Sister Planet

In Poul Anderson's "The Big Rain," people from Earth have colonized and hope to terraform the uninhabited desert planet Venus whereas, in the same author's alternative Venus story, "Sister Planet" (Anderson, Dialogue With Darkness, New York, 1985):

"The first explorers had expected desert but instead they had found water." (p. 96)

This is because, in the upper atmosphere:

"...water vapor was frozen out. Thus absorption spectra had not revealed to Earthbound astronomers that this planet was one vast ocean." (ibid.)

As I have said more than once, Anderson gives the impression of systematically examining every possible alternative version of any science fictional idea.

The "Sister Planet" Venus is a landless ocean with floating islands and a humanly poisonous atmosphere whereas CS Lewis' Venus/Perelandra is mostly ocean with floating islands but some Fixed Land and a humanly breathable atmosphere. Burroughs' Venus/Amtor has people living in giant trees and enough seas for his first volume to be called Pirates Of Venus.

The "Sister Planet" "Venusians" are friendly, trading cetoids;

Lewis' Venerians/Perelandrians are green-skinned unFallen dwellers on floating islands;

Burroughs' Amtorians are human enough for the Earthman hero to marry a princess - a necessary prerequisite for any ERBian planet;

Stapledon's Venerians are uncommunicative, hostile, dolphin-like sea-dwellers, exterminated by invading Terrestrials;

Heinlein's Venerians, appearing both in "Logic of Empire" and in his Scribner Juvenile Space Cadet, are cooperative, frog-like swamp-dwellers.

For some reason, Terrestrial sf writers wrongly expected a lot of water on Venus - "Venus rising from the sea foam"? (Lewis alone suggests a connection between Classical mythology and conditions on other Solar planets.)

Sister Planet II

Poul Anderson's "Sister Planet" (Dialogue With Darkness, New York, 1985) gives us another line of Latin:

"'De gustibus non disputandum est.'" (p.84)

(Matters of taste are not to be argued about.)

This version of Venus is a landless ocean because its solid surface is smooth, with no masses rising above the water to form islands or continents. That makes sense.

However, a scientist deduces how to terraform the planet, creating continents and a breathable atmosphere while, of course, destroying existing life forms. Thus, Venus would become as it had been imagined so it is doubly appropriate that this story was included in the anthology, Farewell, Fantastic Venus.

Convinced that the native cetoids are intelligent, our hero persuades his colleagues to suppress the information that the planet can be terraformed. That should have sufficed. Sure, the information will be rediscovered but the argument about whether to terraform Venus can be repeated if and when it becomes necessary. However, driven mad, I am convinced, by his early repressive upbringing, the viewpoint character goes further, murdering fellow human beings and cetoids in order to prevent any further human activity on the planet, thus, he hopes, ensuring that the possibility of terraforming will never be rediscovered.

As far as I am concerned, there is no moral dilemma here. Hawthorne cannot be certain that his crimes will ultimately have their intended effect and, even if he could be certain, he would still be very wrong to:

destroy the scientific base and its occupants;
destroy the cetoid "temple" (?) that his native friend, Oscar, has shown him;
machine gun cetoids, including Oscar!

His prayer to the God in whom he is supposed not to believe, "Please make a hell for me." (p. 135) is moral posturing. Just don't do it, Hawthorne.

Venus

According to the Internet, Farewell, Fantastic Venus and All About Venus are two anthologies, both edited by Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison, both published in 1968, with a lot of common contents. I had not heard of All About Venus, which is perhaps simply the American edition of Farewell..., although with not exactly the same contents?

After space probes into the atmosphere and onto the surface of Venus had disclosed that the Venerian environment is lethally acidic and hot enough to melt lead, Farewell, Fantastic Venus celebrated what had then become the redundantly speculative Venus of oceans, swamps, jungles, breathable atmosphere and intelligent inhabitants.

The anthology appropriately contains, among many fictional and non-fictional items:

extracts from novels by Olaf Stapledon, ER Burroughs and CS Lewis;
"The Big Rain" and "Sister Planet" by Poul Anderson.

Brian Aldiss told me at the 1970 British Science Fiction Convention that:

when Robert Heinlein was asked for permission for his Venus story, "Logic of Empire," to be included in Farewell..., he refused on the ground that it was part of his Future History;

when Poul Anderson was asked for permission for his "Sister Planet" to be included, he agreed but offered instead the earlier, unpublished version which was very religious.

Comments:

the Stapledon novel, Last And First Men, is Stapledon's future history and as such is a literary successor to HG Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come;

Wells wrote nothing about Venus except a very short passage near the end of The War Of The Worlds where Terrestrial astronomers saw that the Martians had launched capsules towards Venus so that very short passage could have been included in Farewell...;

"The Big Rain" is part of Anderson's Psychotechnic future history, which was modeled on Heinlein's Future History;

the two Anderson stories present contrasting desert and ocean Venuses (as the two Genesis creation myths present contrasting water-covered and desert Earths);

contra Heinlein, the anthology should have included "Logic of Empire" before "The Big Rain";

the anthology should also have included extracts from the Dan Dare comic strip in which equatorial volcanoes on Venus separate the southern warlike green Treens from the northern peaceful blue Therons;

having said all that, I have yet to read "Sister Planet" for the very first time but will now do so.

Versions Of Venus

Robert Heinlein's Future History Volume II ends with "Logic of Empire," indentured servitude on an inhabitable swampy Venus that has yet to declare its independence from Earth, whereas Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic League Trilogy (earlier, incomplete edition) Volume I ends with "The Big Rain," political dictatorship on an uninhabitable desert Venus that has already declared its independence.

There can be a dictatorship on an uninhabitable planet because the colonists live in enclosed cities while gradually terraforming their environment. This Venus contrasts with Heinlein's version, with the (inhabitable?) oceanic Venus of Anderson's "Sister Planet," and with the also oceanic Venuses of Olaf Stapledon's future history and CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy. (Posting over a hasty breakfast before a visit to the dentist, I hope that I can be excused from tracking down and checking the details in "Sister Planet.") There is a colonized Venus in Anderson's Time Patrol series and an incompletely terraformed Venus in his Technic History.

What are my points?

We appreciate Heinlein's Future History;
therefore, we appreciate reading something else like it, Anderson's early future histories;
however, we also appreciate Anderson's later future histories because these works go way beyond anything imagined by Heinlein and even surpass Olaf Stapledon's cosmic history.

Comparing Anderson

Robert Heinlein's Future History is the definitive science fiction (sf) future history series with stories and novels set in successive periods, thus not focusing on any single character. Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune and Foundation are well known sf series about exotic but implausible interstellar wars and empires. Poul Anderson's Technic History is a Heinleinian future history series incorporating several volumes about interstellar wars and empires. Anderson's series is comparable to Heinlein's and superior to the better known works mentioned here. He describes faster than light (FTL) space battles with technical precision. His hyperspace (in this series) is not another space but quantum jumping in and out of this space with no time needed for each jump, thus generating an FTL pseudo-velocity. His interstellar empire and the reasons for its decline are less implausible and more substantial than Asimov's, Herbert's etc. 

Anderson's Dominic Flandry struggles to delay the Fall of the Terran Empire in a small volume of one galactic arm whereas Asimov's Hari Seldon organises an elite who will secretly manipulate populations in order to reduce the interregnum between the First and Second Galactic Empires. The First Empire easily embraces the entire galaxy but strangely never ventures beyond it. Asimov wanted a galaxy full of humanly colonized planets merely to give him a population large enough for Seldon's psychohistorical predictions to work but did not otherwise consider the implications of galactic vastness whereas Anderson emphasizes the impossibility of fully comprehending any single planet, let alone controlling the many entire worlds in his, much smaller, Terran Empire. 

Unlike Asimov or Herbert, Anderson shows many species interacting in different ways before and during the Imperial period. Human and other merchants of the Polesotechnic League amass vast wealth by opening up interstellar traffic but the League declines. Later, green-skinned Merseians seek to destroy the Terran Empire, winged Ythrians organise independently of it and hydrogen-breathing Ymirites are indifferent to it. Colonising Jovoid, not terrestroid, planets, the Ymirite Dispersal overlaps with the Terran Empire and the Merseian Rhoidunate but need directly interact with neither, even when occupying neighboring planets in the Solar and other Systems. Terrans and Merseians are alike enough to be enemies. Ymirites are so unlike either as to have no conflicting interests - and can have few common interests. (An attempt to destroy the Sun would be a common threat since Terrans inhabit Earth, Luna and Venus and Ymirites inhabit Jupiter.) 

Extra-solar aliens colonizing Mars come to be called "Martians." They have yellow eyes, feathers, owlish faces and clawed hands, are (like Edgar Rice Burroughs' green Martians) organized in "hordes," run a Martian Transport Company in the League and are subject to a human Duke of Mars in the Empire. We know of these Martians only from two short scenes:

Kraachnach of the Sirruch Horde represents the Martian Transport Company at a meeting of League merchants;
the Duke attends an Imperial party at the Coral Palace.

The account of the merchants' meeting, reproduced in The Earth Book (see below), informs Avalonians of their Founder, Falkayn's, employer and mentor, van Rijn.

As in Heinlein's Future History, each period provides a base for works set in later periods: 

interplanetary exploration;
interstellar exploration;
interstellar trade by the Polesotechnic League;

the League merchant, van Rijn;
van Rijn's protege, Falkayn;
a colony founded by Falkayn;

post-League Troubles;
early Empire;
conflict between early Empire and Falkayn's colony;
the Flandry period of the Empire;
the post-Imperial "Long Night";
restoration of civilization, the Allied Planets;
a later civilization, the Commonalty.

Thus, there is no direct connection between the early period of interplanetary exploration and the much later period of the Commonalty. However, these very different periods are indirectly linked by, according to this way of listing them, no less than eleven intermediate stages, more than in Heinlein's series. Further, each period is presented in colorful detail. 

For example, Falkayn's joint human-Ythrian colony on Avalon resists Imperial annexation and remains in the Domain of Ythri. Avalon is ably defended by its Marchwardens, Ferune of Mistwood and Daniel Holm. Holm's son, Christopher, is also Arinnian of Stormgate, a human being who has joined an Ythrian choth. Arinnian translates several Ythrian works into Anglic and contributes to The Earth Book of Stormgate which presents human perspectives on events leading to Avalonian colonization. We do not see the Ythrian Sky Book.

Some planets have two indigenous rational species. Starkad has both land-dwellers and sea-dwellers. The two Talwinian species inhabit the same territory but are active at different times of the long year with one species, Domrath, regarding the other, Ruadrath, as supernatural. 

Many rational species and human societies co-exist but retain their unique characteristics within the Empire. Human Freeholders resist the Empire until it accepts their completely different, non-urban, way of life. The colony planet Aeneas nearly becomes the flash point of a Jihad until Erannath of Stormgate Choth on Avalon, spying for both Domain and Empire, reveals that a Chereionite telepath working for Merseia controls the prophet. Some human beings work for Merseia and one Merseian population on a human colony planet is loyal to the Emperor.

Many planets appear in only a single short story although several are re-visited:

Diomedes;
Ivanhoe;
Talwin;
Hermes;
Gray, re-named Avalon.

Gray that was the scene of a moral conflict between Christianity and the Ythrian New Faith becomes Avalon that is the scene of the military conflict between Empire and Domain. We see the inhospitable planet Dido, then, later, its sister planet Aeneas, colonized as a base for studying the tripartite Didonians. Large, quadruped Wodenites convert to Terrestrial religions. One, studying on Earth, becomes a Buddhist. Later, another, ordained in the Jerusalem Catholic Church, seeks among Ancient ruins for evidence of a second Incarnation. 

Like Larry Niven's Known Space series, the Technic History refers back to a much earlier interstellar civilisation but Anderson keeps his earlier civilization mysterious. Who were the Ancients and where did they go? To transcendence or extinction? If, as Aycharaych claims, they were his people, the Chereionites, then they have two features in common with Niven's Thrintun, telepathy and living relics.

Although Merseians refer to "the God" and Ythrians to "God the Hunter," their religions have no common ground either with each other or with any human faith. The God favors the Race. Because Ythrians, although intelligent, remain winged, hunting carnivores, a good death in the New Faith involves neither peaceful acceptance nor a hoped for hereafter but active resistance to give God the Hunter a good fight. 

Ramnuans, small gliders on a heavy planet, need Imperial help to end their Ice Age but must first contend with incomprehensible human politics. One Ramnuan hopes that she has misunderstood her human oath-sister when the latter tries to explain that the star-folk submit their wills and fates to others whom they may never have met. Most stellar and planetary names are based on terrestrial mythologies but Ramnu, discovered by Cynthians, was named by them. 

Talwin, discovered and named by Merseians but neutralized as an advance base by Flandry, becomes a joint scientific base and meeting place for the two races. Talwin and its star, Siekh, are named after Merseian civil war heroes. "Dom" is the Merseian attempt to pronounce a Talwinian name. "-rath" is Eriau for "folk." Eriau is the dominant Merseian language and Ruadrath were nocturnal supernatural beings in Merseian mythology. Thus, if Terrans had discovered the system, then the star, the planet and the inhabitants could instead have been called, e. g., Argos, Molitor, Dom-folk and Elven-folk. (Manuel Argos founded the Terran Empire; Hans Molitor won an intra-imperial civil war.)

Anderson gave Betelgeuse a large planetary system before it was discovered that red giants should not have such systems so he later presented his characters as puzzled by this development. His Venus is humanly habitable but we learn that this is because of only partly successful terraforming. Political refugees leave known space and their descendants are encountered millennia later when the cause of the conflict has been forgotten.

Chunderban Desai, an Imperial bureaucrat from the colony planet Ramanujan, is a theoretician of empires and their decline but cannot emulate Seldon's impossible feat of diverting the course of history. At most, Desai warns Flandry that his enemies may know that the Empire has entered an unavoidable period of internal conflicts so that, by pushing in just the right places, they might hasten its Fall. Flandry cannot prevent that Fall but does delay it till after his death. He supports Molitor's usurpation when legitimate succession has broken down but otherwise opposes, and defeats, attempted usurpations. One later attempt, defeated in part by Flandry's daughter, is indeed backed by Merseia. We see no sign of Merseians advancing towards galactic domination after the Fall of the Empire but, since space is three dimensional and unbounded, perhaps they just expand in a different direction? A more likely theory is that the two imperia wore each other out and it would be interesting to know how the Merseians coped with their failure to conquer the galaxy. 

As Charles Monteith said of James Blish's Cities in Flight series, this reads like a higher and greater Star Trek. Blish's Manhattan in Flight, like the Enterprise, visits extra-solar planets and intervenes in their affairs. Anderson is better than Star Trek at multi-species interaction. Compare Flandry, Aycharaych, Chereion and Merseia with Kirk, Spock, Vulcan and Kling. Anderson's post-Imperial period resembles Asimov's series in that it focuses on the remote future of humanity and does not mention the other species encountered earlier. Humanity spreads through several spiral arms, changes its form of interstellar organization and evolves biologically and psychologically. Many other species must still exist but a much longer series would have been necessary to present their further futures.

The four works set after the Empire, in the years 3600, 3900, 4000 and 7100 according to Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, describe encounters not with newly met alien races but, as in Blish's series, with human populations that have been isolated by interstellar distances. There have been linguistic, biological and psychological changes. In Star Trek, the encounters would have been with humanoid aliens but Anderson's hard sf is more credible or at least less incredible.

Re-reading and writing about the series focuses attention on many rich details otherwise forgotten. In particular, I appreciate:

the "Martians";
the black Merseian seen by Falkayn;
the back story for The Earth Book;
the one story featuring the Founder of the Terran Empire;
the Coral Palace and
Flandry's illuminating dialogues with Molitor, Desai, Aycharaych and Tachwyr the Dark of Merseia.

Contending for the same planets, Flandry and Tachwyr drink each others' beers and practice each others' languages. In addition, when Tachwyr asks whether Flandry is still a bachelor, he must speak Anglic because the Eriau equivalent would be an insult. They can shake hands but Flandry lacks a tail. Over several volumes, the "greenskins" or "gatortails" grow from space opera villains into solid characters. Their dominant culture is single-minded about conquest and racial dominance. Therefore, their leaders regard Terran-style diplomacy as merely a new kind of warfare against a powerful enemy. Flandry knows this. He also knows that his side resists Merseian expansion but lacks the will to counter-attack. He mans the pump on a sinking ship. Although we see neither his death nor the Empire's Fall, it is fitting that we read post-Empire narratives and intriguing that they do not mention Merseians. As in real history, there is always more that could be told.

Enduring Explosion

James Blish,  POUL ANDERSON: THE ENDURING EXPLOSION IN Blish, The Tale That Wags The God (Chicago, 1987), pp. 86-92.

(A posthumous non-fiction collection. This article was published in FSF, April 1971.)

Anderson was first published in an sf mag in 1944.

He was prolific and, uniquely, his work was of consistently high quality. Blish though that Anderson was the only surviving Golden Age Astounding author whose work had not gone downhill. He identifies Anderson as:

scientist

technician

stylist

bard

humanist

humorist

artist

- and immune to changes in fashion.

Blish had labelled Anderson's works as "hard copy," meaning deeply felt and carefully crafted, but was taken to mean scientifically correct, hence the term "hard sf" - which Anderson also wrote. His electrons were not miniature planets and his asteroids did not have jungles. Blish praises Tau Zero, The Day After Doomsday, "Sister Planet," The High Crusade and "A Bicycle Built for Brew," but was not so keen on "Hoka."

He points out yet another Biblical quotation, this one in "Sister Planet": Ezekiel 7: 3-4.

Anderson's works were not just adventures, tragedies etc but wholes. He deliberately appealed to at least three senses in every scene. He appealed for "unitary" sf combining every aspect of life which is a good prescription for any kind of fiction.

Fantastic Venus!

 

Farewell, Fantastic Venus, (1968) edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, collected various works about Venus. Of particular interest to us, perhaps, were:

Poul Anderson, "The Big Rain"; "Sister Planet"

Arthur C. Clarke, "Before Eden"

extracts from novels by Olaf Stapledon, Edgar Rice Burroughs and CS Lewis

There were others (see above link) but these were the ones that I found particularly significant. It is good that both of Anderson's stories were included. In conversation at the British Easter Con in 1970, Aldiss disclosed that he had asked Robert Heinlein for permission to include "Logic of Empire," which obviously would have fitted in very well, but Heinlein had replied, "You can't have that! That's part of my Future History!" Thus, two future histories, Anderson's Psychotechnic History and Stapledon's Last And First Men, were represented but not the Future History.

Secondly, at the Easter Con, Aldiss disclosed that, when asked for "Sister Planet," Anderson had replied, "Yes, but can you use the original version which has never been published?" Aldiss responded, "Yes, of course," but then found that the revised version was very religious!

Anderson deserved to be included twice and Heinlein should have agreed to be included.

Land And Sea

One of the greatest environmental contrasts in our experience is between sea and land: two realms each lethal to most of the organisms living in the other; perhaps our closest approach to visiting another planet without leaving Earth. Compare diving suits and submarines with spacesuits and spaceships.

In the first Biblical creation myth, water covers the earth whereas, in the second, the earth is dry, without rain. In some sf works, e.g., Poul Anderson's "Sister Planet," Venus is oceanic whereas, in others, e.g., Anderson's "The Big Rain," it is a hot desert.

Dominic Flandry travels from the cold, dry planet Altai to torrential rain and Swamp Town on Unan Besar and later to Nyanza, almost completely covered with water. Another oceanic planet in the Technic History, although not visited by Flandry, is Kraken.

Of course, there are also many other planets, like Jupiter and Mirkheim, that are simply not comparable to anything on Earth. Over many works, Poul Anderson shows us the universe.

An Adventure

"The Chapter Ends."

"...half a dozen children watched [Jorun] with large eyes. The younger Terrans were the only ones who seemed to find this removal an adventure." (p. 204)

Just so. In my childhood, when my younger sister was told that we would be moving house, she regarded it as an adventure, not as a cause for regret.

This could be the cue for a series of juvenile narratives about extra-terrestrial colonization: a well-established literary tradition. Earlier in the Psychotechnic History, eleven year old Wilson Pete joined his uncle and aunt on Nerthus during the early colonization of that extra-solar planet. Later, we saw the planet when it had been fully settled. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, David Falkayn's twelve year old grandson is involved in the early colonization of the Hesperian Islands on Avalon. Later, we see that planet when it has been fully settled. 

Imagine colonizing a planet with non-human inhabitants. On Nerthus, there were non-humans because it was not known that there were natives when the first human colonists arrived. On Avalon, there are non-humans because human beings and Ythrians jointly colonized the planet. In "The Chapter Ends," the Galactics find an uninhabited Earthlike planet for the evacuated Terrans. Slightly less adventure, maybe.

Robert Heinlein's Scribner Juveniles feature extra-terrestrial colonization, e.g.: Red Planet; Farmer In The Sky; Time For The Stars. These three novels and two others, Space Cadet and The Rolling Stones, share a background with the first interplanetary period of Heinlein's Future History. (Of course, Time For The Stars diverges by presenting an alternative account of early interstellar travel.)

The Farthest Star

(This post is about Poul Anderson, not about ERB.)

(i) A planet with oxygen in its atmosphere in Puppis has the catalogue number, HD44594.

(ii) HD44594 II, Bion, might be reachable only by robots and downloads.

(iii) Bion, visited by download Guthrie, has a sea, winged creatures, a forest, a vine-covered mountain, embryos falling in rain, city-building animals, some animals using tools, others tending fire and a sister planet with microbial life and two moons.

(iv) The planet in Puppis called Kwan-Yin will be seeded with life although it is too far for organic beings to travel to it.

(v) Later, ships have reached Hestia and its fantastic neighbor Bion.

I am not sure that all these statements add up?

"...the Milky Way coursed as a frosty river, banked with black nebular headlands..." (The Fleet Of Stars, 2, p. 13)

More About Aeneas?

Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return is set entirely on the colonized planet, Aeneas. I summarized information about Aenean physical conditions in an earlier post entitled "Life On Aeneas" and about Aenean social conditions in an article on the Flandry series.

When rereading The Day Of Their Return, I have usually preferred to focus on the few chapters in which Chunderban Desai is the view point character. Desai is eminently likeable and his chapters are full of concentrated information about Aeneas, its sister planet Dido, their place in the Terran Empire, the Empire's enemies - the imperialistic Merseians and their Chereionite agent provocateur - and other characters in the novel.

However, the novel's main action occurs in the more numerous chapters featuring Desai's adversary, Ivar Frederiksen, who is on the run from Terran justice after leading a failed attack on Imperial marines. Ivar seeks concealment among the wandering "tinerans" and on the river and thus experiences many rich details of the life of diverse Aenean communities. Further, a correspondent informs me that events in these chapters disclose a contradiction between this novel and another installment, written earlier but set later, of Anderson's Technic Civilization History.

When writing a "prequel," the author has to ensure that, in this newly written work, the characters do not acquire or display any knowledge of which they are destined still to be ignorant at the beginning of the already written work. By and large, Anderson did a good job with the Flandry prequels, showing the central character in his teens and twenties acquiring the experience and skills that he employs to good effect later. But it seems that, in The Day Of Their Return, Imperial Intelligence gains information that it should have relayed to its agent Flandry, and that would have made a difference, before the beginning of his original series of short stories.

Whether or not this prima facie contradiction can be ironed out, it seems that The Day Of Their Return deserves to be reread in its entirety, not just for its Desai interludes, but before that I still have to make sense of the complicated situation on another colony planet, Freehold.

Studying Humanity

"The Aenean intellectual community took little serious interest in the undercultures on its own planet. Despite the centuries, Dido still posed too many enigmas which were more fascinating and professionally rewarding."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 5, p. 108.

Yes but Dido is the sister planet inhabited by tripartite intelligences whereas the tinerans, Riverfolk, Orcans and Highlanders are human beings. Surely the Empire still has a sciences-humanities distinction? Biologists, xenologists and planetologists would study Dido and its inhabitants whereas sociologists, social psychologists and cultural historians would study the undercultures. The intellectuals' ignorance of their fellow Aeneans, who are even excluded from the franchise, is scandalous.

Solar Planets In The Pulps And Later In Heinlein, Asimov, Blish, Anderson And Stirling

Follow the link from "Northwest Smith " in Planetary Adventurers.

Ninety years ago, pulp sf writers treated the Solar System like a galaxy of inhabited planets with breathable atmospheres and even jungles on moons of Jupiter. Such an approach even affected Robert Heinlein's Future History although that series is primarily about the future development of human society, not about human-alien interactions. Isaac Asimov admitted in The Early Asimov that he wrote in this tradition even when he knew better.

We can see later writers emerging from the tradition. In James Blish's Cities In Flight and Mission To The Heart Stars, Martians had existed but are now extinct. Poul Anderson has half a dozen versions of Martians. There are Martians in his Psychotechnic History and in the original version of his "Margin of Profit" although, when that story was revised to fit into his Technic History, these "Martians" had become extra-Solars who had colonized Mars. Anderson also has Venerians in "Sister Planet," Jovians in Three Worlds To Conquer and Mercurians in "Life Cycle." 

When SM Stirling wrote a series in which Mars and Venus turned out to be more or less how earlier sf writers had imagined them, he also worked towards an explanation. A scientist working on Venus says:

"'Sam thinks...and I think...that two hundred million years ago, in the earliest Jurassic...this planet was different. Radically different from what we have now; as far as we can tell, it didn't have life at all. And we don't have any idea what changed it.'"

-SM Stirling, The Sky People (New York, October 2007), CHAPTER TWO, pp. 40-41.

But they will find out.

Virgil And Aeneas

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER SIX.

Virgil is half again as luminous as Sol with more ultraviolet.

Aeneas, the fourth planet, orbits in 1.73 standard years at a distance of 1.5 astronomical units and receives two-thirds the radiation of Terra. Its mass is 0.45 Terran and surface gravity 0.635. The Terran diameter is 12,742 kilometers; Aenean 10,700. The Aenean atmosphere is humanly breathable, comparable to Denver at the lowest level and to the Peruvian altiplano at the highest. The density gradient is small and mountains are low. Water molecules have ascended and been cracked open by cosmic radiation. Hydrogen has escaped and oxygen has united with minerals. Oceans have shrunk, deserts grown. 

Scientists settled Aeneas to study the natives on the sister planet, Dido. Others came but the intellectuals dominated. Aeneans respect learning like their remote descendants, the Kirkasanters. Students and scholar travel vast distances to the University of Virgil in Nova Roma on Aeneas. A heritage of the Troubles is universal military training. Baronial families hold strongholds and lands. Aeneas supplies many men to the Terran armed services.

One thing is certain: if the Terran Empire becomes oppressive, then Aeneans will resist.

(The woman in the attached cover image could be either Kathryn or Kossara.)

...And Lewis

I am still juggling with three Wells-Stapledon-Anderson parallels:

interplanetary invasion;
time travel;
future history.

Another relevant author is CS Lewis whose unique brand of theological sf is polemically anti-Wellsian and anti-Stapledonian whereas Poul Anderson, although he addresses some theological issues, primarily continues and extends the tradition of Wells and Stapledon. (A full list of other writers compared with Anderson on the blog is here.)

Interplanetary Invasion
Lewis inverts the interplanetary invasion idea. In his Trilogy, any extraterrestrial incursions are entirely benign. Planetary angels descend to empower the revived Merlinus Ambrosius who then inflicts demonically possessed scientists with the curse of Babel. An earlier benign incursion had been the birth of Maleldil as a hnau in Thulcandra - but I leave it to readers of the Trilogy to understand words in the Solar language. A space-faring scientist is the demonically possessed instrument of a literally diabolical assault on the Paradisal oceanic planet Venus. And here is another parallel because, in Anderson's "Sister Planet," an Earthman kills the peaceful inhabitants of an oceanic Venus.

Time Travel
Lewis' "The Dark Tower" is modeled on Wells' The Time Machine. Both works begin with a group of characters discussing the concept of time travel. On the basis of what I regard as a fallacious argument, Lewis' characters conclude that physical time travel is impossible. However, Lewis then introduces parallel Earths which tie in with Wells' Men Like Gods, with several works by Anderson and with major contributions by Harry Turtledove and SM Stirling.

Future History
Lewis did not write a future history but did ask: what kind of future do we want? In Wells' and Stapledon's future histories, mankind remakes itself with science. The concluding volume of Lewis' Trilogy expresses the antithetical view that any such project would in fact mean some men controlling others with science. Anderson mainly follows Wells and Stapledon by presenting anthropocentric futures although his character, Fr Axor, pursues a Lewisian program by seeking evidence for the Universal Incarnation. Anderson's later future histories go further by presenting Artificial Intelligences as displacing or even replacing mankind. I suspect that Lewis would have regarded AI as either impossible or diabolical.

A Note on Anderson's Use of the Bible by Sean M Brooks

    I asked Poul Anderson in one of my letters to him whether he had been raised as a Lutheran (because of his Scandinavian ancestry suggesting that to me).  He replied that whatever religious background he had was Episcopalian.  However, Anderson called himself an agnostic.

    Despite his doubt about the existence of God, Anderson always treated honest believers with respect in his works.  In addition several of his books and stories were very Catholic.  Examples being THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS and THE HIGH CRUSADE.

    To judge from the many times he quoted or alluded to Biblical texts, Anderson was a serious reader of the Bible.  He seems to have mostly used the King James Version.  I'll quote here part of the first paragraph of  Anderson's short story "The Problem of Pain" because I think it indicates how he regarded the Bible: "But I do take an interest in religion, as part of being an amateur psychologist, and--for the grandeur of its language if nothing else--a Bible is among the reels that accompany me wherever I go."

    I collected the following list of Biblical references from many of Mr. Anderson's works.  I am quite sure the list is incomplete and I hope to add more as I find them.

IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS?, pg. 7, Genesis 2.16

THE INFINITE VOYAGE, pg. 1, alluding to Ezekiel, chapter 1.

ROGUE SWORD, pg. 146, Matthew 18.6

THE HIGH CRUSADE, Chapter IX, alluding to Mark 2.27 and Matthew 28.16-20

AFTER DOOMSDAY, Chapter 1, epigraph, Ecclesiastes 9.12

OPERATION CHAOS, pg. 120, 1 John 4.8; pg. 140, John 21.20-23

"A Man to My Wounding," epigraph, Genesis 4.23

"The Bitter Bread," Psalm 8.4-5

DIALOGUE WITH DARKNESS, "A Chapter of Revelation, pg. 41, 1 Corinthians 15.14

DIALOGUE WITH DARKNESS, "Sister Planet," pg. 81, Ezekiel 7.3-4

THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND, Chapter VIII, pg. 70, Proverbs 20.2

A CIRCUS OF HELLS, pg. 103, possible allusion to Revelation 10.3

THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, epigraph, Chapter 1, Job 4.12-16

THE GAME OF EMPIRE, Chapter 10, 1 Corinthians 13.13

THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN, pg. 313, John 3.16

THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS, pg. 466, Psalm 8.4-5

GALLICENAE, VIII, Section 1; Amos 8.1, 1 Corinthians 2.5, Matthew 18.8

DAHUT, IV, Section 1; Matthew 5.3

THE DOG AND THE WOLF, VIII, Section 1; Hebrews 13.2
A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, pg. 1, Joshua 22.22

    The next step is to quote a few examples of precisely how Poul Anderson used some of the Biblical texts I listed.  The text copied below came from "A Chapter of Revelation."  The story is Mr. Anderson's speculation on what might have happened after God miraculously stopped the rotation of the Earth for literally one day.

    "First Corinthians," Dick said.  "By now I have the passage memorized.  He

[St. Paul] realized that the Resurrection is the central fact of Christianity.  If

you can believe that a corpse rose from its tomb, walked and talked, ate and

drank and lived for forty days, why, then you can swallow anything, ancient

prophecies, virgin birth, wedding at Cana, instant cures of leprosy--these are

mere detail.  The Resurrection is what matters.  ' And if Christ be not raised,

your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.'  Paul went to considerable trouble

to find eyewitnesses, he names them and lists the reasons for trusting them."

    It's interesting to note how Anderson's use of 1 Corinthians 15.14  parallels what Pope Benedict XVI said about Christ's resurrection in his book JESUS OF NAZARETH.  That is, the Resurrection of Christ is the supreme fact and proof of the truth of Christianity.  One of the points the pope stressed was on how DIFFERENT Our Lord's Resurrection was compared to a simple resuscitation of a dead man like Lazarus by Christ.

    My next quote came from Chapter 10 of THE GAME OF EMPIRE, where one of the non human characters quoted 1 Corinthians 13.13.  This novel is part of the Terran Empire phase of Anderson's Technic Civilization series.  From time to time in these stories he shows how Christianity continued to exist and to help shape human history.  And not only humans.  Mention is also made of many non humans becoming Christians.  A prominent character in THE GAME OF EMPIRE is Francis Xavier Axor, a draco-centauroid from the planet Woden.  F.X. Axor not only converted to Christianity, he became a priest of the Galilean Order.

    Fr. Axor's quoting of 1 Corinthians 13.13 is an interesting example of Anderson showing an alien reciting Scripture to hearten himself in a moment of discouragement.  "Well, we may hope."  A bit of cheer lifted in Axor's tones.  " ' And now abideth faith, hope, and charity. these three; but the greatest of these is charity,' " he quoted.  "Yet hope is no mean member of the triad."

    I could quote further, but I believe these are enough to justify my conclusions.  It's plain Anderson read--and quoted--the Bible with respect.  And that he used the Bible in his works with imagination.  It's hard to think of any other science fiction writers who used the Bible as Anderson has done.  To avoid any false impressions, I should add that Anderson did not quote Scripture in all of his works.

Ivar Frederiksen: Early Life

The Day Of Their Return, IN Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010), presents enough information about Ivar Frederiksen's early life to provide material for a prequel.

Ivar's parents, Edward and Lisbet ne Borlund, taught at the University of Nova Roma on the planet Aeneas in Sector Alpha Crucis of the Terran Empire. The family, also including Ivar's sister, Gerda, lived in a house just outside the city of Nova Roma. As hereditary members of the University, Ivar and Gerda were educated there from infancy. Ivar accompanied his zoologist father on field trips and aimed to study planetology.

Because Edward's sister, Kathryn, had married Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac, hereditary Firstman of Ilion, the family frequently vacationed at Windhome, hereditary seat of the Firstman, where they sometimes met McCormac. During the period when the rule of Sector Governor Snelund became oppressive, Ivar "...began to specialize in his studies and to have off-planet classmates." (p. 104) When McCormac led a revolt against the Empire, military training, already part of the University curriculum, became almost full time.

However, when McCormac, defeated, led his fleet out of known space, Aeneas was occupied, the University was closed, Edward succeeded as Firstman and the family moved to Windhome, there to live "...in poverty-stricken grandeur..." (p. 105). While at Windhome, Ivar improved his desertcraft and became identified as the future leader of the Landfolk. When the University reopened, under Imperial observation, Ivar returned to Nova Roma but, because he "...was soon involved in underground activity..." (ibid.), avoided his family's suburban house and instead lived in a cheap room in the least respectable part of the industrial "Web" where he met members of the new criminal class - thus, significantly, men who did not respect the law - and had "...formative experiences." (ibid.) Maybe there could in theory be an entire sub-series about these "experiences"? This part of the narrative suggests that Ivar is not quite as naive and inexperienced as we might have thought. However, this part of his life is so summarized that it is hard to keep it in mind as we read on.

When the Landfolk are ordered to surrender all weapons, Ivar and his group keep theirs. He returns to Windhome, supposedly for a break from study. Others charter an airbus, supposedly to camp in Avernus Canyon. But they rendezvous at Helmet Butte in order to ambush a regular Impy patrol and steal its weapons. Ivar knows of oases in Ironland with trees, caves and ravines to conceal them from searches by air. The Day Of Their Return, Chapter 2, opens just before the ambush. Ivar, the leader, "...gave the hunting cry of a spider wolf, and heard it echoed and passed on." (p. 77)

- and I hope that this summary demonstrates that an entire extra novel could have led up to this moment.

Chereionites And Ythrians

A lot of fictional history is understatedly summarized in The Day Of Their Return:

the planets, Chereion, Ythri and Aeneas, are terrestroid but smaller, colder and drier than Earth;

Chereionites colonized appropriate planets, including Aeneas;

they were possibly wiped out by their telepathic parasites;

the parasites have survived on various planets;

Ythrians, colonizing those planets, encounter the parasites;

having realized the parasites' nature, the Ythrians exterminate them;

before any Ythrians had entered the Virgilian System, human beings had already colonized Aeneas in order to study the inhabitants of the sister planet, Dido;

Aenean tinerans are addicted to the emotional stimulation provided by the parasites.

Thus, over time, Chereionites, Ythrians and human beings have interacted in unexpected ways. 

Civil War

Mirkheim, XX.

The Polesotechnic League civil war is a catalogue of colonized planets:

the Free Hermetian Navy destroys the Abdallah Enterprises centrum on Hopewell;

Hermetians hijack supermetals carried from Mirkheim by Interstar Transport for the Stellar Metals Corporation, thus causing staggering losses to Timebinders Insurance;

Hermetians destroy equipment and data stores of XT Systems in Maharajah on Ramanujan;

bribed union leaders call a strike of technicians working for Sanchez Engineering on the metal-rich St. Jacques, sister planet of Esperance;

independent League companies, Sinbad Prospecting and the Society of Venturers, attack and loot the Galactic Developments entrepot on a Germanian moon;

on Hermes, the patriot army storms Starfall.

"Government by terror does not work on people used to liberty, if they have hope of deliverance." (p. 273)

Hope makes a difference. A population endlessly ground down does not necessarily Rise in its Wrath.

The Queen Of Air And Darkness IV

I thought that the printer had omitted a space between sections five and six of "The Queen Of Air And Darkness," in The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (London, 1977), but closer inspection reveals that section five describes an Outling approaching, eavesdropping on, then withdrawing from Barbro and Sherrinford so that this single section incorporates both points of view.

Mistherd, whom we have met, is accompanied by a nicor and a wraith. Wraiths can sense and send thoughts and cast illusions but this wraith reports that an invisible wall protects the car and Sherrinford's overheard conversation confirms that a generator that he keeps running protects "...against so-called telepathic influence..." (p. 26) The mystery is almost solved. Rolandic aborigines kidnap children and hold their allegiance with an illusion based on legends sensed in human minds. Sherrinford, having studied the record, theorizes that, between the departure of the last survey ship and the arrival of the first colonizing ship, the hidden natives had removed all evidence that their planet had been inhabited.

We learn more about Sherrinford who had lived in the "...densely populated, smoothly organized, boringly uniform..." city of Heorot on a planet called "Beowulf" which is surprisingly similar to Rustum in that it too has a "...lowland frontier..." and also has citizens, including Sherrinford, who "...lack the carbon dioxide tolerance level necessary to live healthily down there." (p. 29)

After eight stories about the colonization of a single extrasolar planet, Rustum, we now learn something about an interstellar civilization. Several colonies keep in laser contact. At least one of these, Beowulf, can mount an expedition around a number of planets, especially those, like Roland, that lack lasers. Sherrinford had joined an expedition and had decided to stay on Roland. He had previously told us that data had been received from Rustum. That alone suggests that the events of "The Queen Of Air And Darkness" occur long after those of the last Rustum story, which had mentioned radio contact with Earth but not laser contact with Beowulf or anywhere else. The Rustumites then had not even known whether there were other colonies.

On Beowulf, Sherrinford had been a police detective. His family had had a tradition of such work and had even:

"...claimed collateral descent from one of the first private inquiry agents on record, back on Earth before spaceflight." (p. 29)

Thus, this is at least the second Poul Anderson series in which Sherlock Holmes was a real person. Time Patrolmen can rub shoulders with Holmes but a Beowulfite can only claim descent. This explains something else. Sherrinford does not resemble Holmes accidentally but has modeled himself on him just as the Rolandic natives have modeled themselves on fairies. Sherrinford starts to speak about archetypes but breaks off. If there are telepathic natives, then he does not want to alert them that he is onto their game.

Mistherd, listening, has several more imaginative titles for his Queen:

"...the Fairest..." (p. 25);
"...she who reigned..." (pp. 25, 30);
 "...the Wonderful One..." (p. 26);
"The Garland Bearer..." (p. 29);
"...the Sister of Lyrth..." (p.29).