Fire Time II

(i) In Poul Anderson's Fire Time (London, 1977), one character:

"...considered the pagan rites of propitiation a waste of good meat." (p. 34)

Too right they are unless the meat, having been offered in this case to "...an outlaw god...," is then eaten on his behalf by his propitiators!

(ii) The term "gravitrons," used in the previous volume, The Star Fox, does seem to have been dropped from the vocabulary here. So far (but I have as yet reread only to p. 48 of 255), there has been no indication of how FTL flight works in this fictitious timeline. Perhaps Anderson came to think that "gravitrons" sounded too much like a Golden Age of Science Fiction gimmick?

(iii) One Terrestrial Naval spaceship is called the Moshe Peretz. This name seemed familiar but only because I had reread The Star Fox immediately before Fire Time. Sure enough, Peretz was a Rear Admiral thirty years previously. This is the sort of carefully observed detail that brings a future history to life.

(iv) The Star Fox was a three part series so this second volume is really Part Four of the series. One to one and a half generations have passed so the series is on its way towards future history status but unfortunately, as we always wind up saying, Anderson did not extend it any further because he was too busy writing a lot of other good stuff.

Winding Up On The Star Fox

A few last points from Poul Anderson's The Star Fox (London, 1968) -

(i) Gunnar Heim compares a space battle to a sea battle:

"Olaf Tryggvason, on the blood-reddened deck of the Long Serpent." (p. 195)

- like Marius, a name familiar from Anderson's historical fiction recurring in his science fiction.

(ii) " '...gravitronics...' " (p. 93) The single use of the name for the science of gravity which is applied with devices called "gravitrons" for both anti-gravity and FTL. The Staurni have gravitronics but are uninterested in interstellar travel.

(iii) Anderson dramatises the political conflict between "militarists" and Militants for Peace by putting Gunnar into a relationship with a woman on the opposite side of the argument. This works ok. Gunnar is able to distinguish between a personal relationship and a political argument.

(iv) The enemy aliens, the Aleriona, are slow to change and bred to specialise. Thus, dynamic, generalist human beings are a threat to them. This is a theme in much Campbellian sf: human complexities are an unpredictable challenge to other intelligent species. Asimov invented the humans only galaxy for his future history because he did not want to go along with the Campbellian idea of human superiority. One Aleriona who is bred to think like human beings and not allowed to procreate, in order not to disrupt his own society, is lonely and tries to befriend the captured Heim, thus giving the latter an escape opportunity.

Fire Time

When a novel describes an extrasolar planet visited by Terrestrials, the text must describe both the conditions on the visited planet and the more general background:

What is Earth like in that period in our future?
What means of interstellar travel are used?
Have other extrasolar planets been visited?
Are any of them inhabited?
Do any other races have interstellar travel?
Is such travel regular or are there just occasional exploratory voyages?
Etc.

Poul Anderson's Fire Time (London, 1977) describes the planet Ishtar whose distinguishing feature is that it is periodically scorched by its close approach to a red giant companion star. Such a planet could have existed in any future scenario, whether in one of Anderson's several future history series or in a new scenario specially created for this particular novel.

In this case, Anderson combines the new with the familiar. On the one hand, we have never encountered Ishtar before. On the other hand, the Earth that has sent explorers to Ishtar is governed by the World Federation and is currently at war with the Naqsans. That is unfortunate. When we read of this Federation in The Star Fox, a Naqsan was the Chief Engineer for a human privateer that was then at war with another space-travelling species.

In this second novel, Anderson has to describe:

how Earth got into a war with Naqsa;
how Fire Time affects the native Ishtarians;
how both the war and the Fire Time affect the human explorers on Ishtar.

Having previously read Fire Time only once many years ago, I must now reread it carefully in order to find and comment on Anderson's treatment of these questions.

Fire Time: A Sequel

Rereading Poul Anderson's Fire Time (London, 1977) while knowing that it is set about thirty years after his The Star Fox, I look out for continuity clues.

In the Foreword:

on the first page of the text, p. 7, a vehicle called a "...flyer...";
on p. 9, " '...World Federation...' " and " '...the Welfare district...' " of a city;
on p. 10, an "...infotrieve..."

Chapter I describes quadrupedal aliens on their own planet which is not one of those featured in The Star Fox.

Chapter II refers to the planet Gea from which Gunnar Heim of The Star Fox had hailed. Heim will cameo later in Fire Time but I have not read that far yet. This chapter also refers to a cargo ship "...backing down on gravs..." (p. 23) Has "gravitrons" been abbreviated?

The Star Fox is a novelized three part serial whereas Fire Time seems to have been written as a single longer novel. Although the completed works form only a two volume series, Anderson skillfully includes several background details conveying the sense of a single fictional timeline common to both novels.

Later: References to " '...the Alerion affair...' " and to " '...the Naqsans...'" confirm that Fire Time is set in the same timeline as The Star Fox. (pp. 24, 25)

The Star Fox: A Series

By the end of Poul Anderson's The Star Fox (London, 1968), Gunnar Heim has been:

a World Federation Space Navy officer;
boss and chief owner of Heimdal Nuclear Motors;
a privateer;
minister of space and navy for the newly independent planet, New Europe.

Next, he wants to:

experiment with pelagic farming;
prospect other planets and asteroids in the same system as New Europe;
start a merchant spaceship yard
etc.

If only everyone were that energetic!

I was looking out for signs that this novel had been not a serial but a series when published in The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I thought I had reached the end of a discrete story when Heim had rescued his kidnapped daughter at the end of Chapter Eight. However, there was one more chapter to go before the end of Part One.

The three Parts are:

Marque And Reprisal (nine chapters);
Arsenal Port (eight);
Admiralty (ten).

The Star Fox is a novelized serial about an interstellar privateer. However, it is not three installments about privateering.

Part One ends with the spaceship, Fox II, leaving the Solar System. To that extent, it is like Anderson's Orbit Unlimited. The first installment has been build-up and preparation.

Part Two describes an incident that occurs while Heim is buying weapons on Staurn, thus has still not started privateering.

Part Three begins after four months of raiding and eighteen ships captured with Heim learning that he needs to end the conflict soon. After a landing on the disputed planet, the war is won by the end of the book.

Thus, the period of privateering is between Parts Two and Three and a further book could be written about it.

Continuing With The Star Fox III

(i) Let's be more precise about the scientific rationale of Staurnian flight in Poul Anderson's The Star Fox (London, 1968). Staurnians are hydrogen breathers who should have less active metabolisms than oxygen breathers and Staurnian gravity is twice terrestrial. However:

they have bird-type bones;
the lower energy of hydrogen molecules is more than compensated for by their greater numbers in the Staurnian atmosphere;
the enzyme systems are efficient;
there is so much ultraviolet from the sun that the plants build very energy-rich compounds.

(ii) The basic Staurnian social unit is a patriarchal household which would not have been able to raise them above savagery. Somehow, possibly by conquest and slavery, they did build a global industrial civilisation which, however, destroyed itself in a nuclear war. Staurnians were happy to revert to patriarchal households, especially since these are now armed with nuclear weapons with which they can attack each other and which they can sell to visiting outworld traders!

Staurnians are less adversely affected by radiation, having more of it in their environment, their Nests are mostly underground and there are no incendiary effects in a hydrogen atmosphere. A Guild of older males arbitrates, defends Staurn and deals with outworlders.

(iii) Staurn, an obvious anagram of "Saturn," also connotes to me "stern" and "storm." When Heim said that he would buy weapons from a place of that name, it seemed appropriate.

(iv) Staurnian wings are "...chiropteran..." (p. 74) I cannot find this word in a dictionary.

(v) " 'We're laying the foundation of' - he hunted for words - 'admiralty. Man's throughout the universe.' " (p. 203) I am not sure about this use of the word "admiralty."

(vi) " 'If man is going to live throughout the galaxy, he's got to be free to take his own roads...And that way won't the race realize all its potential? Is there any other way we can, than by trying everything out, everywhere?' " (p. 201) - Anderson's consistent message, essentially correct.

(vii) There is at least no economic reason for interstellar wars: " 'What do entire, self-sufficient, isolated worlds have to fight about?' " (p. 201) They have just finished fighting but that was about ideology.

More later.

Continuing With The Star Fox II

(i) Anderson approved of private enterprise and was interested in war so maybe "Privateers...privately owned warships..." were a perfect subject matter for him? (The Star Fox (London, 1968), p. 34) Nicholas van Rijn is an interstellar trader. Gunnar Heim becomes an interstellar privateer.

(ii) Only France backs the privateer. Was Anderson rehabilitating the French in the eyes of (some of) his countrymen? (An (older) Englishman informed me that "the French are cowards," citing an instance during WWII when French forces retreated instead of advancing in support of their allies. I am glad I don't think like that.)

(iii) The French representative in the World Federation Parliament argues that the Federation is de facto at war, that France is obliged to help the Federation and that therefore France is right to back a privateer who is raiding the enemy even though a majority in the Federation currently favors peace. (The enemy has occupied a planet with mainly French colonists.) Is his argument valid? Should he not argue instead that the Federation should either deploy its Navy or back the privateer - rather than that France is right already to have unilaterally backed the privateer? He can argue urgency. The trapped colonists need immediate help.

(iv) Having given us two intelligent flying species in his Technic History, Anderson gives us another here and again his characters discuss how flight is scientifically possible for such large creatures. Their body structure and planetary atmosphere differ from ours, e.g., there is more hydrogen.

(v) Like Anderson's Ythrians, the flying Staurni are entirely carnivorous. Usually carnivores specialize in fighting ability, not in intelligence, but the Staurni may have developed intelligence to resist similar but larger opponents.

(vi) "Underfoot the ground was covered with that springy mosslike red-yellow growth that was this world's equivalent of grass." (p. 97) Anderson always tells us what a new planet uses for grass. Later there is a reference to the grasses of the colonized planet, New Europe.

(vii) Anderson always shows us political arguments and some of their absurdities like, "'We make no threats. But let the militarists beware.' " (p. 44)

To be continued...

Flandry And Foundation And Van Rijn

Of the first eight stories in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, Nicholas van Rijn appears in only one, "Margin Of Profit," which I think should be read as no 5, at the approximate midpoint. Of the following eleven works, eight stories and three novels, he appears in all but two! The works that come after that are set after his life time.

Thus, he dominates the Polesotechnic League period even when the series has changed its main focus from van Rijn himself to his trader team led by David Falkayn. Nevertheless, van Rijn is absent from nine of these nineteen works so that we are given plenty of information both about pre-League events and about other aspects of the society that is contemporary with van Rijn.

The theme of the collapse of a civilization occurs twice in the History. First, the League decays. Later, the Empire that has replaced it falls. But Anderson shows us in sufficient detail what goes wrong in each case. The Fall leading to the Long Night is no mere rerun of the decline of the League leading to the Time of Troubles and both are far more convincing than Asimov's Fall of the Galactic Empire.

In Anderson's History, civilization is gradually rebuilt by the efforts of people and their governments to form an alliance of planets whereas Asimov instead gives us the implausible behind the scenes machinations of psychohistorians, mental supermen and telepathic Robots.

Continuing With The Star Fox

When last I posted about Poul Anderson's The Star Fox (London, 1968), Gunnar Heim had just set the autopilot on his gravitron-powered "flyer." Continuing to read, we find several more points in common with other works of sf.

(i) The next thing that Heim does, after taking "...a long hot bath..." while flying towards Orly, is to get "...some whale from the freezer..." and make a burger (p. 30). This single background detail informs us that world population pressure has necessitated dietary adjustments so that whale meat has become standard sustenance even for someone as well-off as Heim.

(ii) In Orly, the French politician Coquelin, while conversing with Heim:

"...went to the desk and began punching keys on an infotrieve." (p. 35)

Asked what he is after, he replies:

" 'Details of the time before quite every country had joined the Federation.' " (p. 35)

In other words, in a story that is copyright 1964, he accessed the Internet. While reading sf in the 60's, we took for granted that in the future, there would be many interconnected computers and that it would be possible by punching keys to access any information. Rereading Poul Anderson's sf now, we make the same assumption not about our future but about our present. We need to pause and reflect that we are reading a story that was written that long ago.

(iii) " '...the Peace Control Authority is vested with the sole military power.' " (p. 67)

This is the same as the Space Patrol in Robert Heinlein's Future History and Scribner Juveniles. To prevent nuclear war, the UN, or the Federation, entrusts the Patrol with a monopoly of nuclear weapons which must be used to keep the peace but not to attack any one country in the interests of another.

(iv) It is a common idea that it is dangerous to switch on an FTL drive too deep in a gravity well/too near the Sun, but our heroes might take this risk to make a quick getaway. Heim does this on p. 71.

(v) This may be coincidental but, shortly after joining forces with the crew of another spaceship called the Quest, Heim and his companions set out on a fairly standard "Quest" across the terrain of an inhospitable planet where they encounter a "Walking Forest" (remember Tolkien but Anderson presents a scientific rationale for mobile trees) and "Slaughter Machines," the familiar idea of killer robots left over from an ancient war but still capable of reactivating and attacking our protagonists.

There are also ideas here that connect more specifically with other works by Anderson but I will address those after a night's sleep and attending to other business.

Flandry And Foundation

The end pages of my copy of Poul Anderson's The Star Fox (London, 1968) include a one page ad for Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. VECTOR (The Journal of the British Science Fiction Association) is quoted as saying:

"No other book can compare with the magnificent scope that this series offers." (p. 207)

That is nonsense. Many books have far greater scope. Foundation presents some interesting ideas and arguments, although my response is usually to take issue with them, but the trilogy pales in comparison with, for example, Poul Anderson's much more colorful and substantial future history series.

Asimov's Galaxy is unaccountably filled with millions of humanly inhabitable but otherwise uninhabited planets which humanity alone has colonized with little apparent effort over many millennia whereas Anderson's future humanity, more plausibly occupying only one fraction of a single spiral arm, encounters green Merseians and winged Ythrians among many other intelligent alien species. (By "colorful," I mean vividly described. The Merseians' greenness kind of symbolizes this.)

There are structural and thematic parallels between Anderson's Flandry and Asimov's Foundation but how much better is the former!

(i) In both cases, the original series was first published in magazines before being collected in two volumes for Anderson and three for Asimov.

(ii) In both cases, later written novels both precede and succeed the original series in the chronological order of fictitious events. Apart from additions by other authors, Asimov wrote two pre-Foundation novels and two later Foundation novels. Anderson has a Young Flandry Trilogy and what I call his "Children of Empire" Trilogy.

(iii) Anderson's van Rijn series was later regarded as having happened before his Flandry series as Asimov's Robot novels were later regarded as having happened before his Foundation series.

(iv) Both Flandry and Foundation describe the decline of an interstellar empire but consider just the first three Flandry stories, which in themselves form a short trilogy:

in "Tiger By The Tail," Flandry subverts a rival interstellar empire;

in "Honorable Enemies," the Terran Empire and the Merseian Rhoidunate clash on the neutral territory of Betelgeuse;

in "The Game Of Glory," Flandry organizes subversion within the Rhoidunate and counters subversion within the Empire.

The next two Flandry stories are a diptych with the second describing an event during Flandry's return home from the first. The next two after that, which complete the original series, are a second diptych showing Flandry now in possession of both a private spaceship and a green Shalmuan servant. These two stories prepare the way for the "Children of Empire" Trilogy where Flandry is much higher in the counsels of the Empire. That Trilogy completes the Flandry series but not the future history which continues long after the Fall of the Empire.

Asimov merely projects the Roman Empire onto the Galaxy and Hari Seldon's psychohistorical predictions are too mathematically complex for us to be given any information about them whereas Anderson's character, Chunderban Desai, discusses an actually existing theory of the rise and decline of civilizations. Desai is able to warn Flandry and anyone else who might listen but is not able to perform the impossible feat of secretly manipulating social interactions in order to divert the course of events after the Fall.

One structural difference between Flandry and Foundation is that the former became a future history by being linked to van Rijn whereas the latter was already a future history, although on a different model, before being linked to Robots. Foundation is a linear sequence of political events over several centuries whereas Anderson's Technic History, incorporating van Rijn, Flandry and others, has the Heinleinian pyramidal structure of several stories describing different aspects of a future society and thus providing a base for other stories set later in the same timeline.