Eric Sherrinford

"The Queen of Air and Darkness."

I will quote a character called Eric Sherrinford although I will also rearrange his words into a list rather than leaving them in the continuous prose of Poul Anderson's text. Sherrinford, addressing his client, Barbro Cullen, claims:

"'...I know just a few obvious facts, such as...

"'...your being widowed rather than divorced...

"'...and you're the daughter of outwayers in Olga Ivanoff Land...

"'...who, nevertheless, kept in close telecommunication with Christmas Landing;...

"'...and you're trained in one of the biological professions;...

"'...and you had several years' hiatus in field work...

"'...until recently you started again.'" (p. 6)

Barbro gapes and asks how in cosmos he knows that. (Of course.)

Who does Sherrinford sound like?

Does he say enough to back up his claimed knowledge?

Is this just an introductory flourish or does Sherrinford maintain the same level of deductive skill throughout the story?

I am not going to answer all these questions now!

For who Sherrinford sounds like, see:

Eddies: The Private Enquiry Agent

Good night. For me, back from the Gregson, Stieg Larsson, who also quotes that private enquiry agent, then bed.

The Technic History And Real Life

OK. We have got drawn back into Poul Anderson's Technic History (History of Technic Civilization).

Years ago, I enjoyed Wagner's Ring Cycle on TV because I was able to follow the plot thanks to sub-titles. (I would not have been carried along by the music alone.) Adzel, a Wodenite who resembles a dragon, sings Fafner when he is a student on Earth.

In The Earth Book Of Stormgate, Chinese New Year is celebrated in San Francisco Integrate and Christmas on the planet Ivanhoe. We celebrate both in Lancaster.

We recognize Sikh men by their turbans and their karas. Ensign Flandry takes orders from Commander Singh when no superior officers survive in a space battle.

Kossara Vymezal encounters an extremely unpleasant human subject of the Merseian Roidhunate named Muhammad Snell (Eriau name: Kluwych). We are more fortunate in our Muslim neighbours who share food at Eid. 

Kossara, later canonized, lies in state in St. Clement's Cathedral in Zorkagrad on Dennitza. In Lancaster, we have a Priory Church, a Cathedral of St. Peter and a Polish language Catholic Church among others.

The Terran Emperor celebrates his Birthday by following daylight around the globe. The King of England visited Lancaster where he is Duke.

Our multi-cultural society prefigures their multi-species society. 

Humanity will survive the Long Night but might not survive the Chaos.

Sayonara. 

Publication Histories II

 

Asked to write a story for an original juvenile sf anthology, Poul Anderson wrote about a human-Ythrian interaction on Avalon.

Asked to write a story for another such anthology, he wrote about Adzel's student days on Earth which had already been alluded to when Adzel was introduced in the third David Falkayn story which was also the first trader team story.

For Boys' Life, he wrote about another Avalonian human-Ythrian interaction, this time involving David Falkayn's grandson, and also about Christmas on the planet Ivanhoe which Falkayn had visited previously.

Asked to contribute to a John W. Campbell memorial anthology, he wrote about Falkayn's confrontation with Nicholas van Rijn in an Ythrian spaceship at Mirkheim.

Asked to contribute a story on the theme of "redemption," he wrote a post-Imperial Technic History instalment.

Thus, the Technic History would have been poorer without these six differently sourced stories.

Three Celebrations In The Technic History

Chinese New Year happens in Poul Anderson's Technic History and in Lancaster. This evening, we will attend the concert and the street procession will be next week.

Christmas happens everywhere on Earth and on the planet Ivanhoe in the Technic History. Poul Anderson's Christmas story is a conceptual sequel to Arthur Conan Doyle's.

The Terran Emperor's Birthday happens only in the Technic History: carnival; crowds; pleasure houses; near riot; the court following daylight around the globe. A hundred years before Flandry's time, Birthday had meant something. Fathers showed their sons the Imperial stars.

An Ythrian Family

"The Problem of Pain."

Having said that Ythrians live in small groups, either single families or extended households, Peter Berg introduces one single family into his narrative:

Enherrian, father;

Whell, mother;

Rusa, grown son;

Arrach, grown daughter.

These four Ythrians plus the recently married Peter and Olga Berg embark on a sea mission while exploring Avalon. Thus, here are two married couples, one difference being that the human couple have not yet had time for children.

In his narration, Berg refers to one human ideal of matrimony, the Holy Family:

"'At first everything went like Mary's smile on Christmas morning.'" (p. 41)

(Another Biblical reference and also a link to "The Season of Forgiveness," a second Christian story in the Earth Book.)

However, there are differences between the two kinds of marriage. The Ythrians have an oestrous cycle. Male and female are kept together not by regular sexual relations but by shared care of children who cling to either parent in flight. 

In the course of this story, both Arrach and Olga die. There are differences in the ways that the two species mourn.

There has been nothing further as yet about choths.

Two Wars

War is waged between bat-winged Diomedeans in Poul Anderson's sf novel, The Man Who Counts, and by bat-winged demons in James Blish's fantasy novel, Black Easter/The Day After Judgement. Diomedeans, obeying known laws of physics, are able to fly in their planet's heavy atmosphere whereas demons, obeying unknown laws of metaphysics, are seen to fly even without wings. Thus, although the visuals of the two novels bear some similarities, these are entirely dissimilar narratives. This is an early morning post because I have got up early and have not meditated yet. We might walk along the canal today on this Sunday between Christmas and the New Year.

Happy New Year and let us not only hope but also campaign for less wars in 2026.  

Seasonal Reflections

We have reread Conan Doyle's "The Blue Carbuncle" and Poul Anderson's "The Season of Forgiveness" and have appreciated how appropriate it was that Anderson adopted a phrase from the conclusion of the former as the title of the latter, in which Ivanhoan polytheists appreciate a Christian festival. The season inspires me to address such issues.

I was brought up in one of the Abrahamic prophetic traditions but now meditate in one of the Indian contemplative traditions. In a prophetic tradition, it is necessary to be neither polytheist nor atheist but monotheist whereas, in a contemplative tradition, it is possible to begin from any premise or world-view, to be polytheist, monotheist or atheist, and also to reinterpret beliefs. Many gods may be aspects of one god and the one reality need not be personal. It is possible either to advance from polytheism through monotheism to monism or to remain theistic. Contemplation is comprehensive and inclusive.

Happy Midwinter Festival and Christmas.

See Traditions.

Starting "Sentiment, Inc."

"Sentiment, Inc."

Different, again. A contemporary short story about romantic relationships but with an sf premise to which the first attached cover image might give some clue although I am not going to read any further into it this evening and will probably not be on the computer tomorrow. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Here is yet another early short story with a remarkable number of cover illustrations as I might demonstrate.

I will shortly watch TV news. We have been without a TV for just over a year - until Mike, whom I have mentioned somewhere on this blog, fixed the aerial.

GK Chesterton's Father Brown was one of the many fictional detectives to come after Sherlock Holmes. A British TV adaptation of Brown has an offshoot, Sister Boniface, about a detective nun. She was on while I was posting about the science of Poul Anderson's "Security," an aspect of my immediate environment of which blog readers were obviously completely unaware!

I will return to The Hound Of The Baskervilles before retiring.

Laterz.

Weapons And Dielectrics

"Security."

Vegetable samosas from the street stall, mince pie from a local bakery and coffee for lunch and another crack at this story which has an sf plot idea:

"The perfect dielectric."

- in common with another early story that we have just read, "Snowball." 

(Meanwhile, in town, I have bought a hardback Complete Sherlock Holmes which will be wrapped and deposited under a Christmas tree.)

If the space station for the secret project had been constructed using valuable materials ferried up from Earth and if the expensive equipment needed for the project had been sent up after it, then this would have required a massive governmental bureaucratic exercise that it would have been impossible to conceal from subversive spies so instead the station has been improvised around a wrecked freighter that had fallen into a skewed orbit.

"Lancaster had always suspected that Security was a little mad. Now he knew it. Oh, well -"

When weapons are so cheap and simple that anyone can make and use them, governments are loose whereas, when weapons become expensive - like (obviously) atom bombs and missiles - , governments are powerful. Security suspects that a cheap and easy "equalizer" is technologically imminent and wants to develop it first. Hence, the secret project. This "equalizer" concept is common to Poul Anderson's "Snowball," "Security" and Psychotechnic History.

The paragraph that we are about to read next summarizes the significance of superior deielectrics and energy storage, as in "Snowball": all aspects of Poul Anderson's imagiverse. 

"Security" For Breakfast

"Security." 

Continuing to read "Security" over breakfast before Christmas Eve shopping.

The secret project to develop a new weapon is in a black-painted space station in an orbit out of the ecliptic. The American government is authoritarian, having apparently lost World War III. Hence, "Security" counteracting allegedly well organized "subversives." Other than that, global politics are recognizable. Characters expound military and political history in mini-speeches.

Poul Anderson has several Martian races. One, feathered and owlish, appears in several short stories, including here. Surprisingly, human beings have literally enslaved this version of the Martians. One Martian, Rakkan of Thyle, is part of the project and might turn out to be a significant character although I will have to ascertain this later. 

Reading and posting have become ultra-episodic.

(Meanwhile, the "L.L." in The Hound Of The Baskervilles has been identified.)

Have You Ever Heard Of "Snowball"?

Next, maybe, will be "Snowball" and again I will not begin to read this previously unknown story at nearly 10:00 PM. These stories are so dissimilar to each other that starting to read a new one is a wrench. We have gone from an interstellar empire to Triton Station to now an Earth-based story. Each of these obscure stories has several cover illustrations.

There is a program on TV about Papal Conclaves. And we, editorially speaking, have begun to reread The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Christmas approaches but preparations are in hand. 

And discussion of Poul Anderson's works remains endless but might slow down for a while.

"Catalysis" And Other Matters

Next (maybe) is "Catalysis" which I had never heard of before. It seems to be a completely different kind of story and I have no intention of beginning to read it this late at night. Jumping randomly from one early story to another makes for a somewhat disjointed reading experience although these texts do have an inherent interest in that they are previously unread and indeed unknown narratives in which we recognize ideas or themes that came to be more fully developed in the author's later works.

There have been more posts than usual today because this household has again been inflicted by the cold. It is to be hoped that tomorrow will see a return to Christmas preparations and to less blogging. The rest of this evening will be taken up with rereading the "Adventure" that begins when Holmes shakes Watson awake and says, "'The game is afoot.'" 

Oneness With The Allness

"World of the Mad."

An unusual story: I think that everyone just has to read it for themselves. 

"...as a man grew older, without loss of physical and mental faculties, he found more and more within himself, an unfolding inward richness..."

I think that that can be true even within an unextended lifespan. Does the remembered younger self not sometimes seem to have been superficial? But "within" and "inner" should not imply introversion: a deepening perception or understanding of both inner and outer.

Langdon wonders whether "...the ancient natives..." had "...simply become extinct..." or "...finally seen the allness of the world and gone - elsewhere?" Like the Chereionites in the Technic History? (Or, at least, what many believed had become of the Chereionites.)

His wife, Eileen, remembers winter storms on Earth:

"'If it was around Christmas time, we'd be singing the old songs..."

A topical reference.

Outside in the storm, Langdon approaches oneness:

"He knew - in another moment he would know, he would be part of the allness and have peace within him."

Transcendent experiences, which characters can have in any kind of fiction.

The Everlasting Light

Arthur Conan Doyle's Christmas story, "The Blue Carbuncle," includes the phrase, "the season of forgiveness," which became the title of Poul Anderson's Christmas story (see combox here) which concludes:

"-the hopes and fears of all the years

"Are met in thee tonight."

-"The Season of Forgiveness," p. 139.

Sheila sings in a choir which today sang carols in the town centre. Aileen (daughter) and I sat opposite, drinking coffee. The choir concluded with "O little town of Bethlehem," which Aileen then said was her favourite carol. Fiction and life converged. 

Someone must be able to bring the Abrahamic and other theistic traditions together. By "bring together," I do not mean "doctrinally unify." Impossible and unnecessary. We can live with doctrinal differences in such matters. I mean "understand and acknowledge instead of misunderstand and condemn." There are different versions of stories. What I call a story, some call literally true. OK. That is another difference.

Years ago, we had a Service for Peace in Lancaster Catholic Cathedral with readings from the Veda, the Torah, the Koran and the Fourth Gospel. The Bishop said that it was good to hear the Sanskrit, Hebrew and Arabic. 

An Ivanhoan says that the Earthlings:

"'...should have special wisdom, now in the season of their Prince of Peace.'" (p. 137)

These Ivanhoans, unlike those in the previous story, "The Three-Cornered Wheel," have the Pagan attitude of accepting the reality of other gods.

"The everlasting light" (think of a menorah) is universal. In the Buddha Dharma, a man is enlightened. In the New Testament, the light becomes a man.

"From delusion, lead us to truth.

"From darkness, lead us to light..."

-my adaptation of the Gayatri Mantra.

A Planet And A Faith

There are two agendas in The Earth Book Of Stormgate. First, Poul Anderson is gathering together the remaining Polesotechnic League and Ythrian stories. Secondly, Hloch informs us in his general introduction that:

"This is the tale, told afresh, of how Avalon came to settlement and thus our choth to being."

-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), p. 14.

Then why include "The Season of Forgiveness," which is set neither on Ythri nor on Avalon and does not feature anyone involved in the colonization of Avalon? Hloch has an answer for everything:

"Hloch includes it, first, because it shows more than the usual biographies do of a planet on which Falkayn had, earlier, had a significant adventure. Second, it gives yet another glimpse into a major human faith, alive unto this year and surely of influence upon him and his contemporaries." (p. 126)

Amen to that. Christmas preparations here.

Seasonal Reading

Poul Anderson, "The Season of Forgiveness" IN Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), pp. 126-139.

In the combox for The Solutions And A Culmination, I explained why I place so much emphasis on Poul Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate. This omnibus collection includes the first appearances of Sandra Tamarin, Coya Conyon, Merseians and Baburites. These two women and two extrasolar species are important elements in the culminating Polesotechnic League novel, Mirkheim. The Earth Book really is a concentrated essence of the Technic History. 

The Earth Book also collects "The Season of Forgiveness," which reuses the planet Ivanhoe, first introduced in the first David Falkayn story in The Trouble Twisters. Since "The Season..." is Anderson's Christmas story, it will be appropriate to reread it next but there is no hurry.

The opening paragraphs present a good overview of how the Polesotechnic League operates over long interstellar distances. Ivanhoe is:

"...the chill planet of a red dwarf star, away off in the Pleiades region, where half a dozen humans laired in the ruins of a city which had been great five thousand years ago, and everywhere else reached wilderness." (p. 127)

The planet:

"...had had no more than a supply depot for possible distressed spacecraft." (p. 128)

We read about that in the Falkayn story. Since then, an investigator has found the valuable herb adir in deserts on another continent. Master Trader Thomas Overbeck's team must persuade Ivanhoans to harvest adir in exchange for trade goods, like the deal on Suleiman in the previous story where the Baburites had intervened. Human traders will not come to a permanent base without their families and will not stay long if the families become unhappy so Apprentice Juan Hernandez's plan to welcome children with a Christmas party will make a good start. We read about the by now familiar League but not about any familiar characters. Known space is big.

Continuing Characters And Series III

We have demonstrated that Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization is vast and spacious enough to comprise a comprehensive synthesis of several character-based series with a single future history series. The Technic Civilization Series, Volume IV, Young Flandry, collects three entire novels covering just the opening phase of Dominic Flandry's career. That would have been impossible on the scale of Robert Heinlein's Future History which is only five volumes in total, really just four and a half. At this Technic History mid-point - Young Flandry - we have come a long way from the opening installment and still have a long way to go to the concluding installment. There are major historical turning points in the lifetimes of Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn on the one hand and of Dominic Flandry on the other hand. The van Rijn-Falkayn period turning point is the cartelization of the Polesotechnic League whereas the Flandry period turning point is the loss of legitimacy of the Terran Empire. We need no longer differentiate between a series about individual characters and one that is about successive historical periods. Poul Anderson has combined them.

When appreciating the Technic History, we can either analyze a single phrase in a single short story like "Esau" or contemplate several millennia of future history.

Sheila has taken a bus to a Christmas Fair in a nearby village. I will walk to the gym and hope to visit Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop this week.

Yesterday And Today

OK, folks. I have got the cold so today might be more rereading Stieg Larsson than posting about Poul Anderson. 

News from the home front: the Green Party Christmas Fair, always massively attended by Lancastrians whether Green or not, has moved from the old, historic Quaker Meeting House near the Castle to St Thomas Church (C of E; Evangelical) in the town centre: a spacious single-storey setting for second hand bookstalls and food. They also cleared all the benches out of the church, making even more space for woodwork, jewelry and other craft stalls. Apparently, the Quakers objected to a raffle as gambling although it is not clear why they had not objected in previous years. A guy I recognize as a member of the Public Library staff turns out to be one of the large group of Green City Councilors. Our present Government proposes to abolish all existing County and City or District Councils and replace them with unitary (single level) local authorities, larger than Cities but smaller than Counties. The Greens want the smallest possible unitaries.

I am typing this, hyperbolic although it is, because it is easy and does not require too much thought. This is about all that I am up for today although I will probably report back later.

Happy Sunday.

"The Master Key" II

When we located "The Master Key" in Poul Anderson's Technic History here, we referred directly or indirectly to fifteen of the sixteen Polesotechnic League instalments. Thus, "The Master Key" is preceded by five instalments about van Rijn and by another five about Falkayn and/or Adzel and is succeeded by four about problems in the League. That totals fifteen. The one remaining instalment that is not about van Rijn, Falkayn, Adzel or League problems is "The Season of Forgiveness" about another group of League merchants celebrating Christmas on the planet Ivanhoe which had been introduced in the first Falkayn story. Thus, everything connects and the connections are almost as complicated as IRL (in real life).

The "Best Of The Technic History"

We do not need a Best Of Poul Anderson's Technic History collection because we have the entire History in a uniform edition and can each make our own judgements as to which are the best instalments. In any case, the series is uniformly good right through.

If there were a collection of about half a dozen "best," which ones would they be? Or, rather, how many versions of such a collection would there be?

My suggestions:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"

"The Season of Forgiveness"

"Lodestar"

The People Of The Wind

"Starfog"

These five are not distributed uniformly through the Technic History.

We have discussed each of these works more than once. "How To Be Ethnic..." is on my list because it introduces Adzel as seen through the eyes of one-off character, James Ching, and also gives us a glimpse of domestic life in the Solar Commonwealth; "The Season of Forgiveness" because it is an excellent Christmas story which also shows us another aspect of the Polesotechnic League without involving any of the continuing characters; "Lodestar" because it introduces Coya Conyon, dramatizes the generation gap between her and her grandfather, Nicholas van Rijn, informs us of the crisis in the League that will be fully developed in Mirkheim and climaxes with a crucial confrontation between van Rijn and Falkayn; The People Of The Wind because of its sense of living in troubled times, because it presents every point of view on war, because of its detailed realization of the environment of the planet, Avalon, and because of its presentation of the biracial society of Avalon; "Starfog" because it is our single glimpse of a remoter future far beyond League or Empire.