Monday, 29 July 2024
Back In The Hotel Universe
Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Nicholas Van Rijn's Social Life In The Hotel Universe
Mirkhem, III, IX.
For a poor old lonely fat man who does not want to be a burden on a state that is only good for overtaxing hardworking merchants, Nicholas van Rijn sure puts himself about a lot. He addresses the Council of the Polesotechnic League in Lunograd. Because he is the leading independent, his voice carries weight although he is not able to shift the votes of either cartel. The Council ends indecisively.
In Chapter III, van Rijn entertains Hanny Lennart and Bayard Story to canapes and conversation in his Hotel Universe suite. In IX, Story entertains van Rijn to dinner in the Saturn Room of the Hotel Universe. It is here that van Rijn recommends onion soup a la Ansa and discourses on Our Lord's first miracle.
Van Rijn withstands pressure to support Story's cartel but otherwise is friendly and avuncular towards the younger man, not yet knowing what hides beneath the surface. Van Rijn and others will attack the Seven in Space militarily when Falkayn has unearthed the truth.
Van Rijn and Falkayn make a good team.
Tuesday, 16 July 2024
Hotel Universe
Satan's World, IV. (here)
We remember and can also misremember ideas from sf stories. In Lunograd, the Hotel Universe claims to be able to accommodate any oxygen-breather - not any intelligent being, which is how we might misremember it. That would be an entirely different proposition. Any disappointed guest will be compensated with one million Solar Commonwealth credits.
Spacemen try to find beings who can collect. Twice the cost to the Hotel of the accommodation exceeded a million. Once they needed to synthesize a dietary requirement. The other time, they had to fetch a symbiont from the guest's home planet. Chee Lan complains because the Hotel reproduces Cythnian conditions but from the wrong continent!
Van Rijn will stay in the Hotel in Mikheim so it starts to become a fixture but then the Technic History moves on to later periods.
Sunday, 26 May 2019
In The Hotel Universe
Story's intelligence system has informed him of van Rijn's belated role in covering up for Supermetals so there is no longer any reason for van Rijn to deny this. Lennart lets slip a remark that informs van Rijn and Story that the Solar Commonwealth government has sent a task force to Mirkheim. Van Rijn does not share Lennart's confidence that the Baburites will back down. (Story knows that they won't.)
Van Rijn:
"'...don't tell lies to a poor old lonely fat man who got one foot in the gravy.'"
-Mirkheim, III, p. 65.
(He is old but still enjoys food.)
"'I wanted we should talk here, not on a circuit with seals...'" (p. 67)
"'My education was in the school of hard knockers...'" (p. 69)
"'...speaking of morals, and immorals too...'" (ibid.)
Note
This coming week, I have social engagements on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, including two days out, so I hope, between today and tomorrow, to fully recover from the remnant of this cold which meanwhile is the reason why I have been housebound and blogging so much for the last three days. We will learn our EU election results this evening.
Sunday, 30 October 2016
In The Saturn Room Of The Hotel Universe, Lunograd
Limfjord oysters;
chilled crabs and asparagus tips;
fifty grams of Strasbourg pate;
onion soup a la Ansa;
wine with the soup...
"He went on for several minutes." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p.136)
So why could we not have read the rest of it?
Van Rijn's host in the Saturn Room of the Hotel Universe, Bayard Story, orders the onion soup, recommended by van Rijn, and "'...the tournedos on the regular dinner, medium rare...'" (ibid.)
Story wants Solar Spice & Liquor to support the Seven in Space during the Mirkheim crisis. Van Rijn refuses and warns:
"'You will be surprised, Freeman, at how much I can bite all by myself.'" (p. 144)
Sure will. Solar will expose the Seven's arming of the Baburites.
Friday, 10 May 2019
The Hotel Universe, Lunograd
Details matter. It would be easy to mis-remember the Hotel Universe as offering compatible and comfortable accommodation to any intelligent being whereas they confine themselves to oxygen-breathers. They might require notice and make extra charges for any unusual requirements. Twice, the cost of meeting the guarantee has cost more than the million Commonwealth credits that cover the guarantee. Human tourists like staying there because it makes them feel cosmopolitan.
When Chee Lan, running along a corridor, knocks over the Ambassador of the Epopoian Empire, we are reminded of the diverse intelligent species accommodated on the Moon in Anderson's "Horse Trader," which is also about interstellar commerce.
I am signing off for over a week.
Friday, 25 August 2023
PL Council Delegates
Mirkheim, III.
Nicholas van Rijn, owner of the independent company, Solar Spice & Liquors, stays in a suite in the Hotel Universe in Lunograd. We know van Rijn from nine previous Technic History instalments. Two of his employees, Adzel and Chee Lan, had stayed in the Hotel Universe in the eighth of those earlier instalments, Satan's World. Van Rijn invites two other Polesotechnic League Council delegates to dinner in his suite. He had spoken with Hanny Lennart of Global Cybernetics and of the Home Companies consortium in Mirkheim, Prologue, Y minus 9, whereas Bayard Story of Galactic Developments and of the Seven in Space consortium is new to us (we think) as well as to van Rijn and Lennart. However, Story will turn out to be an alias of Benoni Strang who had already appeared in Mirkheim, Prologue, Y minus 28, Y minus 12 and Y minus 5. Complicated. A pyramidally structured future history series continually both refers and adds to background information provided by previous instalments.
The nine-part Prologue to Mirkheim adds nine earlier layers of narrative without requiring the author to add nine earlier complete instalments! The first part of the Prologue is Y minus 500,000, a reminder that fictional histories set in our future are, like everything else, grounded in the deep past.
Monday, 22 July 2019
Some Miscellaneous Connections
What is there in common between Charles Stuart in Star Prince Charlie and Ivar Frederiksen in The Day Of Their Return?
In his Oxford tutor persona, the Hoka assumes the surname Smyth-Cholmondoley. A Dornford Yates character suggests that "colmondeley" means "beautiful" but I cannot find this word anywhere.
Poul Anderson has a Hotel Universe on the Moon.
Dornford Yates has a Hotel de l'Univers, Esteppemazan.
There is a Hotel de l'Univers, St Malo, also one in Paris.
As I say, miscellaneous points.
Friday, 19 December 2014
The Lunar Surface In Science Fiction
Verne's characters look down on it;
Wells' land on it;
Heinlein's live there.
However, from his suite in the Hotel Universe, Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn sees an altered landscape. Forcefields hold air, an ozone layer, soaring trees and fountains, great blossoms and lamps on vine-like posts although beyond them are a crater floor, a ringwall, jewel-like stars, the silver Milky Way and the blue and white Earth, all making van Rijn's opulent suite look tawdry.
David Falkayn visits Elfland in Lunograd, a park with grass, arbors, flowers, tall trees and fountains, towers, colonnades, birds, elevated streets, small suns on bronze vines and an Avenue of the Sphinxes although again beyond them are a crater floor, a ringwall, stars in a black sky and Earth with the lights of megalopolises visible on its night side. Although technology makes the Moon inhabitable and even comfortable, the stellar universe remains beyond the works of men.
Going one stage further, Poul Anderson also wrote a short story about a project to terraform the Moon.
Wednesday, 17 December 2025
Two Hotels
In Robert Heinlein's The Star Beast, aliens stay in special suites at Hotel Universal on Earth and one of them is entertained by a juggler at the Club Cosmic.
It is after midnight on this part of Earth and I am trying to get to bed here but I keep reading a bit more and finding yet another parallel between fictional futures but this will have to be the last one until some time tomorrow. I mean later today.
Until then, go with God, as they say in James Blish's The Triumph Of Time, or at least with His sense of humour.
Friday, 21 October 2016
A Multi-Species Scenario
The Epopoian Empire could be an interstellar realm or it might occupy just one part of a planetary surface? There must be many realms, large and small. In a multi-species scenario, the author can invent a new one just as a minor background detail.
Wednesday, 30 December 2020
Saturn And Cana
Mirkheim, IX.
A photograph of Saturn in Orion Shall Rise (see Photographs Of Saturn) got me into rereading The Rebel Worlds, then other works in the Technic History. There is yet another image of Saturn in the Saturn Room in the Hotel Universe:
"Overhead lifted the vast half-circles of the rings, tinted more subtly than rainbows in a violet sky where four moons were presently visible. Sparks of light flickered in the streaming arcs and meteors clove the heavens. Where a tiny sun was setting, dimmed by thick air, clouds lay tawny and rosy." (p. 135)
It is in the Saturn Room that van Rijn preaches to Bayard Story about:
"'The very first miracle that Our Lord did...'" (p. 136) (See A Select Vintage And Solar Spices.)
Although I referred to the "...very first miracle...," I did not cite the Biblical reference so here it is: John 2: 1-12.
Friday, 1 September 2023
Story/Strang
The description of Bayard Story when he is in conversation with Nicholas van Rijn and Hanny Lennart in the Hotel Universe, Lunograd:
"He was a rather handsome man, medium-sized, slender, his features regular in a tanned rectangular face, eyes blue-gray, hair and mustache smooth brown with a sprinkling of white. An elastic gait indicated that he used his muscles a good deal... His soft speech held a trace of non-Terrestrial accent, though it was far too eroded by time to be identifiable. An expensive slacksuit in subdued greens fitted him as if grown from his body." (III, p. 66)
The description of Benoni Strang when he is in conversation with Lady Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen in Starfall on Hermes:
"Medium-sized, slim, the rather handsome features of his rectangular face ornamented by a neat mustache and a suntan, his slightly grizzled brown hair sleeked back, he spoke as smoothly as he moved. His clothes were of rich material, soft in hue but cut in the latest Terrestrial mode... Hermetian intonation had worn away." (XIII, p. 191)
We do not realize it when reading, or at least I didn't, but these are descriptions of the same guy. David Falkayn, having travelled from Earth to Hermes, instantly recognizes Strang as Story and understands a conspiracy.
A film adaptation would have to show the clothing styles of the Solar Commonwealth, Hermes etc.
Monday, 27 May 2019
Blatant Self-Interest
In the Hotel Universe, Lunograd, van Rijn tells his business associate, Bayard Story:
"'Story...it will not be announced right away, but I bet you rubies to rhubarb the Commonwealth government has already dispatched a task force to Mirkheim. And I am not the least bit sure Babur will take that meekly-weakly.'" (III, p. 73)
On Babur, Sheldon Wyler tells his captive, David Falkayn:
"'The main fleet of Babur is off to grab Mirkheim. And scoutboats have reported human ships on their way there.'" (VI, p. 95)
Two very different perspectives on exactly the same event.
The Home Companies argue that the Solar Commonwealth has a duty to mankind and to civilization to safeguard the phenomenally valuable planet, Mirkheim. (Where we think "oil," they think "supermetals.") The Home Companies are corporately integrated with the Solar Commonwealth government. When van Rijn asks about the rights of the original discoverers of Mirkheim, Hanny Lennart of the Home Companies replies:
"'That can be decided in the courts, after Mirkheim is secured.'" (III, p. 69)
Why can the discoverers' rights not be acknowledged up front - just as they would be if the planet were of merely academic interest?
Van Rijn replies that the Home Companies buy and sell judges like shares of stock. Can the Commonwealth judiciary be that corrupt? Surely, if nothing else, the Home Companies' competitors would expose such corruption? Surely the issue is that the Home Companies are more likely to win a case by hiring expensive lawyers rather than that they are certain to win it by bribing judges?
Tuesday, 6 February 2018
Previous Posts On Mirkheim
search result for "Y minus 500,000" here;
Issues In Mirkheim
Something Is Rotten In Technic Culture?
Disagreeing A Little With Van Rijn
Not A Lot Going On
Perspectives
Disagreeing A Little With Van Rijn II
The Divided League
Old And New In Mirkheim
Satan And Mirkheim
The Surface Of Mirkheim
Quotes From Mirkheim
"Martin Schuster"
The Falkayn Domain
Meanwhile, Elsewhere
Between Volumes
Hydrogen And Helium
A Mystery Solved?
After Mirkheim
Clues
Planets In Mirkheim
Livewell On Delfinburg
Colourful Ambiguous Symbolism
The Richest Volume
Ages
More On "Lodestar" And Mirkheim
"Bargaining On This Basement"
The War Against The Seven In Space
Hopewell
Military Intelligence
Time Past And The Threshold Of The Future
Supermetals
Mirkheim, Chapter XXI
The Council Of Hiawatha
Falkayn Remembers...
Some Important Organizations
Nicholas van Rijn, Star of Solar Spice
Mirkheim, Chapter I
How To Film Mirkheim?
In The Saturn Room Of The Hotel Universe, Lunograd
"A Godland"
The Council Of Hiawatha: Earlier Posts
Heavier Elements
Conditions On Earth
A Little Goes A long Way
A Few More Details About Hermes
Turning Points
Benoni Strang's Grievances
On The Sunda Strait
God's Gifts
Nicholas Van Rijn, Philosopher?
From History To Legend
War And Peace
Starfall
Starfall On Hermes
Dinner At The Winged Cross And In An Airship
Wardroom
Windy Rim
I followed a link and lost the thread that I was following. As ever, this list is longer than I had expected. I will not repeat all of this information but there is usually more to post, nevertheless.
(Everything after "How To Film Mirkheim?" is an Addendum.)
Saturday, 4 December 2021
How They Come Together
"'Direct call. Priority Two.'" (p. 387)
Chee Lan and Adzel strongly suspect that Falkayn is in trouble and, on hearing the evidence, van Rijn agrees. Acting to rescue a man who might not need to be rescued is a risk but we already know that van Rijn takes risks. Now we learn that he also stands by his people:
"'Hokay,' he growled. 'Is a flousy boss does not stand by his people. We plan a raid, us, ha?'" (p. 391)
In Chapter VII, van Rijn, Chee Lan and Adzel, communicating by radio, coordinate the rescue of Falkayn.
Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Two Ambassadors
In the Hotel Universe, Lunograd, Chee Lan, bounding along a slideway:
Wednesday, 17 July 2024
The Pivotal Role Of SATAN'S WORLD
three pre-Polesotechnic League stories;
six instalments, including one novel, about Nicholas van Rijn;
one story about Adzel as a student on Earth long before he had joined van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew/trader team led by David Falkayn;
one story about Falkayn as an apprentice;
a second story about Falkayn, now working for van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company;
two stories about the trader team, the first cameoing van Rijn as he explains the new trade pioneer crew idea to Falkayn;
a sequel to the first Falkayn story but featuring a different group of League merchants.
In other words, already a comprehensive series so far. Satan's World seems at first to be a first trader team novel. In Chapters I-V, Adzel and Chee Lan wait in the Hotel Universe while Falkayn investigates Serendipity, Inc. However, matters become so grave that Adzel and Chee Lan must urgently contact van Rijn. Satan's World is the first of three instalments, two of them novels, that are equally about van Rijn and the trader team. Together with one remaining story about other League merchants, they complete the first major section of the Technic History.
Tuesday, 26 January 2016
The Food Thread
Bradshaw
An Indian Meal
Good Food
Morning
Food For Thought
Harvesters' Lunch
Harvest Supper
Evening Picnic
Descriptive Passages
Curry And Naan
Lunch At Sea
Dinner At The Winged Cross And in An Airship
Van Rijn
Open Sandwiches
Bhang Lassi
The Peshawar Club
Dinner At His Desk
Another Meal And Another Adventure
Barfi And Samosas
Dinner At The French Embassy
Festival Food
This Month
Food In Khartoum
China
Draka Food
A Buffet Lunch
Burritos
A Chinese With Weak Coffee
Beautiful Scenery And Good Food
"The Best Hamburger He'd Ever Tasted"
Some Vivid Descriptive Passages
Not only Times But Also Places
Faith, Food And Freedom
More Food
Yrsa's Upbringing
Yule Eve In Leidhra
The Twilight Of The Elves
A Bird Made Of Fog
"Tea Or Coffee, Sir?"
A Bronze Age Feast
Welcome Home Feast
Another Meal
Venison
Harvesters' Lunch II
Clambake
Christmas Dinner 1250 B.C.
Initiation Feast
Another World
A Civic Harvest Festival Meal
Hospitality To Odysseus
Ivanhoe: Miscellania
Delfinburg
In The Saturn Room Of The Hotel Universe, Lunograd
In The Phoenix House
Fanciful Comparisons: Ythrians And Japanese
Palatial Privacy, Lack Of
Four Senses And Good Food
A Nasty Shock
An SF Villain
Can't Resist It!
Bread And Venison
A Camp Meal
Yule Feast
Dinner In A Barn
Dinner In The Aylward Household
Hash Browns And Conversations
Harvest Supper
An Understated British Resurrection? (And Another Meal)
Engineering And Tea
Preserving Civilization
Eating And Killing (Or Vice Versa)
A Welcoming Feast
Breakfast
Dinner At The Sheaf And Sickle
Dinner In A Hunting Lodge
Caviar And Toast
The Fife And Drum Tavern
A Paxton
Meal Before Battle
Vegetarian Food In A Buddhist Monastery
Grill And Bar Food
Camp Breakfast
An Iowan Dinner
A Banquet
Feast
Winter Meal
Feast Before Seidh
Ironrede
Two Meals
Another Camp Meal
The State Banquet
A Sheriff's Hospitality
A Cold Collation
A Conference Dinner
A Dunedain Feast
A Meal In A Tent In A Desert
Paces II
Another Sea Battle And Another Meal
The Fifth Sense
A Meal On The Ceram Sea
Outsystem Food
From The Lavishly Stocked Terran Embassy Larder
An Altaian Banquet
Rich Texts, Drink And Food
Modjo Fruit
Two Rijstaffels
Breakfast At Biocontrol Central
Captain's Dinner
An Evening And A Morning On Vixen...
In The Hooligan
High Living In The Future
Luxury
Dinner In A League Outpost
Warped Reality
Another Meal
Life In 209 B.C.
Fiction Set In The 21st Century
L'Etoile de Diana
Pleasures
Some Parallels
A Meal In Hiding
The Meal Before The Metapsychic Rebellion
A Meal On The Moon
Christmas Food
Satan And Food
The British Raj
Cross-Temporal Cheese Cake
Restaurants
Furniture And Food
Future Facts Of Food
Follow-Up On Food
One Breakfast And Three Alternative Histories
Milky Way, Steak And Revolutionaries
Hail And Good Night
Sacrifice And Feast
Warmth And Light In Two Timelines
Full Marks To Eric Wace
New Lemurian Food
Some Notes To Recent Posts
A Meal In The Command Tent
Like Chicken
Avocati
Many Descriptive Details And One Old Friend
Time And Place: Eating In San Francisco
Time And Place: Steam Beer
Bowls Of New Potatoes
Time And Place: Chinatown And Pub Crawling
Russian Eggs And More About Films
A Meal And Four Senses
An Ad Libitum Breakfast
The Devil's Game: Interval Three
Breakfast
Five Senses And A Meal
Forests In Minds And A Fight At A Meal?
Shadows Of Annihilation, Chapter Four
Shadows Of Annihilation, Chapter Five, And Food
Pancakes And Cars
A Few Details
Some Observations Near The End Of A Novel
In The Nest
A Few Words
A Few More Words
Sensations And Anticipations
To Ear Or Not To Eat
Warmth And Light
Breakfast In The Hooligan
Saturday, 22 October 2016
On The Moon In The Technic History
There is an "Apollo University Communications" in Leyburg on Luna.
In The Twenty Fifth Century
Elfland, Lunograd, is "...a giant bubble of air..." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 333) enclosed in an electromagnetic screen on the Lunar surface.
In Lunograd:
many corridors, including Gagarin, end at Titov Circus, an excavated cylinder with a domed skylight, showing Earth and stars, and thronged encircling balconies where Ivarsen Gems, the Martian Chop House and Serendipity Inc. do business;
a large sports goods store sells vac suits and vehicles and also collapsible boats with gaudy sails for low-weight sailing on the small Lake Leshy;
people float down dropshafts on gee-beams;
on many sublevels, wide, high, grime- and oil-overlaid corridors are crowded with freightways, robotic machines and pedestrians in work coveralls;
there are factories, warehouses, shipping depots and offices and odors of humanity, chemicals and electrical discharges;
hot gusts come from fenced grilles;
the constant vibration of the great engines is deep and almost subliminal;
the Hotel Universe will pay one million Commonwealth credits to any oxygen-breather whom it cannot accommodate and has twice spent more than a million, once to synthesize dietary requirements and once "...to fetch a symbiotic organism from the visitor's home planet." (p. 360)
Selenopolis is in Copernicus.
The capital of the Lunar Federation is, like Lunograd, in Plato.
In The Thirty First Or Thirty Second Century (see here)
Dominic Flandry must spend two weeks in Luna Prime after returning from a mission.





























