have skipped ahead to the preview.

If you read this preview/PROLOGUE, then read the Wikipedia account of the 1962 World Con, then you will find that Stirling has got the names of Con attendees and even of the Guest of Honour right.

In Stirling's alternative historical Con, sf authors say a lot of things relevant to their works and this could lead to a detailed post on my Science Fiction blog. In fact, it probably will lead to something on that blog but, for present purposes, we will confine ourselves to "Poul" and to "the editor of Astounding." (Later: See Mars Books.)

While the authors watch transmissions from a Martian lander, Poul:

had brought in a case of Tuborg and is described as a postwar Young Turk (The Sky People, p. 314);

addresses "Arthur" on p. 315;

grumbles that the Viking horns worn by fans were not historical on p. 316;

comments on Martian sea level and highland air on p. 317;

is said to like messing about with boats and to murmur about pointing into the wind on p. 319;

guffaws that the Martians have put the lander in a sack when the screen goes dark after a tarpaulin has been thrown on p. 322.

The Astounding editor insists that Terrestrials are the most advanced Solar species on p. 319. This was a disagreement with Asimov.

Campbell:

edited Heinlein's Future History, Asimov's Foundation and Robots, Blish's Okies and Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn;

published Heinlein's Time Chart;

made suggestions that affected Foundation, Okies and the Technic History.

In the case of the Technic History, Campbell's suggestions were the ideas that became the Ythrians and Mirkheim.

Solar Planets In The Pulps And Later In Heinlein, Asimov, Blish, Anderson And Stirling

Follow the link from "Northwest Smith " in Planetary Adventurers.

Ninety years ago, pulp sf writers treated the Solar System like a galaxy of inhabited planets with breathable atmospheres and even jungles on moons of Jupiter. Such an approach even affected Robert Heinlein's Future History although that series is primarily about the future development of human society, not about human-alien interactions. Isaac Asimov admitted in The Early Asimov that he wrote in this tradition even when he knew better.

We can see later writers emerging from the tradition. In James Blish's Cities In Flight and Mission To The Heart Stars, Martians had existed but are now extinct. Poul Anderson has half a dozen versions of Martians. There are Martians in his Psychotechnic History and in the original version of his "Margin of Profit" although, when that story was revised to fit into his Technic History, these "Martians" had become extra-Solars who had colonized Mars. Anderson also has Venerians in "Sister Planet," Jovians in Three Worlds To Conquer and Mercurians in "Life Cycle." 

When SM Stirling wrote a series in which Mars and Venus turned out to be more or less how earlier sf writers had imagined them, he also worked towards an explanation. A scientist working on Venus says:

"'Sam thinks...and I think...that two hundred million years ago, in the earliest Jurassic...this planet was different. Radically different from what we have now; as far as we can tell, it didn't have life at all. And we don't have any idea what changed it.'"

-SM Stirling, The Sky People (New York, October 2007), CHAPTER TWO, pp. 40-41.

But they will find out.

Planetary Adventurers

In Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars, a virtual reality features John Carter on Mars. See:

Two Virtual Realities

Is this Anderson's only reference to Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB)?

In a Known Space story by Larry Niven, a murderer on Mars is called John Carter, although Niven's text understates the name.

In his Acknowledgements for The Sky People, SM Stirling includes the pulpsters who created:

John Carter

Northwest Smith

"Wrong Way" Carson of Venus

I am sufficiently familiar with ERB to recognize Carter and Carson but not "Nobs" who is mentioned on p. 62.

SM Stirling's LORDS OF CREATION Trilogy

Volume III, which has almost the same title as the Trilogy, should arrive tomorrow but first I should reread Volumes I and II which I have retrieved from the room where a house guest is sleeping. There is also a short story with the same planetary setting as Volume II but I seem no longer to have the relevant anthology. Books are shed during a house move, especially to a smaller house. 

Volume I is The Sky People, which has the same title as one of Poul Anderson's Maurai short stories. 

Can I say anything more about this series now? I will be busy some of the time tomorrow and out of town all day on Friday.

I thought that The Sky People conveyed the same sense of adventure in a new world as Stirling's Conquistador and The Peshawar Lancers.

HG Wells pioneered alternative histories in Men Like Gods and A Modern Utopia. We are still in the grand sf tradition.

Connections

We are reconsidering the first five of the fifteen instalments in the Flandry period of Poul Anderson's Technic History and asking which persons or planets introduced in these instalments either reappear or are referenced later in the series. These five instalments are:

Ensign Flandry

A Circus Of Hells

The Rebel Worlds

"Outpost of Empire"

The Day Of Their Return

Ensign Flandry introduces:

Dominic Flandry, series character

Crown Prince Josip

Miriam Abrams, a child in a picture seen by her father but later Flandry's wife

Max Abrams, later remembered by his daughter

the land Starkadians, including Dragoika who reappears in "The Game of Empire"

John Ridenour who reappears in "Outpost of Empire"

Persis d'Io whose son by Flandry appears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows -

- but does not introduce Merseia or the Merseians because:

Falkayn's team had been on Merseia in "Day of Burning";

Merseians had joined the Baburite Space Navy in Mirkheim;

the Merseian Roidhunate is a distant but growing threat in The People Of The Wind -

- or the Terran Empire which:

had been announced in "The Star Plunderer";

is expanding in "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

adjusts its frontier with the Domain of Ythri in The People Of The Wind.

A Circus Of Hells introduces:

the planet Talwin which is mentioned in The Day Of Their Return and reappears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows;

Aycharaych of Chereion although only as mentioned by a Merseian;

D'jana whose psychic power will possibly influence Flandry in The Rebel Worlds and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

The Rebel Worlds introduces:

the planet Dido in the Virgilian System;

Josip now as Emperor although this time off-stage;

Vice Admiral Kheraskov, later mentioned in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows -

- but does not introduce:

The planet Aeneas which had been mentioned in "The Problem of Pain";

the planet Shalmu which had been mentioned in "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

the Ferrans, one of whom had appeared in Satan's World.

"Outpost of Empire" introduces:

the planet Freehold which is later referenced in "The Sharing of Flesh."

The Day Of Their Return, set on Aeneas, introduces:

Chunderban Desai who reappears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows;

Aycharaych in person, destined to become Flandry's adversary in "Honorable Enemies," "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and to be referenced again in The Game Of Empire;

the Aenean rebels some of whose descendants rejoin interstellar civilization in "Starfog."

That is one massive collection of connections and I have probably missed some.

Evening On Esperance

The People Of The Wind, III. 

Not for the first time (!), we reread Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind. However, this time, we try to grasp not every rich and colourful detail in Poul Anderson's text but, more specifically, any information to be gleaned about the Ythrian institution of choths and, by extension, the related concepts of Khruath, Wyvan, Oherran and deathpride. 

However, some other details still catch our attention. I want to skip past:

"Ekrem Saracoglu, Imperial governor of Sector Pacis..." (p. 34)

- having found him unpleasant before, although there was some combox disagreement about that, but I cannot ignore a summer evening in an Esperancian garden:

"By then they were strolling in the garden. Rosebushes and cherry trees might almost have been growing on Terra; Esperance was a prize among colony planets. The sun Pax was still above the horizon, now at midsummer, but leveled mellow beams across an old brick wall. The air was warm, blithe with birdsong, sweet with green odors that drifted in from the countryside. A car or two caught the light, high above; but Fleurville was not big enough for its traffic noise to be heard this far from the centrum." (pp. 34-35)

There is much here to divert our attention from current pursuits.

No traffic noise. Perfect. 

Four senses: light; warmth; birdsong; odours. 

We have become accustomed to aircars as part of the scenery in the Technic History. On another humanly colonized planet, Hermes, French doors left open at night allow the Tamarin-Asmundsens to appreciate:

light from two moons;

cool air;

flower odours;

trills of a local bird equivalent;

city sky-glow;

aircars -

"...like many-colored glowflies."

-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT X, p. 152.

Four senses: light; coolness; odours; trills.

On Terra, in Flandry's time:

"White cloud wandered through blue clarity; aircars sparkled in sunlight. A breeze brought coolness and a muted pulse of machines in the service of man. And here came the souffle."

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT III, p. 32.

Four senses: light; coolness; muted pulse; taste.

To return to Esperance, planets in the Technic History are made more real partly by being mentioned in more than one context. Nicholas van Rijn had worked on t'Kela with Joyce Davisson from Esperance. Now there is action on the surface of Esperance. It is such a prize colony planet that it reads exactly like Earth. Roses and cherries grow there as if on Terra. But there must be some difference. When Saracoglu plucks and eats a grape:

"The taste held a slight, sweet strangeness; Esperancian soil was not, after all, identical with that of Home." (p. 38)

And the evening proceeds:

"The sun was now gone from sight, shadows welled in the garden, an evening star blossomed." (ibid.)

Again, like Earth.

Longer Narratives

Time travel and future histories: the two best kinds of sf, provided that they are done right. And, if they are to be interconnected, then that has to be done right as well.  

Poul Anderson's There Will Be Time, a very elaborate time travel novel, incorporates Anderson's Maurai future history series into a longer fictional history - of both past and future.

(The incorporation of a historical narrative into a longer and vaster narrative sequence begins with the Judaeo-Christian scriptures where the Torah becomes the first five books of the Christian Bible, thus gaining a completely different significance.)

Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate incorporates his Polesotechnic League series into a longer history extending from early interstellar exploration through the League period and into the early Terran Empire. The Earth Book also covers the exodus of a people from an old world, Ythri, to a new world, Avalon. Thus, if the New Faith has scriptures, then they might include the Sky Book, which we do not read, and the Earth Book, which we do read, both published in Planha and Anglic on Avalon.

What The Gods Want

"Star of the Sea," 7.

Because of Veleda, much that was formerly given to the sky-gods is being given to the goddess, Nerha. Heidhin has read in the stars, in the weather, in the flight of ravens and in cast bones that the gods will withhold victory if they are not appeased. How do these things tell him that or indeed anything else? It is what he believes in any case. But he adds:

"'And what if I am mistaken? The fear itself is real in men's hearts. They will begin to hang back in battle, and the foe will break them.'" (p. 531)

Again (see Doubts), how the gods respond and how people think/fear/hope etc that the gods respond seem to amount to the same thing for practical purposes.

When Veleda claims that her goddess:

"'...is no bloodthirsty Ans.'" (p. 534)

- Heidhin responds:

"'Hm, aforetime you said otherwise.'" (ibid.)

- and he grins. As Veleda tires of the struggle, her goddess becomes less bloodthirsty.

We do not know this yet but Janne Floris as the goddess will give Veleda a new message of peace. Meanwhile, the text is preparing us for such a change in Veleda herself.

Autumn Evening

The Merman's Children, Book Three, I.

Autumn approaches:

some leaves are a paler green;

others are brown, red or gold;

the sky is wan;

geese cry;

when the sun sets, the cool breeze becomes chill;

many villagers idle at home.

(Three senses.)

This description sets the scene for a conversation between a parish priest and a merman. Until we added "merman," the scene was entirely natural.

There is one other detail which is not a natural phenomenon but a human response. The cries of the geese awaken:

"...wordless longings..." (p. 119)

People see and hear birds flying through the darkening sky towards the horizon. They aspire to transcendence.

Mermen And Ythrians

The Merman's Children, IX.

Every part of a dead merman returns to nature where it wanders widely at one with the world. His spirit goes into sunlight, spindrift and sea-surge, his flesh into fleetness of fish and fowl, his bone and blood-salt back to the Bearer. I am paraphrasing a song of farewell that ends:

"The sky take you.

"The sea take you.

"And we will remember you in the wind." (p. 60)

At an Ythrian funeral, a Wyvan speaks the words of the New Faith which end:

"'Go hence now, that which [God's] talents left, be water and leaves, arise in the wind; and spirit, be always remembered."

-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 437-662 AT X, p. 559.

Two intelligent species on two planets in two timelines in one author's imagination.

Nature And Humanity

Rogue Sword, CHAPTER III.

Lucas remembers:

"...snowpeaks floating high and holy in the sky." (p. 57)

We remember:

"Snowpeaks flamed...

"High is heaven and holy."

(See SM Stirling as well as Poul Anderson in the above link.)

Lucas' memories continue:

"...leafy arches..." (ibid.);

sunflecks described as dancing among anemones;

birdsong ending quietness described as living;

groves described as sacred where rills tinkle into pools reflecting blue sky and white clouds;

sunlight compared to laughter through birches;

"...a clifftop overlooking vastness..." (p. 58);

mountaineer hospitality described as rough and warm.

At the end, we are shown the people who inhabit this landscape: mountaineers in the mountains.

Intellect-Emotion Antithesis

There is Homecoming (+ Coming Home) and there is also the feeling that we can't go home. See The End Of A Stone In Heaven and:

"'...might we return to the inhibitor field out in space - why not? Go back to being stupid. Maybe we'll be happier that way. No, no, I realize you can't go home again.'"

-Brain Wave, 7, p. 71.

Hegelian thinking becomes relevant yet again.

Thesis: Suddenly, everyone can think more quickly.

Antithesis: But most people have nothing to think about except their superstitions, prejudices, hates, fears and greeds.

Synthesis: Therefore, their accelerated thought processes merely rationalize these superstitions etc.

Antithesis: But this is unsatisfactory, frightening and confusing.

Synthesis: Therefore, the new Third Ba'al religion tells them to reject intellect in an emotional orgy.

Antithesis: But this can't last.

Synthesis: Constructive applications of new intellectual powers will emerge.

Already there is a Relativity-quantum mechanics synthesis and food synthesis plants and the prospects of atomic energy from any material and of faster than light travel. 

The sky is, literally, the limit.

What Should The Lann Do?

Vault Of The Ages, Chapter 7.

Lenard, captured son of the Chief of the Lann invaders, explains that his people - hunters, herders and small farmers in a harsh and barren country - have always fought cold, rain, blight and each other for diminishing resources while their numbers steadily grow. Brothers fight like wild dogs. Now they have come together to attack possessors of better lands. Dalesmen will be displaced or become servants. The Lann do not vote but follow their Chief. They will not accept an offer of empty forest tracts and, in any case, Lenard does not think that there is enough room for both tribes.

If I were the Lann Chief, then I would accept any offer of empty tracts while also sending scouts or leading groups further south in the hope of finding empty lands to colonize. But, if I were a Lann, then I would not become Chief. I would leave home and trek south alone or with a small group to live by hunting or by finding employment among other tribes.

An individual solution should be possible even if a social solution is not. 

See you in Sky-Home. (I don't think so but it is a good story.)

Red And Gold

"...the sky was ablaze with red and gold streaked across aquamarine.

"...the brilliant shore slip[ped] by across the mother-of-pearl mirror of the sea."

"The yacht...slid quietly across the broad bay, now lemon and gunmetal in the last light, towards the anchorage. The small township beneath the mountains was already dark with indigo shadow in which a sprinkling of yellow lights showed."

I quote these passages because they share the quality of colourful natural description that we regularly find in Poul Anderson's works. However, this is our "other reading" time of the evening. The passages are quoted from:

Ian Fleming, "The Hildebrand Rarity" IN Fleming, For Your Eyes Only (London, 1964), pp. 150-191 AT pp. 187, 189.

How many people associate James Bond with this kind of descriptive prose? And how many also realize that "The Hildebrand Rarity" and a couple of other short stories are not Secret Service adventures but Ian Fleming trying out other kinds of writing albeit with his mascot, 007, remaining on stage?

Flandry is not Bond in space but read both anyway.

Mistwood

The People Of The Wind, X.

Does "Mistwood" sound Tolkienian?

"Before sunrise, Ferune departed Mistwood." (p. 558)

That is to say that the body of First Marwarden Ferune, who has died defending Avalon, is disposed of according to the rite of the Ythrian New Faith. We gather that it is appropriate to set off while it is still dark.

The text continues:

"That day his home country bore its name well." (ibid.)

The name bears two syllables, each a distinct word, "Mist..." and "...wood." Both are well represented in the following description.

Mist

There is "Fog..." and "Smokiness..." (ibid.) The fog blows cold, wet and blinding from the sea while the smokiness prowls among trees.

Wood

Hammerbranch boles are thick.

Lightningrod trunks soar.

Sword-of-sorrow stems are ringed.

Boomer tree noise rolls beneath Ferune's house and echoes from ancestral shields.

Boomer trees are remnants of Old Avalon.

Mist and Wood

Moisture drips from trees onto fallen leaves and chimes when it strikes pools among ringed stems.

The rest of this passage describes the funeral ceremony. Sons surrounded by their torches-bearing choth carry the body on a litter over the wilderness high enough to see the Weathermother snowpeaks lit by the hidden sun. When the sun rises, the new Wyvan of Mistwood blows the horn and speaks the words. The sons tilt the litter. The choth drop torches. The widow leads the sky dance. Ferune's spirit is always remembered.

"Ghetto" And "The Horn..."

In Poul Anderson's Maurai And Kith, "Ghetto" and "The Horn of Time the Hunter" make a neat future historical sequence albeit of only two instalments. "Ghetto" is about the Kithman, Kenri Shaun of Fleetwing, and mentions his friend, Jong Errifrans of the Golden Flyer. "The Horn..." is about Jong but set twenty thousand years later because of time dilation. "The Horn..." is also a spaceship and planet story although the only one in this timeline.

Starfarers incorporates "Ghetto" and one other Kith story, not "The Horn...," and adds some more so that the Kith History exists in two versions. We are used to different versions of single stories but not of future histories.

We encounter Time the Hunter in one Kith story and God the Hunter in several Technic History stories. Such experiences reverberate across the timelines.

The Maurai, "The People of the Sea," encounter a group called "The Sky People," whereas the Kith, "The People of the Stars," encounter a human population that has returned to the sea.

I will be out of town for most of Friday this week so probably will not post then.