Identifying SF Texts

When we start to read a novel, we usually know whether it is sf! We have been informed in several ways, probably by the title, the author's name, the cover, the publisher, the blurb etc. Nevertheless, the text needs to identify itself quickly. I once read a pulp paperback sf novel that began by informing us that the central character's hair was receding so fast that you would think that his nose was radioactive. This was amusing and established a scientific frame of reference. CS Lewis subtitled That Hideous Strength as a fairy-tale to warn readers because the first two chapters are undiluted contemporary fiction - or near future fiction but we do not notice that difference. And I did not sense any discrepancy on a first reading but then I already knew that this was Volume III of an interplanetary trilogy with an sf-fantasy interface.

We have quoted this opening phrase before:

"Every planet in the story is cold -..."

-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts and Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT I, p. 342.

The text can only be sf even if we did not already know it.

James Blish's Black Easter opens with a single-sentence paragraph:

"The room stank of demons."

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London. 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 325.

OK. Despite the author's name, not sf, fantasy. But the work by Blish that I wanted to compare, in this respect, with A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows was A Case Of Conscience which opens:

"The stone door slammed. It was Cleaver's trade-mark: there had never been a door too heavy, complex, or cleverly tracked to prevent him from closing it with a sound like a clap of doom. And no planet in the universe could possess an air sufficiently thick and curtained with damp to muffle that sound - not even Lithia."

-James Blish, A Case Of Conscience IN After Such Knowledge, pp. 523-730 AT BOOK ONE, I, p. 531.

Alright. We have to wait till the third sentence - not too long - but we get there. These guys work on different planets. Despite its proximity to Black Easter, Case is sf. Planets are an easy indicator.

Danger In The Air

Operation Chaos, IX.

Steve Matuchek attends the Homecoming game. This passage reminds me of scenes in Julian May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy: heavy traffic en route to a sports event.

During the interval:

"The hair rose stiff on my neck and I felt the blind instinctive tug of Skinturning. Barely in time I hauled myself back toward human and sat in a cold sweat. The air was rotten with danger. Couldn't anyone else smell it?" (p. 59)

"The room stank of demons."
-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 325.

"...the stench was something in the general air. It was, in fact, something that was abroad in the world...the secular world, God's world, the world at large." (ibid.)

Each Volume of After Such Knowledge begins with an assault on one of the senses. In the opening paragraphs of Doctor Mirabilis, Roger Bacon stands in a freezing stone corridor and, in the opening sentence of A Case Of Conscience:

"The stone door slammed."
-James Blish, A Case Of Conscience IN After Such Knowledge, pp. 523-730 AT BOOK ONE, I, p. 531.

But this has taken us away from Steve Matuchek to whom I must return shortly.

Spirits And The Sense Of Smell

Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (New York, 1995).

Some species sense more strongly by smell than by sight. Might this also be true of spirits?

"The room stank of demons."
-James Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), p. 325.

The demons are about to invade the world and their stench precedes them.

Poul Anderson's Steve Matuchek, werewolf, follows the scent of an afreet:

"I cast about. The town smells were confusing, but I caught the faintest sulfurous whiff and trotted cautiously in that direction...The brimstone reek grew stronger." (p. 35)

By following his nose, Matuchek locates the building where the Caliphate invaders of the US keep their afreet. When were-animals interact with supernatural beings, especially with those that are associated with sulfur/brimstone, then the sense of smell must become dominant and maybe fantasy authors should revise their accounts accordingly? - although it would be impossible to adapt an olfactory account to either a visual or an auditory medium.

Sensory Opening Passages

We have seen that Poul Anderson often appeals to at least three of the senses in descriptive passages but does any of his texts begin with a direct assault on one of the senses? This is how James Blish begins the three volumes of his After Such Knowledge Trilogy:

Doctor Mirabilis begins in a "...pitch-black, freezing stone corridor..."
-James Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), p. 19.

Black Easter begins:

"The room stank of demons."
-op. cit., p. 325.

A Case Of Conscience begins:

"The stone door slammed."
-op. cit., p. 531.

And, near the beginning of a Sandman story by Neil Gaiman, we read:

"There was a smell of magic somewhere, like the blue-sparks smell of ozone at a funfair."
-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Preludes And Nocturnes (New York, 1995), p. 83, panel 2.

Among all of Anderson's many works, there is probably one with a comparable opening.

Gerard, Demons And Coffee

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTERs SEVEN-EIGHT.

In the Faerie castle, Hugi remarks:

"'Here's a tricksy bigging.'" (p. 47)

Alfric recites three lines of a chanson about one of the Emperor Napoleon's heroes:

"'Gerard li vaillant, brigadier magnes,
"'tres ans tut pleins ad este an Espagne
"'combattant contre le Grande-Bretagne.'" (p. 47)

"Gerard the valiant, great brigadier,
"three full years he was in Spain
"fighting Great Britain."

Hugi reports:

"'Great flashes o' lightning from the topmost tower, a demon figure departing in smoke, and the stench o' warlockry so rank it night curdled ma banes.'" (p. 48)

For the fourth time, I quote a particular line from James Blish for comparison:

"The room stank of demons."
-see here.

For breakfast at Mother Gerd's, Holger consumes porridge, bread, cheese, ale and bacon and thinks:

"...wistfully of coffee and a smoke." (p. 24)

He shares such thoughts with time travelers. See here.

However, at Alfric's castle, he is served:

ham and eggs;
toast;
buckwheat cakes;
coffee;
orange juice. (p. 48)

He thinks that they must have learned his tastes by witchcraft and we have already been told that they can conjure "...things from the air-..." (p. 45)