All The World(s) Going And Coming

Science fiction writers have sometimes based Terrestrial colonials and extraterrestrial natives on European colonials and Asian or African natives. Equally, an account, for example, of British-ruled India can seem so exotic as to remind the reader of a science fictional setting:

"'Look! Brahmins and chumars [or see], bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims and potters - all the world going and coming.'"
-Rudyard Kipling, Kim (London, 2010), p. 58.

And, on the extrasolar planet Imhotep, Diana Crowfeather sees, among the "...brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and out on the tides of space..." (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, p. 195), Tigeries, a Donarrian, Irumclagians, Shalmuans and a Wodenite.

Religions on Imhotep are also as diverse as in Kipling's India. Whereas Tigeries are inchoate pagans and Diana sleeps in "...a ruinous temple..." (p. 196), the Wodenite, Francis Xavier Axor, is ordained in the Galilean Order of the Jerusalem Catholic Church. The orphan Diana guides Axor just as the orphan Kim had guided a Tibetan lama (see image).

Read Kipling, then Anderson (if you haven't already).

The Universal Quest In Kipling And Anderson

Kim's lama walks around North West India seeking his River of Enlightenment. Mad though this quest is, we are all on the same quest in different forms. My friends go to church. I sit facing a wall. None of us walks around England peering into every river or stream. But we will know Enlightenment when it finds us - or when He finds us if you are a theist. The lama and I refer to one Aryan Lord whereas my Anglican friends refer to their Hebrew Lord. The Ways transcend nation and race. (Malcolm X met white Muslims at Mecca.)

Poul Anderson's Fr Axor travels between planetary systems seeking evidence for the Universal Incarnation. Will he find it? He might, but we expect that many of his contemporaries will not accept his interpretation of the data.

The lama and Axor, clergy beings in their respective traditions, are equally sincere. However, seekers are as multifarious as the Truth is manifold.

"'Stand by. The Divine, in whatever form It manifests Itself to you, the Divine is with us.'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 261)

Kim Again

I have read again Chapters 1 and 2 of Kim (London, 2010), with their references to the "...Peshawur brigades." (p. 38) It seems that the many faiths and castes traveling on the Indian trains are as diverse and exotic as the innumerable intelligent species in Poul Anderson's Terran Empire. Thus, Kipling's India feels very close to Anderson's extrasolar planets - and also to SM Stirling's alternative histories, especially of course to the history of the Angrezi Raj and The Peshawar Lancers.

However, since it is now past midnight and the 2nd of June, this post goes no further. I hope soon to post about Stirling's history in which explorers from Earth encounter exotic inhabitants of Mars and Venus.

Not Read Yet

Regarding Poul Anderson titles not yet read by me, Murder In Black Letter remains available but too expensive for my budget.

Since the SM Stirling novel to which I referred here was In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings, I searched the blog to see what, if anything, I had already posted about this novel. See here. There is an explicit reference to Poul Anderson but the viewpoint character of this passage is Frederik Pohl.

The fictional Pohl reflects that sf settings will have to go extrasolar as meanwhile Louis L'Amour and James Michener will fictionalize the exploits of planetary explorers, just as Kit Carson was fictionalized in his own lifetime. Carson even read dime novels about himself while he still really was fighting Indians in the Rockies. That is an interesting relationship when it occurs - between the real man and his fictional counterpart. If someone writes a novel in which Kit Carson reads a "Kit Carson" dime novel, then a fictional Carson reads about a fictional Carson or, to be more precise, a realistically fictional Carson reads about a fancifully fictional Carson.

Somewhere in Stirling's first "Lords of Creation" novel, The Sky People, an explorer on Venus reflects that people on Earth enjoy fictional accounts of the exploits of named planetary explorers. (Correction, 4 June 2015: not named. See here.) And this happens in a work of fiction that is written to celebrate earlier works of fiction written at a time when Mars and Venus really might have turned out to be inhabitable. Pretty smart stuff.

Round The Corner

(Some of us here abbreviate "tomorrow" to "tomoz" for texting purposes.)

Tomoz: Latin class and arrival of house guest.

Result: maybe less blogging.

Soon: arrival by post of an SM Stirling novel.

Result: much posting, I expect.

Poul Anderson purists might be less interested or think that the blog is going off topic? I have sometimes posted about other writers relevant to Poul Anderson and, so far, have then returned to Anderson but it remains to be seen how the blog develops in the longer term.

I think that The People Of The Wind is almost Anderson's perfect novel and would love to read through it in detail yet again but, unless a lot of time is allowed to elapse before a reread, how likely am I to find new points to post about? Page viewers are welcome to search the blog for references to this novel and to draw attention to any perspectives differing from mine. As with Mirkheim, which is a perfect political science fiction novel, the reader must assess the characters and their opinions as if dealing with a comparable situation in the real world. Watching the TV news before reading a debate or argument between Anderson's characters brings home the extent to which Anderson's imaginative fictions hold a mirror to reality.

Kamakura

Both Rudyard Kipling (here) and Poul Anderson (here) refer to Buddhism in Kamakura. However, Anderson's short story describes a visit to Japan whereas Kipling's novel is set in India.

Recent posts have discussed ancient mythology, scientific cosmology and a Kipling connection: essential Poul Anderson.

In his Japan-based story, Anderson also mentions:

the Temple of the Golden Pavilion;
Sumiyosi Taisha;
the Sengakuji;

the Forty-Seven Ronin;
Daibutsu;
the Hase district;
the Kannon Hall;
Sagami Bay;
Jizo;
Amida.

"The Shrine for Lost Children" was more coherent on rereading and contains a wealth of Japanese references. See links above.

The Cyclical Cosmos

In Poul Anderson's retrospective collection, Going For Infinity (New York, 2002), two novels are represented by excerpts and one by its short sequel. However, Tau Zero, a major hard sf novel, is represented neither by an excerpt form its text nor by its short prequel, "Pride" - although the latter might have been considered insufficiently representative in any case.

Anderson states two reasons for not excerpting Tau Zero:

"...it doesn't seem to lend itself to that very well. Also, the evidence has become very strong that our universe is flat, not closed as was commonly thought in those days." (p. 355)

I disagree with both these reasons. First, one of the cosmic passages would have made an excellent excerpt and advertisement for the book. Secondly, science fiction is not invalidated as fiction every time science advances. In any case, since as yet very little is known and since cosmologies can change in our lifetimes, it is far too early to make any definite statements about the universe as a whole.

The cyclical universe is an ancient myth and Tau Zero is a modern, scientifically based, expression of it. The myth was based on experience. Day and night, seasons and life are cyclical - although we now know that Earth and life also evolve. Cyclical processes are not merely terrestrial. Atoms from novae condense as later stellar generations. And there is also evolution at that level, stellar fusion of heavier elements necessary for life. Thus, not only the water-vapor cycle but also before that the stellar cycle are necessary conditions for biological cycles. Cyclicism's got legs - it's going somewhere!

Anderson explains in Starfarers that our universe expanded from a random condensation of energy in a vacuum paradoxically full of perpetually created but mutually annihilating particle anti-particle pairs. (Maybe Fred Hoyle's continuous creation idea had some legs as well.) That sounds like Brahma and Shiva with a quiescent Vishnu, continual creation and destruction uninterrupted by any intermediate preservation. But Vishnu wakes when energy condenses... And what happened once can happen again. There can be cycles of newly created universes even if, as the current evidence indicates, our particular universe will expand indefinitely and never contract.

The Trygve Yamamura Series

Anthony Boucher persuaded sf authors to write mysteries. Poul Anderson writes:

"The result for me was three novels and several short stories. The hero of most was Trygve Yamamura..."
-Poul Anderson, Going For Infinity (New York, 2002), p. 296.

I had thought that Anderson wrote the three Yamamura novels and co-wrote with Karen Anderson just one Yamamura short story. However, Anderson's phrase "The hero of most..." seems to imply that Yamamura was the hero of more than one of the short stories? See the comment on this recent post.

So is the Trygve Yamamura series longer than some of us thought? Someone out there must know. Googling discloses this list which however confirms my earlier idea of the extent of the series.

Going For Infinity: Miscellaneous

Poul Anderson's Going For Infinity (New York, 2002) is a retrospective not only of short stories but also of novels. Three Hearts And Three Lions and A Midsummer Tempest are represented by excerpts and The High Crusade is represented by its sequel, "Quest." We can think other novels that could have been represented by a shorter prequel or sequel. Anderson uses his phrase, "...a wilderness of stars..." (p. 204), once more in his synopsis of The High Crusade.

The Harold Shea stories by L Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt were Anderson's "...main inspiration..." (p. 238) for Three Hearts... Thus, Pratt joins the list of Anderson's antecedents. Anthony Boucher, Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, asked Anderson to include a parallel universes rationale in Three Hearts... Thus, Boucher joins John W Campbell as an editor influential on Anderson. Thanks to parallel universes, the hero of Three Hearts... crosses over into A Midsummer Tempest and there meets a character from Anderson's two Operation... volumes.

Anderson's multiverse is more compact than Michael Moorcock's sprawling Multiverse which has a Conjunction of the Million Spheres comparable to DC Comics Crisis on Infinite Earths. Moorcock's Multiverse has been graphically adapted. I have discussed how Anderson's works might be adapted for comic strips and screen (also here) but it would have to be done very well or not at all. Anderson himself heard that the film of The High Crusade was "...a piece of botchwork..." (p. 203)

"Death And The Knight"

Clark Kent grew up with Lana Lang and would later marry Lois Lane. Poul Anderson married Karen Kruse and later sold a Time Patrol/Knights Templar story to Katherine Kurtz. Real life is stranger than fiction. (I once knew of an interconnected Nichols, Nicholson and Nixon.)

"Death and the Knight" conveniently represents the Time Patrol series in the retrospective collection, Going For Infinity, not only because it is short but also because the paperback Tales Of The Knights Templar was less readily available by then. "Death and the Knight" has since been included in Time Patrol but should really be republished as a coda to The Shield Of Time.

Just as the Avalonian editor, Hloch's, introductory passages in The Earth Book Of Stormgate were incorporated into The Technic Civilization Saga, maybe Poul Anderson's interstitial passages in Going For Infinity could be reproduced before their respective stories in an eventual Complete Works of Poul Anderson? Obviously the many overlapping collections should not be republished as they stand.

Anderson writes of the next story in Going For Infinity (New York, 2002):

"If some of the thinking and feeling in it seems a bit strange, please remember that it's from the 1950's. That was another country." (p. 128)

"The past is another country" is a true and evocative saying, especially appropriate in time travel fiction as when Manson Everard visits World War II London in the first Time Patrol story. Everard lived through the War but now he is time traveling to it - a different experience.