A Telling Point

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

A frivolous story can make a serious point. The premier and his wife are relieved when their kidnapped daughter is returned unharmed. They have been through hell. But then Wing Alak asks the premier:

"'Have you ever thought how many millions of mothers this holy war of yours would have left without any prospect of getting their children back?'" (p. 173)

He explains:

"'...I had to think of the whole Galaxy, not Luan. Sometimes someone must suffer a little lest someone else suffer a lot more.'" (p. 176)

That is Alak's motivation and everything that he has done suddenly appears in a different light.

Wrong And Right

 

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

Galactic League Patrol agents act wrongly in every conventional sense. They deceive, thwart, seduce or betray their clients/victims. However, it also turns out that this is how the Patrol saves lives and keep the peace. It is all one big act and joke.

As has been pointed out in the combox, bluffs can be called:

Robert Heinlein's Future History includes a volume in which, although technology has progressed, society has regressed;

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series includes an installment in which Seldon's psychohistorical predictions are wrong;

James Blish's Okie series includes an installment in which the germanium-backed Oc dollar collapses, bankrupting the flying cities;

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History includes an installment in which the Psychotechnic Institute has failed and has been overthrown and outlawed;

Anderson's Technic History includes an installment in which the Polesotechnic League is cartelizing and is thwarting the development of planets and species lacking the necessary start-up capital;

the League Patrol series needed an installment in which someone called the League's bluff.

Space Patrols

Poul Anderson, "Enough Rope" IN Anderson, Kinship With The Stars (New York, October 1991), pp. 216-248.

In the author's introduction:

"The scars of World War Two were not yet healed when I, in a story called "The Double-Dyed Villains," raised the question of whether armed forces - which science fiction was widely using in the form of various kinds of space patrols - really were a good answer to the problem of maintaining law and peace." (p. 216)

We will refer to:

Robert Heinlein's Scribner Juveniles;

Heinlein's Future History;

Anderson's Psychotechnic History.

Space Cadet is a Scribner Juvenile about the Interplanetary Space Patrol which prevents nuclear war by monopolizing nuclear weapons. A hero of the Patrol is John Ezra Dahlquist who died preventing a coup by his superior officer.

"The Long Watch" is a Future History short story about Dahlquist's death.

In the Psychotechnic History, the armed force of the Solar Union is the Solar Guard which is split by civil war when Earth withdraws from the Union.

And that is all that there is time for tonight.

League Patrol Policy And Deceit

"The Doubled-Dyed Villains."

An anticlimax, really. Alak kidnaps the Premier's daughter to make him call off the war but then carefully explains that:

Patrol agents are not allowed to kill;

they lie about having a large battle fleet;

he would not have harmed the daughter, whatever had happened;

the Patrol deploys such deceits because the only alternative would be genocidal interstellar wars waged by themselves or others;

as part of this, he explains the three other cases that we have been shown during the story.

Not much of a basis for an extended series although there are two other stories to check out.

In different timelines:

the Polesotechnic League preserves mercantile freedom - for a while;

the Time Patrol preserves human history;

the League Patrol preserves Galactic peace. 

Another Of Poul Anderson's Many Taverns

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

On p. 163, Wing Alak visits Yamen's tavern:

photoelectric doors;

crowded;

the sweepings of space;

many nonhumans from remote planets;

dim light;

smoke;

live show;

tiny stage;

small table;

dark corner;

coin into vendor for warm, thin beer from chute;

approached by a slithering, dragonlike, reptilian, drug-peddling Rassalan with "beadlly" (?) eyes, addicted to acrid, poisonous vurzin.

Some of Poul Anderson's taverns are underworld joints and this is.

Wind And The League

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

This Galactic League does rule some non-human beings. Sirians have tendrils and Mordhans have four arms. 

Poul Anderson had an early grasp of pathetic fallacy. Red firelight seems to splash the twelve Mordhan earls with blood. And is their number significant?

"Outside the windows, the mighty autumn wind flung sleet and rain at the castle walls and roared about its towers." (p. 161)

Atmospheric and dramatic! By now we always notice Andersonian wind. We expect it to underline or punctuate the dialogue and it does. The text continues:

"Dorlock who had called the meeting, spoke first. His deep voice was low, and the storm snarled over and around its rumble..." (ibid.)

One passage about Sirians and another about Mordhans inform readers that the League rules through deceit, deception, corruption and seduction. Sf is about alternatives.

Introducing Wing Alak

Poul Anderson, "The Double-Dyed Villains" IN Anderson, The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson, Volume I, Call Me Joe (NESFA, Framingham, MA, March 2009), pp. 157-177.

OK. We begin to read the Wing Alak trilogy over Sunday breakfast after meditating and before walking to the gym so we will not penetrate very far into this first story this morning.

A planetary premier whips up his excitable population over their telescreens, declaring war on the League government and its Patrol. He will lead the Galaxy and refers to:

"'...man's tortured history.'" (p. 157)

Thinking quickly, sf readers deduce that this story is set in a future period when human beings have long been settled on planets throughout the galaxy.

Our viewpoint character, listening to the premier's speech in his hotel room, is called Wing Alak, a name that discloses nothing. However, when he is arrested, Alak is addressed as:

"'Wing Alak of Sol III...'" (p. 158)

- even though he has been posing as:

"'...Gol Duhinator of Maxlan IV...'" (ibid.)

The alert sf reader is thus informed that Alak is an undercover operative from Earth - probably capital planet of the League. Maxlan has to be a star, the planet where this is happening is called Luan and Luan's immediate grievance is that the League has given Lhing to Marhal:

"'...as a political bribe...'" (p. 157)

- according to the enraged Premier, Tranis Voal.

Stay tuned.

(The NESFA volume is too bulky to carry to the gym. However, I have two paperback volumes to take to read over lunch after an hour of exercise.)

One Minor Series

Short stories are too short. When we have finished one, we have to start another and we do not necessarily want the next one in the collection although there are many collections and a trilogy of short stories should occupy more time:

"The Double-Dyed Villains" is in Call Me Joe (see image);

"Enough Rope" and "The Live Coward" are in Kinship With The Stars.

The author's short introduction to "The Live Coward" reads:

"And here is another example of Wing Alak at his Machiavellian work. I could have written more stories in the series, but three were plenty. It was time to go on to something new."

-Poul Anderson, Kinship With The Stars (New York, October 1991), p. 249.

- which was Anderson's stated reason for discontinuing his Technic History.

We might also reread some of The King Of Ys although we will certainly not repeat all that we have already posted about that Tetralogy. But we also know that something new can always be found in Poul Anderson's works. Having just returned from the Light Up Lancaster Festival, it is time for some Other Reading.

Conquering The Galaxy

"The Pirate."

"This galaxy alone is too big for any power to control." (p. 97)

Then why do some sf villains want to conquer it? And, specifically, why, in a later future history series, do Poul Anderson's Merseians want to conquer it? Anderson can answer that. His Merseians started out as standard pulp space opera villains with green skins out to conquer the galaxy but it emerges that their aim is a network of autonomous realms, not a single galactic government. What matters to them is the race, not any particular regime. And, by "them," we mean the dominant culture on Merseia during a particular historical period, not the species as a whole. On the human colony planet, Dennitza, the minority of beings of Merseian descent are loyal to the Terran Emperor, not to the Merseian Roidhun. The Technic History mirrors real history in complexity.

"You Again!"

(I don't know what this title means but let's use its cover image anyway.)

"The Pirate."

Murdoch sees Trevelyan entering his private suite at:

"...the discreet and expensive Altair House." (p. 95)

- and exclaims:

"'...Sunglaze! You again!'" (ibid.)

This is a standard fictional hero-confronts-villain routine: Trevelyan hero; Murdoch villain. The former has thwarted the latter before. Imagine that this story is an installment of a series in which these two men have clashed at least once before. It is not. "The Pirate" is written as a prequel to The Peregrine but not as a sequel to any earlier Trevelyan Micah installments. There were none. However, Poul Anderson easily persuades us to accept that Trevelyan has had a long and distinguished career in the Stellar Union Coordination Service and that, in this role, he got the better of Captain Murdoch Juan on a previous occasion.

Heroes confront villains all the time and it has to seem fresh every time. Written by Alan Moore, the Batman intones, "So, Red Hood, we meet again!" (Standard stuff.) But the dupe inside the hood thinks, "What is happening? Is that a demon?" (Very unstandard, Alan Moore stuff.)

"You again!" can mean something completely different. When Robert Heinlein's Dan Davis approaches the scientist who has discovered "temporal displacement" but has been pressurized to suppress it, the latter says:

"'You again.'"

-The Door Into Summer, p. 141.

Davis remembers no previous encounter. However, temporal displacement is involved...

Military Virtues

 

"The Star Beast."

Responding to the Procyonites, Ramacan reflects that:

nations that have known only war glorify military virtues;

a militaristic state avoids peace, leisure and prosperity but instead controls its population and maintains its rule by further conquests;

the Procyonites, now capable only of fighting, have become beasts of prey.

My reflection is that it is not only militaristic states that control their populations by directing their attention outward against an external enemy!

Conflicts against external enemies are reflected in popular fiction. James Bond must fight SMERSH, SPECTRE, Blofeld as an individual, then the KGB. Full circle. There would have been no shortage of new villains if the series had continued after the Cold War although Bond himself was approaching retirement age. Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner and Alan Moore in V For Vendetta turned their attention towards enemies that were not external, an idea that would have been both incomprehensible and antithetical to a regime like that of the Procyonites.

Narratives About Something

Recently I tried rereading some sf from years ago but did not read it to the end. I realize now that what I wanted then was stories about people in spaceships, not stories that were about something and that also happened to feature people in spaceships. Poul Anderson's first few Dominic Flandry stories are space opera but his later Flandry novels are about historical processes and alien evolution. The Merseians are transformed from cliched villains into a plausible species. The Technic History incorporates the lengthy Flandry series and, as we know, another entire series with additional stories set before, between and after, thus making it, in my opinion, the most complete future history series.

The film, The Odyssey, expresses concern about the decline of civilization, an issue that was not present in the Homeric epic but that is relevant now and was expressed by Poul Anderson. 

New Instalments?

We will be able to read new instalments of Poul Anderson's Technic History only if someone else writes them but this should be done either very well or not at all. I do not accept any later additions to Stieg Larsson's Millennium series - which have not been based on whatever unfinished manuscript was left by Larsson. I do not even accept Robert Heinlein's later additions to his own Future History!

We fully accept that some kinds of fictional characters are written by multiple authors, e.g.:

Sexton Blake, 4000 stories by 200 authors in 5 media;

comic strip and TV characters.

Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller have been able to re-create comic book characters and to write substantial graphic novels about previously inconsequential heroes and villains. A writer with such skills would be able to make new additions to a future history series that is already consequential but this is unlikely to happen.

Meanwhile, we appreciate how much a single author was able to put into the Technic History.

Identifying

I do not spend much time identifying with fictional characters but which ones might I identify with?

Of Nicholas van Rijn's trade pioneer crew, neither David Falkayn nor Chee Lan but maybe Adzel because of his meditation and studiousness.

Of James Blish's magicians: none. (A book with nothing but villains!) 

Of Alan Moore's Watchmen: Doctor Manhattan.

Of Neil Gaiman's Endless: Destiny.

Of SM Stirling's five American time travellers, Mark, who says:

"'I'm really not good at the nonverbal stuff, you know.'"

-To Turn The Tide, CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO, p. 337.

Paula, who has been dropping hints, has to spell out that, when she suggests going to bed, she means together - a woman who realizes the need to take the initiative.

(We are just about to go to our daughter's place for Fathers' Day.)

1930

One advantage of blogging is that, if we forget to include a quote in a particular post, then we can include it in a later one. Yesterday, in a completely different context, I had read a passage that I had thought was highly relevant both to the twentieth century (in which it was written) and to future histories (written in that century). However, the context was so different that I had forgotten the passage when I wrote:

1930, 1950, 1990, 2000

In Italy in 1930, Antonio Gramsci wrote in one of his Prison Notebooks:

"The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born - now is the time of monsters..."

1930 was also the year of publication of Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men. (See the first link above.)

We remember Poul Anderson's "New centuries scream in birth."

Future histories do not have villains as such. However, we remember political "monsters" in Poul Anderson's "Un-Man" and "The Sensitive Man" and in the real twentieth century! (Anderson's Technic History incorporated his Captain Flandry series in which the Merseians appeared as well-written although stereotypical green-skinned space opera villains but Anderson later transformed them into a more well-rounded and plausible alien species.)

In "1930, 1950, 1990, 2000," we mentioned that Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history chronology starts with Neil Armstrong in 1969 and that the CoDominium is formed in 1990. It follows from these data alone that, when this chronology was written, 1969 was past and 1990 was future. Future histories reflect their times.

Anti-Racist Statements

Whether or not this was his intention, I think that Poul Anderson did in fact make two very powerful anti-racist statements in his Technic History. 

First, although he had originally introduced the Merseians as standard sf pulp villains, he later presented the integration of beings of Merseian descent into the political and economic life of the human colony planet, Dennitiza. See:

Dennitzan Cultural Blending

A Powerful Anti-Racist Statement By Poul Anderson

Khyrwhedin

When Dominic Flandry and Kossara Vymezal enter the Dennitzan Parliament as part of an ychani (Merseian) demonstration and delegation, Flandry knows that his only certain ally in the Parliament is Merseian by descent.

Secondly, Anderson introduced the Ythrians as primarily alien and different: flying carnivores, therefore territorial, therefore possibly waging a war for territory. Surprisingly, Avalonian Ythrians welcome large numbers of human beings, flying with antigravity belts, into full membership of choths. If there was ever any opposition to such recruitment, then it has been left far behind between instalments.

Sherlock Holmes And Nicholas Van Rijn

"'You are both wrong.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, January 2009), pp. 195-233 AT p. 229.

"'You are all wrong.'"

-Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" IN Conan Doyle, The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes IN Arthur Conan Doyle: 3 Books In 1 (Mumbai, 2007), pp. 229-254 AT p. 225.

Holmes and van Rijn are right, of course!

A perfect parallel. In the latter case, a man was taken on a twelve mile journey by night in a coach but did they go north, east, west or south? All wrong. Six miles out and six miles back to the starting point, but to give the impression of a twelve mile journey. Holmesian villains are devious.

In the next Holmes story, a character is cut to the quick. Quiz time: where does van Rijn say that he is cut to the quiche? (Someone please help me with this one. I can't remember.)

I think that van Rijn is a bit like Poirot but here he is a bit like Holmes.

OK. I am still rereading "Star of the Sea" but also Holmes.

A Vile Villain

Conan: Blood Of The Serpent.

In haste but here goes. 

Conan commands a mercenary band that helps to guard a relief party sent to the garrison at a Stygian gold mine. On arrival, the slaves rebel. Does Conan direct his men - "men" including Valeria - to help the slaves? Well, no. They have to defend themselves against the rebels who nevertheless escape, probably to die in the desert. Conan has to lead a return march, leaving the mine unstaffed and undefended. He has plans for some of the gold but we must read on.

SM Stirling writes vile villains and the priest of Set who is in attendance is no exception. When Conan kills him, he is chanting:

"'Ry'lla, aie Setesh, aie Cthu -'" (p. 160)

What does that sound like? How was he about to complete that last word?

Got to go, folks. It is still good.

Jehanan And Ramwas

Conan The Rebel, II.

A prisoner, Jehanan, spits on an image of Set in front of his guards. This is unwise. Set is powerful and his worshippers are vengeful. In any case, maybe Set as a deity merits some passive respect although no more than that.

Addressing Ramwas, who is a Stygian military officer, minor nobleman and large landholder, Topathis says:

"'Though the penalty for failure is unbounded, the reward for success can be high.'" (p. 16)

This is a characteristic of evil organizations in fiction and probably also in fact. Failure is punished as if it were deliberate wrong-doing! Knowledge that I was working for such a regime would certainly make me want - and plan - to get out. Ramwas is concerned not about that but only about the dangers of the task that Topathis sets for him.

As in Ian Fleming's From Russia, With Love, the villains assemble before we see much of our hero.

I appreciate Conan The Rebel as one part of Poul Anderson's works but not as an instalment of the Conan series, not having read any other volumes of the latter.

Merseians

Some blog posts lead a life of their own. The previous post ended with Merseians. This extra-solar species is one of perhaps ten plot threads that weave in and out of Poul Anderson's Technic History:

future forms of Christianity;

human-Ythrian interactions;

the colonization of Avalon;

the career of David Falkayn;

the trader team;

Merseians;

the decline of the Polesotechnic League;

the growth, then the long decline, of the Terran Empire;

the career of Dominic Flandry;

the post-Imperial periods.

Merseians

"Day of Burning": the League helps and antagonizes them.

Mirkheim: some of them work for the Baburites.

The People Of The Wind: the Merseian Roidhunate grows at a distance.

The Captain Flandry stories: they are standard space opera villains (their first appearance).

The Young Flandry Trilogy (written later; set earlier): a more rounded species.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows: ychani/zmayi loyal to the Emperor, not to the Roidhun.

The Game Of Empire: maybe the demoralization that begins the decline of the Roidhunate.

We know that the Roidhunate has declined because it does not rule human space after the Fall of the Terran Empire. That leads to a list of unanswered questions.