Introducing "Wingless"

Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 293-306.

Hloch's INTRODUCTION ends at the bottom of p. 294. Judith Lundgren's text begins at the top of p. 295. However, her dialogue begins near the bottom of p. 296 with:

"'Hyaa-aah!'" (p. 296)

- as a young Ythrian takes to flight. On pp. 295-296, Lundgren introduces her story by summarizing some fictional history and biography:

Avalon is the only known planet jointly colonized by two intelligent species;

initially, human beings and Ythrians settled in different territories among the Hesperian Islands;

three generations of Falkayns, David, Nicholas and Nat, live in Chartertown;

Nat learns Anglic at home and Planha in school;

the Falkyans sometimes have Ythrian dinner guests;

Nicholas, an engineer, and other human beings travel to Trauvay/Wingland to join a research and development team to plan continental colonization;

Nicholas's family accompanies him;

on Trauvay, Nat has no human companions his own age but there are many young Ythrians.

Again Introductions

In his introductions to the seven volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga, Hank Davis discusses the introductions, if any, to the individual installments. Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, collects:

two novels, Mirkheim and The People Of The Wind;

two short stories, "Wingless" and "Rescue on Avalon";

two novelettes, "The Star Plunderer" and "Sargasso of Lost Starships."

Davis informs us that:

the novels have no known introductions;

the short stories each have an Earth Book introduction;

the first novelette has had an introduction since it was first published in Planet Stories.

However, none of these three introductions is of type (i). (See Three Kinds Of Introductions.) The Earth Book introductions are type (iii). The other is of type (ii) which is really just part of the text.

Davis adds a type (iii) introduction, written as by "Michael Karageorge," to the second novelette. This is the only such introduction added in the Saga and is quite effective, giving a new lease of life to Donvar Ayeghen who is cited by Karageorge.

Three Kinds Of Introductions

There are at least three kinds of introductions.

(i) The author, directly addressing his readers, discusses the text. Such an introduction is clearly not part of the work in question and may be added in later editions. Thus, in The Technic Civilization Saga, Poul Anderson introduces The Game Of Empire and The Night Face and his original foreword to "Lodestar" is re-presented as an afterword.

(ii) The opening passage of the text is a fictional introduction. Thus, Donvar Ayeghen fictitiously introduces Anderson's "The Star Plunderer."

(iii) Newly written fictional introductions precede the texts in later collections, e.g., in Anderson's The Trouble Twisters and The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Thus, we read introductions fictitiously written by:

Vance Hall, an extract from his Commentaries on the Philosophy of Noah Arkwright;

 Noah Arkwright, an extract from his An Introduction to Sophontology;

Urwain the Wide-Faring, an extract from his diary;

Hloch of Stormgate Choth.

And all this is faithfully reproduced in The Technic Civilization Saga.

Fictions And Fables

A subset of the parallel universes idea is that characters who are fictional in one universe are real in another. Thus, Robert Heinlein's Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn and inhabitants of the universe where Shakespeare's characters coexist can all visit the inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix. Thus also, in Bill Willingham's Fables, fairy tale characters are exiled to "mundy" (mundane) New York when a multiversal empire conquers their homelands.

Alan Moore's The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen has every literary and fictional character coexisting on a single Earth but that gets a bit crowded.

Earth Book And Saga

In The Earth Book Of Stormgate, we read, in this order:

"Lodestar"

an unheaded interstitial passage by Hloch, summarizing Mirkheim and introducing "Wingless"

"Wingless"

 

In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, concludes with "Lodestar" and Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, opens with Mirkheim followed by that passage by Hloch, now headed "INTRODUCTION," then "Wingless." Thus, the Earth Book is integrated into the Saga.

The text of "Wingless" reveals only that, on Avalon, Nat Falkayn has a father called Nicholas and a grandfather called David. (David Falkayn's son, Nicholas, was born near the end of Mirkheim.) It is the interstitial passage/INTRODUCTION that informs us that David and Coya Falkayn had led human beings to Avalon. Without Hloch's commentary, we would have waited until The People Of The Wind at the end of Volume III to learn that David Falkayn, by this time long dead, had been the Founder of the colony on Avalon.

Hloch also informs us that "Wingless," like two earlier Earth Book stories, was written for the Avalonian periodical, Morgana, by Judith Dalmady/Lundgren, daughter of Emil Dalmady, hero of Judith's earlier story, "Esau," which also appears in Volume I of the Saga.

 

A complicated and convincing history.

As Long As It Lasted

Mirkheim, XXI.

Chee Lan to Adzel on the very last page:

"'We enjoyed the trader game as long as that lasted.'" (p. 291)

It is so appropriate that, in the original reading order of Poul Anderson's Technic History:

Mirkheim concluded the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy;

yet The Earth Book Of Stormgate then collected previously uncollected stories, including those that show Adzel as a student on Earth, the trader team on Merseia and the trader team confronting van Rijn at Mirkheim.

In the Earth Book, "Lodestar," about the confrontation at Mirkheim, is followed by one of Hloch's interstitial passages beginning:

"The rest would appear to be everyone's knowledge..."

-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), p. 293.

 

Hloch then summarizes the plot of Mirkheim:

 

Mirkheim's existence was publicly revealed;

 

this caused the Babur War which was also the first Commonwealth civil war and mortally wounded the League.

In Rise Of The Terran Empire, this passage is presented solely as an Introduction to the next story, "Wingless," which is a complete change of scene and tone.

Van Rijn's Predictions

Mirkheim, XXI.

What went wrong in the Polesotechnic League and what will happen next?

Van Rijn:

"'...men who had been free began grabbing for control over other men.'" (p. 286)

Van Rijn and Sandra:

the Seven In Space are crippled and might go under;

the Home Companies are incorporated with the Solar Commonwealth which is "'...starting a big military establishment...'" (p. 285);

the independents are now allied with the Hermetian government.

Van Rijn:

"'No more important private decisions... Instead, authority takes over. Slogans substitute for thinking, beginning with the intellectuals but soon percolating down to the ordinary working man. Politicians appoint themselves magicians, who by passing laws and jacking up taxes and conjuring up money out of thin air can guarantee everybody a soft ride through life. The favored businesses and institutions divide up the territory and strangle out anybody what might have something new.'" (. 286)

He continues:

governments (inevitably?) cause shipwrecks;

the cure is always thought to be more government;

power grows;

domestic troubles are exported as wars.

Some Comments

(i) I do not want a society where the "important private decisions" are taken by members of "'...a free association of entrepreneurs...'" (p. 285)

(ii) Intellectuals think and not just in slogans.

(iii) "'...the ordinary working man...'" might be capable of more than van Rijn realizes - it had to be explained to him that the members of Supermetals were doing something more than playing games with money.

(iv) As long as there is anarchy of production on the one hand and government spending on the other, then governments will continue to raise taxes and to borrow money or to create it by fiat but surely we can find a better way of doing things by now? Banks lend money that is not theirs, lend more than is in their possession and charge interest on it so maybe van Rijn could criticize governments less and banks more?

 

(v) Do I want "...a soft ride through life..." No. Do I want to have to seek employment in an economy run by "'...a free association of entrepreneurs...'"? No. Scientific knowledge and technology open up far more possibilities than are acknowledged here.

At Windy Rim

Mirkheim, XXI.

After dinner, Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen and David Falkayn drink whisky and converse and Falkayn smokes a pipe in a study with:

beautifully grained wood panels;

shelves of leather-bound books;

ancestral portraits;

a gun rack;

a desk used for writing high decisions;

an open window;

night outside;

cool, fragrant air;

the sound of the nearby river.

 

Although, unfortunately, the dinner is not described, the whisky is:

 

"...a taste of peat smoke from the birthworld of their race." (p. 280)

 

Thus, all five senses are assuredly present.

Publication Dates II

 

The last four Technic History installments to be published were:

Mirkheim (1977), collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire;

A Stone In Heaven (1979), collected in Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy;

"The Saturn Game," (1981) collected in Volume I, The Van Rijn Method;

The Game Of Empire (1985), collected in Volume VII.

"The Saturn Game" is set during the period when Technic civilization is taking shape and differentiating itself from Western. 

Mirkheim:  

recounts the beginning of the end of the Polesotechnic League;

is the last installment to feature the League, Nicholas van Rijn, David and Coya Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan;

describes David Falkayn's home planet, Hermes, which reappears in A Stone In Heaven.

A Stone In Heaven:

is the last full Dominic Flandry novel (he cameos in The Game Of Empire);

introduces Max Abrams' daughter, Miriam, who had been mentioned in Ensign Flandry, collected in Volume IV, Young Flandry.

The Game Of Empire:

introduces Dominic Flandry's daughter, Diana Crowfeather;

is the last installment to feature Dominic and Miriam Flandry, the Terran Empire, the Merseian Roidhunate and Technic civilization.

(I think that subsequent civilizations, although technological, are distinct from the culture that was called "Technic.")

Note: See the combox for a correction.

Publication Dates

The Technic Civilization Saga

Volume III: Rise Of The Terran Empire

Mirkheim (1977)

"Wingless" (1973)

"Rescue on Avalon" (1973)

"The Star Plunderer" (September, 1952)

"Sargasso of Lost Starships" (January, 1952)

The People Of The Wind (1973)

Some Notes On Publication Dates

(i) Every Technic History installment involving Ythrians was published in 1973 except the first, "Wings of Victory," which was published in 1972.

(ii) With the exception of The People Of The Wind, every installment collected in Volume III was published in the reverse of the chronological order of fictional events.

(iii) "The Star Plunderer" describes the Time of Troubles after the collapse of the Solar Commonwealth but that Commonwealth was described in detail twenty five years later in Mirkheim.