Computer Problems II

See Computer Problems.

As a temporary measure, I have copied Sean's comments from gmail to the combox for each relevant post. Thus, several recent posts now have a comment sent by Paul Shackley but signed by Sean. However, this is a roundabout and rather cumbersome process so it is to be hoped that the technical problem preventing the arrival of comments in the normal way will be resolved before too long.

Interrogation Techniques

Stieg Larsson discusses good cop and bad cop and introduces uninterested cop. What does sf contribute?

We get used to sf props like flying cars and hyperdrives. What is a hypnoprobe (scroll down) and how often does it appear in sf?

In one of Asimov's Wendell Urth sf detective stories, the police need to find not sufficient evidence to charge a man but only a smaller amount necessary to authorize a psychoprobing. Thus, in this single story, this sf prop is used to make the detective's job easier.

Needless to say, Poul Anderson does not use the hypnoprobe just as a convenient prop but puts it to dramatic use in the stories of Dominic Flandry's fiancee and also of his illegitimate son in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. Nevertheless, I think that we would appreciate more background information on what a hypnoprobe is and how it works.

Addendum: For another interrogation technique, see here.

Swimming In The Atlantic Or The Pacific In Different Universes

"'Come!' she laughed. 'Last one in is a Sassenach!'"
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 201), pp. 173-228 AT p. 199.

"'Last one in is a Tasmanian!'"
-SM Stirling, Prince Of Outcasts (New York, 2017), Chapter Fifteen, p. 301.

"He plunged, got hold of a slender leg, and pulled her under."
-Anderson, p. 200.

"...a hand clamped around his ankle and pulled him underwater..."
-Stirling, p. 302.

"'...she's half polar bear."
-Anderson, p. 200.

"Pip seemed to be part sea-otter..."
-Stirling, p. 302.

Deirdre, tumbling and frolicking in the Atlantic, is compared to a polar bear whereas Pip, swimming effortlessly in the Pacific, is compared to a sea-otter.

Three parallels between two accounts.

Computer Problems

Regular correspondent, Sean M. Brooks, has continued to comment on Poul Anderson Appreciation blog posts and I have as usual been receiving his comments as emails although, just recently, they have stopped showing up in the combox. Does anyone have any idea as to what might be wrong? We suspect a google fault and, as such, have no idea what to do about it.

Regular communication is our birthright. I hope that Sean will soon be able to get his comments flowing again. Meanwhile, the blog will continue, between other activities.

A Meal On The Ceram Sea

One regular correspondent has said that he does not mind menus on the blog so here is the meal that I mentioned here:

steamed, fried or boiled rice of different colors;
a sweet, dark, powerful rice wine;
a tumeric-rubbed suckling pig stuffed with coriander seeds, lemon-grass, lime and salam leaves, chilies, black pepper, garlic, red shallots and gingery "kencur," spit-roasted over coconut husks;
fermented bean cake in sweet soy sauce;
chicken in coconut curry;
snake bean and coconut salad;
vegetables in peanut sauce;
tuna steamed in banana leaves;
duck rubbed with tamarind puree and salt, stuffed with eggs, cassava leaves and a spice mix;
coffee and coconut pancakes;
pineapple preserves;
fruit, including durian. 

A Future Historical Narrative

Maybe I ought to stop reproducing menus here? There is another meal on p. 297 of The Prince Of Outcasts, Chapter Fifteen, but readers of the novel can enjoy that!

The narrative becomes more future historical. We not only read the further adventures of the Montivallans but also learn what has meanwhile been happening in Australia and the Pacific. Some of these chapters read like sequels to Change stories that have been published elsewhere? When I first read Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time, I was surprised by references to events in the juvenile adventure, "The Year of the Ransom," not having known of its existence. This is as it should be. Series should be complex and diverse.

Christmas preparations will interfere with blogging. This evening, sf group plus wives will eat in Marco's. See also here. (Marco's was closed by a flood, and here, but has reopened.)

Lies, Fictions And Yarns

A statement is either true or untrue.
An untrue statement is either a lie or a fiction.
However, all three kinds of statements exist within fiction.
In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization:

The Earth Book Of Stormgate incorporates works of historical fiction;
later, Dominic Flandry counteracts Aycharaych's disinformation by gathering accurate military intelligence.

Is there a third kind of untrue statement, the yarn:

recounted as if it were a true experience;
primarily intended to entertain;
believed by some but not by others;
not intended to mislead about anything that matters?

When I repeated a tall tale and was asked, "You didn't believe him, did you?," I was annoyed not at the raconteur for lying but at myself for being taken in so is there a moral difference between lies and yarns?

Beginnings

We first see Adzel as a student, David Falkayn as an apprentice, Dominic Flandry as an ensign and Manson Everard, although more mature, as a new recruit. By contrast, we first see Gratillonius as a centurion and Nicholas van Rijn as a company owner and Master Merchant. However, we are told something of Grallon's and van Rijn's origins and early days.

Everyone begins his career at the beginning but, while any one of us is beginning, others are middle aged or retired. All stages of a profession coexist. Now that I am retired, I see other people working and keeping the world going but also know that, barring accidents, they will in future be as I am now and that I will by then be dead.

Another factor: in this part of the world right now (two important qualifications), life expectancies are increasing (although that may recently have slowed down) and the retirement age recedes before some people who wonder if there will still be a retirement age by the time that they are in old age. Poul Anderson imagines two characters, Manse Everard and Hugh Valland, who face no old age and who just continue to work indefinitely.

Books That I Would Like To Find In A Second Hand Bookshop

An eighth Narnia volume by CS Lewis;
a fourth Millennium volume by Stieg Larsson;
endless continuations of the Technic History and of the Time Patrol series by Poul Anderson -

- not by anyone else.

Might these books exist in an alternative timeline? We can imagine their existence but not their contents. I once dreamed of opening an as yet unread book but did not find within it a coherent text. All unwritten books are in Morpheus' Library, according to Neil Gaiman.

When I finished reading The Last Battle to my daughter, she said that she had seen the eighth Narnia book somewhere in the house and that we would read it when we found it. It had Aslan and soldiers on the cover - The Last Battle, Part II? I did not contradict her. She was making her contribution to the myth.

Ninian Smart's elegant argument about the unpredictability of scientific discoveries (see here) also applies to any attempt to imagine a text that Poul Anderson could have written but did not.

Issues And Indulgences

Poul Anderson's works inspire discussion of current, historical or perennial issues. In any given work, an issue may be addressed or implied.

A premise for alternative history fiction: no Protestant Reformation.

Examples:

the alpha and beta timelines in Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time;
an emulated timeline in Anderson's Genesis;
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman;
The Alteration by Kingsley Amis.

So what were the issues in the Reformation? Even if not explicitly stated, these issues would have been present in the minds, e.g., of the Puritan characters in Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest. It is interesting to try to summarize the theology because it engages the same kind of imagination as a work of fantasy:

Christ's sacrifice created an infinite treasury of grace;
martyrs and saints somehow add to this already infinite treasury;
the Church is empowered and authorized to bestow on any individual Christian an "indulgence," i.e., a finite quantity of grace from the infinity treasury;
the Church is also able to impose on the Christian conditions for the bestowal of the Indulgence;
God has created this treasury but has delegated control of it to the Church;
any sin, even if forgiven, still warrants a finite period of punishment either on Earth or in Purgatory;
however, a finite quantity of grace from the treasury can negate the requirement for a corresponding quantity of punishment;
thus, whereas Protestants expect immediate admittance to Heaven after death, a Catholic expects a period in Purgatory which can be shortened by indulgences.

Comments
(i) The Protestant idea that - assuming the truth of Christianity in the first place - Christ's grace is freely accessible by all who opt to receive it makes sense.
(ii) I do not buy into the ideas of sacrifice, sin or punishment for sin.
(iii) I do accept the Buddhist ideas of wrong action and of individual responsibility to cleanse karma.
(iv) The Buddhist concept of "transfer of merit" is very similar to indulgences but I regard it as mythological.
(v) Buddhism has had its equivalents of Martin Luther.
(vi) Even if I accepted Christian, and even Catholic, premises, I would find "indulgences" highly questionable.
(vii) If I were living in the sixteenth century, then I would be on the extreme left wing of the Reformation - unless I were living in a country where it was imprudent to express such views!