LONGevity

We saw in Untold Series that Lazarus Long lived a long time. This highlights something else that Poul Anderson did better than Robert Heinlein with:

Hugh Valland

Hanno and the other mutant immortals

Hanno etc live right through history, then into a fictional future. A guy that I know disliked that future section of The Boat Of A Million Years. However, Anderson had prepared his regular readers to combine historical fiction with sf.

Anderson followed Heinlein with:

future history

longevity

time travel

magic treated as technology

- and, in each case, improved on Heinlein's performance. Read (the early) Heinlein first. Then read and reread Anderson.

This might be the last post for this month but let's see how that pans out. 

Two Winds

The Broken Sword, VIII.

When Valgard sees the witch not as a beautiful woman but as the hag that she really is, he burns her hovel. Then:

"...there were only the leaping flames and the piping wind and the snow hissing as it blew into the fire." (p. 55)

The wind, with its appropriate sound effects, punctuates the main action scenes and plot turning points.

When Valgard announces that his fleet will raid Finnmark, one of his captains suggests instead:

"'...England, Scotland, Ireland, Orkney, or Valland south of the channel...'" (p. 56)

- but Valgard's axe settles the matter.

(Hugh Valland is a character in an sf novel by Poul Anderson.)

For a winter voyage to Finnmark, Valgard can:

"'...snuff a good wind coming.'" (p. 57)

But first he will plunder Orm's garth where he had grown up as Orm's son. The changeling's:

"'...league with the lands of darkness...'" (p. 55)

- seems to be complete.

Every chapter advances the action.

Resemblances And Outmoded Ideas

A Superman comic reminded me of a Robert Heinlein novel and Poul Anderson's The Night Face reminded me of another superhero, Green Lantern. See:

Words And Texts

Poul Anderson's World Without Stars reminded me of another Superman comic. See:

Hugh Valland And Superman

Yet another Superman comic, this one written by Alan Moore, reminded me of James Blish's Mission To The Heart Stars. In this case, the connection was that Superman's antagonist, Mongul, physically resembled Blish's Hegemon of Malis. 

Blish's Heart Stars federation, self-designated "the Hegemony of Malis," has become, like Asimov's planet Trantor, an outmoded sf concept. Blish's idea was that, since stars are much closer at the galactic core, an interstellar federation might develop more quickly there. Now, instead, it is generally accepted that there is a massive black hole at the centre as in Larry Niven's A World Out Of Time and Anderson's For Love And Glory.

(Asimov had the Galactic Imperial capitol at the galactic centre but a later contributor to Asimov's Foundation series moved Trantor further out so that the black hole could occupy the centre.)

See also Parallels.

Hugh Valland: Finale

World Without Stars, XVI-XVII.

Naturally and of necessity, the Meteor survivors, including their captain, follow Valland's lead. Captain Argens writes:

"We followed him. And we built our spaceboat and won to the help of the Yonderfolk. The job took four decades." (p. 119)

Argens' daughter, Wenli, was only a few years old when last he saw her in City. She will be forty-plus years older the next time that they meet and maybe no longer in City. In the concluding chapter, Argens and Valland are on the quiet Earth where Argens reflects:

""This was Manhome. No matter how far we range, the salt and the rhythm of her tides will always be in our blood." (p. 124)

Sandra Miesel quotes the second sentence at the end of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:

"To Earth there's no returning. She vanished with the childhood of our race. Yet as a poet once said, 'No matter how far we range, the salt and rhythm of her tides will always be in our blood.' One chapter has ended. Humankind's saga flows on."

-Sandra Miesel, interstitial material IN Poul Anderson, Starship (New York, June 1982), p. 282. 

We have quoted this sentence from both works together with other similar passages before. See here. (Scroll down.)

"God Has Not Left You."

World Without Stars, XIV.

Azkashi discouraged by a setback in their struggle against the Ai Chun slink away from the human compound:

"...into the mists. They spoke little, but that little made a mumbling across the land like the first wind-sough before a storm." (p. 100)

This is a good analogical use of the perennial wind. In this case, there is no actual wind but the mumbling is like the sound of a wind. And a retreat by the Azkashi at this stage of the conflict will be followed by the storm of an Ai Chun advance. 

Hugh Valland saves the day. The Azkashi think that God is not with them when the galaxy is not visible overhead. Ya-Valland - the prefix means "male" - tells ya-Kela, the One of his Pack:

"'God has not left you.'" (p. 103)

- and proves it. A screen on a scientific instrument shows the sky above their heads with the sunlight removed. The planets, Oroksh and Ilyakan, are visible and the galaxy blazes brighter than ever before.

"'Fear not the downdevils; God is with you yet.'" (p. 104)

Ya-Valland's new role is that of prophet.

Rain

World Without Stars, IX.

In this chapter, rain plays the usual role of the wind in Poul Anderson's works, accompanying and punctuating the dialogue, particularly at its dramatic points and pauses. 

Argens is on sentry duty when the enemies of the Azkashi arrive at the camp:

"The galaxy was hidden in a slow, hot rain..." (p. 58)

The galaxy is visible only at night. We have already been told that:

"It was not impossible for the Herd to come raiding at night. But it was rare. The downdevils feared God and so their worshipers did too...." (I, p. 6)

But they venture forth when weather hides God.

Next, when the representatives of the Herd have been welcomed into a hut:

"Then I stood, soaked, hearing the rain rumble on our roof, crowded with my men between these narrow walls, and looked upon wonder." (p. 58)

The Herd are very different from the Pack, not free tribes-beings but specially bred slaves.

With a little whisky inside him, Argens is able to forget rain, heat and darkness and to concentrate on communication. 

Gianyi of the Herd and his blind dwarf telepath bow their heads whenever the former mentions their masters, the Ai Chun: a human gesture. Implausibly human?

When two Earthmen discuss their guests:

"'They may mean well in spite of their manners,' Bren said.

"'Sure,' I said. 'They may.' The rain gurgled as it fell onto soaked earth." (p. 62)

That rain seems to comment and does not sound reassuring.

When Valland, who is with the Pack, contacts Argens, some "...ugly noises..." come over the radio:

"'Hugh!' I cried. 'Are you there?'

"The rain had stopped, and silence grew thick in the hut." (p. 63)

Silence always underlines dramatic pauses in the dialogue. Often the wind is heard on such occasions but this time the accompaniment is the rain and it has stopped. Silence reigns until Valland can speak again. Argens advises:

"'Try to explain the idea of neutrality...'" (p. 64)

We know that neutrality is impossible between God and devils. The Pack do not know of any other kind of conflict.

Azkashi

World Without Stars, IX.

Valland wonders whether "Azkashi" means:

hill people

free people

people of the galaxy god

all these things and more

Surely the fourth option? The Packs live in the hills, are free and worship that which Earthmen call the galaxy but which they call God. And they are more likely to use words that are full of meanings rather than narrowly defined. 

We make fine distinctions. Someone wondered whether a Latin text referred to Mars the planet or to Mars the god but surely there was a time before that distinction was made?

When, in CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, a cat goes to sleep in close physical contact with a tame bear, is this friendship or just bodily pleasure? Ransom answers that the interaction between these two animals:

"'...is a single undifferentiated thing in which you can find the germ of what we call friendship and of what we call physical need. But it isn't either at that level. It is one of Barfield's "ancient unities".'"

-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 12, 5, p. 621.

Limitations

World Without Stars, VIII.

Ya-Kela thinks that ya-Valland has:

"...curious weaknesses.'" (p. 52)

He is blind at night, awkward in the marshlands, lacking either tail or webbed feet, and ignorant of dangers like dart bushes. Of course Valland is awkward and ignorant in this environment! That ya-Kela does not understand that is a limitation on his part, not on Valland's. In a city, if he ever visited one, ya-Kela would not know to look both ways before crossing a street.

More seriously, if the stranger is not after all "'...from God...,'" (p. 53) then ya-Kela:

"'...will plunge the first spear into ya-Valland.'" (ibid.)

Many on Earth would regard the Azkashi's devotion "'...to God alone...'" (p. 54) as admirable but we have learned from experience how this can go wrong. In London, an Evangelical preacher went to the assembly point of a demonstration in order to address Muslims with remarks like:

"They say that He is not the Son of God and what a blasphemy that is!"

Not a blasphemy, just a different belief!

(What constitutes respect or disrespect to the Lord is largely a matter of tradition. Someone who entered our meditation hall was shocked to see people sitting for meditation with their backs to the Buddha.) 

Here at Blog Central, we, editorially speaking, are suffering from a mild cold, therefore reading and posting sluggishly. Also, we are still giving some attention to the less-read James Blish Appreciation blog.

Go with God. (As Blish's Jorn the Apostle says.)

Establishing Communication

I have been rereading two sf novels in which space travelers have to establish communication with alien intelligence(s).

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars

The Azkashi are easy to deal with because they have:

"...no obviously alien semantics." (VII, p. 49)

They have individual names, use comprehensible sign language and both accept and bring gifts. When their gifts include an animal that might poison the Earthmen, Valland accepts this gift by burning it. This response is acceptable to the Azkashi.

Caution remains necessary. Valland appears to claim that he has come from the galaxy. To ya-Kela, this implies that Valland has claimed:

"...to be the emissary of God." (VIII, p. 52)

The Azkashi partially resemble kangaroos.

James Blish, Welcome To Mars (London, 1978)

The dune-cat's resting stance is kangaroo-like and he has an abdominal pouch. Each hand has five fingers and a thumb so he counts in twelves.

Communication is difficult. Neither can pronounce the other's language so they develop a pidgin and some information is exchanged by drawing maps and pictures.

Addendum: Only this single post on this blog today. And one more on James Blish Appreciation here.

God, The Galaxy

World Without Stars.

"God was rising in the west, and this time the sun was down -..." (I, p. 5)

"This evening the galaxy rose directly after sunset." (VII, p. 43)

This is the same event described twice and from different povs. Later in I, ya-Kela must investigate:

"...strange newcomers..." (p. 6) 

Later in VII, Hugh Valland, on watch, spots:

"'Somethin' out there. Approachin' real slow and careful. But two-legged, and carrying things. Let's not scare 'em off.'" (p. 47)

Ya-Kela and his "...bold followers..." (p. 5) approach and soon there will be yet another First Contact. We have become used to reading about these at least. Has there ever been a First Contact between two intelligent species and, if so, what was it like? Willingness to communicate and learn? Misunderstanding and conflict? There was an Arthur C. Clarke story in which astronauts had been instructed not to retaliate if attacked! Give the other side the opportunity to say, "Our man in the field acted wrongly..." Extreme caution, at least for the First Contact. Thereafter, respond as indicated.

Urgency And Strain

World Without Stars, VI.

Captain Argens tells Bren and Galmer to make precise measurements of:

gravity

air pressure

humidity

magnetism

ionization

horizon distance

rotation period

solar spectrum lines

anything else detectable

Information-gathering is as urgent as building a stockade. 

When Rorn bellyaches:

"'What do you propose to do about our troubles?' I asked sharply. A gust of wind made the thin metal walls shake around us." (p. 39)

Wind appropriately underlines dramatic dialogue.

Despite the strains, Argens and Valland hold the men together until Rorn finds a different loyalty.

Food Plant

World Without Stars, VI.

I have been back home for several hours but too busy to post. I said this morning that we would return to the food plant but we find that we have described it in detail already. See Food II. A blog search for "Food Plant" also brought up The Atmosphere Plant which links:

grass equivalents in Poul Anderson's works;

the "atmosphere plant" which is a grass equivalent on SM Stirling's Mars;

the atmosphere planet (different meaning) on ERB's Mars -

- and should also have mentioned Adolph Haertel's extraction of water from Martian vegetation and electrolysis of oxygen from the water in James Blish's Welcome To Mars. (I have just reread several chapters of this novel to find the references.)

Three versions of Mars - by Burroughs, Stirling and Blish, respectively - and one extra-solar planet by Anderson.

Now it is time for us to return to Argens, Valland and co on the "world without stars."

Survival

World Without Stars, V.

Asked what is to be done, Hugh Valland replies:

"'We survive,'..." (p. 33)

Assessing their situation and their supplies, he judges:

"'We'll live,'..." (p. 35)

Asked whether they can get off the planet where they have crash-landed, he replies:

"'Got to.'" (ibid.)

Well, he says a little more than that:

"'Sure. Got to. Mary O'Meara's waitin' for me." (ibid.)

A more personal motivation has come into play. On our very first reading of this novel, we accept Valland's statement at face value. It is only at the very end of the novel that we question the sanity of his motivation. (We can only read for the first time once!)

Valland And Smeth

World Without Stars, V.

Valland would have made a good counsellor/clergyman for the dying. Smeth's ribs have pierced his lungs and his spine is broken. Valland asks whether he can remove Smeth's suit:

"'I've only had thirty years,' Smeth shrieked. 'Thirty miserable years! You've had three thousand!'

"'Shut up.' Valland's tone stayed soft, but I've heard less crack in a bullwhip. 'You're a man, aren't you?'

"Smeth gasped for seconds before he replied, 'Go ahead, Hugh.'" (p. 33)

Smeth asks Valland to sing and even specifies a song that is very personal to Valland and, after only a very slight hesitation, the latter complies.

What else could have been done? Smeth receives the best possible send-off in the circumstances. Valland is effortlessly good for everyone that he meets.

(The unfortunate Smeth was created - as a fictional character - only so that he could be painfully killed but authors cannot be compassionate towards their characters. Smeth's death is an important occurrence in World Without Stars.)

Hugh Valland's Competence

World Without Stars, V.

The Meteor crash lands:

"We hit." (p. 30)

When Captain Argens regains consciousness and goes to find his men, he meets Valland who:

gives him a full report on the half-flooded ship with two dead, one mortally injured and the survivors in the saloon;

suggests that the captain joins the rest while he himself looks outside before reporting back.

Definitely the kind of man that you want to have with you in a shipwreck or in any other catastrophe. He remarks:

"'I came through fairly well, myself,'..." (p. 31)

He has been coming through fairly well for three thousand years. We can bet on Valland continuing to survive for quite a while yet. 

Usually, we do not see fictional characters' deaths although James Blish felt obliged to show us his antiagathics-user meeting their ends at nothing less than the end of the universe. 

Experience And Emergency

World Without Stars.

Quick morning post. Probably more later.

After a space jump, the Meteor is not in orbit above the ecliptic of a planetary system but falling towards a planet. The wrong coordinates have been given. Captain Argens freezes but gunner Valland, the more experienced man, shouts orders which Argens then relays to the crew. Experience and authority cooperate in an emergency as they should do. 

I wanted to record that but now must get out to the bank. I should have time to post this evening.

Immortal Employees

World Without Stars.

"Immortal" spacemen live for centuries or even millennia and spend all that time in paid employment in the same kind of work. Can't they save, invest and retire either to leisure activities or to retraining for other kinds of work? It seems an odd kind of existence. Even odder, they preserve their sanity by periodically editing their memories so that they only ever consciously remember a much shorter period, maybe only a few decades, like the equivalent of what used to be a normal working life. Their previous lives and work are recorded somewhere but not in their own conscious memories. Hugh Valland, three thousand years old, recalls his youth, his most recent few years of work and only a few other selected details. He speaks of revisiting old places and visiting new places but even most of the old places will be experienced anew. And, in any case, there is an infinity of new places because the space jump gives access to every galaxy. This has to be the strangest fictional future ever.

In Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years, the small group of mutant immortals have had to solve the memory accumulation problem for themselves and are able to traverse interstellar space at only sub-light speeds so their situation is very different. They propose to part and to reconvene in another million years which I should think is impossible. Will Hugh Valland survive for a million years? Statistically unlikely. But we would have liked to have read some sequels.

In James Blish's Okie cities, unaging policemen, and men in other professions, simply stay in those roles for centuries.

Things That Change Everything

Fiction based on modern scientific cosmology assumes much about the past, e.g., cosmic and biological evolution, even if this is not made explicit, although Poul Anderson's works very often do make this explicit.

Past Events That Changed Everything

The first self-replicating molecule.

Multicellularity.

Central nervous systems.

The first immediate sensation.

Emergence of life from sea onto land.

Manipulation.

The evolution of intelligence.

The agricultural revolution.

Writing.

Printing.

The scientific revolution.

The Industrial Revolution.

Darwinism.

The automobile.

Telegraph and radio.

The discovery of other galaxies and of cosmic expansion. 

Automation.

Modern information and computer technology.

Now imagine that list extended into an indefinite future.

"'Between them, immortality and star travel changed everything. Not necessarily for the worse. I pass no judgments on anybody.'"

-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), IV, p. 26.

Thus speaks a three-thousand-year-old man, Hugh Valland. By "star travel," Valland means instantaneous jumps to other galaxies! By "judgments," he alludes to different lifestyles. His lifestyle remains simultaneously monogamous and celibate. You have to read the novel right to its punchline.

A PC Wren character remains celibate because the one woman that he would have married has married someone else. When I read that in my teens, I thought that it made sense. It certainly takes all sorts.

Ad astra.

Future Historical Writing

I think that the category of future historical writing encompasses more than just the single volumes or series that we recognize as "future histories." James Blish's Nietzschean short story, "A Dusk of Idols," refers back to major events in the same author's juvenile novel, The Star Dwellers. Thus, these two starkly contrasting works have a linear chronological relationship with each other although not with any of the other stories or novels in this author's multi-branched "Haertel Scholium." This is future historical writing although without a linear history - although Blish did create two such histories in his Okie and pantropy series.

In Poul Anderson's World Without Stars, Hugh Valland is three thousand years old, thanks to the antithanatic. He is possibly the oldest human being in his timeline like Lazarus Long in Heinlein's Future History and Hanno in Anderson's own The Boat Of A Million Years. Valland was young when the antithanatic was developed. The dates on his girlfriend's grave are 2018-2037. Thus, this novel represents a history stretching from our lifetimes to three millennia hence. It is a piece of future history although not a volume of a future history series.

Anderson's After Doomsday begins in a near future soon after the advent of extra-solar aliens and recounts history-changing events on an interstellar scale, including a space battle celebrated in a ballad that will continue to be sung in bars and inns on different planets into an indefinite future. This is clearly future historical material although the novel does not cover a long enough period for this text itself to be classified as a "future history."

Poul Anderson's Leading Characters

Which do we prefer?

Gratillonius, Roman centurion and King of Ys.

Nicholas van Rijn, interstellar merchant.

David Falkayn, interstellar merchant, van Rijn's successor, Founder of the Avalon colony.

Dominic Flandry, Terran Imperial intelligence agent.

Manson Everard, Time Patrolman.

Jack Havig, mutant time traveller.

Hanno, mutant immortal.

Hugh Valland, "antithanatic" immortal.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

Valeria Matuchek, daughter of a werewolf and a witch, first human being on the Moon in her timeline.

There are many others but these ten are prominent.